Drupal Programmer - Bay Area - Santa Cruz
I have been a Drupal programmer since early 2004 and have used versions 4, 5 and 6. It has come a long way in the past 6 years and many things that had to be custom-coded in version 4 are now easily configured in version 6 with built-in core modules or popular third-party modules. But, having had to write many custom Drupal modules from scratch has aided in my understanding of how to use the new modules and how to modify them (via hooks) as needed. Although you can use Drupal out-of-the-box, knowing how the Drupal internals are structured and how functionality can be altered is very useful for more complex websites. Here are some of the Drupal programming projects that I have been working on:
Nitro Module (2009 - Contract/Freelance)
Drupal Developer - Architected and wrote a custom Drupal 6 module for Bunchball to integrate with their Nitro platform.
Boom Boom Cards (2009-present - Contract/Freelance)
Drupal Programmer - Taken over development of the Boom Boom Cards Drupal 6 website. Website was in place before starting project, but so far have fixed various bugs and added/configured in SEO related functionality. New social networking features will be added soon.
Appscio.com/Appscio.org Websites (2009-present - Contract/Freelance)
Drupal Developer - Taken over development of the Appscio dot-com and dot-org Drupal 6 websites. Basic sites were in place before starting project, but so far have added/configured in SEO related modules, added alphabetical indices to various views, and various bug fixes.
Rock Band Website (2009 - Contract/Freelance)
Drupal Programmer - Coding/theming on a Drupal 6 website that uses Flash, Ajax, CCK, Views, Services, and more. Basic site was in place before starting the project, but had to jump in and understand the complex architecture enough to add in hook code, javascript, ajax, views changes, theming, etc.
Classic Vacations Website (2008-2009 - Contract/Freelance)
Drupal Architect/Developer - Architected and programmed a very large vacation website using Drupal 6 and numerous third-party modules including cck, views, autonodetitle, pathauto, menu_block, imageapi, global_redirect, nodewords (meta tags), pagetitle, and more. The site has a complex site structure, and many different layouts and custom content types. My work includes custom content types, custom tpl files based on those content types, css integration, auto menu generation code, ahah forms, custom module code, etc. The site will be launched in Fall 2009.
Kristen Pol's Website (2008-2010 - In Progress)
Small Project - Working on this website to showcase the use of Drupal 6 and how to configure Drupal for SEO (search engine optimization). There will be more to come.
Free Stock Software and Resources (2008-2010 - In Progress)
Small Project - Developing a resource website for free stock market software downloads and information. Website is being developed with Drupal 6 and several third-party modules such as captcha, fivestar, globalredirect, nodewords, page_title, pathauto, and views.
Classical Music Site (2008-2009 - Contract/Freelance)
Drupal Architect/Programmer - Architected and developed a high-end classical music website with custom e-commerce capabilities and back-end integration with a brick-and-mortar accounting and inventory system. Website is based on Drupal 5 and includes several third-party Drupal modules such as cck, i18n, and jdmenu. Many custom modules were written to handle e-commerce features (shopping cart, product galleries, checkout process, credit card processing) as well as custom form processing. Site required migration of existing look-and-feel from their previous Cold Fusion website.
Democrasay.com (2007-2008 - Contract/Freelance)
Drupal SEO Consultant - Provided guidance on Drupal SEO and feedback on site structure and content. Website was built on Drupal 5 with a variety of third-party modules.
Developers.net (2004-present - Contract/Freelance)
Drupal Developer / SEO Architect - Developed a technical content repository website with client showcases to highlight products, services and educational content for high-tech companies. Website was built with Drupal 4 and was comprised primarily of custom modules and utilizes object-oriented PHP for common showcase functionality. Designed and implemented SEO (search engine optimization) strategy to increase quality traffic to site which started at around 10K/month and was increased by more than 20x.
AVAILABILITY AND RATES. Please feel free to contact me if you are in need of a Drupal programmer, need help with your Web or Drupal SEO (search engine optimization), or other contract/freelance programming work.
Comments
Regarding Drupal
Drupal is a more mature CMS than WP, and has better features compare to joomla. I have been a Drupal user for over 4 years, and in my opinion drupal is light years ahead of joomla.
Last year, I switched from drupal to a different CMS called expressionengine and I will never comeback again to Drupal.
What i like about expression engine is the custom fields, you can build "virtually" ANY CMS, with custom publish pages to every site section. Just create the fields and insert the code in correct places.
With the variables {if} I can create complex conditionals which can show or hide content just like my own rules.
If I wanna build a javascript gallery, I can implement that with eye-candy animation text/image javascripts. Much easier then drupal.
I can also integrate the output with Flash. All I have to do is just create the XML.
Drupal theme engine is very rigid, actually it sucks :). Not easy to customize, on the other hand with expression engine, I'm able to import any theme or skin from any CMS to expression engine. Pretty simple.
What I'm looking for is security and the ability to create custom design. For me was a time consuming task in Drupal, and I always ended up witha non validated theme.
ExpressionEngine
Thanks for the heads-up on ExpressionEngine. I hadn't heard of it and see that it's in beta so must be pretty new.
Glad it's working for you... always good to see new innovation in the CMS world.
I'm going to stick with Drupal for now, but maybe I'll play with this soon.
Cheers,
Kristen
I prefer working with Joomla
I prefer working with Joomla the easiest most robust CMS out The admin panel is a breeze article posting is super easy and with all the modules like CB and Virtumart there is very little limit to what you can do in Joomla
Joomla
I hear Joomla is good. I haven't played with it so I can't compare, but glad it's working for you.
Kristen
Drupal
Drupal seems to be a great platform, but in terms of ease-of-use I found it (in my limited experience) a bit more difficult than Joomla or Plone.
Thanks for the post though, it showcases some really excellent sites.
Luke @ Unleaded Software
hey nice job on the post! i
hey nice job on the post! i really enjoyed reading it and hope to be seeing more in the near future. keep up the good work. thanks again.
I find generally that Drupal
I find generally that Drupal sites are ugly but the ones listed above are beautiful. I'm starting out as a web developer, can I ask if, in your opinion, I could get by with just knowing Drupal or do you think I'll have to start learning other types of CMS?
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Chickpea - Website Assistant
You can make drupal sites
You can make drupal sites look however you want if you know what you are doing... requires knowledge of css+html+(some)php.
Other popular CMS platforms are Wordpress and Joomla.
Kristen
I am currently thinking to
I am currently thinking to install drupal in my Poker site, is there any program or software that can get rid of the wordpress and install drupal without removing my content?
Wordpress to Drupal
I haven't used Wordpress but there is a discussion here: http://drupal.org/node/10900
Good luck,
Kristen