Building a Site Directory with SharePoint Search

A common challenge for many SharePoint users is finding sites with content that is relevant to them. It is pretty common to find environments with hundreds if not thousands of sites. In past versions of the product, there was a Site Directory feature that was available, but it was essentially just a SharePoint list which required manual entry and significant maintenance, which ultimately made it a pretty unreliable and ineffective solution.

In this article by Mike Oryszak, author of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Business Application Blueprints, will provide some alternative solutions for addressing these challenges, starting with an overview of some key concepts on how to leverage SharePoint Search to provide an optimized experience, making it easier for users to search and discover relevant sites. In addition to the conceptual overview, the following configurations and custom solutions will be covered:

• Sites Search Scope
• Site Directory page
• Relevant sites Web Part

Installing and Configuring Drupal

Drupal 7 is a modern Content Management System famed for its flexibility and power. Using Drupal you can easily create custom functionality that would otherwise have to be purchased in many of the other leading CMSs

In this article by Dylan James, author of the book Drupal 7 Cookbook, we will explore the process of setting up a Drupal website. We will see how to install the offcial Drupal 7 release and also how to install third-party Drupal distributions which are preconfigured in a variety of ways.

Following the installation, we will move on to the installation of third-party modules and then how your site can be configured to provide a site search form.

The article culminates with a recipe on setting up Drupal multi-site where two Drupal sites are configured to run from the same core files.

Setting up the Basics for a Drupal Multilingual site: Languages and UI Translation

Drupal's default installation is in English. But, as you'll soon see, it can be configured to handle other languages as well. Creating a multilingual website expands your audience, and studies have shown that users are more likely to buy products and services on a website when content is presented in their native language. Coupled with the fact that there are many more non-English native speakers than English native speakers, you should see the full value of creating a site that supports other languages.

This article by Kristen Pol, author of Drupal 7 Multilingual Sites starts with setting up a test site. Once the site is ready, we'll add several new languages and configure language detection so that we can view each language using different URLs. With the detection in place, we will enable a switcher block to easily navigate between each language.

After the language settings are done, we'll move on to translating the Drupal interface. First we will translate manually by grabbing files from localize.drupal.org, and then we'll configure the site for automatic updates. Once the contributed translations are in place, we will learn how to add and change translated UI strings as well as how to contribute these translations back to the Drupal community. The last part of the interface translation section deals with changing English strings and reusing strings on other sites.

WebGL: Animating a 3D scene

Objects in 3D scenes can have actions on their own. For instance, in a racing car game, each car has its own speed and trajectory. In a first-person shooting game your enemies can hide behind barricades then come and fight you or run away. In general, each one of these actions is modeled as a matrix transformation that is attached to the corresponding actor in the scene. These are called local transforms.

In this article by Diego Cantor author of WebGL Beginner’s Guide, we will study different techniques to make use of local transforms.

Wordpress: Buddypress Courseware

The BuddyPress (BP) Courseware plugin by ScholarPress transforms our WordPres site into a learning management system. This plugin provides educators with the ability to post and organize course content, assignments, bibliographies, and schedules. BP Courseware works by extending the BuddyPress group functionality. Each courseware-enabled group receives a courseware dashboard where teachers and students can quickly access and post course content. The BP Courseware plugin is ideal for managing multiple courses by the same instructor or for an entire academic department.

In this article by Adam D. Scott, author of the book WordPress for Education, we'll cover techniques to install and configure the BP Courseware plugin. Once the plugin is installed, we'll develop content for a sample courseware course by adding course information, posting assignments, grading student assignments, creating a bibliography, and managing the course calendar.

Android Database Programming: Binding to the UI

As mobile developers, our applications will need to both aesthetically display the results of our data queries, as well as give users an intuitive interface to store and insert data.

In this article by Jason Wei, author of Android Database Programming, we will focus on the former – on binding data to the user interface (UI) and will look specifically at various classes that will allow us to bind our data in the form of lists (the most common and intuitive way to display rows of data).

Basic Skills, Traits, and Competencies of a Manager

In India, being a Manager is highly valued. A majority of people see themselves taking a managerial position some day. However, can anyone become a manager? A really good manager? Are managers born or made? Do all managers, at least all good managers, share something in common?

When we look around and see the journeys being taken by different managers, their working styles and behaviors, we can hypothesize that:

• Managers are born and made. Some folks have a natural flair to be a manager and some acquire essential skills to be a manager in a given situation.
• Not everyone may enjoy being a manager. While you may be 'promoted' to become a manager, you may find that you don't really enjoy the time spent talking to people, driving them to results, and compiling status reports for your management.
• It appears that good managers do have many things in common, even though they may have their own style of execution.

In this article by Rahul Goyal author of Management in India: Grow from an Accidental to a Successful Manager in the IT & Knowledge Industry , we will explore the skills, traits, talents, and competencies that are usually required and expected for playing a manager role, and also burst some myths surrounding managers.