I have recently joined illuminate iCT, as a volunteer, to assist with their various administrative duties. Working in such an organisation is definately a new experience for me and hope that my knowledge of using various ICT applications keep me in good stead.

The Every Voice Counts Empowerment Network is an exciting initiative in the West Midlands.  IlluminateICT has been awarded the contract to develop the web site for the network at www.evcwm.org.uk.

We have now set up a code server to publish all of our open source work - even those tiny bits of code that we often write to solve a particular problem. We are very dedicated to sharing knowledge, especially since we (and the groups we do work for) have benefitted so much from the hard work of other open source developers.

We at illuminate iCT are in the process of doubling our webserver capacity! We've started to notice that the performance of our main webserver isn't as good as we'd like it to be - it's getting quite full and it's beginning to show.

Illuminate ICT spend a good deal of time working on your site designs. When they leave us, we're usually very proud of what we've achieved and we've given you a sturdy platform on which to build rich and beautiful content - I may be getting carried away! However, this is where one of the pitfalls of a Content Managed website rears it's fat, ugly head.

IlluminateICT has been working to develop a low cost entry solution for smaller voluntary and community organisations to let them get onto the internet. Using the powerful Drupal solution we have now created a method that will allow organisations to create their own web site in a day.

We're starting to build up a glossary of internet terms. Some of the vocabulary used when discussing some of the technical bits of dealing with websites can be be a bit obscure.

We try to be clear in all our communications with you and it's helpful for us sometimes if we can point you to a page on our site that explains what we're talking about.

Google have launched a new web browser called Chrome. It's an early release and there is obviously a lot more work to do. but it looks clean and simple to use.

Colour schemes can be really hard to arrive at. Do you select colours that are of similar hue (different blues for example). Or do you use colours that clash with each other (red and green for example).

In most design software, especially when designing for the internet, colours are defined with values of Red, Green and Blue, often just called RGB. So, a red colour will have a high value for R, and lower value for G and B.

Our site now has a tips and tricks section in the Web area. In here, we'll put anything we think you'll find useful.

As with all the other site content, the tips and tricks will be fully searchable.

You can reach it from the Web menu, or directly from here.

The morning sessions.

Drupal in the sector

The first session was taken by Nick from illuminate and looked at how Drupal fits into the sector and at how skills can be harnessed throughout the sector to improve the viability of Drupal projects.

A good turnout for the first Drupal conference facilitated by illuminateICT.  The donuts and coffee has been a big hit so far and I have great hopes that the actual content will be as well received.

As people have been introducing themselves it has become apparent that we have  good mix of people from both the voluntary and commercial sectors.

A release candidate of our Drupal module convey has now been released.  This module allows information to be pooled from external sources by a Drupal

IlluminateICT is working with Coventry and Warwickshire Infrastructure Consortium to implement the e-target CRM (customer relationship manager) system.

We are delivering a range of training and support solutions for this software including a range of on-line Quick Reference Guides (QRGs) and soem small video clips that will guide users through some aspects of the system.

Since delivering effective projects requires strong communications and a robust system of mangement, Illuminate works with a system based on Prince 2.

increasing numbers of people have problems using key boards and mice when using a computer.  They have aches in their hands or wrists, a stiff neck or even back pain.

Members of the Nuneaton Children's Contact Centre having training for their new website.

Our new website has been developed using Drupal 6, the most recent release of the open source Content Management Framework.  Since trialling other such systems over two years ago, we decided that D

Illuminate ICT have launched a new Graphics service, to work alongside the Web service.

SmartBOX has now been ported to the latest Ubuntu version 8.04.  See the SmartBOX pages.

There are a few places left at our conference, so please get in touch if you'd like to come along.

Over the weekend, Nick Blundell traveled to Ossendrecht, The Netherlands, to teach budding open source developers how to develop powerful websites using the Drupal website framework in a series of