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Packt Publishing has launched a new series of Beginner's Guide books designed to make open source tools and other advanced software accessible and usable for Beginners. "There are thousands of tremendous software tools out there," says series editor David Barnes. "The way they are designed, built and documented means they can often feel like they are created by experts, for experts. Newcomers often don't know what the software can even do, let alone how to do it." Packt Beginner's Guides aim to overcome this problem. They teach newcomers a technology by presenting realistic, useful examples with clear step-by-step instructions.

Always wanted to write a cool, customized Alfresco app, but didn't know where to start? Put your worries to rest. There is now a way to learn all things related to Alfresco Enterprise CMS customization. You can even teach yourself how to roll your very own REST API -- it's all in the book. Alfresco development and customization secrets are revealed in Alfresco Developer Guide, a new book from Packt about customizing Document Management and Content Management capabilities on the Alfresco platform -- with actions, Web scripts, Web forms, workflows and more.

SilverStripe was announced as the winner of Packt Publishing's 2008 Most Promising Open Source CMS Award. SilverStripe is today exclusively revealed as the winner of the 2008 Most Promising Open Source Content Management System. The SilverStripe project receive $2,000, holding off strong competition from CMS Made Simple in the first runner up position with ImpressCMS and MiaCMS finishing joint second runner up. Packt Publishing notes that SilverStripe's core team is heavily involved in not only their product but also with SilverStripe's users.

Drupal was announced the winner in Packt Publishing's 2008 award for Best PHP Based Open Source CMS. The Award for the best Open Source Content Management System written on a PHP/MySQL platform is today announced as Drupal. Receiving $2,000 as the judges’ and publics favourite, Drupal finishes ahead of Joomla! and CMS Made Simple, who finished on equal points as joint runners up and collect $500 each. As Packt notes, this has become an annual tug of war between Drupal and Joomla! for top spot in these awards.

Packt Publishing announced the winner of their 2008 Best Open Source Other CMS Award and it is Plone. Packt is delighted to exclusively reveal the first category winner of the 2008 Open Source CMS Award as Plone. Run[ning] on the Zope application server, Plone wins the Best Other Open Source CMS Award and receives $2,000. Also recognized by the judges were dotCMS and DotNetNuke who finished second and third respectively, both picking up $500.

Earlier today, Packt Publishing announced the winners of their 2008 Open Source CMS Most Valued People Award.  The MVP is a new category for Packt's annual Open Source CMS Awards.  In this category, "names were put forward by members of the Content Management System's development team and community and represent the exceptional support, guidance, and sheer amount of time that the MVPs have given up to support the development and growth of the respective CMS". 

Packt is pleased to announce a new book on Moodle that is a complete administrator's guide to configuring, securing and customizing Moodle. Through Moodle Administration, Alex Büchner, the co-founder and technical lead of the UK's largest Moodle partner Synergy Learning, will teach users how to install, set up, plan, optimize and maintain a Moodle system.

With the polls closing in ten days for some of the best open source CMS out there, if you haven't voted already, you need to head over to Packt Publishing and let your voice be heard.  There are five finalists for differing categories to choose from.  Voting for the winners in each of the categories opened September 1 and ends on October 20, 2008.  This "public vote" will then be combined with votes by a panel of judges for the top three CMS in each category will then be voted for by a panel of judges.

Packt Publishing, the publisher of computer related books, announced the release of its new book OpenCMS 7 Development. OpenCms is a professional-level open-source Website Content Management System, based on Java and XML. Many companies or organizations have requirements that go beyond what is available in the standard OpenCms application. Thankfully, OpenCms can be used by Java developers to create sophisticated add-ons and customizations that extend the power of OpenCms in virtually unlimited directions. Targeting version 7 of OpenCms, this book is for Java developers interested in extending and further customizing OpenCms through its Java API.

It just seems right to end the day with one final piece of news on SharePoint. This one comes from Packt Publishing who has released a new book on SharePoint entitled: SharePoint Designer Tutorial: Working with SharePoint Websites.

Packt is pleased to announce the release of a new book for business bloggers. Written by Paul Thewlis, WordPress for Business Bloggers teaches users to build an attractive and professional blog with advanced plug-ins, analytics, advertising, and SEO. WordPress allows users to easily create dynamic blogs with many outstanding features. Its versatility and ease of use has attracted a large, enthusiastic, and helpful community of users, who have created a large and diverse collection of plug-ins. Advertisement: read more

Packt Publishing has announced the finalists for each category of its 2008 Open Source CMS Awards. Last year, Drupal was the overall winner, pushing the ’06 overall winner, Joomla!, to the second place. This year, both are finalists in two categories. But there are many other contenders that may change the final results.

Packt Publishing announced the five finalists for each category of its 2008 Open Source CMS Award.  Last year, Drupal was the overall winner. Voting for the winners in each of the five categories opens September 1 and ends on October 20, 2008.  This "public vote" will then be combined with votes by a panel of judges for the top three CMS in each category will then be voted for by a panel of judges.

The 2008 Open Source CMS Award launched today, inviting people to visit www.PacktPub.com and submit nominations for their favorite Open Source Content Management Systems. Now in its third year, the Award has helped to support a variety of Content Management Systems gain recognition in a crowded and high quality marketplace. In 2007, Drupal ousted Joomla! as the overall winner of the Award, in what was another very close contest. With the introduction of four new categories in 2007, the Award succeeded in expanding the opportunities for a wider range of Open Source Content Management Systems to benefit. MODx won the inaugural Most Promising Open Source CMS Award, confirming its position as one of the most respected new CMS’s available. "Winning the award was a tremendous honor for MODx" said Ryan Thrash, co-founder of MODx. "For the team, it validates the past two years of hard work" he concluded.

Packt is pleased to announce the release of WordPress Themes Design, which is a complete guide to creating professional WordPress themes. Written by Tessa Blakeley Silver, this book will be invaluable to WordPress users or visual designers who want to develop a WordPress theme. WordPress is an open-source blog engine released under the GNU general public license. It allows users to easily create dynamic blogs with great content and many outstanding features. It is an ideal tool for developing blogs and though it is chiefly used for blogging, it can also be used as a complete CMS with very little effort. Its versatility and ease of use has attracted a large, enthusiastic, and helpful community of users. Advertisement: read more