Distributed creative teams face the unique challenge of having to collaborate on a product without being able to quickly and easily access files and works in progress via an on-site file server or intranet system. Emailing files to one another can get messy very quickly, and if you’re not careful, you’ll have multiple versions of the same documents in no time.
Fluxiom is a web-based digital asset management system for creative teams that offers a nice, visually rich interface and the ability to scale depending on your needs. It has a number of useful features, and there’s a free version available, so I wanted to see if it could function as a tool for helping people collaborate on a wide variety of media including text, photo, audio and video. Read the rest of this entry »
This weekend saw the launch of Perch, an easy-to-use lightweight CMS put together by British web development agency edgeofmyseat.com. Perch is perfect for those situations where you would like to be able to set up a web site with some editable content regions for a client, but don’t want to have to install a full-blown CMS or try to hack a blogging system in order to do the job.
Installation is straightforward, although you do need to be a little tech-savvy to get it up and running. You’ll need a server running PHP5 or later. (Check if you’re using a shared host — I found mine was still running PHP4, but could flip to PHP5 easily.) Download the zip from the Perch web site, unzip, and FTP the Perch folder to your host. Run the setup script, insert your license key, and fill out your database login details. Most of the installation legwork is done for you, although you’ll need to FTP a generated configuration file back to the server. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re looking for a more complete, customized end-to-end solution than something like Google Apps can offer for your business, you may want to take a look at what Liferay’s offering. The company offers portal, content management system, and collaboration solutions, all customizable, open source software to fit yours or a client’s specific needs.
It’s designed to require little setup, and aimed at companies with little or no in-house development capability. Out of the box, Liferay offers a number of different pre-set portlet configuration options, including CMS and collaboration. The idea is that you get an easy-to-set up intranet system up and running in no time, with features that can be easily changed, added, and removed without much effort.
Read the rest of this entry »
Sitemasher
I wasn’t sure what to make of Sitemasher when I first heard of it. With Sitemasher, you can build a web site, manage the content, get analytics, implement basic SEO, and you get managed hosting to boot.
But at $99/month, I felt the kerpow of sticker shock. I knew that I had to think about Sitemasher differently to fully appreciate its value.
So after a demo with the company, here is what I’ve learned.
Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
