Drupal Watchdog Magazine Issue #2: Mobile Drupal

The second issue of Drupal Watchdog, the first ever print magazine dedicated entirely to the Drupal framework and CMS, arrived in the mail today - I have to say I’m VERY impressed! This issue focuses heavily on Mobile Drupal and is packed with well written informative articles.

Even if you don’t use Drupal you’ll learn a lot about performance tuning mobile applications (97% of mobile performance is on the front end) and responsive design; if you do use Drupal, this issue is a must read – many of the communities leading authors and developers contributed.

“Within the Drupal source code there is a function called "watchdog()" which is used to report what is going on in a Drupal website. Our goal is that Drupal Watchdog Magazine be a fantastic resource for tracking what is going on in the Drupal World.”
- Drupal Watchdog Magazine

Get your copy now - a high-resolution electronic edition is available for purchase and download on Zinio.com, and you can order a copy of the print addition from Amazon.com.

Watchdog is currently published twice a year – with each issue coming out around the same time as the North American and European DrupalCon’s. Jeremy Andrews, the publisher of Watchdog, wrote up a great preview on issue two a few months ago; below I’ll highlight a handful of articles that Jeremy didn't mention in his post, and keep in mind there is so much more inside the magazine, so get your copy now! :)

Responsive Design:
In addition to the John Albin Wilkins article (an in-depth comparison of the most prominent methods of serving mobile content) that Jeremy mentioned, Bruno De Bondt and Kridtof Orts contributed an article on Responsive Design that will give you a solid overview of CSS3 media queries, flexible grids and media, along with insights on how to implement these tools in Drupal 7 and a preview of what’s to come in Drupal 8. If that’s not enough, all three authors provide you with links and references to a wide range of resources on the web where you can learn more.

Mobile Performance:
On a laptop or desktop computer using a web browser, the front end of your website (the css, html, js, graphics, etc.) accounts for 80-85% of page load time and performance; on a mobile device the front end accounts for about 97% of performance! Matthew Farina wrote a great article, “Big Performance Wins on the Front End” that provides an insightful overview of the problem and technical constraints (processing power, network latency, etc) and shows you the tools and tips you need to improve your web front end.

“[speed] matters. Amazon found every 100ms of latency cost them 1% in sales. Google found an extra .5 seconds in search page generation time dropped traffic by 20%.”
- highscalability.com

Other Articles:
In addition to all the articles about Mobile Drupal this issue contains many articles and columns on a wide range of topics including a Security article by Larry Garfield, an Overview of Content Management with Workbench by Robin Barre, and Karoly Negyesi (chx) wrote about the Drupal 7 Relation Module.

Not all the articles are technical in nature – there is something for everyone inside, including those new to the platform. Ariane Khachatourians’ column, “Contributing 101” gives guidance for those who are looking for ways to give back and establish or build on their “Drupal Karma”, and J. Ayen Green writes about “the challenges of project management when facing Drupal sites and the Agile approach”. 

… and it looks good too:
While most of the content I consume these days is online, there is something special about holding a magazine or book in your hands (and getting away from the computer) that I cherish. The layout and print quality of this issue are even better then the first – you can feel and see the quality as you turn through the pages.

Congratulations to all the authors who contributed and everyone who helped make this issue possible! 

Disclosure: I was the Executive Editor for the first issue of Drupal Watchdog Magazine, and I’ve worked with several of the authors, Tag1 Consulting (who’s partners own and operate Tag1 Publishing and put out this magazine), and CODENAME Design (who designed the logo and t-shirts) on multiple projects.