What does Top Notch Themes do? How did it get its start?
TopNotchThemes sells premium Drupal themes through our online store. We only do Drupal, and create themes that are ready to go with awesome designs and a huge amount of regions, settings, and other features. We also do custom Drupal theming.
We started this business because not everyone has the money or time for a custom design and theme. Drupal's historical weakness in the theme department has prevented many organizations from adopting it, and we're here to provide an affordable option for those who want a powerful, full-service theme.
How did you come to specialize in Drupal themes?
I'd been tinkering with it since late 2005, but in 2007 I was hired by CivicActions as a themer. My business partner/husband got drawn into the Drupalsphere too, and theming became a full time job for both of us. We were the themers on the websites for Amnesty International and WITNESS, as well as numerous smaller projects. It's a great space to be in if you like to dabble in many areas.
What does OpenConcept do and how do you work with Drupal?
OpenConcept is a web development company that works with nonprofits, unions, political organizations and government agencies. We've been using Drupal since 4.6 and have been active on issues such as internationalization, accessibility and education. Drupal is the core application that we use when working with our clients, since we find that when customizing communications tools to meet their needs most organizations need the level of flexibility that Drupal offers.
How did you first get involved in Drupal development?
OpenConcept was previously involved in another CMS (Back-End.org) and so we became involved in doing development quite early in the process as we were looking at how to migrate our existing clients over to Drupal. We've always worked with our clients to build long term relationships and have a history of supporting our clients through significant upgrades and site changes.
Can you tell us about a recent Drupal-based project that OpenConcept did that was particularly interesting?
I asked our team about this and had a few different perspectives. We've found working with Panels2 and Views2 to be a great. Panels2 allows us to create "control panel" style pages which draw information from different sources. Views2 gives us more ability to query the database and build context-specific information pages. We did some interesting work integrating Sympa & Drupal forums that went well.
However, the the work we've done recently on improving the Connect module is probably the most interesting. There's something nice about adding a module that makes CCK even more flexible than it already is, but to create a module that has a lot of eAdvocacy capacity as well is very exciting. We are working with MakePovertyHistory.ca to implement this in their site, but are happy that there is starting to be more interest in it from the broader Drupal community.
What does does Siruna do?
Siruna provides software to create dynamic mobile websites. Our software makes life much easier for web developers by detecting the mobile devices accessing the site and adapting the content accordingly. Siruna is a hybrid solution between automatic content-adaptation and mobile authoring, giving the possibility of fast prototyping. We use an easy XML based scripting language to make adaptations more dynamic. We collaborate with our partner network, consisting of web developers and web agencies who create mobile experiences for their customers by using the Siruna Composer and Transcoding engine. The software can be run on your own server, or you can subscribe to our hosted service, which is completely free to try!
What does your involvement with the Drupal community look like?
In addition to the fact that both Siruna and Drupal have their roots in Belgium, Siruna believes that, in the coming years, Drupal is going to become one of the main CMS systems used worldwide. Due to the modular nature and the high quality theming available on Drupal sites, Drupal integrates very well with Siruna. We will support the Drupal community by creating an integration between Drupal and our platform. By doing this, we can increase Drupal’s capabilities by making it a real multi-platform CMS system. The current mobility solutions for Drupal are not adequate and are seldom used. In addition to an integration module for Drupal and Siruna, we are creating a device detection module for Drupal that works independently of our software.
At DrupalCon I plan to present an overview and some best practice advice on making your Drupal site mobile, and you can find me on Planet Drupal with my blog on this topic (http://www.mobiledrupal.com).
What is PBS Engage?
PBS Engage is an initiative funded by the Knight Foundation to help PBS, member stations and producers connect with their audiences online using social media tools. The Engage Web site – built with Drupal – is a place for experimentation with these tools, like live online chats with PBS people and personalities, and to show PBS.org visitors where they can go to find conversations to join.
What led you to start working with Drupal?
As public media, we wanted to make a commitment to the open source community, and the Knight Foundation is particularly interested in using Drupal. Drupal has been a fantastic way to get up and running quickly as a social media site. The Engage site was originally created in late 2007, and we’ve been adding functionality almost continuously since then – not many content management systems allow you to dream up new ideas and implement them so efficiently.
The Drupal community is a great asset as well. Often the things we want to include on our site are already built, and if they’re not, we’re able to expand upon and improve the existing code – all the while contributing back to the community. In our minds, that makes the Engage site true "public media." The work of the Drupal community helps us, and we’re in turn able to help and inspire others.
What does does TwinLogix do and how are you involved with Drupal?
TwinLogix is a small web firm based in Italy with a strong commitment to serving our clients well. We started with Drupal about 3 years ago because we got involved with a client that needed a migration from another CMS. Since then it's been love. We grew our team and we now get to help a lot of our clients wishes come true (Drupal helps us a lot in this... how could we live without it?). Even though we're an Italian firm, we actually can't say our market is located in Italy. Our projects come from USA, Canada and other parts of Europe. We enjoy learning every day and we still believe that is the best part of our work.
I know you're working with the iPhone and writing stuff in Objective C. What should would-be iPhone app developers know about using Drupal with the iPhone?
We recently built an integration module for Drupal (both 5 and 6) that allows the interaction with an iPhone application we built. We found this solution we implemented a great start to make Drupal more mobile. At the moment we make the two talk with XML-RPC, with the iPhone playing as dummy and Drupal doing 90% of the work in terms of what to show and where. The solution now is rough, and it's waiting for potential clients or sponsors to join in to improve it. We will be glad to demo this to anyone who might be interested. Come find us at our table at Drupalcon.