I'm a web developer, freelancer, author, speaker, entrepreneur, technical reviewer and blogger based in the North East, living in a village just outside of Chester-le-Street.
My blog
Drupal 6 Social Networking
At the end of November, my third book was announced by Packt Publishing. Drupal 6 Social Networking, which walks through the creation of a Social Networking website, using the powerful CMS, Drupal.
Thie was a really interesting book to write, because while I'd written about Drupal before (Selling Online with Drupal e-Commerce) I covered a whole different set of modules, as well as taking a more detailed look at module development, and theme development.
Packt have announced quite alot of new Drupal books over the past twelve months, which just go to show, you certainly can do an awful lot with Drupal! Read on for more information about the book.
With Social Networking being a very powerful and popular concept on the Internet, this book discusses the benefits of creating your own Social Network over utilising existing Social Networks, and guides the reader through setting up a Social Network of their own.
After discussing Social Networking concepts, the book covers the basics of Drupal including installation, configuration and administration, before looking at building a powerful Social Networking website, including:
- User generated content with Drupal core modules
- Managing users and enhancing their profiles
- Enabling user interaction and communication as well as communicating with our users
- Creating a simple map-based module to show how we can extend the network with custom features by creating our own modules
- Customising the theme, and creating custom themes giving the Social Network a unique look of its own
- Deploying the Social Network, and keeping it running smoothly
- Promoting the Social Network so that its user base, and community contributions grow
The book fast-paced working through creating a Social Network for a fictional case study. As the book progresses the Social Network is expanded with new features, new modules and more ideas resulting in a powerful Social Network which can easily be adapted to any number of different uses. Example uses include sites ranging from a family Social Network to keep everyone up-to date, a business Social Network to promote a businesses products or services, or a fan / hobby group to promote their interests.
The book is due to be published early 2009, and is available for pre-order direct from the publishers.
About the author
Michael Peacock is a web developer from Newcastle, UK with a degree in Software Engineering from the University of Durham. After meeting his business partner whilst studying at Durham, he co-founded Peacock Carter a Newcastle based creative consultancy specializing in web design, web development and corporate identity. Michael loves working on web related projects, and when he isn’t working on client projects he is often tinkering with a web app of his own invention, his latest app is Learnr.
Michael has been involved with a number of books, having written three books: Drupal 6 Social Networking, Selling online with Drupal e-Commerce, Building websites with TYPO3, and acted as technical reviewer for Mobile Web Development and Drupal for Education & E-Learning.
Posted by Michael on 30th Dec 2008 at 11:11
