Kevin Minke's List: Kevin M's bookmarks

phpBB is an open source discussion forum tool that has become ubiquitous in terms of its use at all levels of the Internet, from homegrown hobby sites to sophisticated corporate tech support sites.

\n\nBecause phpBB also provides some simple add-on tools, like options to create mini quizzes if desired, I've seen some comments in the phpBB forums that suggest it could make a more than decent CMS of its own. In particular, I've seen noted repeatedly the highly flexible nature of phpBB, because it's based on php scripts running on an open source database application (mySQL).

Drupal is one of a number of recent (last 2 - 3 years) open source CMS hitting the web. Drupal is noted for it's more open design format for the front page. This is a big deal with open source CMS, because most of them (like Moodle or Sakai) offer very limited control over how the front page of the CMS appears. Drupal is the only CMS currently that allows an administrator to put up a complete webpage, without any formatting restrictions, as the front page of the CMS.

Unfortunately, I've also read a number of complaints about the lack of responsiveness of the Drupal team in terms of fixing noted bugs and flaws in a timely manner. Consequently, what I have found in my research is that a number of tech - savvy network administrators are combining systems, such that they use Drupal purely as a front end "pretty" face to show incoming visitors, but on the back end, where all the course management goes on, a more reliable and robust system (like Moodle or Sakai) is used.

Very useful and FREE open source sound editor and file conversion software. Record, edit and distribute audio files. Numerous recording options offered to fine tune quality and size of audio format. Can be used to edit music files as well. Works with .wav and .mp3 formats.