Simple content management

I would like to build a site that has the following 2 types of stuff:

1. Static pages that will be edited with a WYSIWYG editor
   1. I suppose Drupal has something built-in? What is it?
   2. Will I be able to structure these pages in a hierarchy (a simple tree)? How?
   3. Can I apply a different theme according to that hierarchy?
   4. Can I have different editing capabilities by different users?
   5. These pages are billingual. Actually the whole site is in 2 languages. Will I be able to switch between languages? Is there a recommende way to have multilingual Drupal sites?
2. Dynamic pages of different arrangement (like course page, person page, school page etc.)
   1. I'm thinking of building a module for every different kind of page and a specific form for adding every specific type of page, eg. a form to ass a course page and associate it with a peson page. Is this the "drupal way" of doing things?
   2. Will I be able to apply a different theme to every module (from the above)?
   3. Since these pages are billingual also, will I be able to switch between languages?

A lame :) example of a structure follows:

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Orkut Started Showing Google Adsense Ads on User Homepages…

From last few days, I was seeing Google Adsense ads on Orkut users homepage.

Following screenshot highlights ad in lower-right corner which is taken from my friend Vijay’s account…

There are few things to note about these ads which shows Orkut is still not serious about making money out of it!

1. First they are mix of image as well as text ads. Other Google services show only text ads. Text ads work better and took less time to load.
2. Its mentioned clearly that they are "Advertisement". In other Google services they put "Sponsored Links" around ads. Sponsored Links could bring more clicks compare to Advertisement caption!
3. Long time back orkut started showing ads in community pages but now they moved to user homepage directly. Still scrapbook are left clean which is most accessible area of orkut as per orkut trends.

Looks like orkut is still experimenting with these ads, as they are not shown everytime homepage loads. In fact, I haven’t seen any ad on my orkut homepage! It may be because of adblock plus addon, but a fellow blogger Pavan confirmed presence of ads via email around a week ago.

Personally I don’t think these ads are annoying at all. What do you think?

Useful Post: Enjoy Clean & Ad-Free Internet Using Adblock

Further Reading…

• Enjoy Clean & Ad-Free Internet Using Adblock Plus [Firefox Extension]
• Orkut Message Cleaner Script!
• New Orkut Bug Let Spammer Send Any Link Without Image Verification! (Orkut Loves SPAM)
• Orkut: Collection of hacks to be kool Orkuttian!
• Earning more with AdSense product referrals without viloating TOS

Yet another "is Drupal right for me" post

Hi there,

I'm researching for a platform to run a large community website that is supposed to combine features of a Wiki and CMS.

Basically, it's going to have an abstract data type, Item, which is defined as follows:
- Each item is of a certain ItemType. The list of ItemTypes is finite. We may add / remove item types in the future but those will involve code modifications.
- Each item is of has 1..n attributes and their values. An attribute may be a name, a url, or any other form of meta data describing the concrete item.
- Each item type defines a preset list of attribute that every new item of the specific type inherits upon creation, and the creating user has to fill values for those attributes.
- Each item has an ordered list of child items, of any type.
- Each item has a template for rendering itself. This template is inherited from the item type upon creation, but may be modified later on in the item's life cycle, for instance, when adding a new attribute for an item, one will have to modify the template to display this attribute. Note that the template is for a concrete item, not item type. This means that the article on the duck-billed Platypus may have the attribute "number of eggs laid per year", while the article on the Kangaroo will have the attribute "number of young carried in pouch", although both articles are items of type WildLifeArticle.

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Drupal to manage entire State government website?

I am leading the search for a CMS tool that will be used by a State government to manage all Agency/Bureau/Commission websites. Each site shares a basic structural template, but has a custom header/color scheme. There are 100+ sites, ranging in size from 50 to 6000 pages and we are hoping to host from one CMS installation.

The facts:

- 100+ unique themes/templates
- Sites ranging from 50 - 6000 pages
- Each site needs admin/content provider workflow
- The CMS needs to be able to build a three-level sitewide navigation for each defined site
- The sites in their totality get @8 million page views per month

Our hosting environment consists of clustered Linux boxes and we're using a variety of languages for our application development, primarily Perl and PHP, with a smattering of Java and Ruby on Rails.

I have a test installation on a development box and Drupal appears to meet our basic requirements, though without actually building a complete templated site, it's difficult to assess how complex it will be. It's also nearly impossible to assess what our server requirements would be, and whether Drupal will scale to fit this need.

Can anyone give any related advice? Thanks!