We share what we've learned.
"The true measure of your education is not what you know, but how you share what you know with others" -Kent Nerburn
There is no substitute for experience. Though books and classes can teach you the ideas and steps to completing tasks, there is a limit to what they can cover. Every System Admin has heard"There was no way you would have known unless you've seen it before, but next time you'll know immediately" feeling all the more wiser when the day came to once again utilize the experience gained.
If you have an interest in participating either by writing or giving suggestions including topics please contact us.
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Popular Articles
Navigation menu with Drupal Zen Sub-theme
How to create Try2Stop.us style navigation menu in Drupal using the Zen theming system and a custom sub-theme
These steps assume you have the following installed and configured already - Drupal CMS, Zen Theme, STARTERKIT subtheme configured to the name and settings you desire, you have a working knowledge of css.
1. Open pages.css file in the css folder subtheme directory
2. There are already styles for various regions and tags, we will need to add a few to target a specific area. The method I used for creating the menu was styling the list items, so...Read full article...
Using Drupal for an IT Support Ticketing System
Issue tracking has the potential to make or break an IT team regardless of how well they perform. A ticketing solution must display information in such a manor to enable a user to obtain a solid grasp of the overall situation at a glance, and user/task specific details just a click away. The adaptability of Drupal makes it a stable platform to build on.Read full article...
Taxonomy and Views in Drupal - Create tag block per section page
Providing a quick way for visitors to find additional information they are interested in has been a major focus while working on this project. Requirements were few but critical to meet. The solution: Taxonomy linked key phrases to posts while Views provided a method of displaying the terms.Read full article...
Theming Drupal Blocks in a Zen Sub-theme
Adding block styles to your sub-theme are important for several reasons. My original objective behind learning to style blocks was to eliminate large titles and awkward spacing that was inherited from the parent style sheets, especially the H2 tag. Once I got a grasp on how easy it was to style individual blocks or groups of them I started to utilize this more. Blocks.css comes packaged in your sub-theme's CSS directory with many useful classes and ID's listed (commented with their purpose as well).
Taking a look at the page source you can see how styles are applied to blocks...Read full article...
Theming Drupal - Side by side blocks in page region
You can go far with Drupal, a Zen Subtheme, and a little CSS intuition. Sometimes it's necessary to place blocks side by side in a page region, but adding page regions isn't possible or practical, you can use the block.css file in your Zen Subtheme's CSS directory to work some magic.Read full article...
Theming Drupal Views in a Zen Subtheme
Take complete control of design and flow of information using Drupal Views and Zen Subthemes. Changing the appearance is crucial when changing a background and body text colors of a site that conflict with the default views styling. CSS properties can be added to a high level tag that affects many areas as well as to very finite areas of just one View.
When the views module outputs a view it wraps it in a div tag with class information. Zen uses views-styles.css in the CSS directory of your subtheme to style views.
One key element in styling views is that when a view is created you must use on lowercase letters and underscores, however when creating the class tag in the CSS document you must use hyphens in place of underscores.Read full article...
How to Provide Remote Support
The ability to connect to a users workstation from a distance and quickly solve the problem at hand has dramatically increased IT's coverage area. You no longer need a corporate IT budget and department behind you to offer remote assistance capabilities. Here's a few ways to get started...
Microsoft Remote Assistance (Free included with XP on)
MSRA offers a few options for offering or requesting help.Read full article...
How to Remove Malware: A Step by Step Guide
Malware is an everyday occurrence these days making the ability to remove it a must for anyone working with end users on workstations. I've outlined the steps I follow when combating these threats, comment to let us know additional steps you follow.Read full article...
Taking on the Network Rack full of Spaghetti Cabling
We've all seen the rack from hell, but not many have the courage (maybe blind ambition) to take on the project of making it right. The bravery pays off since any management in your department will be able to physically see the difference and it cuts down on future tasks the rack requires.Read full article...
Advice for IT Support in working with End Users
I was lucky in having an amazing teacher when I was saved from the retail world of technology and brought into the real world. "The technology you know isn't as important as your ability to deal with people, anybody can be taught technology" was one of the first lessons I was taught and have kept it close. Between much talk on people's view of IT as a department and a new addition to my team I decided to document what I've been taught, learned over the years, or get bad results when I constantly ignore good advice.Read full article...
