Back in the mid 90s — when WYSIWIGs barely existed — I built my first site on a small free AOL space. (The design was terrible, but I take some pride in the fact that I opted to avoid flashing or scrolling text.) AOL’s built-in WYSIWIG helped with text and pictures but left me floundering about in HTML for anything remotely stylish.

Today, WYSIWIGs like Dreamweaver have advanced light years (although they still produce inefficient markup). Now you can build a website like my first one in a quarter of the time, with twice as much content, and NOT have it look like a stream of semi-consciousness.

Dreamweaver is fine for building a simple site featuring text, pictures, audio, and colors. But expectations have risen. We now want embedded video, intricate styling, and interactivity like comments on a blog or posts in forum threads. These features require server-side scripting and database management not available through Dreamweaver, or at least not easily accessible to the novice.

Enter CMS, which manages this kind of programming and puts a nice, user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) on it. Instead of writing object-oriented code and database queries, you simply click buttons and drag-and-drop content in a web-based application. Using a CMS will significantly increase the efficiency with which you can add, modify, and remove content from your website, and will make an otherwise technologically exclusive skill accessible to the average user.

Some CMS applications have to be paid for, but others are open-source, which basically means you can use them for free (although hosting typically costs something) and to manipulate them to your tastes. Among the dozens of CMS, those most widely recognized by web enthusiasts are WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla!

While most popular open-source CMS are written in PHP and interact with a MySQL database, no two are exactly alike. You can’t just pick anything off the shelf and get your desired result. Also, a CMS is never going to meet your exact needs right out of the box; you’ll probably need to install at least one custom template and a number of plugins (sometimes called modules, components, or blocks) to realize your site’s full potential.

Choosing the optimal CMS for your website requires having a pretty good idea from the outset exactly what range of features you will offer to users. Are you better off with a more targeted CMS like WordPress, or something more generic like Joomla! or Drupal? The former is primarily meant to host blogs, while the latter two are meant for fully-featured websites that may or may not include blogs. That doesn’t mean you can’t use Joomla! or Drupal for only blogs or that WordPress can’t be made to host a great website with additional features beyond a blog. But the easier path is to start with the CMS that is closest to your final vision. WordPress can make a nice website, but a lot of the things that come built in on a website CMS are not included in WordPress, so you’ll find yourself hunting for plugins early on. Joomla! on the other hand doesn’t feature a very intuitive blogging system out of the box and is hit or miss on some of its plugins, but it’s standard package is very well done. Drupal offers great performance and good features out of the box, but some users find it to have the least intuitive control panel of the three. Drupal has the best plugin library of almost any CMS I am familiar with, yet it offers the greatest challenge in terms of installing them for the uninitiated. .

Another pitfall to avoid is choosing the wrong version of your CMS. CMS development teams are constantly releasing new versions and patches, and your intuition might be to go with the latest version available when it comes time to set up your CMS. This can be a mistake. WordPress has a particularly reliable community when it comes to supporting new updates quickly, but this isn’t true of other platforms, and as part of your research you should try to feel out how much support a given version of a CMS is getting. Is a newer version just on the horizon? Does the community gripe about features of the current version? Do some of them swear by previous iterations? If so, consider either holding off (if you can) until the next version comes out and gets a thorough test from the community, or step back to the previous version and try it.

In truth, it is hard to make a complete disaster out of an open-source CMS. Because the open-source community only supports a CMS that they have tried and come to trust, you’re not going to stumble across one that doesn’t have at least a moderately reliable architecture and a devoted community constantly developing new features and plugins. So whatever you pick, the community will be there to help and with enough perseverance, you’ll have a proper website up and running in a relatively short time period, even if you are working alone. But looking before leaping can only help. Whether you’re considering the three I mentioned above, or you are looking to try another CMS like Pimcore, Silverstripe or PHP-Nuke, a few hours of research and planning upfront can save you days or even weeks of headache down the road.

LIGHTFAIR® International, the world’s largest commercial lighting trade show and conference, has become increasingly dominated by solid-state lighting products over the past few years. The Department of Energy will be on hand at LIGHTFAIR this week to provide unbiased information and tutorials so that users and potential users of SSL can understand the issues with this emerging technology. As DOE shares its perspective and resources with thousands of LIGHTFAIR attendees, Akoya will be there to help coordinate and support the DOE team.

I saw this on a broadcast TV commercial advertisement, a quick flash across the screen after live acting.   My first thought, “Has someone confused a hand-held mobile display with a TV screen?” My second thought, “Enough IS enough and I am mounting my editor’s high horse!”

A good editor would prevent this.  A good editor wants to make the reader’s (or viewer’s) task easier, not harder.  A good editor would consider whether the viewer has time to visually parse the typographical treatment in the medium used.  To improve comprehension of written text, avoid all-capitalized letters and separate the words.  Note how “Enough.  Is.  Enough.” conveys both the point and the exasperation.  Conventional punctuation with a capitalized “IS” for emphasis works equally well: “Enough IS enough!” Either treatment is far more effective than a dense BLOCKOFLETTERS, which can trick the eye and mangle the meaning.  (What’s a fletter, anyway?)

The next time I saw this TV ad, someone had at least had the sense to put the spaces in:

Next time: What does “woah” mean?

Turns out Dad was right. I can’t think of another 100+ year old technology that is still as widely used as the good old fashioned light bulb. But that is about to change.  The 1912 Model T Ford is long gone, TV technology has drastically evolved, and smart phones were maybe a figment of someone’s imagination in 1912. How is it that this old, inefficient light bulb technology has stuck around for so long, when generations of other household items have come and gone so quickly? Seems it’s harder to change a light bulb when better options don’t come along.

The Akoya SSL team has had a hand in bringing a transformation in lighting to life. We have coordinated and promoted the lighting program’s training conferences for years, and in 2008, we began to support the L Prize^®, the first technology lighting prize competition to be led by a government agency. The competition challenged the lighting industry to find a replacement of a beloved standby—the common 60 watt light bulb.  You know it well—it’s in table lamps, overhead lights, wall sconces, and offices everywhere.

With support from Akoya, the L Prize team of utility partners, government officials, and independent experts charted new waters with every aspect of the competition. When we sought examples to follow, we learned that they simply didn’t exist in the government world. The team plunged ahead, establishing a website, generating materials to explain rules and expectations, and launching the competition at a major trade show. The Akoya team served as glue to the planning teams and liaison to the industry through all phases of the competition.

In August 2011, a winner was announced, and soon that winning product will be landing on store shelves. It will face the ultimate reality check: will consumers really find it to be a good replacement? Will the price drop like it has for so many other household products? Time will tell the magnitude of the energy savings for Americans. Meanwhile, I can report back to Dad that working on the L Prize can only be described as the professional experience of a lifetime.

In March, we celebrate Women’s History Month, which takes on greater significance every year with the growing number of women Veterans. Some have served overseas. Some have retired from active duty. Some have deployed while in the Guard or Reserve, and all are taking their place in history as Veterans with a capital V. Some may not realize it—women don’t always identify themselves as Veterans—but they signed up and did their part, just like the men. While the definition of Veteran hasn’t changed, the population has. Today’s Veterans are younger and increasingly female, with different health care needs.

Our Akoya team works with some remarkable female Veterans every day: a Marine Corps Veteran and exceptional orator who hollers “Ooh Rah!” with such power it can make you shake; a Navy Nurse Corps Captain, now retired, who taught leadership development to dozens of Navy Reserve Officers; a Desert Storm Veteran who challenges us to “amp up the passion” in our communications work to reach women Veterans. These leaders all play a role in VA’s ongoing culture change to enhance care and improve services to the growing women Veterans population.

Last year I learned of a quote from an NPR story, one in a series celebrating women Veterans during Women’s History Month. “Let the generations know that women in uniform also guaranteed their freedom. That our resolve was just as great as the brave men who stood among us. … That the tears fell just as hard for those we left behind us.” These words are carved into the ceiling of the Women’s Memorial, the only major national memorial dedicated to women in the military. It serves as the gateway to Arlington National Cemetery, just across the Potomac River from VA headquarters.

I think about this quote and wonder about the path not taken. Would I have had what it takes to be an Air Force pilot? Would I have felt worthy to call myself a U.S. Armed Forces Veteran? “Veteran” signifies honor, courage, and sacrifice on behalf of the nation, and VA is working hard to ensure that female soldiers, and the public, associate it with their service.

What remains to be seen is whether or not Google+ can defeat Facebook . Do people have enough time left over in their online lives to allow both platforms to thrive?

I had been a long time avoider of the social media scene out of a preference for privacy and an attempt to keep my social circle securely in the physical world.  I’d used LinkedIn regularly for my professional networking, but that was it.  However, out of curiosity, I managed to wrangle myself an invitation to Google+ a couple weeks after it became available.

Here is what I discovered.

The biggest difference between the users of Facebook and Google+ can be illustrated by looking at the most popular personalities on each site. Whereas Facebook is ruled by the likes of Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, Google+ was at least initially dominated by people like Kevin Rose (co-founder of Digg), Markus Persson (creator of Minecraft), and Felicia Day (writer/actor and geek gamer girl). Part of the reason Google+ seems to appeal more to techies and geeks than the average digital socialite is because of its initially limited release. For a good while, the only way to get in was to either luck out and get an invite from Google, or have a friend already on the inside send you an invite. Of course, this kind of “members only” approach generated a lot of buzz for Google+ early on…people want what they can’t have more than what they can. But the only ones who actually put the effort in to get in were the ones who consider themselves technophiles.

Google+ initially drew a lot of attention for its Circles, methods of organizing your contacts into groups that you could then target your posts to, ensuring that only close friends get to see those wild party pictures and humorous non-sequitur posts while family might have exclusive rights on updates about the kids or other personal issues.  It didn’t take long for Facebook to adopt a similar method of grouping, which at the very least indicates that Facebook considers Google+ to be a serious contender.

On the other side of this coin, Google+ has also altered its platform in several ways to mimic Facebook.  For example, Google+ seemed only lukewarm about the idea of accommodating pages for companies or organizations in its early months, suggesting that it might be considered in the future.  Then suddenly, it was there.

In a competition with Google+,  Facebook is clearly going to have the advantage of its established user base.  But Google+ has recently found an advantage of its own: its search engine. One proposed strategy for exploiting it would put Google+ profiles high up next to standard Google search results wherever applicable.  In other words, there is nothing stopping Google from giving its social network first dibs on screen real estate.  This approach seems to already be effective; the same day that this strategy was suggested, Lady Gaga suddenly registered a Google+ account.

Regardless of which network wins out, or even if both find a way to coexist, the real winners are the users who have seen considerable innovation not just from Google, but also from Facebook in response to Google’s entry into the social networking field.  With Google+ in the mix, Facebook has a real reason to improve its platform in a timely fashion.  Both platforms should only get better and more inventive moving forward.

I was placed in what was considered to be one of the best internship slots—George Stephanopoulos’s office. Except it wasn’t really his office, not at first. I was in a windowless office on the top floor of the huge haunted-house-looking Old Executive Office Building (OEOB). (Because the White House is so small, most of the White House offices are physically in the OEOB.) It had a lot of file cabinets—and tons of mail that us “chosen” few interns had to answer, on George’s behalf. The mail could easily be divided into these categories: people who wanted dates with George; people who were concerned about issues of the day (e.g., gays in the military); and people who were concerned about aliens spying on them and thus needed to wear tin foil on their heads and write letters in multiple colored markers.

I don’t want to brag, but I was good at answering those letters. So good, in fact, that they started using me in George’s real office, in the White House proper, to answer the phones and handle other administrative tasks that had real-world deadlines.

It was on one of these days that I was sitting at George’s assistant’s desk, taking a message from someone important, like Cokie Roberts, concentrating very hard on getting that message correct, when all of the sudden, I felt this presence near me and before I could tell what it was, I hear “BOO!” and I look up, and it’s the president. Yup, Bill Clinton, right next to me. Shocked, I sat right back in my seat and tried to process what just happened. The president wandered back to the Oval Office and George walked over to me, “Did the president just scare you?” “Yes.” “He’s been doing that a lot lately.”

For every dollar you donate to a local food bank, they are able to leverage it to anywhere between $5 and $10 worth of food and services. They do it by buying in bulk, using volunteer labor, and working with local manufacturers, retailers, and farmers. So while food donations are appreciated, money makes a bigger impact.

Consider this: the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank can buy $5 worth of food and services for every $1 donated. Feeding America, the national hunger-relief charity, can turn $1 into eight meals. Those are encouraging numbers for a growing hunger epidemic that affects 49 million Americans—16 million of them children.

Akoya makes a monetary donation every year to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank because we know the need is great and the impact is big. But ultimately, whatever the gift (big or small, cans or cash), please, just consider giving.

How is your community affected by hunger? Check out Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap for an at-a-glance, interactive map showing the impact of hunger in your area.

The Pittsburgh region suffered a great loss this past October, when it was announced that William S. Dietrich II, former steel industry executive and Western PA native, lost his bout with gallbladder cancer at the age of 73. His generous legacy to institutions of higher learning promises to bolster the Pittsburgh community for generations to come.

Stemming from Mr. Dietrich’s 1996 sale of Dietrich Industries, one of the nation’s largest steel distribution and products company, to Worthington Industries, Mr. Dietrich created the Dietrich Charitable Trusts. By the time of his death, assets from the trusts reached $500 million – all of which were given to the Dietrich Foundation to be spread among local educational institutions, charitable organizations, and non-profits. Beneficiaries to date include Carnegie Mellon University ($265M), the University of Pittsburgh ($125M), Thiel College ($25M), Duquesne University ($12.5M), Chatham University ($5M), the Pittsburgh Foundation ($18.1M), the United Way of Allegheny County ($6.9M), and the Boy Scouts of America ($5M). The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh each received $5 million.

Among those of us who call Pittsburgh home, few will have assets to match Mr. Dietrich’s. Yet we can join him in investing in the well being of our community by donating and volunteering our time and effort to the nonprofit arts, education, and human services organizations that are so integral to our region’s future.