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I just got back from a great week at Lynda.com, recording two more titles, hopefully out soon.

The first title is "CMS Website Strategy and Planning", and it covers all of the things you should think about and talk about with your client before building your website.

The second title is "Preparing CMS Web Graphics Using Open Source Tools". It covers how to think about a good design for a CMS as well as create an HTML page using GIMP for graphics and KompoZer for writing the HTML and CSS.

Both titles support teaching I've done for years. The strategy piece is a talk I've been doing for about 8 years now, teaching students to plan their websites before building.

The second title is for the newest wave of web developers, those with no experience at all in the Adobe realm. They learned to build websites using some type of CMS and never spent time in Photoshop or Dreamweaver. Convincing these developers to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on software is a tough sell, since all of their tools are generally free. But there are moderately good open source tools out there that can help the process. Personally I still think Dreamweaver and Photoshop are better tools... but GIMP and KompoZer aren't bad for the price.

My book is also fully drafted and I've moved into the editing phase.

I was also recently hired to teach a course on Joomla for CDIA at Boston University. I'm very excited about the certificate programs they're offering in web development, among other topics.

So I've been a bit busy these last few months!