3281d Consulting is very pleased to announce that a new era on drupal.org has begun: Drupal distributions (also known as "installation profiles") can now be automatically packaged with Drupal core and all of their required dependencies. When you download the distribution, you just unpack it into a web root directory, visit install.php, and you're done. This should vastly lower the barriers to getting a new Drupal site up and running. Please read on if you've ever considered installing a Drupal distribution or if you maintain one on drupal.org.

If you maintain an installation profile, be sure to read the How to package a profile on drupal.org handbook page before you try to use the new system.

The Open Magazine is a new current affairs/entertainment weekly magazine available on magazine stands in India. The magazine was launched in the first quarter of 2009.

The publisher of Open Magazine, Open Media Pvt. Ltd. wanted a web presence for its magazine. It selected Srijan Technologies, a content management specialist company based out of New Delhi, India to construct the website. Srijan's responsibility was to build the website from scratch and host it. Site design was done by Itu Chaudhuri Design.

Srijan Technologies used Drupal 6. Development took place over a period of approximately 4 months and the Open website was released to the public in July 2009.

Currently the website shows all the content that appears in the print version of the magazine online for free. The website also contains some exclusive web content that is not present in the print version. The website is substantially updated once a week though web exclusive content is updated more frequently to keep the site "fresh."

The purpose of this case study is to introduce all significant (mostly technical) aspects of the website from Srijan's perspective. Feedback and comments are requested.

Earlier this month, the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America relaunched their website, Whitehouse.gov, using Drupal. This week three members of the White House new media team presented at the Washington, DC Drupal users group. New media director Macon Phillips, deputy director of technology David Cole, and creative director Nik Lo Bue talked about their use of Drupal.

In this video, Macon Phillips addresses how they want to create opportunities for citizens to participate in their government. David Cole talks about why they wanted to change their technology platform, what they actually built, and where they are going with that new platform. Nik Lo Bue addresses how he wanted to use an amazing brand experience to visually communicate with citizens using Drupal.

Each year, thousands of people around Ireland join Concern Worldwide in the Concern Fast. During the Fast, people give up food for 24 hours and raise as much money as they can for some of the world’s poorest people. One aspect of this years campaign is an online element, where registered fasters can get their own online profile page. Through this, they are able to take sponsorships and return any money that they have raised offline directly through the site.

Kirkdesigns built the Concern Fast website with Drupal 6, CiviCRM, a rather large handful of community contributed modules and of course, a selection of custom modules to facilitate the specific needs of the campaign.

Drupal has won the Hall of Fame Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. Drupal previously won the 2007 and 2008 Best Overall Open Source CMS Award. As a result of the previous wins, Drupal graduated to the Hall of Fame along with Joomla.

It is a great honor for the Drupal community to be the first winner of the Open Source CMS Hall of Fame Award. The Drupal community has worked hard to improve Drupal by adding internationalization, enhancing security, facilitating customization, increasing extensibility, and easing the user experience. This award is a great complement to winning the 2009 Open Source PHP CMS for the second year in a row. This critical recognition helps build both momentum and excitement towards releasing Drupal 7 in 2010.

This award has a $4000 prize, bringing the total prize money from the Packt Open Source CMS awards to $6000. The money will go to the Drupal association to help pay for drupal.org infrastructure, marketing, and Drupalcon events.