Whilst Zenphoto at first appears to be an amazing tool for sharing photos, it can also take on a bit more responsibility than your run-of-the-mill gallery solution. The ability to theme and customize your gallery provides excellent scope for anyone requiring a media-oriented content management system (CMS).

Zenpage CMS

In order to make your Zenphoto a little more WordPress, you’re going to need a Zenphoto plugin called Zenpage CMS. It is an officially supported extension for the Zenphoto platform, and as you’d expect, it works well.

You’ll find the Zenpage plugin (amongst others) on the Plugins tab of your main admin panel. Scroll down to the bottom and find Zenpage, select it and hit Apply at the top of the page. It’ll take a few seconds for Zenpage to be installed, then you’re set.

The first thing you’ll probably notice are the two extra tabs now on your main navigation panel, Pages and News.

You’ll be pleased to know that there are now Pages and News shortcuts in the admin toolbox visible on your site’s front end. News posts are split into categories, whereas Pages are simply used as static pages (e.g. contact or about).

Adding a news post is a fairly simple task, compose an SEO-friendly title, some content, pick a category and hit Apply. Hit the Published checkbox whilst composing to publish straight away, or visit the articles page at a later date.

Before you’ll notice the difference on the frontend you’re going to need to enable a Zenpage CMS compatible theme. The default theme is just called Zenpage and provides a good starting place with a fairly blank layout for you to use and abuse.

Head over to the Themes tab and choose the default Zenpage theme, hit Apply and wait for your changes to take effect. You can change each theme’s options once it has been applied with the Set theme options link next to each offering.

If you intend on using the default theme then there’s a few options on the theme options page you might want to tweak. News on index page will replace the default gallery list view with your latest news stories, whilst Use custom menu requires the menu_manager plugin but gives you the ability to construct your own personal menus.

The image view page is fairly standard, with a few nice touches. Clicking on the image will open it in a larger lightbox and there’s an Image info button that opens EXIF data in a lightbox too.

After installing Zenpage CMS, the default theme and playing around with the options you’ll have yourself a great little gallery-cum-CMS that can handle all types of media.

Themes

All that Zenpage really does is add news and page elements to your website. There’s a couple of good compatible themes, but you’ve also got the option of building or converting your own if you’re the patient type.

As Zenphoto is written in PHP, the Zenpage CMS uses PHP functions to call the desired elements. If you really are interested in how to go about this then you’ll need this handy list of supported functions. An easy way of customizing the default Zenpage theme is by tweaking the style.css file in your /themes/zenpage directory.

If the very thought of this terrifies you, there’s a couple of themes you can install and use right now. Download, extract and upload the folder to the /themes directory of your Zenphoto install, then choose your theme on the Themes admin tab.

zpFocus

A light, airy and newspaper-esque theme that still places plenty of emphasis on your photography. The menu is attractively located atop the main page, with both latest news and latest albums featured on the index.

Even if you don’t like the colours (change them), there’s no denying it’s a well-designed and easy to follow layout.

zpArdoise

A dark theme that subtly integrates news and pages into the main menu without displacing your photos or dumbing down their impact. An excellent photo-oriented layout makes for a fantastic theme, you should probably give this one a go!

zpEnlighten

A perfect example of expanding upon the default theme, Enlighten doesn’t change an awful lot but the colour scheme. If you find light blues and pale greys more inviting than the default greens and blacks then it might suit out of the box.

For the rest of you it’s inspiration to rip up the CSS file and stamp your own mark on your site.

Conclusion

The Zenpage CMS plugin demonstrates what a powerful tool Zenphoto is. Adding news and pages to your site retains all the media goodness of Zenphoto whilst delivering a quality integrated blog and multimedia showcase website. If you’re not too sure about Zenphoto but are looking for a good photo blog then Pixelpost might be just what you’re looking for.

Have you tried Zenphoto? How about Zenpage CMS? Share your creations, photos and comments below.

If you’ve got some free webspace, a spare MySQL database and a burning desire to share your particular flavour of photography with the world wide web then you’ll be relieved to find out Pixelpost is a powerful free open-source tool for the job.

In this article, we’ll be looking at version 1.7.3 ““ you can check out the latest version in action right here.

Installing the Pixelpost Photo Blog Engine

Before you get too excited, it’s important to check you’ve got everything Pixelpost requires to function. In order to install the software, you’re going to need:

• PHP version 4.3.3 or higher
• The getimagesize() PHP function
• PCRE UTF-8 Support
• PHP installation compiled with the GD graphics library

During the installation process, Pixelpost will test each of these settings, and if all goes well you won’t have any issues. If you do then it’s wise to contact your web hosting company for updates and additional software.

Download the latest Pixelpost release and extract it into its own folder on your hard drive. You’re going to need an FTP client to connect to your webspace, I’d recommend FileZilla as it’s free, stable and cross-compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac. You can then upload the folder (with any name you like) to your webspace.

Once done, simply visit your photo blog’s location in a web browser (e.g. yoururl.com/pixelpost) to see if everything’s in order.

You will also need to make the

/images

and

/thumbnails

folders in your Pixelpost folder writeable (unless they already are). To do this, open up your favourite FTP program, select the required directories and apply CHMOD 777 (Read/Write/Execute, usually under Permissions in the right click menu).

When you’ve done all this, you can navigate to yoururl.com/pixelpost/admin (replacing yoururl and pixelpost with your own info) to begin the installation. Be aware you’ll need to create a new MySQL database, a user for the database and a password for the user. Keep all this information handy, you’ll need it to complete the installation.

Pixelpower

Once you’ve made it through the installation and logged in to your admin panel, everything is fairly straightforward. The bar at the top of the admin screen provides access to pretty much every function you’ll need, though the Options page makes for a good starting point.

There are 4 pages of options ““ General, Template, Thumbnails and Spam Control. The General page allows you to customize your blog’s name, sub-title, RSS feed settings and so on. Templates allows you to change the look and feel of the site (more on that later) and Thumbnails and Spam Control are fairly self-explanatory.

Once you’re set-up, you can post a new image from the New Image admin page. But first, there are a few things to remember when posting to your photo blog.

Pixelpost will not resize your images for you ““ so you’re going to need to resize and save anything you want posted online. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as you can watermark your images while you’re at it (if you do so wish).

You cannot make categories from the New Image page, a feature that I have gotten used to thanks to WordPress. The best way round this is to quickly create a new category from the Categories page before posting.

You’ve also got the (absolutely fantastic) ability to schedule posts directly from the New Image page, especially useful if you’re doing a photo-a-day and want to sort your photos out beforehand.

Repaint The Galleries

Once you’ve posted an image take a look at your new photo blog. Photography aside, it should probably look something like this:

If you’re sick of the black background, white border and grey text then you can always give your Pixelpost a brand new look by changing the template. Templates come in folders to be easily placed in the

/templates

folder of your Pixelpost install.

You can then change template via the Options then Template page. There’s plenty to choose from on the Pixelpost website.

There’s also all manner of addons available for download, and these should be put in the

/addons

folder of your Pixelpost installation. You can then activate them on the Addons page in your admin panel.

Once you’ve finally got your photo blog exactly the way you want it it’s time for the hardest job of all ““ choosing the right photos! I’ll leave that one up to you.

Conclusion

If you’ve got some experience in setting up simple WordPress-style blogs then you’ll have no issues with Pixelpost, from the installation right down to adding images, templates and addons. You’ve then got the task of driving traffic and competing with some of the best photo blogs on the web ““ good luck!

Did you use Pixelpost for your photo blog? Thinking of starting one up but not sure how? Any favourite themes or addons? Fancy plugging your photography anyway? Let us know in the comments below.

MakeUseOf is proud to announce The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Joomla which is now available to download for free along with our other PDF guides.

Thanks to this 40+ page guide, you can create your own, professional website within minutes. This guide will teach you how to use Joomla CMS and create your own websites.

Download: The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Joomla

This guide will walk you through:

• What is CMS Software
• What are the most popular CMS software you can use to create a website
• Why choose Joomla to create a website
• How to install Joomla on to your webserver
• How to setup your new Joomla website
• How to publish content to your Joomla website
• How to design and customise your site to your likings

FREE Download: The Complete Beginners Guide To Joomla

By the end, you will know enough to be able to get your very own website up and running. If you are still not confident, help is always available at MakeUseOf Answers.

The problem with the majority of bloggers gravitating toward one platform is that many of the other high quality CMS platforms tend to get overlooked. Beyond WordPress, there’s Joomla, Drupal, and a whole variety of very simple CMS platforms out there, like gpEasy, which I recently reviewed.

There is also one more platform that rarely gets much attention, but deserves a mention because of the unique features and ease of use that it brings to the table. That platform is none other than B2Evolution.

Run Multiple Blogs On One Platform

One of the most commonly asked questions on many of the blogging forums that I browse is how to run multiple WordPress blogs with one install. While it can be done (from what I’ve heard with a bit of difficulty), the B2Evolution blogging platform allows for multiple blogs as a default configuration when you first set it up. There’s no jumping through hoops or complicated configuration – the blogs are just there and ready for you to start blogging.

I discovered B2Evolution when I first started blogging, before I’d ever even heard of WordPress. B2Evolution was available with my hosting account, although manual setup is just as easy as WordPress, as it is also built upon PHP and an SQL database. In my configuration above, you can see that I had 5 blogs ready to go, although I only focused on developing my default blog.

Writing posts in your blogs is just as simple as in any other advanced CMS platform like WordPress or Drupal, but in B2Evolution all of the blogs that are hosted on your install and that you’ve enabled as visible are listed at the top. Switching between blogs and posting on each one is as simple as clicking on the button for the blog.

Viewing all of the posts for each blog isn’t much unlike other platforms. You can quickly access different aspects of the posts from this one page – such as comments or the posting schedule. And blog settings are simple enough so that even a newbie blogger could likely figure out how to configure each blog.

The only part that can get a little bit complicated is configuring the correct URL for each blog. Only one can be set up as the “default” blog when visitors access the index.php file, but you can use the “Absolute URL” field if you’ve reserved a domain for each blog.

However, another advantage of B2Evolution of WordPress is how intuitive and simple most of the blog configuration is. Settings are clearly tabulated at the top, and further up you can switch from the settings for one blog to another with the click of the mouse.

Default Setup Comes With Many Features

The cool thing about B2Evolution is that it comes with a lot of awesome features already part of the default setup that you don’t find as part of the WordPress or Drupal install. One of those is the ability to monitor all sorts of traffic details for each of your blogs.

The ability to extend B2Evolution is available as well. The availability of a whole library of skins and plugins is just impressive. On the B2Evolution website alone, you’ll find hundreds of high quality skins – basically blog themes – that can really transform your blog and make it look amazing in a matter of minutes. And setup only requires that you download the files to the theme folder and then enable it in the admin panel. The same is true for the plug-ins, which are updated and constantly growing thanks to a wide user base.

Once I’d installed my new dark-background theme, updated the title and published a few beginning posts, I have to say I was very pleased with the look and feel of my very first blog, built upon the B2Evolution platform. It felt very professional, and the themes are just formatted much more cleanly than most of the WordPress blog themes that you’ll find for free.

Another nice feature that’s built right into the default B2Evolution install – a comment area for every post.

Downloading and installing plug-ins to extend the functionality of your B2Evolution install is as easy as downloading the files to the “plugins” folder and installing it from the general “App settings” page.  You’ll find plug-ins for everything from Twitter to Google Webmaster tools.

If you are interested in loading up one single install that will let you publish multiple blogs, more default features and easier configuration than WordPress or other blog platforms, and higher quality free templates than most other CMS systems, then B2Evolution is definitely the platform of choice for you. With so many features, a wide user base and so many available extensions – you’ll find that it will do everything that you expect from a high quality blog, and then some.

Have you ever tried B2Evolution? What did you think about it? I’d love to hear about your own experiences with the platform!

A CMS gives a website designer the ability to design a site and then just show the customer (or department head or whomever) how to do the content updates himself.  With a site built on a CMS, the less tech-savvy can more easily manage the content themselves.  Hence the name “content management system.”

What if you could find one of those free website templates on the Internet and easily and quickly set up the content to be edited just like a CMS?  Now, believe it or not, it is possible.

In this article I will walk you through how to set up a website template to be edited like a CMS using a tool called Pulse CMS.

please note: this article is geared towards those who have prior knowledge about setting websites up.  The idea is to be able to set up the site so you can hand it off to someone who doesn’t possess web design skills so they can handle the content management aspects of the site themselves.

For the purposes of this tutorial, I will be downloading any old free website template I can find on the Internet.  Obviously if you are a designer and have designed a site already, you are a step ahead.

Step One: Downloading & Installing The Website Template

I googled for free website templates and choose this one for no particular reason.

If you are familiar with setting up websites then this step should be fairly easy.  All I did was unzip the website files, changed the index.html file to a PHP file and uploaded everything to the web server via FileZilla.

I changed the file to a PHP file because the embed code we will be using later will be PHP.  This way we shouldn’t have any issues.

Step Two: Decide The Pages To Be Controlled Via CMS & Create Them

Not being much of a coder or web designer myself, I cheated and grabbed the text from the index file instead of starting from scratch.  You may want to decide what you will be calling each of the page files so you can set up the navigation links before grabbing the text from the index.php file.

Notice that I only set up the aboutus.php file for this test but you will want to set up all of your pages in the same way.

OK, so now I have both an index.php file and an aboutus.php file.  I scrolled down and found the boxes of information that I either wanted to be controlled by the CMS or I wanted to delete all together.  If you know enough about code, this shouldn’t be much of an issue.  The box I want to be controlled, I just deleted the default information and made space for the embed code.  You will soon see what we will be doing so hang on.

Step Three: Download The Software & Upload It To Your Server

The cool part about this step is that there is no installation needed and no tables are created.  Mad cool, huh?

Head over to the Pulse CMS website and download the zip file.

Unzip the folder.  Before uploading the folder to your server, you’ll want to edit the “includes/config.php” file and change the default password.

Once finished with that, upload the folder to the directory containing the website files.  Now you should be able to log in by going to that directory (anysite.com/pulse).

Step Four: Set Up Blocks, Grab Embed Codes & Insert Them In Pages

A block is what they call an editable region on your website.  Since I am setting up an About Us page to be modified via the CMS, that is the block I will be working on.  In fact, when you first log into your pulse directory, you’ll notice that there is already a block set up called “About.html” which is why I chose the About Us page for this tutorial.

For the sake of ease, I will be leaving the block the way it is:

And just grabbing the embed code:

Then, since the files we created are PHP files now, you should have no problem with the code being read once you paste it in place.

Now, any block you have set up should contain content that can be modified simply by logging into the /pulse directory and making the appropriate changes.

Pulse CMS has an interface that, similar to WordPress, is about as easy as using a word processor.  As a web designer, you should be able to hand over the login details to the pulse directory to a less tech- or design-savvy person and quickly show them how to make updates themselves.

Do you know of any other, perhaps easier ways to set up a site for easy content management?  Please share!

Here at MakeUseOf, we’ve covered a number of WordPress competitors, like Drupal or Joomla. However, for this use, a really simple CMS (Content Management System) is ideal – because it would make it easy to add new content quickly.

For such a small site, you really don’t want to install WordPress, because it would consume a fair block of your hosting space. During my search for a good, light (and free) CMS, I ran through and tested 5 systems including CMSimple, CMS Made Simple, SkyBlueCanvas, and WolfCMS.

I actually blew my entire Saturday attempting to install and test these systems – only to discover that the installation process was just to complex or required too many “tweaks” and modifications. I wanted something that could install as quickly and easily as WordPress, but was scaled down. Finally, on my fifth try, I discovered a very simple CMS called gpEasy.

Installing gpEasy in Three Ridiculously Easy Steps

The installation for gpEasy is unbelievably small compared to WordPress. It’s just over 2MB, compared to WordPress, which is about 10 Mb. Once you download the zipped file, just place all of the files into your public web directory. Then, open up the website (which should be the directory where all of the files you just uploaded are stored.) You’ll see an install screen with a status of what is or isn’t configured correctly.

Oops! Forgot to set permissions on the data folder so that it’s writeable (should have set it to 777).

With other CMS systems, you have to edit a config file or tweak the code to define your database – not the case with gpEasy. It’s so easy that someone without a bit of coding experience could set it up. Once you’ve got everything set up right, enter your admin ID and Password, and refresh the install page again, you’ll get a successful install notice.

That’s it! Your site is now live, and you can log in and start editing it or playing around with the template to make it look however you like. If you thought the install was easy, wait until you see the administrator area.

This is the default template of the site. It’s nothing terribly impressive, but then again, it’s a website that lets you instantly update components of it – pages, sidebar, footer, and header – with just a few quick mouse clicks and keystrokes. Absolutely no coding required.

My favorite feature of this CMS is the ease with which you can modify the menu bar, which will show up on every single page. The formatting and font choices are a bit standard, but then again, much of the style will come from how creative you are with your writing and image placement.

Once you log into the admin area, I am certain that you’ll be just as blown away as I was at how functional the editing areas are. As you can see here, there’s a lot that you can modify about your website – you can even choose from a dozen or so alternative themes, and the CMS will automatically change the theme for you (see below).

Every component of the website – header, footer, sidebars or content area – is editable using the very functional WYSIWYG editor. As you can see in the screenshot above, this editor is a lot more functional than many of the other free CMS systems out there! When you click on the “configuration” button, you’ll find many of the same fields as you’d find in your WordPress blog setup – complete with meta-keywords and description fields.

When you want to add, remove or edit new pages on your website, just click on the “File Manager” and you’ll see the coolest graphical interface that you’ve ever seen. The parent and child pages are displayed in a very cool, easy-to-follow hierarchy, which you can click on and modify as you please. Want to edit a page? Just click on the green arrows, go to options, and Edit File.

If you click on the “Themes” button in the admin area, you’ll have the opportunity to change your Theme to one of the dozen or so preloaded themes. These themes are the ones displayed when you click on the link to browse the available themes. Just make a note of the name of the theme you like, and then click on that button in the theme area. The system switches themes for you – no file upload, no tweaking, no nothing. Done. Here’s my new theme.

Now, gpEasy redefines the word “Easy” with this interface. Once you have a theme you like, you can edit different areas of the page by just hovering your mouse over that area and then clicking on “Edit.” I have never seen a CMS interface that you can host on your own web server that is so amazingly intuitive and functional, even though it’s free.

The beauty of gpEasy really stands out when you’re in the situation that I described at the start of this article – when you want a quick and simple website that looks good, but is also easy and convenient to update whenever you like. gpEasy is for creating those sites where you just don’t need a lot of extra plugins or bells and whistles – you just want to deliver content to your readers.

With gpEasy CMS, you’ll have a new page up and adding your content in less than 30 minutes. Once you’ve formatted your page with the theme and style you like, adding new pages is just as easy (if not easier – dare I say) than using WordPress.

Have you ever used gpEasy? What do you think about it? Do you have a different easy CMS system that you like more? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Like I said, WordPress began as a simple content management system for bloggers. It was pretty light, fairly simple to install and use and worked great for what it was meant for: blogging. I’m here to tell you it is still light and easy but it has grown to be much more than just a blogging platform. Extensions and non-blog WordPress themes have done a great job making it into the CMS it is today and through the upgrade process, many of those useful extensions have been built in and now it works great running all sorts of sites.

This article will introduce you to 5 non-blog WordPress themes that will show you how well WordPress does on sites that aren’t necessarily blogs.  A few of the site types you’ll see are: magazines, church sites, portfolios, and photography sites. I have looked around and found some of the best themes for the jobs and I hope you enjoy.

Newspress – A Great Magazine WordPress Theme

Magazines have hit the internet and they’ve done well creatively. I think a good magazine site will be colorful, easy to navigate, highlight main or new articles and will draw your attention to the content. When it comes to magazine themes, layout makes a big difference.

Newspress does a good job of immediately getting your attention. Across the top, you will see articles being highlighted with pictures from the individual articles. I believe the theme does this automatically for you. There are some customization options and a widgetized footer for further flexibility.

Churches Can Use WordPress Too

I think WordPress lends itself very well to running a site like a church site. That’s because of the amount of changes a church site could see on a weekly or monthly basis and WordPress is a fairly simply CMS to learn. Churches don’t always have the budgets for professional webmasters or design professionals so a simple CMS and free non-blog WordPress themes make life a lot easier.

The Delta Theme is a very amiable choice for a church website. It’s layout is very easy to figure out and shouldn’t be all that unfamiliar to someone who frequents church sites. With easy page navigation up at the left of the banner, and a thin sidebar directly beneath, and a wider right sidebar, there is plenty of room for things like services times, contact information, and calendar widgets.

Easily Setup A Portfolio Site Using WordPress

If you are a design professional of any type these days, you’ll be wanting a presence on the internet. You’d want something to grab and hold attention, using graphics and photos that are large enough to show off your skills. You’ll also want it to be easy to navigate as to not frustrate any potential clients.  WordPress makes setting it up easy… with the right theme of course.

The WP-Creativix theme may just be the portfolio theme you’ve been looking for. In my opinion, one of the best portfolio themes, WP-Creativix has many of the features a design professional may be looking for. It has easy page navigation along the top, large pictorial previews of each project just below the page navigation, and an easy scroll through of the rest of your projects.

Show Off Your Photography Skills With WordPress

A good photography site or blog will actually get out of the way and allow the photography to take center stage. That not only means that the design should not be distracting, but also that the navigation should be unobtrusive. You can also have a page set up for each photo explaining about it. Wordpress, with the right theme, can help you accomplish all of this quite easily.

Viewport is one of those photo blogging themes that gets out of the way. Notice how the page navigation is small and subtle. There’s a search box but it’s not distracting. There are arrows on either side of the photo allowing you to easily flip through the photographs. There’s also a caption and quick description which also allows you to click through to a post that tells more about the photograph. All you can ask for in a photography theme, right?

Use WordPress as an Internal Communication Tool with P2

As mentioned in an earlier article, How To Use WordPress As A Twitter-Like Communication Tool, if you make use of Automattic’s P2 Theme, you can also turn WordPress into a tool that may help pull your business or organization out of the uncommunicative rut.

The theme takes much of its usability from Twitter and it allows you to easily, and in real time, post and reply right from the front page. Want to know more? Just check out the post.

WordPress, even though it began as a simple blogging platform, can be used in many different ways. These are some of the best non-blog WordPress themes highlighting many of those non-blogging uses. What other uses (and themes highlighting those uses) can you think of that WordPress may be good for? Let us know in the comments.

I tried many solutions that did one thing and not another. Then I finally settled on one platform that seemed to be pretty open and it had great support via forums. That solution is Joomla.

Joomla is billed as the dynamic portal engine and content management system. It is in other words a multi-purpose CMS that can be molded to do your bidding. Taty recently covered 10 extensions for Joomla here.

So the first thing you need to do is go grab a pen and paper (or your laptop) and go speak to the person in charge of HR. If you are looking to build an Intranet for yourself you should then consult with yourself.

Write down a list of what you want the Intranet to be able to do. What it needs to contain, not contain and how you want to achieve it.

Here is my “building an intranet for dummies” list:

• Have menu options for each department that will be accessing the site.
• It needs to be hosted offsite.
• Have a place to download documents, images and other information.
• Have a place for administrators to be able to upload those documents.
• Be password protected so only registered users can access our data.
• Be able to have administrators publish articles for users to see.
• Show directions to our site.

This seemed like a pretty straight forward list ““ right? What else could I need? Well you will find out as you go along. Next we need to either download or install Joomla to our webhost. Many webhosts have automatic processes for installing Joomla.

Joomla gets installed just like WordPress. I use a host that has it and all I had to do was click on that and then locate Joomla.

Joomla 1.5 is the latest and greatest version and as you can see, all you need to do is select it and then click on New Installation.

But if you do not have that option you can download Joomla here and follow the directions in the package. After downloading Joomla we will want to customize the template, add extensions or modules that do what we want it to do and then we will spice it up!

After the installation is complete you will have the URL it was set up with. By adding /administrator to the end of the URL we can get to the administrator console like so:

Type in the username and password for your admin account and then you will be logged in and see this:

The first thing you will want to do is choose a template. Google for Free Joomla Templates and you will find a lot. Pick one and download it or pick a bunch and download them.

Then you will click on Extensions – install/uninstall to get the templates installed. Then you will find them under Extensions ““ Template Manager as you see below:

I found and installed one called rhuk_milkyway. It is released under GPL so you can freely modify anything in it!

Next up we will go and find some extensions to add more functionality to your Joomla installation. I added  JEvents and Remositrory.

Jevents allows you to set up events and a calendar to show when corporate events are taking place. Remositrory allows you to add file repositories that designated people will be allowed to upload and download.

You can go through the menu manager and edit the existing menus to display what you want. If you are decent in PHP you really can change anything in your Joomla installation. When I was finished with all my modifications this is what I had: (logo and other identifying information removed for confidentiality.)

Have you ever built your own intranet? If so, what software have you used? Please let us know in the comments.