Micro Cms News & Articles

For those who want to go their own way in the blogosphere and ignore the big guns of WordPress, Blogger.com, Movable Type or any number of other options, we take a look at BlogEngine.Net. This fella is an open source, server-based software package that aims to simplify the increasingly sophisticated world of online scribbling.

Products in the simple CMS arena should be light, focussed, but still leave the user with a positive feel. How does now out-of-beta Viviti stack up?

concrete5 CMS (news, site) recently announced GA of their first eCommerce add-on -- coreCommerce.

With SMBs in mind, concrete5 is putting this low-priced offer on the market and giving folks yet another option of selling their goodies online.

Fuzzle CMS is an attempt by a group of Russian developers to bring Flash-based sites with CMS functionality to the masses.

In the latest 2.6 release, the Fuzzle CMS group has localized the Web CMS for English-speaking markets, translated documentation and launched an English version of the developer blog.

For its 3.0 release, Krabi & Mask -- the folks behind Zimplit CMS (news, site), have refined the fully rebrandable, commercial version of their CMS to target web hosting resellers looking to add a simple web site creation tool.

Zimplit 3.0 install includes demos, documentation and a selection of templates -- all rebrandable. Zimplit's site-edit toolbar can be customized as well to suit the color scheme and editing needs of the reseller and their target market.

Only a month after Injader released v2.3.2 of its web content management system, it has upgraded by almost a full point with release v2.4. This latest release comes with a couple of major improvements and assorted changes to the earlier version.

Originally created in 2005, under the name Majestic, to upgrade websites that were being coded by hand, the self professed goal of Injader is to create a system that enables everyone to build their own website.

Currently available for download at SourceForge, it dispenses with what its creator Ben Barden describes as ‘flashy’ technologies and offers sites that are not only easy to use for the owner, but for their public as well.

Recently, Scott Suiter from Google stood at Times Square in New York and asked passers-by about their definition of a web browser, as part of the Google Chrome thing and all that. If you were into betting, then this might be a question that you could have a lot of fun with.

However, the answer is not really what’s important today (Suiter, by the way, claims only 8% of people could answer the question accurately). What’s important today is that Czech start-up Webnode (site) got all huffy over the question and has been telling people that the answer doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t matter that is, if you use their simple Web CMS/website builder, because Webnode is that simple you don’t have to even know what a browser is to use it. Ahem!

Hidden Equity (site) is firmly aiming its combined CMS and CRM modules in the product called EquiWeb at the smaller-scale organization.

This week's release of GetSimple CMS (site) is the latest in a line of simple web content management systems that underlines a trend suggesting that micro CMS creators are not just going to lie down for the "biggies."

Caribou CMS (news, site) is now in v2.1. The main change from the previous release is in regards to the way the CMS vendor is now handling multiple licenses, as well as some new features.

In the past, you couldn’t have users with multiple active subscriptions to the same Caribou CMS package. Meaning that, every time you would want to buy a second license, it would be treated as an extension of the existing subscription and of the license you bought previously. But that is now history. Users now are free to have multiple license subscriptions at US$ 29 per month.

E-xact payment gateway integration is a brand new feature and allows subscribers to add E-xact eCommerce functions to their accounts. Caribou CMS includes a variety of other third-party payment gateway integrations as well, including PayPal.

The changelog shows that several bugs were fixed in 2.1, including:

• Nullified basket at checkout with "caribou" theme
• Not so tidy arrays in the e-mailed form results (In the previous release other forms bugs were fixed.)
• Inability to stop the post-load animation from throwing off your clicks
• Inability to store link problems in dynamically-generated menus

In addition to that, Caribou CMS now offers 64-bit compatible libraries. If you want to give Caribou CMS a try, a download is available here. Once you do, take a minute to share your thoughts with us.

An "Internet solutions company" and a newish player on the Web CMS and Simple CMS markets, BizCom (site) released a new v2.5 version of its modular content management system.

Some updates in this release are around compliance, SEO and form-building tools -- all with a strong emphasis on non-technical users.

In yet another rebranding-centric attempt, Simple CMS provider Zimplit (news, site) released its "borrow another site's design to create yours" feature.

By any stretch, this is a brave move by Zimplit. The new Zimplit v3.0 allows you to pick any favorite web site that you like the look of and use that as the basis for your own site's design.

Today is definitely a day for new and updated releases. The most recent play was made by the Six Apart team (news, site), who last night announced that they’re moving on to bigger and better numbers when it comes to Movable Type. That is, Movable Type 4.3 Beta is now open to the public.

Some key points to keep in mind with the release:

• This version has most of 4.3's new features, including comment pagination and a new entry asset manager.
• The first release is an alpha (MTOS-4.3a1) and 2 more releases are expected during the beta period. The final release will reportedly be in 3 weeks.
• Six Apart urges you to remember this is alpha software and is not intended for use in a production environment.
• Reference documentation has been overhauled for this release. Nearly 100 pages have already been updated, and you can expect more info on this topic soon, including ways in which you can get involved

A detailed look into this teaser is available on the Movable Type 4.3 Beta page here, where you'll also find links to download the platform. Take it for a test drive and let us (and maybe even Six Apart, too) know what you think.

For boutique content management vendors like Digitalus CMS (news, site), flexibility comes comparatively easily. There are no multiple corporate hoops to jump though, and development cycles seem to be moving a bit faster (which can also turn into a double-edged sword).

Not long ago, we looked (in detail and with a fair portion of constructive criticism) at Digitalus 1.5. The vendor informs us that they've heard us and made templating changes in the newest version of the product -- Digitalus CMS 1.8.

It seems the chances of breaking the entire front end are now minimized.

Only one week behind schedule, but with a slew of changes, CMS Made Simple v1.6 has recently seen the light of day.

One of the open source, PHP-based content management systems out there, CMS Made Simple (news, site) introduced new permissions in this release. In addition to that, there are new themes, templates and modules. Not to mention a gazillion of bug fixes.

Let's just say it doesn't look like it's going to be an easy upgrade, but it may very well be worth the effort.