Looking for a free script to use that can give you a way to publish multiple authors, run multiple blogs, draft and schedule posts, and is fully extendable via pugins?  No, I am not talking about WordPress – I am talking about Nucleus CMS.  This alternative to WordPress is well worth checking out if you need a blogging script that is reliable, time tested and very solid.

The requirements to get Nucleus CMS up and running are very light.  You only need:

• A server that supports PHP5+ scripting (versions 5.0.6+)
• Access to a mySQL database from that server (versions 3.23.x+)

Those goals can very easily be met these days by any web hosting company out there.  Nucleus CMS also fully supports all of the common blogging core features you would expect.  You have built in support for multiple authors and multiple blogs.  You can sort new posts by categories.  You can set up more search engine optimization friendly URLs too.  If you toss plugins and skins into the mix, there isn’t a lot that Nucleus CMS can’t do.

They also have at least two conversion tools, one for MovableType and the other for WordPress.

If you are looking for an alternative to WordPress, or any other popular blogging script out there – Nucleus CMS is well worth checking into.  It is light, flexible, secure and free.  You can learn more about Nucleus CMS over at nucleuscms.org.

What makes it so cool?  Well, for one, it does not take a college degree to get started with.  The creator of the player gives a simple four steps to get it up and running:

1. Download and extract the latest ZIP file from here
2. Use the Code Generator to create your own HTML code
3. Copy the appropriate skin file (e.g. “emff_standard.swf”) from the “skins” directory to your website directory
4. Have fun!

It does not lack in the features department either.  It provides volume control, keyboard shortcuts, play, stop, pause, previous, next, Show information about a track and much more.

So if you have looked at my past list of the 5 best flash podcast players, and they didn’t do it for you, give EMFF a chance at playing your MP3s.

The Nucleus CMS install process isn’t rocket science, so that is defiantly a good thing.  Any basic Linux hosting account should make a good home for it. 

You can check out more screenshots of Nucleus CMS in action here.  You can also play with the demo too, if you what to try some of the features out for yourself.

Here is a little more about Nucleus CMS from the developers:

Thanks to an international community of sophisticated developers and designers, Nucleus CMS remains simple enough for anyone to learn, and expandable enough to allow you to build almost any web site you can imagine. Nucleus CMS lets you integrate text, images, and user comments in a seamless package that will make your web presence as serious, professional, personal, or fun as you want it to be.

The must for any blogging platform, skins and plugins are both there.  So this means you have even more possibilities when it comes to customizing Nucleus CMS to meet your own needs. 

You can download Nucleus CMS for free, so why not give it a shot?

They have ping and trackback, RSS, blogroll, permalinks, and come reading for moblogging too. 

How easy is it to install?  The installation process looks pretty straight forward.  Should be good to go on any Linux-based hosting setup with MySQL database support.

LifeType also has a very interesting history, as described by their about page:

The LifeType project started in February 2003 when its leader, Oscar Renalias, needed a set of dynamic scripts for his personal web page. Even though he did not know about the idea of weblogs back then, the outcome of the first iteration of the project already resembled one. A few weeks later Francesc, another one of the founding members, suggested that developing a blog with support for multiple users and blogs could be a better idea, and so pLog 0.1 was released on the 2nd of September 2003 featuring most of the features that are still part of the core features nowadays: multi-user and multi-blog from the ground up, template engine, localizable and extensible via plugins.

It seems it was also known as pLog for some time, but they had to drop the name due to trademark concern with Amazon.

Here are a few more links you may wish to have handy:

• LifeType Templates and Styles – The styles for LifeType are fully customizable, so you can fix it up to suit any design need you might have.
• LifeType Plugins – As with other blogging scripts (like WordPress) LifeType comes with the ability to add a number of different plugins too.

If you want to give it a whirl before you install, you can try out the admin and user interface demo over at OpenSourceCMS.

LifeType’s biggest feature is that they support multiple blogs and users in a single installation.  You can download LifeType via their web site, and if you have had any experience with it, I would love to hear your feedback.  Is it really the state of the art blogging solution it claims to be?

As you can see, this changes the way Gmail looks from top to bottom.  I like the lighter colors and the more “clean” interface myself.  You can pick up the user script for it here:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7646

Also, be sure to stay tuned on the Super Clean Gmail blog, so you get the latest updates on how the project is going, and when it has been updated:

http://gmailsuperclean.wordpress.com/

Is it about time Google did a refresh of Gmail themselves?  I think so…

  Quicktext – Keep a list of pre-written messages to use in your e-mails.  It also accepts variables so personalizing a static message with information you have in hand is easy to do.

  Minimize to Tray – This extension minimizes Thunderbird to the system tray on the task bar.  This way I can keep Thunderbird running without it getting in the way when I don’t need it.

There are only a handful of themes really worth checking out too.  Here are a few of my favorite themes for Thunderbird:

  Azerty ‘mail – Brighter and unique icons, but still keeps the same look and feel.

  Charamel – A tan colored Thunderbird theme that is awesome, except for a few little things here and there that keep me from using it 24/7.

  Silvermel – A silver port of Charamel, same look (and bugs) – just a different color.

The rest of the popular themes out there all look like Apple/Mac clones (insert yawn here), and do we really need more than one of those? I think not.  Really wish DeviantArt had some better ones too, but they seem to be a little lacking with the Thunderbird skin section.

I do have to say it looks pretty slick.

+ Check Out Gmail.app (Mac Os Style) on Userstyles.org!

Need help on using different visual styles on Windows XP?

+ Changing Visual Styles in Windows XP Help

They are either ugly or Vista and OS X ripoffs. With that in mind, I have to say I was pretty surprised and happy to see SlanXP had been released. I have been using it this morning and I can’t find a thing hardly wrong with it. Personally I just had to change a few of the font settings – other than that it is as good as they get.