I finally managed to get a Drupal 6 site running with which I am able to generate Code 3 from 9 barcodes (aka barcode39) based on the (automatic) node title. The endresult will be a new type of LIMS-system (Laboratory Information Management System). The following modules I've added to the standard installation:

- Automatic Nodetitles 

- Content Construction Kit

- Computed Field

- Token

1) After installing the above modules, I made a new content type (barcode) and added only one CCK-field to it; the computed field. 

2) The configuration of the automatic node title is as follows:

[dd][mm][yyyy]L<?php $sql = "SELECT count(nid) AS number FROM {node} WHERE type = 'barcode'"; $result = db_query($sql); $data = db_fetch_array($result); $id = sprintf("%03d", $data['number'] + 1); return $id; ?>

The automatic node title is consisting of the date with an extra letter "L" to it and a number. The number is the node number with some extra zeros (the code adds an extra 1 to the number of nodes already registered). 

3) Made a computed field named Monsterbarcode with the following computed code:

$data = $node->title; $node_field[0]['value'] = '<img src="barcode.php?barcode=' .$data . '&width=320&height=200">';

The $data variable holds the node title and the computed field value is computed using a barcode.php script (the barcode generator). This script uses the GD-library so I had to make sure that the php_gd2.dll extension was enabled in my php.ini. The barcode.php script I found on the internet and is in the attachments. 

4) Finally, when publishing a node a barcode (image) is produced holding the node title.

A couple weeks ago I was playing a bit with the Geobrowser module for Drupal. And since I am a huge fan of Sketchup and lately the nice Hypercosm exporter for Sketchup (to view and annote your 3D models online) I made a small demo-website.

This demo-website is showing the capabilities of Drupal, the Geobrowser module, Sketchup and Hypercosm all together.

Click on the appropriate flag to display the corresponding 3D model of the building or construction. You can also (de)select from which country you want to display the 3D models (one of the nice features of the Geobrowser module, taxonomy based menu's). The demo works great in Firefox but a little bit buggy in IE.

link to the demo-website

A nice short tutorial about setting up a name host (virtual) with Xampp.

For obvious reasons Drupal is an excellent content management system (CMS) to administer a corporate or private website. Coupled with a custom-made design a Drupal based website offers a complete package for todays needs.

However, in addition to this, Drupal offers a skeleton with which it is possible to create so called "project management systems" (PMS). Such systems are very suited for companies which have a need for digitally managing (online) content (on the intra- or internet). With the various modules available (e.g. CCK; for creating your project content type, Computed Field; for simple to complex calculations, Contemplate; to setup an initial automatic report module, and for instance Fivestar; to visualize the process of your project) you are able to create a system which is easily managable, well-organized and moreover, affordable.

For example: an employee can have an overview of his projects, his company projects, his financial status within the company, project images, movies, charts, maps, and so on.

The main benefit of using a CMS system to create a PMS is that it evolves according to state-of-the-art techniques and implementations on the internet; up-to-date.

Moreover, the ability to attach multimedia files (e.g. movies, images), implement automatic report modules, even to have automatically created quotations with the help of an online application is a huge advantage in favour of commercially available PMS packages.