text:
Palantir: Increasing Velocity and Drupal 8
Palantir CEO Tiffany Farriss recently keynoted MidCamp here in Chicago where she spoke about the economics of Drupal contribution. In it, she explored some of the challenges of open-source contribution, showing how similar projects like Linux have managed growth and releases, and what the Drupal Association might do to help push things along toward a Drupal 8 release. You can give her presentation a watch here.
With this post, we want to highlight one of the important takeaways from the keynote: the Drupal 8 Accelerate Fund.
Some of you are clients and use Drupal for your sites, others build those sites for clients around the world, and still others provide technology that enhances Drupal greatly. We also know that Drupal 8 is going to be a game changer for us and our clients for a lot of reasons.
While we use a number of tools and technologies to drive success for our clients, Drupal is in our DNA. In addition to being a premium supporting partner of the Drupal Association, we also count amongst our team members prominent Drupal core and contributed module maintainers, initiative leads, and Drupal Association Board, Advisory Board, and Working Group members.
We've all done our part, but despite years of support and contributions from countless companies and individuals, we need to take a new approach to incentivize contributors to get Drupal 8 done. That's where the Drupal 8 Accelerate Fund comes in.
Palantir is one of seven anchor donors who are raising funds alongside the Drupal Association to support Drupal 8 development. These efforts relate directly to the Drupal Association's mission of uniting a global open source community to build and promote Drupal, and will (and already have) support contributors directly through additional dollars for grants.
The fund breaks down like this:
- The Drupal Association has contributed $62,500
- The Drupal Association Board has raised another $62,500 from Anchor Donors
- Now, the Drupal Association's goal is to raise contributions from the Drupal community. This is the chance for everyone from end users to independents to Drupal shops to show your support for Drupal 8. Every dollar donated by the community has already been matched, doubling your impact. That means the total pool could be as much as $250,000 with your help.
Drupal 8 Accelerate is first and foremost about getting Drupal 8 to release. However, it's also a pilot program for Drupal Association to obtain and provide financial support for the project. This is a recognition that, as a community, Drupal must find (and fund) a sustainable model for core development.
This is huge on a lot of levels, and those in the community have already seen the benefits with awards for sprints and other specific progress in D8. Now it's our turn to rally. Give today and spread the word so we can all help move Drupal 8 a little closer to release.
Fundraising Websites - Crowdrise
Daniel Pocock: WebRTC: DruCall in Google Summer of Code 2015?
I've offered to help mentor a Google Summer of Code student to work on DruCall. Here is a link to the project details.
The original DruCall was based on SIPml5 and released in 2013 as a proof-of-concept.
It was later adapted to use JSCommunicator as the webphone implementation. JSCommunicator itself was updated by another GSoC student, Juliana Louback, in 2014.
It would be great to take DruCall further in 2015, here are some of the possibilities that are achievable in GSoC:
- Updating it for Drupal 8
- Support for logged-in users (currently it just makes anonymous calls, like a phone box)
- Support for relaying shopping cart or other session cookie details to the call center operative who accepts the call
My background is in real-time and server-side infrastructure and I'm providing all the WebRTC SIP infrastructure that the student may need. However, for the project to have the most impact, it would also be helpful to have some input from a second mentor who knows about UI design, the Drupal way of doing things and maybe some Drupal 8 experience. Please contact me ASAP if you would be keen to participate either as a mentor or as a student. The deadline for student applications is just hours away but there is still more time for potential co-mentors to join in.WebRTC at mini-DebConf Lyon in April
The next mini-DebConf takes place in Lyon, France on April 11 and 12. On the Saturday morning, there will be a brief WebRTC demo and there will be other opportunities to demo or test it and ask questions throughout the day. If you are interested in trying to get WebRTC into your web site, with or without Drupal, please see the RTC Quick Start guide.
Acquia: 2014 greatest hits - 30 Awesome Drupal 8 API Functions you Should Already Know - Fredric Mitchell
Looking back on 2014, it was a great year of events and conversations with people in and around Acquia, open source, government, and business. I think I could happily repost at least 75% of the podcasts I published in 2014 as "greatest hits," but then we'd never get on to all the cool stuff I have been up to so far in 2015!
Nonetheless, here's one of my favorite recordings from 2014: a terrific session that will help you wrap your head around developing for Drupal 8 and a great conversation with Frederic Mitchell that covered the use of Drupal and open source in government, government decision-making versus corporate decision-making, designing Drupal 7 sites with Drupal 8 in mind, designing sites for the end users and where the maximum business value comes from in your organization, and more!
Chris Hall on Drupal 8: D8 theming first impression
After upgrading this site to a nice shiny Beta, I was itching to try themeing on Drupal 8, I have left off up to now as a few simple experiments showed me that even a simple sub-theme broke quickly under the pace of Drupal change, now though I should be able to upgrade any efforts and improvements without too much difficulty.
I theme Drupal every now and again and spend more time doing back-end and server related work, I usually have to have a good understanding of the mechanics of the themeing though even when not actively doing it.
Often in the past I have been at odds with the themeing philosophy of teams I am working with (and have had to capitulate when outnumbered ;)) as I am more in the camp and would rather strip out most of the guff that Drupal inserts and break away from the 'rails' that make many Drupal sites turn out kind of samey apparently the 33% camp.
Also when working with talented front-end developers who don't necessarily deal mostly with Drupal it seems such a shame to clip their wings, I would rather try and start with a theme like Mothership.The challenge
The assumption I had was that Drupal 8 will be much easier to customise and "go your own way" than Drupal has ever been before. The mini-challenge I set myself was to re-implement the look from another site chris-david-hall.info which runs on ExpressionEngine and use the same CSS stylesheet verbatim (in the end I changed one line).
The theme is pretty basic, based on Bootstrap 3, but even despite that has a few elements of structure that are not very Drupally, so made an interesting experiment.
More than enough for my first attempt.The result
Well this site no longer looks like a purple Bartik, and does bear more than a passing resemblance to the site I ripped the CSS from.
It was pretty easy to restructure things and Twig theming in Drupal is a massive improvement, I am now convinced that Drupal 8 wins hands down over Drupal 7 for themeability.
There is still a lot more stuff I could strip out, this was a first pass, I am going to take a breather and come back to it. I have a couple of style-sheets left from Drupal to keep the in-line editing and admin stuff (mostly) working. I would prefer to target those bits more selectively.
The theme is on Github, just for interest and comparison at the moment, but depending on later experiments might turn into something more generically useful.Still a few glitches
It is a bit difficult working out if I have done something wrong or whether I am encountering bugs in the Beta, I will take the time to find out if issues have been raised when I get the chance. There are problems, for example for an anonymous user the home link is always active and some blocks seem to leave a trace even when turned off for a page (which messes with detecting whether a sidebar is active for example), both of these problems also exhibit in Bartik though.
I plucked the theme from my site at chris-david-hall.info and needs a lot of work anyway, I am hoping to improve both sites in tandem now.Comments Add new comment Your name Subject Comment About text formats Restricted HTML
- Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h4> <h5> <h6>
- Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
- Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
Wunderkraut blog: How to combine two facet items in Facet API
How to change solr search query for one facet using these modules: Search API, Search API solr, facet API, Facet API bonus and some custom code.
I have configured these modules to have a search page showing content that you search for and a list of facet items that you can filter the search result on. In my case the facet items was an representation of node types that you could filter the search result with. There are tons of blogpost how to do that, Search API solr documentation.
The facet item list can look like this (list of node types to filter search result on):- Foo (22) - Bar (18) - Elit (10) - Ipsum (9) - Ultricies (5) - Mattis (2) - Quam (1)
What I wonted to achieve was to combine two facet items to one so the list would look like this:- Foo and Bar (40) - Elit (10) - Ipsum (9) - Ultricies (5) - Mattis (2) - Quam (1)
The solution was using Search API hook hook_search_api_solr_query_alter(). I need to only change the query for the facet Item (node type) "Foo" and try to include (node type) "Bar" in the search query. So I fetched the facet item name by digging deep into the argument "$query".<?php
function YOUR_CUSTOM_MODULE_search_api_solr_query_alter(array &$call_args, SearchApiQueryInterface $query) {
// Fetching the facet name to change solr query on.
$facet_item = $query->getFilter()->getFilters();
if (!empty($facet_item)) {
$facet_item = $facet_item[0]->getFilters();
if (!empty($facet_item[0])) {
if (!empty($facet_item[0][1])) {
$facet_item = $facet_item[0][1];
// This is my facet item I wont to change solr query on "Foo" and also add node type "Bar" to the filter.
if ($facet_item === 'foo') {
$call_args['params']['fq'][0] = $call_args['params']['fq'][0] . ' OR ss_type:"bar"';
We have now altered the solr query, but the list looks the same, the only differences now is that if you click on the "Foo" facet you will get "Foo" and "Bar" (node type) nodes in the search result.
To change the facet item list, I used drupal hook_facet_items_alter() provided by contrib module Facet API Bonus<?php
function YOUR_CUSTOM_MODULE_facet_items_alter(&$build, &$settings) {
if ($settings->facet == "type") {
// Save this number to add on the combined facet item.
$number_of_bar = $build['bar']['#count'];
foreach($build as $key => $item) {
switch ($key) {
case 'foo':
// Change the title of facet item to represent two facet items
// (Foo & Bar).
$build['foo']["#markup"] = t('Foo and Bar');
// Smash the count of hits together.
if ($build['foo']['#count'] > 0) {
$build['foo']['#count'] = $build['foo']['#count'] + $number_of_bar;
// Remove this facet item now when Foo item will include this node type in the search result.
case 'bar':
After this should the list look like we want.- Foo and Bar (40) - Elit (10) - Ipsum (9) - Ultricies (5) - Mattis (2) - Quam (1)
I also have a text printed out by Facet API submodule Current Search. This module lets you add blocks with text and tokens. In my case I added text when you searched and filtered to inform the user what he just searched for and/or filtered on. This could be done by adding existing tokens in the configuration of Current Search module configuration page "admin/config/search/current_search". The problem for me was that the token provided was the facet items that facet API created and not the one I changed. So I needed to change the token with text "Foo" to "Foo & Bar". This can be accomplished by hook_tokens_alter().<?php
function YOUR_CUSTOM_MODULE_tokens_alter(array &$replacements, array $context) {
if (isset($replacements['facetapi_active:active-value'])) {
switch ($replacements['[facetapi_active:active-value]']) {
case 'Foo':
$replacements['[facetapi_active:active-value]'] = 'Foo and Bar';
And that's it.
Link to all code
Angie Byron: How and why D8 Accelerate is spending your hard-earned cash
Hopefully you've heard the news about the Drupal Association's new D8 Accelerate grants program, and the fundraising drive we have currently going on. If not, the gist is that the Drupal Association has created a central fund, managed by the Drupal core committers, to fund both "bottom-up" community grants for things like targeted sprints or "bug bounties," as well as "top-down" spending driven from the core committers on larger strategic initiatives that help accelerate Drupal 8's release. All D8 Accelerate grants that are provided are tracked centrally at https://assoc.drupal.org/d8accelerate/awarded, including what the money was used for, how much was spent, to whom it went, and a report from the grant recipient(s) that outlines the work that was accomplished.
However, it can be a little hard to parse from that format the larger meaning/context of this work, especially if you don't spend upwards of 30 hours per week in the core queue like most of these folks. :) As Chief Wearer of Many Hats™, I sit on both the Drupal Association board as well as the committee who manages these funds. This puts me in a good position to provide a bit of "behind the scenes" info on how the funding process works, as well as provide some of the larger story of how these funds are benefitting not only Drupal 8 core, but the larger Drupal ecosystem.Drupal 8 Acceleration Performance
Source: https://www.drupal.org/node/2370667
As noted in my post-DrupalCon Bogotá critical issue run-down, performance improvements are a large chunk of the work remaining in Drupal 8. We had deliberately postponed most of this work until post-beta to avoid premature optimization and to allow all the major architectural chunks to be in place. However, we definitely can't release Drupal 8 while it is much slower than Drupal 7.
The D8 Accelerate fund has been instrumental in not only helping to address critical performance regressions, but also in accelerating the development of Drupal 8's next-generation cache system.
Or, to sum it up in a cheesy catch-phrase:
For less than $10,000, we're making Drupal 8 twice as fast! :D
Win!Unblocking the beta-to-beta upgrade path
The second large focus of D8 Accelerate grants has been around D8 upgrade path blockers. These are extremely strategic, because they unblock a beta-to-beta upgrade path between Drupal 8 releases, which is extremely important for early Drupal 8 adopters.
For example, one large chunk of work D8 Accelerate has funded is in making sure Entity Field API and Views work well together. This is critical for features such as Multilingual, so content shows up in the right languages when expected, and it's necessary to complete this work prior to providing an upgrade path since it would be horrendous to write hook_update_N() functions for some of the necessary changes.
We're also exploring other alternatives to provide a beta-to-beta upgrade path to early adopters sooner, which is viable now that the hardest data-model-changing issues are done.Security
Source: http://www.codepositive.com/code-positive/about
Obviously, we do not want to release Drupal 8 with known security vulnerabilities, but neither do we want to release an "upgrade path beta" that we encourage early adopters to use with known security vulnerabilities. Hence, we are trying to get any critical security issues taken care of sooner than later.
For example, one chunk of work that D8 Accelerate is funding in this area is tightening security around Drupal 8 entity API. Numerous form validation functions in core contain entity-level validation, to the wild dismay of anyone who's ever tried to implement web services on top of Drupal. The reason that's bad is because if you attempt to save something using just the Entity API (as you will in a REST API scenario where there are no forms), you will end up skipping validation routines and could end up with invalid and/or insecure data entry.Targeted Sprints to Crush Criticals
Source: https://groups.drupal.org/node/456353
As demonstrated at the Ghent critical issue sprint last year, nothing is better for D8's velocity than getting a bunch of awesome contributors in the same place to pound on the critical queue together. D8 Accelerate funded a fantastic Menu link critical sprint at DrupalCamp New Jersey which, in addition to turning this area of criticals from "OMGWTFBBQ" to an actionable plan, resulted directly or indirectly in all of the related critical issues in this area being closed, within a couple of weeks after the sprint.
We aim to do more of these same types of targeted sprints throughout the year, the next one being the DrupalCI sprint in a couple of weeks. More on that in a sec.Drupal Community acceleration Testbot modernization
Source: https://www.previousnext.com.au/blog/architecting-drupalci-drupalcon-ams...
Our beloved Drupal.org testbot has been showing its age. https://qa.drupal.org/ is still on Drupal 6, and largely on life-support these days. Testbot doesn't support testing on multiple PHP versions and databases, both of which are Drupal.org (websites/infra) blockers to a Drupal 8 release.
The DrupalCI: Modernizing Testbot Initiative is being driven by numerous devops-inclined community members from around the world. It aims to rebuild testbot from a collection of Drupal modules to a more standard CI stack (using big fancy words like Jenkins and Docker and Puppet and Travis and Silex) that your average PHP/devops folk can both understand and help maintain.
There's been a lot of work on DrupalCI already, and the upcoming D8 Accelerate sprint on DrupalCI: Modernizing Testbot Initiative will bring all the various contributors together to form DrupalCI Voltron to get an MVP of all the various pieces working together. Actual deployment will happen some time later, and both the new and old testbot will run alongside each other for a good while so any kinks can be worked out while D8 development stays stable.
This particular improvement not only allows Drupal 8 to ship, it also will provide great new functionality to all projects on Drupal.org! The architecture allows for ample room for later expansion as well, so we could start doing things like automated code reviews, performance testing, front-end testing, etc.People power!
Here are some of the awesome Drupal contributors who've benefited from these funds:
Daniel Wehner (dawehner) Daniel is a major driving force in Drupal core, as well as the person with the most commit mentions in Drupal 8. His work spans not only the Views in Drupal Core initiative, but in all other areas upon which he sets his sights. No issue is safe! :)
Lee Rowlands (larowlan) Lee is another powerhouse core generalist who tries to tackle a #CriticalADay. You can learn more about Lee in this Community Spotlight.
Andrei Mateescu (amateescu) Andrei is a co-maintainer Drupal 8 Core's Entity reference field, Field API/UI, and the transliteration system. He's also contributed to dozens of contributed projects.
Francesco Placella (plach) Fancesco has been a significant contributor to internationalization functionality since the Drupal 7 days. In Drupal 8 he's a key fixture in the D8 Multilingual Initiative.
Wolfgang Ziegler (fago) Wolfgang has worked with Drupal since 2005. In addition to his major contributions to Drupal 8's Entity Field API, he also maintains various widely-used contributed modules such as Rules and Profile2.
Klaus Purer (klausi) In addition to his work driving Drupal 8's REST functionality, Klaus is also a member of Drupal's Security Team and a driver of automated tools for coding standards checking.
Fabian Franz (Fabianx) In addition to being a mad performance scientist extraordinaire, Fabian has also been a prominent contributor to the Twig in core initiative.
Jelle Sebreghts (Jelle_S)
One of the drivers of mobile improvements in Drupal 8, Jelle also maintains dozens of contributed modules through his work at Attiks. Not just code!
D8 Accelerate funds are being used not only to fund development work, but also to fund patch reviews as well as more "project management"-y tasks like "triaging" a set of issues to find the truly critical ones, research on different approaches, etc. Wherever possible, the core committers explicitly look for opportunities to fund two people, usually a developer and a patch reviewer, in order to maintain the sanctity of Drupal core's peer review process.
I think this is great, because it highlights that it's not just raw PHP that's going to get Drupal 8 out the door; it's a joint effort of many complementary skills coming together.Show me the money!
Why $250k to accelerate D8?
Source: https://blackincense.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/skeptical-cat-is-fraugh...
This is a very reasonable question to ask, particularly in light of the widely-cited statistic of 2,750+ contributors to Drupal 8, and various Drupal companies employing major contributors to Drupal core. Here are a few points:
- Drupal 8 will be a truly revolutionary release, not only by providing tons more useful functionality out of the box for site builders and content authors (WYSIWYG, mobile support, Views, configuration management, etc.), but by modernizing the underlying code base to address years of technical debt, and help "future-proof" Drupal for the next 10+ years. Unsurprisingly, this means that the total amount of work that has already gone into D8, and that remains needed to move D8 from a late beta to a release, is larger than it was for earlier versions of Drupal. Most technology maturations follow that pattern.
Drupal 8's release also unlocks the move to a new release cycle that introduces backwards-compatible feature releases every 6 months. This allows us to "release early, release often," as opposed to "release every 4+ years, coupled with lots and lots of API breaks." ;)
- For these reasons, as well as many others, there's significant community benefit for 8.0.0 to be released as soon as possible, both so that sites can be built on it, and so that the 8.1.x branch can be opened for development for everyone with a feature idea itch to scratch. Additionally, many organizations and individuals who would benefit from D8 getting released sooner than later don't have the expertise or time to solve the remaining critical issues. These organizations/people might be willing to contribute money, but don't know who to best send it to or don't want to deal with the administration of contracting directly with individual core contributors. This fund is an opportunity for those organizations/people to make a difference without dealing with that administration.
Make no mistake: Drupal 8 will get done, with or without this money. The goal of the fund is not about saying that our current awesome core contributor base is incapable of completing the work; it's only a recognition that funding work can make it happen faster.
- Why is this so? It's a common misconception that most core developers are paid for their work, either by Drupal companies who employ them, or by their customers. In reality, those directly financially compensated for their contributions to core (and especially to Drupal 8, which is not yet commercially viable for the masses) are a tiny fraction of the overall number of contributors.
While there are numerous contributors who have already spent literally years contributing to core during their nights and weekends, and as a result have developed the kind of expertise needed to finish some of the remaining hard critical issues, relying on their ongoing availability of free time is not sustainable. These include contributors who work as freelance developers for clients, and it's certainly unfair to expect these people to turn down paid client work in order to have free time to work on core, or to quit being freelancers and become employees of forward-thinking Drupal companies who provide company time for core contribution. One of my favorite aspects of D8 Accelerate is that it is helping to "level the playing field" by making it possible for these people to have time to work on core regardless of their current employment situation.
- It's also important to emphasize here that injecting funding into the "bug fix slog" phase of major Drupal releases, when all the fun stuff that tends to motivate volunteers is long exhausted, is nothing new. That should come as no surprise, given that there have always been companies with financial interests in having a given version of Drupal ready sooner. For example, in Drupal 6, Acquia funded release manager Gábor Hojtsy full-time to help get that release done. In Drupal 7, in addition to employing core contributors full-time, Examiner.com paid numerous "bug bounties" out to folks to help slay specific critical issues. The difference here is that the DA as a non-profit organization needs to be extremely transparent in anything it's doing with the community's money, so there is greater visibility on things this time around.
If you don't want to donate, that's totally okay. You'll still be able to use Drupal 8 all you want, for free, when it's ready. Donating to this fund is only an opportunity to help make that happen sooner, if that's sufficiently valuable to you.
For a lot more "deep thinking" around these topics, see:
- Dries's DrupalCon Amsterdam Keynote on Scaling Open Source Communities for ideas on making maintenance of "public goods" like Drupal more sustianable.
- Tiffany Farriss's MidCamp keynote which talks at length about the motivations of open source contributors and how to best provide them support.
- xjm's recent blog post that gets into some detailed facts/figures on how core development actually happens.
Many thanks to effulgentsia for his extensive help on this part!How do you decide on how money gets spent?
The core committers have a well-documented process that explains how we decide what to fund. The TL;DR version is we look at criteria like:
- Is a proposal genuinely a release blocker to Drupal 8, or something that will otherwise directly lead to an accelerated Drupal 8 release? (That's a biggie.)
- Is a proposal resolving a blocker to other work, especially other release blockers?
- Is a proposal resolving an "ecosystem" blocker? (For example "D8 upgrade path" issues that block early D8 adoption, blockers to a major portion of contributed modules/themes porting)
- Is this a place where we can inject funding to take an issue the "last 20%" and get it across the finish line quickly?
- Is momentum in this area slow, making it unlikely to be fixed "organically" by D8 contributors?
- Are the people working in this area not directly funded (by an employer or client) to fix it already?
- Do we have some confidence that funding will lead to a successful outcome?
Proposals that answer "yes" to more of these questions than not are more likely to get funded. And the D8 Accelerate team is constantly on the lookout for things that meet this criteria and proactively reaching out to contributors to help get things started.
In short, we take our responsibility with the community's money very seriously, and have turned down multiple community proposals that were fantastic ideas, but did not fit this criteria. (Where appropriate, we refer folks over to the Community Cultivation Grants instead.)
Also please note that a previous restriction around people asking for funding for their own time has been lifted a month or so back (Thanks, DA!). So if you are a contributor who knows a lot about critical issue #12345, you can request a stipend (initially capped at $500 for five hours) to help push it forward.
If that sounds like you, or you have other creative ideas on how we can get Drupal 8 out faster, apply for a grant today!Thank you for your support!
I wanted to take the opportunity to give a huge shout-out to the "anchor donors" of the D8 Accelerate campaign:
Thanks to their efforts, every dollar you contribute is already matched by the Drupal Association and these anchor donors, doubling your impact. If you'd like, you can make a donation to my fundraising drive (I've set a very ambitious goal of $20,000 since that's 8% of $250,000 — get it? ;)):
Fundraising Websites - Crowdrise
...or, find your favourite Drupal person at https://www.crowdrise.com/d8accelerate/fundraiser and donate to theirs instead, or create your own! :)
Thanks as well to the folks who somehow stumbled across it and donated to my fundraiser already—Andreas Radloff, Douglas Reith, and Ian Dunn. I thought Ian's note was particularly awesome! :D
And finally, thank YOU for any and all support you can provide that will help us make Drupal 8 the most successful release of Drupal yet! :D If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask!Tags: drupal 8drupal
Mediacurrent: The 5 Commandments of Accessible Forms
We've already discussed why accessibility matters and whetted your appetite on accessibility by providing a few simple things you can do to make your site more accessible. Now it's time to look at accessibility in forms, a common component of just about every site.
Shomeya: A cheat sheet for hook_entity_api()
The worst time to read software documentation is when you're trying to fix something that is broken and you have no idea why. I'd say it's like shopping when you're hungry, but it's actually the opposite. When stuff breaks for no apparent reason and you're on edge it's easy to notice every little issue with the docs, and you instantly form a very strong opinion on documentation.
The good news is that as a Drupal developer, you have tons of awesome documentation just a click away on api.drupal.org or drupal.org/documentation/develop and contributed module documentation is better than ever. Even though almost everything you could ever want to know about Drupal internals is available on api.drupal.org (even the source code!) sometimes you need to combine that with contributed docs, or dig in a little deeper.
That's exactly what I had to do while working on the first few chapters of Model Your Data with Drupal. Hooks like hook_entity_info() are well documented on api.drupal.org, but the Entity API module adds it's own options to the mix. Entity API has great docs on it's options as well, but there isn't a lot out there that thoroughly documents them together, or the interaction of their options.Read more
Lullabot: Form API #states
Drupal Watchdog: Make Mine a Modal
Dialogs and Modals are an important UX pattern and can be used effectively both to provide information and to handle user interaction.
A key use for Dialogs and Modals in Drupal is to present a new user interaction without losing the original context. For example, when editing Views settings the modal allows the user to be presented with a new interface without navigating away from their original location.Displaying Modals in Drupal 7
In Drupal 7, there are a number of approaches and modules for displaying and working with modals and dialogs. Views UI is probably the most common place where sitebuilders interact with modals in Drupal 7, closely followed by Panels/Page Manager. Both of these use modals for simplifying the user interface and the lazy-loading of elements when needed, keeping the interface uncluttered until a specific user interaction is required.
In Drupal 6, there were a number of dialog/modal API modules – with varying popularity – including Modal Frame API, Dialog API, and Popups API, but none have even reached an alpha release for Drupal 7, leaving Ctools Modal as the de facto API for Drupal 7.Common Use, Different Approach
While each Drupal 6 and 7 modal/dialog module has a common use-case and set of requirements, each implement the functionality in their own way. Additionally, many of these use a Not Invented Here paradigm to roll custom solutions into a problem that's already been solved in the wider web-community. As a result, many of these solutions are lacking in certain areas, such as accessibility. Also, given the range of different solutions and APIs, DX and consistency suffers.
Drupal 7 already includes the jQuery.UI library which itself contains a Dialog component. The Views modal uses the jQuery.UI Dialog while the Ctools module doesn't – further emphasizing the disconnect in approaches.
With Views coming into core in Drupal 8, we needed a Dialog/Modal API for it to use; this led us to develop the current solution, meaning that core now has an API for this functionality.
Drupal for Government: Conditional Views - Sure beats Views PHP for simple variance
I recently had to add a new content type to an existing tabled view... the thing was that one content type had an extra field to define a link... fine.. I figured I could go in and use Views PHP.... it's a hacky solution, but a few lines and I'd be out the door... curiosity got the better of me... I know Views PHP is a bit déclassé, so for good measure I googled for a solution, and pretty quickly stumbled on Views Conditional... the documentation is clear, but I figure a few screen shots won't hurt, and may encourage the next nerd looking for a better way to set either-or's in their views...
Steps to get some variance in your views
Doug Vann: SxSw 2015 AND My 50th Drupalcamp, the good the bad & the ugly
Warning: mildly graphic medical descriptions referenced below...
The Good:
7 years and 6 months in the making, I very much anticipated my 50th Drupalcamp. As seems to happen at least one time each year, I flew straight from one event to another. I had my 2nd speaking gig at SxSw in Austin then flew directly to Chicago for MADcamp. I love the new name: Midwest Area Drupal Camp!
My Drupal 8 Live Demo at SxSw was well received. When I proposed the session, I thought for sure we'd be in a Release Candidate. As it turned out, Drupal 8 was only at Beta 7. I walked through demonstrations of creating content types and views and placing blocks with the new layout system. Matt Cheney joined in for a short but powerful demo of Configuration Management. Over 20 Attendees followed along with their Pantheon instances which were built directly from Drupal 8 HEAD. This gave us FAR FEWER bugs than Beta 7 contained.
My Pantheon training class at MADCamp in Chicago went very well. We were converting configuration to code via features and committing the code to the repository, then pushing it up the deployment chain. As is always the case, the attendees marveled at how a modern Development Operations workflow could be achieved without being a sysadmin or paying for multiple servers and glueing them together with scripts.
The Bad:
About 9:30 on Saturday 3/14, The Only Real Pi Day Of Our Lives, I was walking in downtown Austin on 6th street and got me left foot hooked into a storm drain as I navigated the curb back up to the sidewalk. I went down FAST and planted on my side with my left arm fully extended. Those nearby heard the THUD and rushed to help. I got right back up. Brushed off some sidewalk debris and marveled that nothing hurt and there was no blood! End of story… Not quite…
The Ugly: [VERY UGLY]
As the goose egg swelled up near me left elbow, I applied ice to it throughout the night. It took on some gnarly colors and would swell back up if the ice wasn't directly on it.
The next day, still no pain, but it looks horrible. On the phone, my wife insists that I go to an urgent-care facility, so off I go. 3 x-rays later, no breaks or fractures are visible. End of story… Not quite…
Wednesday [4days after the fall] I wake up to fly out to Chicago. My entire left forearm has taken on every sickly shade of blue black and Burgundy! By that evening, my hand is welling up as well.
Thursday I teach the Pantheon class all day and don't think much about my arm. After all, IT NEVER HURT! But by Thursday night I have TWO purple fingers and a third on the way. I'm afraid to go to bed at 1am, so I head for the Cook County ER in Chicago. They draw blood to test for an infection and x-ray e again. No breaks or fractures. It is explained that I have a lot of blood pooling up beneath my skin and it's going to take some time to heal. They send me home.
Arriving at the hotel about 5:30, I clean up, take 2 Ibuprofen PM and fall asleep at 6am. The phone wakes me up at 8am. Somehow I left the ringer on AND was able to fumble around with it and answer it. It's the same Doctor that saw me in ER. He says my platelet count is slightly elevated and he's afraid I may actually have an infection. He tells me to get back to ER pronto! I ask if I can sleep it off first. He says NO.
I'm back at ER within the hour. More blood work, more x-rays, this time including chest, shoulder, arm, hand, and leg. Many hours later [sleeping on and off] the x-rays and blood work look fine. I'm back at the hotel. My wife is in a panic over it all and asks that I catch the next flight home to Indy. They're all booked so I grab one the next day.
My 50th Drupal Camp included an awesome dinner for the out-of-towners, one full day of training, an amazing pre-camp dinner, 2 ER visits, and only a couple of hours at the actual camp. I stopped in to say HI and BYE. Oh well.. At least dinner that night was amazing Greek food with good friends.
And now…
Hand still swells up badly if not iced. I haven't been able to use my left hand much for 36 hours. I can't even make a fist.
The alien coloring of my left forearm is fading slowly. The goose egg by my elbow is as goose as it has ever been. TWELVE DAYS after the fall?!?!?
Doc says, wait it out. The body will heal itself over time.
Here's to hoping that my next MADCamp is
WAY MORE BORING than my 50th DrupalCamp!
Code Karate: Selecting a Javascript Framework [Infographic]
Drupal 8 coming (queue suspenseful music)!
Pronovix: A free and open source DITA CCMS, modelling arbitrary XML in Drupal
Drupal has all the elements to build a custom content model that can mirror a DITA specialisation. The really exciting thing is that this data model can be built from the UI, without a single line of code. While there are considerable drawbacks to the usability of the resulting interface, the fact that this is a free and open source implementation means that those who have more time than money could use this implementation as a starting point to build a DITA CCMS that accommodates an arbitrary specialisation.
Drupal core announcements: Plan for upcoming D8 Accelerate sprint on DrupalCI (Modernizing Testbot Initiative)
Next week, an international conglomeration of awesome folks will convene in Portland, Oregon for a D8 Accelerate-funded sprint on DrupalCI: Modernizing Testbot Initiative.
The main aim of DrupalCI is to rebuild Drupal's current testbot infrastructure (which is currently powered by an aging Drupal 6 site) to industry-standard components such as Jenkins, Docker, and so on, architected to be generally useful outside of Drupal.org. See Nick Schuch's Architecting DrupalCI at DrupalCon Amsterdam blog post for more details.
The goal is to end the sprint with an "MVP" product on production hardware, with integration to Drupal.org, which can be used to demonstrate a full end-to-end D8 core 'simpletest' test run request from Drupal.org through to results appearing on the results server.
You can read and subscribe to the sprint hit-list issue to get an idea of who's going to be working on what, and the places where you too can jump in (see the much longer version for more details).
This is a particularly important initiative to help with, since it not only unblocks Drupal 8 from shipping, it also makes available awesome new testing tools for all Drupal.org projects!
Go Team! :)
Aaron Winborn: Goodbye, my Son. My friend.
"Your journey to heaven or hell or oblivion or reincarnation or whatever it is that death holds. … This is the Antechamber of the Mystery…"
Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
I suppose this will be the last entry in Aaron Winborn's blog. This is his dad, Victor Winborn, filling in for him. Aaron entered his final sleep of this life on March 24, 2015. His transition was peaceful, and he was at peace with himself.
Aaron was the oldest of six natural siblings and two step-brothers. He was convinced, of course, that I was doing the father thing all wrong and that he could do far better on his own. He finally got to try to prove it when he gained two daughters of his own. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with ALS shortly after the youngest was born. We will never know how successful he would have been with teenage daughters, but if the first few years of life with the girls are any indication, he would have been an outstanding father.
His mom, Lynn, no doubt carries the most memories of his infancy and childhood, though there is the interesting story or two that Aaron carried with him to the end. Such as the time his friend, Buddy (remember the My Buddy dolls?) became so dirty that his mom insisted Buddy needed a bath. Aaron was having a panic attack over Buddy drowning in the washer, so his mom invited him to sit in front of our front loader and watch his playmate float past the window in the door of the machine. Things were going great and Aaron was pretty sure his friend must be enjoying the swim, when Buddy suddenly exploded and his innards filled the machine with cotton-like blood. This was such a vivid evisceration that Aaron carried that vision, burned into his retina, to the end.
At twelve, we let him fly to Houston to live for a few months with his aunt and uncle, Diana and Les. He learned lots of useful things there, such as that you can't just get your hair wet to prove to your more than astute aunt that you washed it. You actually have to put a little of the shampoo on your head so she can smell the strawberry scented perfume in it. His Uncle Les was one of his favorite people in the world. Les is the most captivating professor that either of us ever took a class from. In college, Les' classes on Vietnam history, Film history, and Black history gave Aaron a yearning to teach.
Aaron had innumerable interests and was talented in most all of them. He left home shortly after high school in order to spend time with Paul Solomon (Fellowship of the Inner Light) at Paul's retreat, Hearthfire. A year or so later, we learned that he had become personal assistant for Elizabeth Kubler Ross (On Death and Dying). Then we learned that he had moved to a commune in England, Mickleton House in Mickleton Village, Gloucestershire, UK. While there he worked in construction and kissed a girl for the first time.
When he finally returned home, Aaron and I were able to work together for several years. As we drove from job to job, we talked about books, poetry, religion, history, philosophy, technology, and science. We frequently didn't agree on many topics, but we had eerily similar interests. That made it both fun and frustrating to carry on extended conversations. Of all my kids, Aaron was at the same time, both the most like me and the least like me. I often wondered how that worked. While he may have inherited a lot from his old dad, he always had a mind of his own.
One of those extended conversations had to do with both the purpose and destiny of the soul. I had homed in on the concept that a person was a soul, consisting of physical body and immaterial spirit. At the time, Aaron had no problem with that concept. Where we departed ways was in the purpose. He felt that we were in this physical realm in order to overcome physicality and to develop the spirit – at all odds with the physical pressures against the concept. My belief was that the spirit came to this world in order to learn to master the physical. The final take of our argument was that since he was the younger and had more years ahead of him than I did, I hoped that he would somehow find the real answer and share it with me. Now that Aaron has passed into or through the "Antechamber of the Mystery", if he has any consciousness at this point, he knows the answer. Unfortunately, the veil separating us will prevent him from giving me the answer. I'll have to go find it for myself.
The yearning to teach that his Uncle Les had instilled in him was finally fulfilled when he was offered the opportunity to teach at School in the Community in Carrboro, North Carolina. This is where he learned of his love for Web development. During this period, he attended a retreat at the Mid-Atlantic Buddhist Association outside St. Louis, and managed to fulfill a 30-day vow of silence. Any of you who knew Aaron while he had a voice, know that the experience must have been torture for him. Shortly after that, he met the love of his life, Gwen Pfeifer. They then moved to Willimantic, Connecticut. He taught at Sudbury School about 25 minutes away in Hampton. Hampton has the honor of being the only town in Connecticut without a stoplight. Their oldest daughter, Ashlin, was born while he worked there.
A few short years later, he was able to fulfill his next big dream of professional Web development. He became the first employee of Advomatic and ultimately also became an expert in the Drupal content management platform. After they moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania he wrote the book, Drupal Multimedia. In Harrisburg, Ashlin (and now Sabina) started attending The Circle School.
The Circle School community has been the core of the most amazing support group that I have ever heard of, much less experienced. For almost four years, they have offered food, help, work, laughs, and tears to the entire family. The co-captains in the Gwen & Aaron's Helping Hands group have been relentless in their efforts to keep the little community vibrant, healthy, and ever-busy. Every time I have made the trip up to PA to visit, there have been multiple people dropping by to provide meals, take Ashlin to local events, help Aaron with his computer work, or just to offer hugs and hold hands with him.
I think the most important non-family member in their lives has been Michelle, who started out as a Mother's Helper, and ended up being, besides Gwen, Aaron's primary caregiver. She has become such an important part of the family, that little Sabina actually believes she is a family member. Michelle just finished her degree in psychology, though; and she and her husband will be moving closer to his work in Baltimore. She will always be a part of Ashlin's and Sabina's hearts, and I suspect will stay close to the girls for many years.
As many of you know, Aaron chose to take the path of coming back to this life in the same body that he inhabited here as Jeffrey Aaron Winborn. In other words, he chose to have his body frozen (cryonics) and hopes to have it restored when science has the knowhow to bring it back from the dead and to heal the affliction that ALS laid upon him.
While he was still at home, Aaron and I went through a period of reading many of Robert Heinlein's books. One especially notable character of his was a curmudgeon named Lazarus Long. Lazarus was the main character of a number of books. I guess I didn't realize at the time how much an impression this character made on Aaron. He ended up naming his first dog Lazarus Long Winborn. I just called him Grandpuppy. Aaron has been interested in cryonics for a long time, and had been planning on taking advantage of it even before he learned he had ALS. I have always wondered how much influence the Heinlein books had on this decision.
He leaves behind, his beautiful and loving partner, Gwen, and his two wonderful daughters, Ashlin and Sabina. Besides his core family, he leaves behind parents, siblings, aunts & uncles, cousins, a large local community of friends and caregivers, an extended family of coworkers, professional friends, activist friends, fellow ALS patients and survivors, and many more than I could ever know. There must be hundreds of people who have learned to love and honor him. And now comes the hardest moment a father can ever have when he has to say…
Goodbye, my Son. My friend.
Drupal Association News: Drupal Dev Day in NYC
The NYC Drupal Users Group is holding a Drupal Dev Day conference (#D3NYC15) on April 19th at John Jay College. People are pretty excited about this, and we're looking forward to some of the many ways we'll be able to give back to the community in doing so.
With D3NYC15, we're focusing on getting back to creating a grassroots community-building event right in our hometown. First and foremost, the event is in the 'unconference' format, which is an informal way of polling the attendees and creating meaningful sessions that are relevant to those that have shown up. We anticipate expert-lead sessions as well as BoFs.
As part of growing our community, we're planning a Drupal training session in the morning for those new community members. Alex Ross (bleen18) has graciously consented to volunteer his considerable talents to this effort.
In addition to this, we will also have a Drupal mentoring room ('drupal ladders') where a number of Drupalists in NYC have offered to help coach people on contrib work they are doing. Lastly, we're looking forward to our Drupal 8 sprint effort.
While the event is only a day long, it is our hope that D3NYC15 will serve as a launching point for both new and experienced users within the NYC community to help with the D8 issue queue. Even if our community just tackles one item off the queue that day, it will be a big win-- every little bit helps get Drupal 8 into final release.
If you're in the New York City area, or want to visit, join us for a day of coding and fun. Registration can be done at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/drupal-dev-day-nyc-2015-registration-16240282121, and more info about the camp can be found at www.drupalcamp.nyc. We are very much looking for sponsors to help defray the costs of the camp. The sponsorship packages are modestly priced at $500 and $1000, and in addition to great benefits you get the continued admiration of the NYC Drupal community as well as the knowledge that you are investing both in the NYC Drupal talent pool as well as the advancement of Drupal itself.
DrupalCon News: Grants and Scholarships Recipients Announced!
Drupal Association News: Lessons from DrupalCamp London
DrupalCamp London wrapped up on March 1st, making it the third large Drupal event in London since DrupalCon London in 2011. Over the past three years, the local events team has learned a great deal about planning a successful DrupalCamp in one of the largest and most diverse cities in the world.
"The tricky part," said Ben Wilding (kazillian), one of the lead DrupalCamp London organizers, "is getting the core group who will commit to the camp. There are always lots of people who say they'll volunteer, but ultimately, you need a core group of people who will make it happen."
When planning a DrupalCamp, Wilding says there are seven main points to keep in mind.1. Find your core supporters
"In the years we've been planning DrupalCamp London, we've encountered two challenges: informing the local community enough, versus not giving them too much info. Things went slowly in year one since there was a revolving door problem as different people showed up to the planning meetings each month. Ultimately, it boiled down to the same five or six people who turned up at all the meetings, and they became the decision maker group.
"When it comes to planning a camp with your local community, open it up. Get as many local people involved as you can, but don't be surprised if those numbers dwindle quite rapidly down to a core few. Then, closer to time, engage with the actual community who has volunteered to help out on the weekend-of. We actually had that as a ticket type— you could buy a free volunteer ticket. We probably had about thirty so, but we capped it. There are always dropouts at the last minute, so we always let a few new people come on board — but we always cap the volunteer tickets.2. Define the most important jobs
Wilding says that, when it comes to planning a DrupalCamp, having clearly defined jobs is critical to success.
"We had one person in charge of supporting the volunteers on site," Wilding says. "That person is responsible for updating everyone on what's going on and managing the volunteers on the day-of. Our volunteer coordinator does a walk around with the volunteers on the first day at the venue. Another helpful tool he uses is a spreadsheet where he maps volunteers to specific rooms and tasks.
"Especially with a job like managing volunteers, or handling the website, we've found that it's best to make sure that one person owns it, and it's not too difficult for them to manage."3. Plan ahead
"Give yourself more time than you think you'll need — like months and months more time," advises Wilding. For DrupalCamp London, the team stars more than ten months out on certain elements, such as the website, approaching the venue, and coordinating the team.
"Start anything you can as early as you can," says Wilding. "The first thing, the hardest thing to get sorted out, is the venue — getting a space to commit for free. One you have that space, a lot of other things can fall into place if you're being sensible about it and starting early."
"We get really involved with the whole team about four months out," Wilding continues. "Our camp is always the last weekend in February, so it's awkwardly placed where Christmas sits. We do things in October and November, the ball gets rolling, and then Christmas happens and we lose 5 weeks. When planning your camp, look out for anything holiday related in your calendar, like major public holidays. Be wary that you don't sit back. Plan around it."4. Use personal networks
One way to get great things at low to no cost is through utilizing your community members' personal networks.
"The more people you reach out to, the better, and the more people you've got looking through their personal contacts, the better," says Wilding. "The time to manage speakers and sponsorships is a lot, so it's best if possible if you can get someone to really own that. It's something that's easy to pass around a group of volunteers— you have to have one key person to own it."
Personal networks have helped the London team get keynote speakers, their venue, even their sponsor.
"We've been very fortunate that we get the venue in central London for three days straight. It usually costs hundreds of thousands of pounds, but we got it donated.
"It goes back with personal relationships that one of the organizers had with the university — he had done some free lectures promoting Drupal. It's also about finding the right venue who benefits from the event, too. The computing department at the university we host our DrupalCamp at is very keen to find industry connections for students, so we always donate lots of tickets to their students so they can promote it internally.
"The way it stands now, the university students get the opportunity to meet the best of the best of the Drupal world, and the community benefits from the introduction of new users as well. Housing DrupalCamp London within the city university means they get the benefit of real world enterprise business and technology paired up with their students, which is ideal for them."5. Be Prepared for Complications
Wilding notes that organizing DrupalCamps can be complicated in unexpected places.
"This year, we had the BBC as a diamond sponsor," said Wilding. "We had a contact on their end who was great. However, we had to put everything through their legal department and their marketing department. It was a good lesson for us in that, when you get to a certain level of sponsorship, the complications and the amount of work you have to put in to manage those relationships is incredible."
However, there are ways to address normal pain areas and cut down on the headaches for everyone.
"Registration can be pretty difficult," said Wilding. "Printing names out on lanyards takes ages, and sometimes someone can't find someone's badge because God knows where it went, and there are long queues. We managed to make it much easier this year — we had ten volunteers by the doors in the morning for the first two days, and with 500 people coming in, we knew it could take a long time.
"So instead of printing badges, we just let people sign them on their own. For the actual registration process, we used an app called check me in. People RSVPd for the camp through EventBrite, and so when they walked in, they could check in with the door volunteers, all of whom had the app on their phone. After that, attendees could grab their lanyard, T-shirt, and tote bag. It was so much better than having 150 disgruntled in a queue at the start of the event."6. Enjoy your successes
Every DrupalCamp has great moments, and DrupalCamp London was no exception.
"We had Dr. Sue Black as the keynote for DrupalCamp on Saturday, and it was a bit of a different angle than what we usually have," Wilding said. "We wanted to go beyond the normal Drupal talk for the keynote, so we had Dr. Black come speak about her experiences of promoting women's engagement with technology — and also saving Bletchley park, too.
"One of Dr. Black's favorite projects that she does and does a lot of fundraising for is called Techmums (http://techmums.co/). She promotes technology amongst mothers in poorer, lower income households, and trains them to use it. One success story was how they trained a mum on how to put an attachment on an email. It was totally new to this woman who was running her own business. Before that, she was sending samples across town… she was sending her son at the end of the day across town, on a bus, with these samples for clients to look at. And this totally changed her life.
"After the talk, Dr/ Black had a huge queue of people who wanted to help with her various projects. It was so great that we were able to help our community share knowledge, and hopefully we benefitted the world a bit."7. Thank your supporters
"I'd like to issue another huge thanks to the volunteers and sponsors again because DrupalCamp wouldn't happen without them," said Wilding in conclusion.
"We've had a few people step back from organizing this year so we're looking for new people to get involved and get engaged next year. If you're interested in helping out, keep an eye on the Twitter account (@drupalcampldn and #dclondon). We're taking a break for a few months — but keep an eye on Twitter, and the Drupal London User Group. We'll make some noise in a couple months time, and get people together who want to chat about stepping in and helping out. We're always looking for new people, and are happy to answer any questions people have."
Drupal Association News: Drupal Association Board Meeting: 18 March 2015
In our March board meeting we took a look at the month of February and all the goodness that the Association and the community have managed to stir up. Spoiler alert: it's a lot. We've got lots of impressive changes on Drupal.org, some big community events to recap, and elections. If you missed the meeting, no worries! I'm going to recap some main points below, but you can always watch the recording, review the minutes, or check out the meeting materials (or all of the above, because overacheiver). Here's what we talked about:Operational Update
- We have three new staff starting at the Association. We'll have a new post on our blog shortly to introduce them all, but the long and short of it is this: Our DrupalCon team is now at 100% strength again, our marketing team can now get even more great Drupal content out into the universe, and adding a CFO to our team means that well be able to position the Association to better tell our financial story and project into the future.
- There is a brand (re)new newsletter going out - the Drupal Newsletter. Those of you who have been in the community for a while may remember that the last issue went out in 2008. We recently resuscitated the newsletter subscriptions functionality on your Drupal.org profile AND partnered with Bob Kepford to bring the Weekly Drop (plus a little extra Association goodness) to you once a week. Not subscribed? Go edit your D.O profile and you can subcribe right there!
- We are moving our dashboards into a publicly viewable/slick looking location. Up until now we've been sharing our dashboard data as tables in our monthly board update. It was better than not tracking numbers, but did not allow us to share context for our metrics and frankly, tables are really hard for mere humans to parse. We'll be moving all our metrics into SimpleKPI over time, but for now, take a look at the pretty that is the Drupal.org Dashboard.
We were thrilled to be in Bogota, Colombia for DrupalCon Latin America in February. Although we are really excited about what we accomplished, it did not happen without several very real bumps in the road. First, our attendance goal was 400, but we only hit 263, and one-third of those came in during the last two weeks. Managing the budget and logistics when attendance was so up in the air was a real challenge, but the DrupalCon team managed to ensure that we beat our budget expectations, so there was no negative financial impact for the Association. Most importantly, we learned a lot and saw some great outcomes:
- Many of the sessions offered live translation between English, Spanish, and Portugese. Additionally, the amazing Lingotek donated translations service so that more than 25 of the session recordings are also available in those languages. This experience with multiple languages will help us in future events, as well as with Drupal.org and other resources we help steward.
- We had amazing sprint participation - 38% of attendees stuck around on the final day and battled through a 2-hour internet outage (quite happily, I might add) to make their contributions to the project. Huge thanks to the sprint mentors who help make the day so successful.
- Overall, we think we saw a huge community lift from the event. We had several candidates from Latin America throw their hat in the ring for a board seat in the elections, and we had an increased participation in Global Training Days by Latin American shops. We hope that means that our Latin American community is more closely connected now and that this participation will carry forward and grow into the future.
A lot of the Working Groups work right now is actually rethinking how they work. There are three Drupal.org working groups - Infrastructure, Content, and Software. As the Drupal Association staff has grown and taken on real work, we've had to define how the staff and Working Groups collaborate as we go. the new wrinkle is that there are other Working Groups out there that fall under the Drupal (as opposed to Drupal.org) structure that overlap or relate to the D.O working groups.
For example, the Content Working Group is currently working on a content strategy to completment the user persona research we did and inform an iterative reimagination of Drupal.org. Turns out, a significant portion of that strategy relates to the Documentation Working Group. We didn't figure that out until well into the process, and missed the opportunity to get their feedback and incorporate their needs from the outset. It seems obvious in hindsight, but at the time, we were working with the Drupal.org Working Groups only, which was basically our known universe.
To remedy these kinds of issues, we plan to bring many of the Working Groups together in Los Angeles and are trying to map some process that will ensure that all the right players are brought in at the right time, So, charters are being adjusted, more communication is being planned. We know it's been rough at times, but are committed to finding a path forward that works for everyone.That's all she wrote...
Have questions, ideas, thoughts concerns? Leave 'em in the comments! I would sincerely love to hear from you. Just to know that one person read this post... these take forever to write! :)


text:
Your Cart is Empty
But it doesn't have to be.
Continue Shopping.
But it doesn't have to be.
Continue Shopping.
iHerb Customer Reviews
Customer Ratings
Reviews 4-star
Sort By
Posted by Reviewer2609702 on Jan 22, 2011
Great product, easy to use and tasteless. You can tell it works by watching your nails grow
Was this review helpful to you?
Note: iHerb does not imply any medical claims from this review. Disclaimer.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Ventura, California emcee KYLE has released his debut studio album, Beautiful Loser, which is available for stream here at The DJBooth.
Heralded by reader-approved singles "Keep It Real," "Fruit Snacks & Cups of Patron" and "Raining Love," the project packs a total of 13 original records from the West Coast buzzmaker, plus two digital-only bonus tracks. Beldina, CP and Mr. Man join KYLE on the guest tip throughout the set, which boasts production from Bedrock, Beni Haze, Carnage and more.
Written by richard on Aug 05, 2013
Submit your Rating
Related Songs & Features
First DJ Booth Appearance:
"Silver Platter" (2012)
Total DJ Booth Features:
9 Songs
Commentsblog comments powered by Disqus
DJBooth TV
Discover the best new songs, videos, and albums added to the Booth.


text:
Designer Babies pink leather bow booties
Item No.2210102717
These very cute pink leather bow baby booties are from the very popular collection of stylish designer footwear for baby girls from Junior J by Jasper Conran.
This item is available for
UK Home Delivery Free (UK orders over £30) or £3.99
Delivered within 4 working days
Next or Named Day Delivery
7 days a week between 8am - 6pm
Monday to Friday - order by 7pm - £4.99
Saturday & Sunday - order by 6pm - £4.99
Next or Named Evening Delivery
7 days a week between 6pm - 10pm
Monday to Sunday - order by 10pm - £6.99
Collect from store the next day - FREE
Order before 7pm for next day collection after 12pm midday
Show participating stores
Full Delivery details
These adorable pink leather bow baby shoes from Junior J by Jasper Conran feature rip tape fastenings.
- Upper: leather
- Lining: manmade materials
- Sole: manmade materials


text:
Chilean Fjords
We are planning to take the Marco Polo to Antarctica in 2003. We are thinking of taking the longer 18 day trip which also includes the Chilean Fjords, Lake District, and ends in Santiago. For the additional price, we don't know if we would see enough of the area by sea with three port stops or whether we would do better with a land-based tour for Patagonia.
Re: Chilean Fjords
Will be cruising in this area this fall from Valparisio south around Cape Horn, then to Rio. Will report back when we return (in December).
|All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:49 PM.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO 3.6.1


text:
Hotel Aston Rasuna - Jakarta
Tower A - Lower Ground, Komplek Apartemen Taman Rasuna - Jakarta1-877-662-6988
Free Wi-Fi and 24-hour room service are just a few of the amenities on offer at this family-friendly hotel in Jakarta, so what are you waiting for? Book a room at Aston Rasuna and benefit from its ideal location in the entertainment district which is located in the Golden Triangle area.
Enjoy brunch, lunch and dinner at this 4-star Jakarta hotel's restaurant where you're sure to find something to suit all tastes. If you are in need of rest and relaxation you can find massage/treatment rooms, spa services and a sauna on offer. Don't forget to pack your swimsuit and towel as this hotel features 2 outdoor swimming pools. Outfitted with a bar/lounge, you'll find the perfect place to have a drink. Multilingual staff at the 24-hour front desk can provide tour/ticket assistance, express check-in and express check-out. Child-friendly amenities at this hotel include a children's club and babysitting.
Planning a meeting? This hotel has 4 meeting rooms, as well as a business center. Enjoy free newspapers in the lobby, where you will also find a safe at reception for your valuables. Other amenities include dry cleaning/laundry, an area shuttle, ATM/banking, an elevator (lift) and a garden.
We show TripAdvisor reviews for new Venere hotels that haven't been reviewed yet
Check Availability at Hotel Aston Rasuna
Hotel Facilities at Aston Rasuna
- Business Center
- Meeting Room
- Bar
- Restaurant/Dining
- Cafeteria
- Snack bar
- Baby sitter
- Children's mini club
- Laundry service
- Lift/elevator
- Room service - 24 hour
- Shops in the hotel
- Laundry room
- Garden
- Limousine service
- Shuttle service from and/or to the airport
- Shuttle service
- Valet service
- Multilingual staff
- Newspapers
- Front desk - safety deposit box
- Front desk - 24 hour
- Concierge
- Luggage room
- City tour
- Tennis court
- Health club
- Sauna
- Massages
- Spa/Wellness Centre
- Internet/Email services
Know before you go
- Children 10 years old and younger stay free when occupying the parent or guardian's room, using existing bedding.
- Only registered guests are allowed in the guestrooms.
Check-in: after 2 PM.
Check-out: before noon.
PolicyExtra-person charges may apply and vary depending on hotel policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
City tax and/or any other fees charged by the hotel
The following fees and deposits are charged by the property at time of service, check-in, or check-out.
- Airport shuttle fee: USD 36 per vehicle (one way)
- Valet parking fee: USD 3 per stay
The above list may not be comprehensive. Fees and deposits may not include tax and are subject to change.
Hotel Aston Rasuna is also known as
Aston Rasuna Hotel
Aston Rasuna Hotel Jakarta
Aston Hotel Rasuna
Jakarta Aston
Room Details
Book your family-friendly accommodation at Aston Rasuna, offering 213 guest rooms with climate control and premium TV channels. Rooms open onto balconies. For comfort and convenience, each individually furnished guest room comes with a separate sitting and dining area. Well appointed kitchens offer a range of facilities, including full-sized refrigerators/freezers, microwaves and cookware/dishes/utensils, allowing you to save on dining expenses while you travel.
Guests can kick back at the end of a busy day and enjoy 29-inch flat-screen televisions with satellite channels. Business travelers visiting the Golden Triangle area will have access to free wireless high-speed Internet access as well as desks and safes. Additional guest comforts include air conditioning, minibars and free bottled water.
Private bathrooms are outfitted with shower/tub combinations, bathrobes, slippers and complimentary toiletries. Irons/ironing boards and hair dryers can be provided on request.
Accommodation Services
- Air conditioning
- Mini bar
- Ironing facilities on request
- Safe
- Desk
- Hairdryer on request
- Individually controlled air conditioning
- Terrace/Balcony
- Satellite TV
- Wireless Internet access
- Kitchen
Distances from Hotel Aston RasunaEpicentrum Walk - 0.3 km / 0.2 mi
Pasar Festival - 0.7 km / 0.4 mi
Setiabudi One - 0.8 km / 0.5 mi
Kota Kasablanka Mall - 1 km / 0.6 mi
Kuningan City Mall - 1.2 km / 0.7 mi
ITC Kuningan - 1.3 km / 0.8 mi
Ambassador Mall - 1.4 km / 0.8 mi
Sasmita Loka Museum - 1.4 km / 0.9 mi
Ciputra World 1 - 1.6 km / 1 mi
Mega Kuningan - 1.6 km / 1 mi
Proclamation Monument - 1.8 km / 1.1 mi
Adam Malik Museum - 1.9 km / 1.2 mi
Jakarta World Trade Center - 1.9 km / 1.2 mi
Taman Suropati - 2 km / 1.3 mi
General Soedirman - 2.3 km / 1.4 mi
The preferred airport for Aston Rasuna is Jakarta (CGK-Soekarno-Hatta Intl.) - 22.9 km / 14.2 mi.
Distances are calculated in a straight line from the property's location to the point of interest or airport and may not reflect actual travel distance.
Distances are displayed to the nearest 0.1 mile and kilometer.
Transportation services Hotel Aston Rasuna
- Limousine service
- Shuttle service from and/or to the airport
- Shuttle service
- Valet service
We have the accommodation you need, all over the world
- • Inter-hotel Mireille - Arles, France
- • Hotel Les Cabanettes - Arles, France
- • Hotel Promenade Barra First - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- • Hôtel Atrium - Arles, France
- • Grand Hotel Nord-Pinus - Arles, France
- • Hotel Eden Roc - Marseille, France
- • AC Hotel Cuzco by Marriott - Madrid, Spain
- • Hotel du Globe - Aix-en-Provence, France
- • Comfort Hotel André Latin - Paris, France
- • B&B La Terrazza del Subasio - Assisi, Italy
- • Hôtel De France - Aix-en-Provence, France
- • L Appartement Hotel - Montreal, Canada
- • Hotel Constantin - Arles, France
- • Hotel Kyriad Arles - Arles, France
- • Hotel Le Relais de la Poste - Arles, France
- • Corinaldo Hotels, Italy
- • Serra-di-Ferro Hotels, France
- • Los Angeles Hotels, USA
- • Sisteron Hotels, France
- • Conversano Hotels, Italy
- • Six-Fours-les-Plages Hotels, France
- • Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval Hotels, France
- • Chefchaouen Hotels, Morocco
- • Caucaia Hotels, Brazil
- • Armeno Hotels, Italy
- • Chiesa in Valmalenco Hotels, Italy
- • Ameno Hotels, Italy
- • Póvoa de Varzim Hotels, Portugal
- • Senlis Hotels, France
- • Sénas Hotels, France


text:
Pro Cycling
Armstrong Confession Could Be Coming
Former champion considering doping admission, say close sources
Pro Cycling
Lance Armstrong Will Not Appeal Lifetime Cycling Ban
The former seven-time Tour de France winner had until December 27 to respond to the UCI's anti-doping decision
Pro Cycling
Why Lance Armstrong Still Has His Sydney Olympic Medal
UCI must notify the cyclist before IOC can take action
Pro Cycling
Paul Kimmage and the Long Crusade
Irish journalist talks about Rough Ride 22 years after its publication
Pro Cycling
George Hincapie Admits Doping
American joins other Armstrong teammates in cooperating with USADA
Featured Stories
Banned from Pro Cycling, Armstrong Returns to Mountain Bikes
Stripped of his 7 Tour de France titles, Armstrong competes in a local race in Aspen.
Pro Cycling
USADA's Tygart: Armstrong to Lose Seven Tour de France Titles
'It is a sad day for all of us who love sport and our athletic heroes': Tygart
Pro Cycling
Lance Armstrong Will Not Fight Doping Charges, and His Seven Tour de France Titles Are Now in Jeopardy
Armstrong: 'Today I turn the page. I will no longer address this issue'
Pro Cycling
5 Questions With Betsy Andreu
One of the most unswerving and longtime accusers of Lance Armstrong talks about justice, the yellow jerseys, and if vindication is possible
Jonathan Vaughters Talks Doping Reform
Our exclusive interview with the Garmin-Sharp boss


text:
Drawn by a desire to feed the world, build community, and find a meaningful life, more and more women are cultivating careers in farming.
Female farmers are as colorful as the crops they raise. These pictures will give you a taste of who they are and what they grow.
As the public's appetite grows for locally grown eats, so do the smart marketing campaigns designed to help local farmers, and foster more of them.
The windy city has two major new parks in the works -- one for people, the other for the birds.
The North Branch of the Chicago River had nearly vanished from both sight and memory. Then the Riverbank Neighbors appeared.
City officials unveil plans to create a new generation of growers who will turn thousands of vacant lots into Chicago's bread baskets.
What's the matter, farmer? Down on your luck? Pick up a pitchfork -- or better yet, put on some knee socks and roller skates -- and do some interpretive dance.
A new generation of homesteaders heads to the woods to learn about beekeeping, artisanal bread making, how to make an electric car -- you know, the basics.
If Mayor Rahm Emanuel has his way, his new Recipe for Healthy Places will put locally grown fruits and vegetables within reach for all Chicago's residents.
We've devised the world's shortest survey to find out what kind of actions our readers are taking. You know you want to.


text:
HAVE: Hostas, Purple Maj. Millet & Others
Purple Majesty Millet - 3 trades
Hosta 'Krossa Regal' - 2 trades
Hosta 'Lancifolia' - 1 HUGE trade or several small trades
Hosta 'Aureomarginata' - several very nice sized trades
Hosta 'Royal Standard' - 3 very large trades
Hosta 'Yellow Splash Rim' - 1 trade
Hosta 'Sugar & Cream' - 2 trades
Yarrow 'Yellow Moonshine' - 2 trades
Bishops Weed / Snow on the Mountain - loads and loads
Named hostas that I don't have (sorry but list is not totally up to date. Please let me know what you have! :)
Metal plant tags - the hairpin style or kind w/ the two wires that stick in the ground and have a plate that attaches.
Please post replies here!
Have these if interested write back.
golden tiara
Grand Tiara
Platinum Tiara
Emerald Tiara
Diamond Tiara
Ginko craig
Francess William
Albo Maginata
Bressingham Blue
Royal Standard
Gold Standard
Surprise lily
Here is a link that might be useful: GWpage


text:
B. Nektar Zombie Killer Cherry Cyser Mead
Select Quantities
Item #38974
Check Availability »
- Size: 500ml
- Type: Mead
- Country: United States
- Region: Michigan
An apple honey wine with cherry juice added.
From the label:
"Dedicated to the freaks and geeks! What started as a top-secret experiment with Michigan honey, cherries and apple cider became a viral epidemic. It won't be easy to survive, so grab your weapons and don't forget this bottle for backup! Serve cold...zombies hate the cold...
Apple cider with honey and tart cherry juice. Lightly carbonated." Reviewed by: Producer
Prices, promotions and availability may vary by store and online.


text:
Latest Quantum chromodynamics Stories
Physicists working with the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at CERN have made two new discoveries: subatomic particles which they are describing as cousins to the neutron and proton.
Researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory simulated the birth of the universe using Livermore's 5-petaflop Vulcan high performance computer.
The Large Hadron Collider has already played an essential role in the discovery of the so-called God particle, and now the world's largest particle collider may have helped scientists discover a new form of matter known as the tetraquark.
A team of international scientists has found the first ever direct evidence of pear-shaped atomic nuclei, a discovery that could shed light on some of the deepest mysteries of the universe.
In September 2012, the Large Hadron Collider conducted a short run of collisions between protons and lead nuclei. The roughly two million events recorded were set to serve as a baseline for lead-lead collisions anticipated for next year. However, these events produced an unexpected result.
Scientists working with the the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed the first glimpses of a possible boundary separating ordinary nuclear matter.
Scientists working at CERN's Large Hadron Collider are gaining a better understanding of the primordial universe through experimentation involving the use of heavy ions.
As record-setting heat and wildfires continue to consume Colorado, one team of scientists has created a temperature so hot the Sun would melt.
An international collaboration of scientists has reported a landmark calculation of the decay process of a kaon into two pions, using breakthrough techniques on some of the world's fastest supercomputers.
How liquid can a fluid be?
Latest Quantum chromodynamics Reference Libraries
Strange Matter -- Strange matter (also known as quark matter) is an ultra-dense phase of matter that is theorized to form inside particularly massive neutron stars (which are then known as "strange stars" or "quark stars"). It's theorized that when neutronium is put under sufficient pressure due to the gravitation of a large neutron star, the individual neutrons break down and their constituent quarks form strange matter. Strange matter is composed of strange quarks bound to each...
- The practice of two or more parties jointly purchasing all or part of a butchered cow and dividing the meat between them.


text:
Getting Depression When You're Hiv Positive
Here's a taste of what TheBody.com has to offer on this topic:
Get the Facts
Women, Depression and HIV/AIDS... Table of Contents Depression Is More Common in Women How Do I Know if I'm Depressed? Depression Can Cause Serious Problems Treatment Options Get Evaluated and Treated for Depression Depression Is More Common in Women While many people
Ask the Experts
HIV/AIDS Wellness and Practical Strategies for Managing Mental Health and Depression in the WorkplaceI have put together this conference here in South Africa. I want to know what sort of topics will benefit delegates. Workplace programs on this subject are almost non existant here. Many people have shown great interest to attend this, but I don't...
Response from Ewald Horwath, M.D.
University of Miami School of Medicine...There are several important topics for a workplace conference like this. It should include topics such as 1)HIV prevention, 2) general education about HIV (how it is and is not transmitted, how does HIV testing work, what is the course of Read more »
HIV & depressionCan depression be considered a symptom of HIV? I know that medications such as Sustiva can cause depression but what about the disease itself?
Response from Ewald Horwath, M.D.
University of Miami School of Medicine...The prevalence of depression is higher among people with HIV/AIDS than in the general population. There are many reasons for this. One is that depression and substance abuse often occur together, Read more »
Mental Health, Depression and HIVMy partner recently has undergone sever depression bouts. His HIV doctor is doing little if nothing to assist us in dealing with this issue and the depression and stress is getting worse by the day. Recent episodes include short term memory loss,...
Response from Ewald Horwath, M.D.
University of Miami School of Medicine...need to bring him to a psychologist or psychiatrist to evaluate him and recommend treatment. It sounds like he has a severe depression and needs treatment immediately. Read more »
will a combination of a depressant and an anti depressant and Lorazepam, affect the HIV 1or HIV2 or HSV 2 or Hep B or HepC result?Dear Dr. Bob, I was taking celexa for like two years and i used to drink a lot(every day)due to the stress over an exposure, during the same period. I used to take celexa for my depression and still be drinking alcohol,one more thing is that four...
Response from Robert J. Frascino, M.D.
The Robert James Frascino AIDS Foundation...from Valley of the Dolls, is that you again??? Relax, dearie, none of your "pick-me-ups" or "calm-me-downs" will affect your HIV or hepatitis tests, OK? In case this isn't Nealy, I suggest that you, whoever you are, Netflix a copy of Valley of... Read more »
Depression and HIV... What Is Depression? Is Depression Important? What Are the Signs of Depression? What Causes Depression? Treatment for Depression The Bottom Read more »
Group Therapy Can Help Treat Depression Among HIV/AIDS Patients, Uganda Study Says...People living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda who also have major depression have benefited from group therapy sessions, according to a study conducted by counselors Read more »
Loneliness and HIV-Related Stigma Explain Depression Among Older HIV-Positive Adults...aggressive and innovative efforts to resolve both psychosocial and physical health issues that characterize the graying of the AIDS epidemic in the USA," according to the authors of the current study. Thanks to treatment advances, more adults... Read more »
AIDS and Depression: Ohio University Tests HIV Phone Therapy... Can depressed HIV/AIDS patients in rural settings benefit from weekly psychotherapy sessions by telephone? An Ohio University professor of geriatric Read more »
Connect With Others
I've had EVERY symptom related to HIV so depressed
Posted by Anonymous, 21 Replies...the past year and I'm hoping to God that it's something else because i'm scared to death to get tested to find out that I'm HIV positive. I've had white tongue, swollen lymph nodes in my throat, diarrhea, abnormal abdominal problems, night... Read more »
Posted by iNvisible, 7 Replies...Is depression a symptom of HIV?...I feel like everyday is getting harder and harder...I've become scared of almost everything and almost everyday Read more »
HIV and depression
Posted by Anonymous, 4 RepliesBeen asymptomatic for over 20 years , and living with fear as to when will I finally get sick. Defense mechanism of not disclosing has turned to a life of very limited amount of friends which has resulted in lonliness. I find myself crying for no... Read more »
Sexual Assualt, HIV testing, depression.
Posted by Anonymous, 1 Reply...overwhelm me with medical jargon, or give me the lecture's etc, etc). Here's the rub; I've since been treated with clincical depression, severs stress anxiety, etc, etc. As a result my blood pressure has gone through the roof - had some more... Read more »
Resource Centers
Guides for People With HIV


text:
Get free worksheets plus activities, articles and science projects.
To master counting to ten, kindergarteners often count their fingers and toes. Have him apply his natural curiosity about the outdoors to counting practice, and create a counting book for repeated practice!
About Us | Support | PRIVACY POLICY |
Terms of Use | Partners | AdChoices


text:
Bob Costantini, CNN
Click below to hear the interview
Jump to main content.
Sponsored By:
Monday - 8/23/2010, 10:16am EDT
Click below to hear the interview
The U.S. military has announced its first troop death since the much publicized withdrawal of the last full combat brigade last week. That word and continuing sectarian violence has prompted the leading general, Ray Odierno, to reply with optimism for the country's future. CNN's Bob Costantini joins the Federal Drive with the story.


text:
6 posts tagged with gay and etiquette.
Displaying 1 through 6 of 6. Subscribe:
Human male social etiquette question.
I've asked a couple questions about building a richer social life on AskMeta, and a few times I've gotten the suggestion that I should be spending more one-on-one time with friends and acquaintances. My observations suggest that women socialize this way more often than men do. Tell me I'm wrong, then share tips. [more inside]
And guest?
How do I RSVP to this wedding shower? [more inside]
How do you act in a gay bar?
Just out of the closet. Little bit socially clueless. Teach me how to behave at a gay bar. [more inside]
He's Not My Brother, Dammit.
How to tactfully respond when people comment that my partner and I look like "brothers"? [more inside]
I don't want a wedding list/gift registry!
How do I avoid a "wedding" list (or gift registry as they're called here) without upsetting people? [more inside]
gender neutrality
Suppose you are talking to someone (an acquaintance, a workmate, a person at a party) who you are pretty sure is gay. This person is talking about someone s/he is dating and is being completely gender neutral. What is the appropriate response? Do you maintain gender neutrality with your questions and comments (which can get awkward and feel silly)? Do you make a comment that includes the phrase "he or she" to indicate that you're aware that it may be either and that you're nonjudgmental (but potentially putting this person on the spot to pick a gender and out him/herself)? Do you pick the likely gender and continue the conversation blithely the way most people do in assumed-heterosexual conversations (again with the potential outing)? For the purposes of this exercise, assume no one else is in earshot.
Page: 1


text:
Darkstar proudly welcomes Dave Bachinsky to their team. Check out his board here. Full video part coming soon.
Cameo Wilson blazed a path through Las Vegas, Vancouver, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen to bring you this official pro debut video part. Watch it here.
Ryan has that rare "problem" where he stacks such a firestorm of utterly insane clips that even a skate rat's brain has a hard time comprehending it all. You just have to watch this.
It's hard to believe one guy can do this many jaw-dropping street stunts. This re-edit is a good chance to take it all in again.
|CONS Project: New York NY,NY Apr 04
|CONS Project: LA Los Angeles,CA Apr 04
|CONS Project: Toronto Toronto, Canada Apr 11
|CONS Project: Boston Boston,MA Apr 11


text:
Hotel Francia
No availability found through our partners. Please contact the business directly or check some of our recommended alternatives.
How has this hotel rated in the past?
- Suites
- Continental Breakfast
- Free High-Speed Internet
- Room service
- Restaurant
- Bar/lounge
Photos of Hotel Francia
Travelers also recommend:
TripAdvisor Reviews Hotel Francia San Miguel de Tucuman
Travel Blogs from San Miguel de Tucuman
... unpack another layer and retreat indoors to nurse a couple of
cups of tea until it was time for by 8.30pm bus.
It was on time until we had to swap buses, a process, given
the huge numbers of Bolivians and their luggage, was a major nearly 2 hour ordeal.
It was not clear why, though if it was because of faulty brakes, then I'm all
for it whereas if it was a broken toilet, the new bus had a broken one too!
We've run out of countries..
Chile continues to impress - yet to spot a pothole on a main road and driving standards are still good. More importantly the scenery is massive. Lots of desert on the way to San Pedro de Atacama which is no great surprise. The Atacama is the driest place on earth and some areas haven't seen rain for 12 thousand years allegedly. I'm always dubious about these 'facts' though ! The area is frequently used for filming Mars scenes for film ...
Hitting the towns…
... giving a summary of his life as well as a short video showing his childhood friends. After me taking way too many photos we walked to the main street. Oddly enough this reminded us of a British seaside town because of its ornate benches and lampposts. We got some lunch (pasties and cakes) and then went back to look at the Jesuit monastery. As far as we could work out it was no longer a functioning monastery but it's a pretty good museum. Annabel was ...
Picking up the pieces from yesterday
... and fashionable type clothes, then theres more shops selling everything you can think of than at Medowhall. Unfortunately, as I am climbing in altitude, I need warm, practicle clothes. As far I can find, there is only 1 outdoor type shop. Trousers are found, a jacket will have to wait.
Tomorrow, on to Salta which is supposed to be much nicer (to look at) with more to do.
The Great ATM Search
I�ll make this brief. We were stuck in Tucum�n waiting for our next bus (a 6 hour wait for a 14 hour bus ride...) and needed to get some cash out of the ATM. The two in the terminal didn�t work. We walked to the information booth and asked where the next closest one was. Walked there... broken. Walked down a street and actually found out ...