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I just posted a job on oDesk looking for someone to help get AdHack from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6. Here's the cut n paste of the description:

We are migrating our existing website from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 and need an expert Drupal themer to help with the conversion of the theme.

The current live site is available for review at http://adhack.com

It runs on Drupal 5 and uses common Drupal modules such as CCK and Views.

We already have the Acquia version of Drupal 6 running on a development server. This is an initial port so we can migrate to Drupal 6 and add more features over time. This may lead to on going contract work in theming and light development.

Skills required:

• Existing portfolio and experience with Drupal 6 theming.

• Drupal theming

• HTML

• CSS

• PHP

• custom work with the template.php file

• customization with Views module

The main skills needed here are familiarity with both the Drupal 5 theming system and the Drupal 6 theming differences. There are lots of custom views with accompanying snippets in the template.php. This is an initial port so that we can get everything running on D6, and then optimize from there.

It's my estimation that this would be about 20 hours of work for someone that charges $25 an hour, or 10 hours of work for someone that charges $50 per hour :P This is an hourly job, that's just my estimate of what a first cut port would take.

If you're a developer but know the theming layer, this would be a good fit: there is more development-centric work to be done on various custom bits and pieces.

Tomorrow is the Macworld 2009 keynote, this time by Phil Schiller instead of Jobs. Regardless, it's that time of year again -- Apple rumour time! Mac Rumors is still my favourite site for this sort of thing -- here is their 2009 rumor roundup. They are on twitter now, so as well as the MacRumorsLive site, you can also follow them @macrumors.

The rumors seem pretty believable. I'd like to think something more exciting is planned for the MacBook Pro 17" than just a better battery. Maybe touchscreen instead of a keyboard? That's what I was thinking last time ... no keyboard, no trackpad, an entire touchscreen / tablet interface on the "bottom half". Think what this would do for audio mixers, Photoshop tools, etc. etc. I call this crazy wild idea the "Macbook DS" (partial props to UnConed on that one). (you know, kind of like I predicted 2 years ago :P)

Here's a quick audio preview of content for upcoming posts, that I recorded on a brand new Nokia E71.

• I'm OK with 3 year cell phone contracts here in Canada (this is going to be a post)
• I like the E71 (this will be another post)
• Rogers is the devil, Fido is the anti christ (and for hipsters)
• "They do have dogs, which is why I signed up for them in the first place" - Stewart Marshall.

Here's the audio file. My dad is heading back to Spain for another walk along the Camino, so he's learning his way around the E71 in wifi only mode, while I'm still on the Nokia N78, except now with a data plan. I need to also do a final review post of the N78.

Since my post on Redanyway, I've gone a few steps further into experimenting with Google Friend Connect.

Basically, it allows you to drop in a members system / social network onto any site. It doesn't need to be a CMS or a dynamic system at all, since it consists of just some Javascript that gets inserted wherever you like. You create a new network / site at the Friend Connect home, and then go on to upload a couple of files to your server. Select some widget options, copy and paste code, and you've got a place where visitors to your site can join your site's network.

Now, as opposed to creating yet-another-profile, visitors use their (presumably existing) Google Account to login. Google Accounts have Profiles attached to them (since about December 2007, although it's only recently that they are being talked about more). Here's my Google Profile.

There aren't really any built in "friends" in your everyday Google Account / Profile (in fact, in Google Reader it's really hard -- I enjoy Brendon Wilson's rant on this), so you can also activate several other networks to automatically connect with "friends" from those systems. Twitter and Plaxo are two that I experimented with. Orkut is also supported ... but when was the last time you signed into Orkut?

Twitter does that oh-so-lovable enter your username and password trick that leaves me feeling more than a bit queasy, but since I have a good size network, it seems pretty useful. You can then post to Twitter from within the widget to invite other people to join the network you've just entered. Plaxo does the better looking remote authentication and works just fine ... except I don't really use Plaxo all that much anymore.

OK, so now you're a "member" of a local "network"! What next? Well, on to the world of "Social Gadgets". There are ratings and a comment wall, and also support for OpenSocial apps. The OpenSocial apps are, I guess, the interesting part of this in the future, sort of allowing bridging of different data with mashups unique to the members on your own site. Except there's not much there today. Comments and ratings are fairly uninteresting when dynamic sites powered by Drupal or WordPress either do these things out of the box or can add them easily with a couple of plugins.

But....I'm not completely down on this system. In fact, I've been talking to Anthony of Farmstead Wines, who is a heavy Twitter user, about adding Friend Connect to his website. He can use his large Twitter network to build a social network around his website. It doesn't do a lot of interesting things *today* ... but you can already see how member profiles on Google Maps and other mashups will be trivial to implement in the future. Adding full network functionality to his website would cost a lot of money and time if needing to be "built in" directly, whereas the Friend Connect route lets Anthony build his network today, centered around the permalink of his own website (as opposed to some other system like ye old Ning).

I've included a Google Friend Connect network widget and wall widget after the jump. Jim Pick has also created one for the Vancouver Freebase.

Will you be adding Google Friend Connect to your site? Do you find it useful? Where is this heading?

As of yesterday evening, this site is now running Drupal 6 on a single Acquia codebase that also runs Seven Hills B&B (my parents' bed and breakfast site -- upgraded all the way from Drupal 4.6!) and Food Like That (my food / recipe site)

I continue to recommend Acquia for sites large and small. For smaller sites, if you've got some extra time around the holidays, the "Community" level of Acquia Network support is free until December 31st of this year. And once you sign up, you have that access for a full year. I have subscriptions for all the sites above that I've mentioned. You might have some non profit or smaller business sites that you help out with that would be a good fit.

For larger sites, you may be customizing too much to take advantage of Acquia. But, for startups just building out their Drupal implementation, having the consulting team and "backup support" of Acquia makes the Standard or Pro levels definitely worthwhile.

Anyway, end of the Acquia commercial :P I'm a fan of what those guys have done so far, but still would like to see a better install profile. This should directly lead to needing less of a Drupal developer to get somewhere fast. I used to joke about Cisco, which often gives out free / cheap hardware to non profits, that the equipment was worthless unless it had a Cisco Certified Engineer strapped to the top of it...