Having a good content management system is crucial to the success of any online business. With so many to choose from, it can be hard to decide which ones will live up to their promises. In fact, it can be difficult just to find the top three! Below we’ve given you an overview of the three best content management systems; Drupal, Joomla, and Mambo. The information below should aid you in conducting your own thorough investigation, based on your needs.

Drupal

Drupal has quickly become one of the most popular content management systems. It’s recent popularity boom is due to the fact that it is an open-source software, which means it can be improved by any developer with an interest in doing so. Drupal has been said to be a perfect solution for people who are building community-based websites such as forums. This is because one of it’s most notable features is it’s user permissions system. With it’s extensive administrative control, webmasters can control every aspect of their forum. Drupal is also preferred over Joomla in terms of development because it is easier to interact with and expand.

Joomla

Joomla has also gained popularity because of it’s powerful features and easy user interface. While Joomla also includes forum managing features, these features are not it’s strongest points. Among the more notable features of this CMS is it’s administrative functionality for image galleries, search engine optimization, shopping carts, and forum management. Some users choose Joomla over Drupal due to it’s user-friendly interface. Although there is some learning curve involved with Joomla it is often described as the easiest CMS around.

Mambo

The Mambo content management system was one of the first popular open source content managements systems. While it has been around for quite some time now, it still have a group of developers backing it that maintain it’s functionality and reliability. Even though it was one of the pioneer content management systems, it has fallen somewhat behind the newer CMS softwares available. The primary reason for it’s recently decreased popularity is it’s code incompatibility due to it’s age. For this reason many developers shy away from developing applications that can be used with Mambo. With each new advance in the consent management industry, Mambo becomes more obsolete.

Making the Decision

The first thing you’ll want to do when investigating your options, is go to the main site of each of the content management systems above. Make sure you review all of their features and ensure you’re going to be able to fulfill all of your needs by using the software. Even though one of the softwares may be more suitable for you it is still likely that you will need to install additional applications. It is very unlikely that you will find all of the desired features within one CMS, therefor you’ll want to do some research and find out which CMS has the compatible applications you need. Once you’ve made your decision, you can install the CMS of your choice simply with the Fantastico program.

Open-source software has really made a name for itself in recent times, now prevalent in the form of multimedia players, operating systems and web applications.  In fact, companies around the world are leveraging this type of software to maintain their day to day business operations.  Open-source programs can suite a variety of needs across a broad range of industries and market segments.  One area this software has truly settled into is e-commerce, in particularly, the shopping cart.

Open-source shopping cart software offers a cost effective alternative to traditional commercial solutions.  Perhaps the biggest draw to these programs is that they provide the online merchant with the ability to customize the software to satisfy the unique requirements of their business.  This is all made possible active communities that make templates, modules and various other components widely available in addition to their continuous efforts to enhance the project.

What to Look for

When shopping for any software, open-source or proprietary, it is important for merchants to thoroughly research and evaluate the product before sending it into deployment.  Because there is no single solution that works for every store, it is crucial to select a cart based on individual needs.   With that said, here some critical features you want to look for in an open-source product:

Product Capacity - An online store owner must be able to determine limitations for their product capacity.  For instance, if you have a catalog compromised of more than 500 products but the shopping cart only supports 200, you should know right then and there that the software cannot suit your requirements.  The good thing is that most open-source shopping carts offer support for an unlimited number of products.

System Performance – A lagging, sluggish online store is one of the fastest ways to send your customers surfing to the competition.  For this reason, you need to perform due diligence to make sure your shopping cart delivers an optimal performance.  A lot of this depends on server configuration, but the software itself should definitely be evaluated for performance before you make the final decision.

Community Support – An open-source shopping cart usually comes with no official form of technical support or customer service, which essentially means that there is no hotline to call up whenever you experience problems.  Therefore, you need to find a piece of software that is backed by a strong community of developers and users who solidly back the project.  While the quality of support can never be guaranteed, it is still a good idea to check online in the appropriate forums to access the atmosphere and measure how long it takes for users to generate a response.

Payment Gateway Compatibility – If you want to be able to accept and process credit and debit card payments, then you will need an open-source solution that supports third-party payment gateways.  Although this needs to be considered in your research, it should be comforting to know that many open-source shopping carts are compatible with the major payment gateway service providers.

100% green web hosting, eco-friendly servers, solar and wind powered services – the list of environmentally friendly products is growing every day.  One of the newest hot phrases flung around lately is “organic software.”  Exactly what is organic software and how is it implemented into hosted web sites?

The actual meaning

The term “organic software” is simply a rephrasing of open source software that is available to download off of the internet.  The software is designed, developed and distributed freely all the while offering complete accessibility to its source code.  Because it is available for free download, there is no manufacturing process put into the creation of software disks.  You are left with software that makes no carbon footprint or impact on the environment.  When we think of the word “organic” we are left with the impressions of something home-grown, without the use of chemicals.  In a bit of a leap, the word organic in this case is used to convey simply “home-grown”.  So, instead of the mouthful of “free to download open source software,” we can use the term “organic software.”

Software that is organic

Armed with our new, shorter and more eco-friendly phrase, we can now go on the hunt for software that fits this bill.  In the realm of web hosting, there are literally thousands of programs out there that could be classified as organic software.  Drupal is one such program – a content management system that is developed and designed by a community of developers and is available to freely download.  vTiger is an organic customer relationship management piece of software.  Some examples of organic design programs are Gimp, Picasa2 and Nvu.  A fantastic web server program that definitely can be categorized as organic software is WAMP – Windows Apache MySQL PHP combined into an easy and simple to use server program.  All of these programs are open source and are all free to download.

Firefox is the newest to proclaim

Mozilla Firefox has recently put out to the public that it is a 100% piece of organic software.  The company states that it can claim this due to Firefox having been created by thousands spanning the globe, the company itself is non-profit and it completely exposes the internal workings (code) of its product.  Mozilla firmly believes that by ensuring that the developing community has access to Firefox’s coding, it can only continue to become a better and better product and this benefits all Firefox browser users.

Same song, different dance

It certainly seems like organic software really isn’t something new.  Open source technology and programs have been available for many years.  However, the reasoning behind the new phraseology lays within the push to be greener, more ecologically friendly.  Businesses, software creators, software programmers and even web hosting companies are quickly realizing this is a hot issue and are doing their level best to jump on the bandwagon.  What it all comes down to is organic software is just the newest spin on an already eco-friendly system called open source programming.

When big companies launch their new commercial software, they do so with press releases, conferences and other hoopla that adds to the hype.  When new open-source products are introduced, even some of the popular ones are launched with far less fanfare.  The community involved with this type of software are usually too busy developing and testing their projects to roll out all the bells and whistles that come along with a marketing campaign.  This is often the case with some of the most remarkable programs.  Although we have already zoomed through a good portion of 2009, there are still a number of big open-source projects that have yet to be released.  We have gathered up some of the most notable in this article.

New Linux Platforms

Linux fans have a lot to look forward to as there are major plans in the works for this open-source operating system.  Already launching Ubuntu 9.04 in April of this year, the Ubuntu development team is also looking to introduce 9.10 in October 2009.  Some of the new features promised are integration with Amazon’s EC2 API, which will allow users to set up their own cloud with open tools, and a kernel mode for enabling a seamless, flicker-free startup.  In addition, Red Hat is slated to release Fedora 11 sometime this summer, complete with many new updates.  According to the developers, the system will boot up and shut down faster and also include improved support for fingerprint readers.

Scripting Tools and Languages

In December of 2008, the development communities of Merb and Ruby on Rails made an agreement to merge instead of maintain parallel development initiatives.  Their goal was to preserve the advanced features and flexible configuration of Merb along with the ease of use and enhanced productivity that has made Rails such a hit among developers.  Called Rails 3, the new project will incorporate various features and concepts of Merb, including its JavaScript libraries, object relational models and template languages.  Although Rails 3 didn’t make its May 2009 beta release date, developers may want to keep their ear to the ground to see when it does hit the market.

More Open-Source Projects to Keep an Eye On

MariaDB – This project is a community-developed branch of MySQL.  The brainchild of Michael “Monty” Widenius, MySQL AB and Monty Program AB founder, the database is said to be powered by the Maria storage engine.

CodeIgniter 2.0 - Designed for coders who desire a more user-friendly and elegant toolkit, CodeIgniter 2.0 is a PHP framework that leaves a minimal footprint and allows developers to create full-featured web-based applications.

Dojo 1.3 – This tool set is an all-in-one solution for developers who need to create dynamic web applications, particularly those who want to become masters at DHTML and JavaScript coding.  Said to be released in the very near future, Dojo 1.3 offers a new lightning fast CSS selector query engine as well as all new widgets and components.

There is a slew of open-source software projects set to hit the market and we haven’t even scratched the surface.  Others include software for mobile platforms, business apps, enterprise collaboration and many more.  With so much on the plate, there is bound to be an open-source application you’ve been looking forward to coming very soon.