The backend of the Technology Questions website is becoming more complex every day. Three significant changes provide several new features for the writers and the optimizations should lead to better page loading times.

vbDruapl 5.9.0 Upgrade

The latest security patch also included the fix for blogging with Windows Live Writer.

Change log
vbDrupal 5.9.0, 2008-07-31
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- merged changes from Drupal 5.9
- fixed a bug in registering the WOL (might address t:1682)
- fixed some authentication issues, this fixes the blogapi authentication issue
(p:8693)
Drupal 5.9, 2008-07-23
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- fixed a variety of small bugs.
- fixed security issues, (Session fixation), see SA-2008-046

Workflow

A common challenge on this site involves publishing a blog post and later finding technical errors or errors in grammar. Edits meant some people saw the mistakes while others read the corrections. Most of the errors could have been avoided by a review of the story within the context of the site, therefore, a review stage has been added to all postings. The workflow and actions modules installations provide the stages. Stories are written in Windows Live Writer, uploaded to a review stage. The stories are reviewed and published to the frontpage or featured stories area.

Optimizations

Drupal sites slow as new modules are added and enabled, therefore great care must be taken to use optimized modules and only have useful modules installed. There was a noticeable slowdown as the list of modules grew on this site. Yesterday's project involved optimizing the loading of this site by adding three modules: javascript-aggregator, block-cache, and boost. Combined, the feel for the loading of pages from the site improved.