I'm a Front End Drupal Developer / Themer / Site Builder and admittedly have been slow in adopting tools like Drush and Git for my workflow. Not because I didn't want to but only that I am very right-brained, so the command line / Terminal to say the least has not been my friend.

Recently, I designed, themed and developed a new site for my photography, High Rock Photo. The obvious choice for this new site was to use Drupal 7. I wanted the ability to easily create node galleries and this screencast shows you how to create and theme a node photo gallery using Drupal 7. I will also point out what modules are needed and make reference to those that would have been used in Drupal 6 and are now integrated into core in Drupal 7.

Recently on Twitter, one of my followers asked me for some resources and links for learning Drupal. I thought that would make an excellent blog post. When I first started learning Drupal, I watched screencasts and read all the relevant books I could get my hands on. I found screencast tutorials especially helpful as I was actually watching someone else configure and use Drupal on the admin side. There are many resources out on the web including dedicated websites, books, and even feeds on iTunes.

Recently I was configuring a Drupal view for a client's website that consisted of the user inputting a zip code and distance to find a store near them. I was using an exposed proximity search filter with a postal code in combination with the Gmap and Location Modules.

As a Drupal themers / front end developers, we are always asked to push the envelope of what's possible with design and theming. With Drupal 6, custom block regions are usually added in page.tpl.php which is normally outside of the actual page node content / comments. It would be above, below content or in sidebars typically. Occasionally you have the need to add a block region within a node area. This comes in handy especially if you are using a custom themed node page that uses CCK fields, e.g., "node-[custom_content_type].tpl.php".  To accomplish this there are a few steps involved.

This is a photo of the Ship's bell from the Star of India, an old ship moored at the Maritime Museum of San Diego. The Star of India is one of the world's oldest sailing ships still in operation. Originally called the Euterpe, she was best know for carrying emigrants to New Zealand from Europe in the 1870's and sailing around the world twenty-one times. 

I love Boston, it's a great place to walk around and take photos, you never know what you will find. This photo of the Zakim Bridge at sunset is one of those unintended surprises. I thought I had the people on the bridge in focus when in fact the tree in the foreground was in focus. It ended up having a nice mysterious effect with the people being slightly out of focus.

In this video, we explore how to track file downloads in Drupal 6 using the Filefield Download Tracking, CCK and Private Download modules. I'll also show you how to do this using a hybrid public / private file system.

This is a great way to allow site owners to track file downloads on a Drupal site.  Typical use cases are sites heavy with documentation that take the form of PDFs, Word Docs, Tar files and other types of files. The site owner can see which users are downloading specific files and when they download them. There is also nice integration with views out of the box.

Below you can also find resources for modules used in this tutorial.

This is one of my favorite spots to take photos in South Natick, MA. The stone bridge and water falls make for a dramatic setting. The day we were there, the light and clouds really enhanced the scene.

Canon EOS 7D with Tamron 10 - 24mm @ 10mm. 3 images processed with NIK HDR Efex Pro and Adobe Lightroom 3