Are you searching for a way to train or teach others, but modern content management scripts have let you down?  If that is the case, you might check out eFront. This script provides one of the most in-depth ways I have seen to share your knowledge with your employees, co-workers or students.

The basic idea behind this script is simple.  It is a training toolbox.  Like if you were a teacher planning his or her own lessons, this script lets you lay out an entire course on anything you wish to teach about.

Here are a few more features about eFront you might enjoy:

• Easy to use – eFront was built with the end user in mind. The interface is natural, and easy to navigate. Most options are self-explanatory.
• Visually attractive – You will appreciate our aesthetic features. We didn’t want to build "just another eLearning tool". We built the most beautiful eLearning tool.
• Technologically advanced – eFront is an Object-oriented, Ajax powered, Unicode, LDAP and SCORM (1.2 and 2004/4th edition) supporting, multilingual eLearning platform.
• Pedagogical concepts – Integrated to eFront are sound pedagogical concepts that guide users and keep them motivated.

If you ever get lost in the script, they have a lot of different places you can go to get help.  The one I liked the most was the wiki they provide because it was packed full of basic information anybody running this script would need to know.

Time and time again I have reviewed scripts to help you blog, to manage your photos and to do 100 other tasks, but it is a rare day when you run into a script that will help you teach others.  The eFront script is unique in that way.  It makes training a lot easier – and if you get the community version, you can train others for free.

Modules in Drupal let you extend, build and customize the core functionality of this content management system powerhouse.  Chances are if there is something you would like to do with Drupal, somebody out there has written an add-on for it.  If not, it is pretty simple to dive in and write your own.  Here are 5 of the most installed Drupal modules out there in the wild today.

Views

This tool is essentially a smart query builder that, given enough information, can build the proper query, execute it, and display the results. It has four modes, plus a special mode, and provides an impressive amount of functionality from these modes.

Token

Tokens are small bits of text that can be placed into larger documents via simple placeholders, like %site-name or [user]. The Token module provides a central API for modules to use these tokens, and expose their own token values.

Pathauto

The Pathauto module automatically generates path aliases for various kinds of content (nodes, categories, users) without requiring the user to manually specify the path alias. This allows you to get aliases like /category/my-node-title.html instead of /node/123. The aliases are based upon a “pattern” system which the administrator can control.

FileField

FileField provides a universal file upload field for CCK. It is a robust alternative to core’s Upload module and an absolute must for users uploading a large number of files. Great for managing video and audio files for podcasts on your own site.

Administration Menu

The module renders all administrative menu items below ‘administer’ in a clean, attractive and purely CSS-based menu at the top of your website. It contains not only regular menu items – local tasks are also included, giving you extremely fast access to any administrative resource and function your Drupal installation provides.

Drupal is a slick and very extendable content management system worth checking into.  These modules show that Drupal may even be one of the easiest CMS scripts out there to hack around with to get the website you really need.  To learn more about Drupal, be sure to check out Drupal is the Best CMS You Never Used.

For many, Joomla is the prefect content management system for their websites. It can help you keep track of and organize your communities photos, audio or video. So, with that said – what extensions out there are the most popular for this script that seems to do it all?  I decided to take a look.

Here are the top ten most popular ways to extend Joomla and give it more power:

JCE

An award-winning, configurable WYSIWYG editor for Joomla! based on Moxiecode’s TinyMCE. Includes advanced Image/Media, File and Link handling, plugin support, and an Administration interface for editor configuration.

Community Builder

Community Builder suite (CB) extends the Joomla! user management system. Key features: extra fields in profile, enhanced registration workflows, user lists, connection paths between users, admin defined tabs and user profiles, image upload, front-end workflow management, integration with other components, like PMS, Newsletter, Forum, Galleries.

Exposé bridge

Exposé is a Flash-based tool which allows you to create eye-catching slide shows of your pictures on the web. A list of the features supported by exposé includes the following: – direct linking to a photo or album – a slide show can be automatically started and much more.

VirtueMart

The complete e-Commerce shopping cart solution for Joomla! – used by thousands of store owners. It can be run in Store- and Catalog-Mode. With its powerful Administration Tool you can handle an unlimited Number of Categories, Products, Orders, Discounts and more.

Jumi

Jumi is the set of custom code extensions for Joomla! 1.0.x and 1.5.x in their native modes. Since 2006 more then 200.000 downloads. With Jumi * you can include php, html, JavaScript scripts into the modules position, articles, category or section descriptions and more.

Joom!Fish

JoomFish is the solution for your multilingual website if control over the translations matters for you. The core extension is free of charge and allows the translation of any content within your Joomla system. With an easy extension it is also possible to translate any 3rd party extension available for your favored CMS.

ChronoForms

I always needed to create custom forms for my clients websites, Or to migrate their old websites forms fast and easy to new Joomla websites forms, this was pain, as I was using other components for doing this, and create everything from scratch at web based tools.

Akeeba Backup

Akeeba Backup Core is the successor to the now famous JoomlaPack component. In a nutshell, Akeeba Backup Core is an open-source backup component for the Joomla! CMS, quite a bit different than its competition. Its mission is simple: create a site backup that can be restored on any Joomla!-capable server. Its possibilities: endless.

JCal Pro

JCal Pro is a W3C-validated, multi-language events calendar component with a gorgeous, CSS-based front-end display. Feature highlights include, native Joomla! permissioning for event creation/management and event viewing, multiple calendars including private or public calendars, WYSIWYG event descriptions, and more.

Ozio Gallery

Ozio Gallery 3 is available and ready for Joomla 1.6 Photo Gallery that uses a 3d flash animation (TiltViewer Design/Development by Airtight) to automatically display the images in a particular folder or from Flickr.com.

There you have it.  Have another favorite Joomla extension you think deserves to be on the list, or you would like to let others know about? Leave them in the comments!

Tired of dealing with databases when setting up a content management system on your hosting account?  Wish you had a simpler alternative, that didn’t seem so complex? You might want to try out GetSimple. This XML based CMS is loaded with all the features every website needs, and that is it.  If you need a simple way to mange a small website, it might be the best alternative out there.

The place where GetSimple excels over the competition is that it is XML based.  This means it does not use MySQL to store information, but instead stores it in XML files.  By doing so, they take away one more level of complexity when it comes to getting your website up and running.  Now true, this might not be a good idea for large websites, however for smaller domains with only a handful of pages – this could be the best option for storing data.

The GetSimple administration interface is also very simple, and looks like it was modeled after the easy to use interface of WordPress.  After you login, you are taken right to a list of pages to edit.  From the admin pages, you can also quickly jump to files you have uploaded, your website’s theme, a tab for backing things up and another tab for plugins.

To learn more about GetSimple, or to download it to try it on your own hosting account – head on over to get-simple.info.  GetSimple might be one of the best open source CMS scripts if you are looking for a simpler and speedier way to get your website up and running.

No Joomla is not a board game, and I can promise you it has nothing to do with Robin Williams.  Joomla is, in fact, one of the most popular CMS (content management systems) out there today.  If you need a website backend that can do a little ‘bit of everything, then Joomla is the script you are looking for.

You can think of it as your building blocks to create an awesome and powerful website.  The core features are:

Content Management – Joomla really makes simple work out of organizing your articles and content you publish.  With the built in tools, users can rate the things you post, comment on them, e-mail them to a friend and more.

User Management – Joomla also allows you to have people register to do more things on your website.  This could be as simple as commenting, or could get as complex as adding more content to the website.  The script is very flexible to meet your needs.

Now you also have search, banners, media, and more than can easily be managed and manipulated to suit your needs too.

Joomla Plugins

If you need more functionality from the script, you can always add extensions to it.  By installing an extension, you can customize Joomla even further by giving it new abilities.  For example, you might need better tools to back up your Joomla powered website.  You could simply find an extension that suits your needs, install it – and then you gain new features that were not built into the script by default.

• Check out the 10 Most Popular Joomla Extensions

Joomla Themes

The look and feel of Joomla is fully customizable too.  By downloading and installing new themes or templates, you can give your Joomla a design that better suits your website.  A simple search for “Joomla themes” on Google will give you an endless supply of themes to choose from too.  If you feel daring enough, you could also write up and design your own theme from scratch too.

Overall, Joomla is yet another great CMS script that will make your life much easier.  No longer do we need to write up webpages, page by page in HTML.  With sophisticated scripts like Joomla, all you need to do is install, write up your content and you are good to go.

Download it and try it yourself at Joomla.org.

If you are looking for a powerful content management system with tons of bells and whistles, Drupal might be in your future.  Equipped with tons of great features, it makes for the perfect way to get a CMS powered website up and running.

Drupal comes in handy when you need to develop a website that you can evolve in almost any direction.  Where a script like WordPress is pretty much best suited for blogging, Drupal is more suited for a site that has many features such as blogs, maybe a shopping cart, a wiki, a membership system and more.  It is also very easy to configure Drupal to interact with other websites or technologies out there too.

Right out of the box, Drupal comes ready to deliver forums, blogs, polls, image galleries and comments.  With a little creativity and skill, you can really develop a one of a kind website with this free open-source script.

You really get the best of both world with this awesome CMS.  You get the sophisticated programming backend for developers, and a really basic website installation and administration process for those who just want to run a website.

Overall, if you need an all-in-one content management system to organize your website with, Drupal is the script you want.  It is flexible, widely supported, and is often overlooked.  You can learn more about Drupal over at drupal.org.

Looking for a wiki script for your next great web site project? 

As somebody who’s built one from the ground up – I can tell you picking the right script for the job, is not an easy task to do.  With a surprising amount of flexibility and power, BoltWire might be one of the easiest to use wikis out there. 

It takes the cake when it comes to mixing the strengths of various script categories together.  Is it a CMS? Is it a wiki?  It is a little ‘bit of both.

The install process is simple.  All you do is download, unzip, upload and install.  It runs on just about any server with PHP4 (although PHP5 is recommended) and has a simple upgrade process too. The entire download is less than 100k, so should just take a couple of seconds to get started.

What about the Features?

Here are some of the best features about BoltWire:

• Easy to install and upgrade
• Run multiple sites off one installation
• Built in member and group management
• Easy to use wiki markup system
• Powerful search engine capabilities
• In-browser editing of skins & CSS
• Standards compliant
• UTF-8 and multi-lingual support
• One click installation of plugins

If you are new to the script, or you get it installed and start to wonder, “What’s Next?!” I would suggest checking out the documentation.  They also have a nice selection of tutorials to help you out too.

Customization?  Yes, you can customize BoltWire in many different ways.  It comes with both plugin and skin support so you are able to make it do the job you want it to do, and get it looking the way you need it to look. 

All in all, I would highly suggest checking BoltWire out, if you have a web site project that needs just a little ‘bit of wiki and a little bit of a content management system rolled into one. 

Looking for a new way to manage your web site? GetSimple is the newest content management system to get my attention, and I have to say – it does look impressive.

Probably the one feature that got my attention the most is it doesn’t use mySQL to store information, or any sort of database at all.  It does it through the magical wonderment of XML.

We don’t use mySQL to store our information, but instead depend on the speed and accuracy of XML. By utilizing XML, we are able stay away from introducing an extra layer of slowness and complexity associated with connecting to a mySQL database. Because GetSimple was built specifically for the small-site market, we feel this is the absolutely best option for data storage.

What are the requirements? 

• UNIX/Linux host
• PHP 5.1.3+
• Apache
• No MySQL Database
• 6 minutes to spare

Even the documentation is light for it, with only six pages telling you everything you might need to know about how to get running with GetSimple.  Filed in as “looks interesting, but really need to play with it” GetSimple looks simple enough to use, and friendly enough for everybody to enjoy. 

It will automatically transform your WordPress powered blog into an iPhone application-like experience when viewed from an iPhone, iPod or Android phone.  All your standard WordPress features are there too – including tags, archive, search, photos and more.  Along with some cool ajax work and effects, you will be one lean mean mobile browsing machine.

Now where many mobile devices show some web sites just fine, other web sites might need a lightweight version that would be more friendly to the mobile web browsers out there.  That is who and where this plugin for WordPress is aimed at. 

You can pick up the WPtouch plugin at bravenewcode.com.

DokuWiki – Aimed at creating documentation of any kind, DokuWiki is a standards compliant wiki with more than a few nice features. It has anti-spam controls, all the basic editing features, supports over 30 languages and has built in page caching for quicker page rendering.  It also features a number of plugins and themes to try too.

BoltWire – A small and easy to use alternative wiki script, Boltwire is still able to deliver with surprising flexibility.  The neat thing here is that it has database-like storage and retrieval of form input values. But no database!  You can also restore a deleted page at any time, and customize ever site action from within the browser.

WikyBlog – So it is a blog and a wiki?  Well I wouldn’t say it is both as much as it tries to fuse the best of both worlds.  WikyBlog brings in the user friendly publishing characteristics of blogs, delivered with the easy to use wiki syntax.  Designed with speed in mind, it is a groupware application that is a nice alternative to the more traditional wiki scripts out there.

WikkaWiki – I promise this wiki script has nothing to do with voodoo or magic.  The WikkaWiki is a script that was forked from WakkaWiki.  With speed, extendibility and security in mind, this wiki script deserves your attention.  They are also working on better ways to integrate WikkaWiki into other content management systems like WordPress, SMF, phpBB and more.

PmWiki – Taking a different approach to content management, Pm wiki looks and acts like a normal web site.  The only difference is that each page inside of the site has an “edit” link to make modification of the page easier.  You can limit the editing to just one person, a team of people or the entire world.  This script would be for people who want a web page, with some wiki-like features.

Which wiki script is your favorite?  Is MediaWiki still the hands down winner to you?  Would love to hear more about your own experiences with any of these top alternatives to MediaWiki.