Online video provider Lynda.com just released my new six-hour video series, "Drupal 6: Online Presentation of Data". You can check it out with a free one-day pass; it's also available to anyone with a Lynda.com subscription, which starts at $25/month.

The course covers calendars, mapping, charting, and preparing data for tabular export, all built on a foundation of CCK and Views. Since Lynda.com's audience is mostly graphic designers, the course also includes clarification about how to plan data structures. Extra bonus: For giggles, check out the Introduction video, which includes some live-action video of the author looking goofy. :)

One wag in IRC questioned the need for such a course. "Presentation of Data?," he said. "Isn't that what Drupal does anyway?" He's right -- in the same way that a car is a tool for going shopping.

But I believe that many people who would benefit from Drupal's data-presentation features simply don't know about them, because their knowledge of it stops at Stories, Pages, users, and blocks. They need a bit more information to make the leap, and could become fierce advocates for Drupal when they see all it can do in this area.

Drupal version: Drupal 6.x