Learning Drupal

I've messed around a bit creating webpages in the past. The first website that I ever created was made in about 1996 as part of a work project. That's also when I used my first web browser Netscape. Remember using that? I had edited HTML pages by hand to create loosely structured content. The bobino website contains some of that same code. Have a look using the link on your right under Favorite Net Places.

Over the years I've added additional pages and links describing my interests, web counters, visitor logs and advertisements. It was created to describe interesting things about me and to meet others with similar interests. It paid off in an completely unexpected way when I was looking for a place to rent. The landlord used Google to find that page and decided I was potentially a great tenant. He didn't bother to check my references before giving me the place!

Recently I've come up the with a couple of interesting ideas for websites that might have potential for income streams, though probably modest. The income from the advertisements on the original bobino site has been small, though I've never tried promotion of any kind. The old pages have had a few hits it earned me just a few dollars each month. I've learned watching what others havd done, the real trick is to create content and community such that people want to subscribe.

To develop the new sites I first tried Joomla and found he methods for allowing users to enter data were seriously lacking. I worked on it for a few months part time and gave up discouraged. Now I'm going to give it a try using Drupal. The Drupal community seems to be a bit more mature in the development of open source tools. The core system is pretty nice for creating simple websites or blogs and I'm excited to try some of the free tools for allowing subscribers to enter thier own content. Looks like its going to be fun!

Keep an eye on my blog for future developments.

-Bob