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Drupal 7 book by PACKT Publishing

on Thursday, 16th September 2010 - 15:12

Drupal 7 - By David MercerI spent some time over the last few months as a Technical Reviewer of the material going into the PACKT Publishing book Drupal 7 by David Mercer.  I can attest that the author has a good voice and is clear in describing and disseminating all of the basics that you need to know to establish a web site running off a server using Drupal 7.

The only qualms with the book that I have are its speedy release date (Drupal 7 hasn't officially been released yet and there are still some fine tuning being done to such things as Views).  Also, certain key elements that have been added to D7 have been left out (RDF being one).  That said, the book is tailored to your average homebody Windows-using individual who wants to get their fingers wet.  A more complicated book would be good for advanced users but this is definitely for beginners.  I believe the author has included links and references where necessary to point the newbie in the right direction.

This was my second experience as a technical reviewer with PACKT.  I think the experience was a good one.  The previous experience was a bit more over my head and I'm not sure to this date if the book I had been reviewing has been published.  To anyone out there thinking of being a reviewer - make sure you know the content of the book you're reviewing! Frankly, David Mercer is a wonderful author and it was a pleasure to review his material.

It's another rainy day, but Canadian Thanksgiving weekend is almost here!

on Wednesday, 7th October 2009 - 8:11

Its another rainy day in Boston. Medford isn't looking too hot either. Looking out the window at the wet deck - rain drops falling. I'm hoping it will clear by afternoon so I can run out and get some groceries.

Today is a cleaning day - need to wash the floors, clean the surfaces and bathroom. My parents are coming to town & of course I'll be wanting to give them a good impression of our new home. I'll be posting pictures after their visit!

We bought our furniture from a wonderful place called "Metamorphisis" near Porter Square. Eddie, the gentleman who runs the place and Alexander his side-kick are very nice people. They have a fantastic selection of old used furniture which they proceed to clean up and re-paint to give a retro style or classic style to your home furnishings.  Eddie loves to paint things up in lovely colours - which you may or may not like - as Steph would find out when the legs of his desk came to us in a brilliant shade of tourquise (quite reminiscent of my bridesmaids' saris).  But at the same time, Eddie insisted on taking the furniture back and repainting it a more suitable color - black in this case.  In the same way, our dining table has been going through various stages of painting and as a result we are still waiting on the dining table and a pair of book shelves.  I would recommend Eddie and Metamorphisis because of his desire to make sure that every customer is satisfied, his interest in testing and trying new 'art' furniture on his customers to get their reaction, and yet he's happy to go ahead and put it back the way you actually wanted it - if it turns out you don't like the change.  The other nice thing is we did buy all of our current furniture (minus the futon and bed) from the one shop for one fairly decent price (for the amount of furniture)!

Now I only hope that we get the dining table back before my parents arrive!