Internet Marketing Strategies and Drupal Tips

Jun 17 2012

Updating Your Drupal 7 Website Using Drush

Drush is a command line shell that you can use to easily download and update Drupal core and contributed modules. It saves time when you type in commands instead of navigating the admin interface and manually configuring Drupal.

In this tutorial, I will describe the process of how to update your Drupal 7 website using Drush.
Jun 13 2012

View New Themes by SeascapeWebDesign.com

Click to view Art Gallery theme with Responsive SliderView Art Gallery Theme
This theme is great for an art gallery or artist portfolio. It uses jQuery slideshow on the home page and a jQuery lightbox on the Artist Bio page. Contact us to convert this theme to use with Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla.

This theme features a Responsive home page slideshow which means that it will display correctly on moblie devices such as iPhones, iPads and tablets.  This website is for theme demonstration purposes only.
May 10 2012

Surrey Drupal Meetup: How to Build an Intranet with Drupal 7

Join us for our next meetup on May 10th at 7pm at the ABC Restaurant at 15373 Fraser Hwy. The doors are open at 6pm if you would like to arrive early, that's OK. Katy of SeascapeWebDesign.com will be presenting on How to Build an Intranet with Drupal 7. Katy recently built a documentation library for a company intranet. Come prepared to share your ideas and experiences on how to build an Intranet with Drupal.

May 10 2012

Menus get duplicated in Admin Menu for Drupal 7

Problem: Menus are showing up duplicated in Admin Menu

#25 hermes_costell commented on August 25, 2009 at 11:08pm

I had most menu items either as triples or higher, and the whole admin system was going berzerk. I'm not yet sure if the issue is resolved yet... but steps I took:
May 1 2012

Frustrated by spam comments left on your blog?

Recently, my blog got a lot of attention. At first I was excited to see the large number of comments left on my blog posts. But as I read through them, I noticed they all contained links to websites that were off-topic. Spammers! They go to your blog and leave compliments and then post links to other websites that have nothing to do with your topic.
 
What to do?
It is frustrating for many bloggers when spammers leave mulitple comments on their  blog posts. Some have turned off commenting all together. There is another option. In blogs built with Drupal, you can require that all comments be approved before they are posted live.
 
So I have changed the settings in Permissions so that all comments must be approved before they get posted to the site. If a spammer leaves a complimentary comment with a spam link, I take out the spam link and leave the compliments. As the blog editor I have the job of editing comments and making sure they are on topic.

I encourage my readers to leave comments, add your opinion and other information that will add value to my articles and blog posts. You are welcome to post a link to your own website in your signature. All comments must be approved before they are posted live.
Apr 30 2012

Grow Your Business with a Mobile-Friendly Website

Today, there are over 110 million smartphone users searching the Web for topnotch businesses like yours.

Is your website mobile-friendly?
 
Convert mobile users into buyers with our business website packages. Each one features a professional website design that will display correctly on hand-held devices like smartphones, iPads and tablets.

The future is in mobile websites. Make sure your business is online and smartphone friendly.      
 
Get started today!  Call 604.729.4227
Contact Katy@SeascapeWebDesign.com to learn more!
Apr 29 2012

How to customize "Submitted by" text in Drupal 7

In Drupal 6, you could modify the theme function called theme_node_submitted. But this function has been removed in Drupal 7. This is how I customized the "Submitted by" text using Advanced Theming technique involving adding the theme_preprocess_node function.
Apr 22 2012

What is a mobile-friendly website?

What is a mobile-friendly website?

A mobile-friendly website is one that displays correctly on hand-held devices such as smartphones, iPhones, iPads, and tablets. It also has these features:
  1. Loads fast – bloated sites cost more money to access
  2. Easy to read – mobile phone screens are 1/5th the size of desktop computers
  3. Easy to navigate – menus have limited space on mobile devices
  4. Minimal scrolling - not just vertically but also horizontally
  5. Avoids using Flash – because Apple products do not support Flash
 
Did you know?

“When Google looks at how to decide which ads to feature in its Google AdWords program, it will consider how well a site is tailored for mobile devices, things like whether it works well for touch, is made for smaller screens, has shorter load times and avoids Flash.”  (Source: http://gigaom.com/2011/09/21/google-pushes-advertisers-to-optimize-sites-for-mobile/)
Apr 12 2012

I like building websites using Drupal 7

I like building websites using Drupal 7. Now that it’s very secure and has many contributed modules available, I feel better about using it now that it's been out for over one year to build complex websites. Download Drupal 7 here
 
I like the improved admin interface although it took me awhile to get used to it. I turn off the admin overlay, it takes too long to load for my taste. I like to set up shortcuts to add content types as it saves a few clicks. It’s much easier to download and install new themes and modules, just click to upload the compressed file.
 
I recommend the Sky theme for Drupal 7. It’s a great starter theme. It looks great out of the box. Most starter themes have no styling to start with. http://www.drupal.org/project/sky
Nov 20 2011

How to Use Quickstart and Drush to install Drupal 7 website

How to create a Drupal 7 website with one simple command

In this tutorial, we will cover how to download, setup the database, and install a Drupal 7 website - all with one simple Drush command. This is available in the Quickstart environment only.
 
1. Getting Started with Drush in the QuickStart environment
Here are some simple Drush commands to get you started using Drush.