On the Trail Blog

We're happy to see that Concentrate, Ann Arbor's digital business mag, profiled our recent growth in their issue this week. Check it out at: http://www.concentratemedia.com/innovationnews/switchbackannarbor0017.aspx

And yes, we are hiring! If you know Drupal, send us your resume and some samples to info at switchbackcms.com.

Stephen Colson of Switchback will give the Ann Arbor Drupal Users' Group (A2Drupal) a tour of the Coder Module - http://drupal.org/project/coder

Start: 2008-06-30 19:00 America/Detroit -2008-06-30 21:00 America/Detroit
Location: Spark Central

A developer module that assists with code review and version upgrade. The module supports a plug-in extensible hook system so contributed modules can define additional review standards.

The first thing new Drupal developers ask me is, "How do I make my new Drupal site look different from the rest?" Drupal 5 Themes by Ric Shreves is the first book dedicated entirely to theming Drupal. This topic certainly deserves its own book and I'm glad we now have it. (On the down side Drupal 6 is already released and Drupal 7 is in the works.)

Somehow I’ve been able to avoid advanced theming by using sub-contractors or taking themes from the Drupal Theme Garden. But I realize that designers and programmers cannot go it alone. In order to build the most interactive sites, we need to reach across the gap and learn a bit about each other’s craft. Enter Drupal 5 Themes.

Organic Groups Panels (ogp) is a new Drupal module that I think will become a phenomenon. Thanks to everyone who created this module (and its dependents)! It comes just in time for a project I'm working on now. Sweet!

Thanks to everyone who came out for the Ann Arbor Drupal Users Group (A2 Drupal) 1 year anniversary party on 3/31. Switchback sponsored the event by providing tasty snacks and delicious home brew from our own Mike Hofmockel.

We also donated 3 copies of Pro Drupal Development for a door-prize raffle. 7 books total were available—5 went to lucky guests and 2 were donated to the Ann Arbor library by the A2 Drupal group.

A special thanks goes out to Ann Arbor Spark for their ongoing support of the group by providing us with a convenient place to meet at Spark Central. It was also great to see Scott Olson from Spark come down there to join the festivities.

The three of us, Steve, Mike, and Mike met each other at the Ann Arbor Drupal Users group. We each had been using Drupal to develop and deliver content managed sites. We'd each used some other available tools to create and deploy these types of sites, but Drupal offered something that the others did not: developer friendly extensibility.

By using Drupal we realized that we could consistently deliver better solutions for our clients. Period.