Getting Started with Joomla

Two sites I often see that are difficult to build with Joomla are school websites and membership sites that use paid subscriptions.

School websites can be very complex and are difficult to set up. Our school Shackpack's popularity was a testament to how difficult this is. Built with Joomla 1.0, many schools took advantaged of a pre-configured school website, and the 30 page guide that went along with it. For some time now many schools have been asking us when the 1.5 version would app [...]

A few weeks ago I found a great web marketing site, ittybiz.com. I have had Naomi's site in my RSS reader and see that she has launched a new product about doing business online.

You can find out more about her Online Business School at her site. Its a really interesting package, created by a gifted web marketing consultant.

Go check it out, she is currently offering it for 50% off.

Last week I wrote a post, Did Stallman Say Gmail is Worse than Stupidity where I noted that Stallman had made some interesting comments about the dangers (as he saw them) of running SaaS.

I just came across another post on GigaOM that pointed out an interesting aspect I had never thought of. The post asserted that the ability to run software is perhaps more important than having the code in your hands.

Check out the post, its certainly an interesting perspective on this issue... [...]

According to Steve Krug (aka Don't Make Me Think), there are two type of site visitors. Those that come to your site and start browsing, and those that tend to look for a search as their first step.

Brian Teeman (new blog, check it out), notes that most sites, Joomla or otherwise have the search in the top right. A convention worth keeping to.

I have gone back and forth with what type of search to use. I used to use the Joomla search, then I switched to the Google search. S [...]

In June we launched a revolutionary new service that provides fully managed Joomla websites and world class education and support. We call it Simplweb.

We are excited to announce the launch of a new program, the Simplweb Professional Partner Program. If you need help, or don't have the ti [...]

UPDATED 10/23: Special deal for Compass friends! $50 off the registration price through November 1st!

Time is running out for you to get your tickets for the biggest Joomla event this year in the USA, the CMS Winter Expo!

You're invi [...]

Looking for a Professional Grade Free Joomla! 1.5 Template?

Joomlashack's latest free Joomla template features 800/1024/Fluid layout options, custom column widths, and is loaded with beautiful typography and other convenient optio [...]

Some Joomla developers were chatting about the possibility of running Joomla on server clouds and someone posted a link to a fascinating post on Richard Stallman on the topic. I read his comments, then re-read them... and then my mind boggled a bit more, and I had to re-read a third time.

Did he just say Gmail is stupidity that is worse than stupidity?

At this point, I couldn't run my business without Gmail. Its increased my productivity tremendously....

Stallman wa [...]

I have mentioned before that its sometimes a challenge dealing with Joomla registrations issues. I have had particular problems with Joomla Confirmation emails to hotmail and aol, specifically, the emails get caught in spam filters and the users never get the confirmation email.

So I was especially interested to get a Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox about Transactional Email and Confirmation Messages, e.g. confirmation emails Joomla sends out.

Let's take a look at what he says and c [...]

There has been much speculation recently about duplicate content in Joomla (Duplicate Titles in Joomla). As I have discussed before, the question is not so much about Duplicate Content, but about pagerank dilution with Joomla URL's.

Although many in the Joomla SEO community have commented on this, there seems to have been pushback from Joomla developers, past or current, that there is nothing to see here, move along. Duplicate titles or URL's don't matter, Google is all seeing.

Some time ago, I posted my answer to the eternal question, Should I use Joomla 1.0 or 1.5? Now there is another factor to consider, Wilco Jansen recently posted on the Developer Team Blog the actual date when Joomla 1.0 would stop being supported with updates, July 22nd 2009.

"As of July 22, 2009, the Joomla 1.0.x series will no longer be supported."

Although that seems a long way into the future, its actually only 9 months.

You can read more about the [...]

Joomla has a syndication module. This allows you to have an RSS feed of a section or category on your site. In fact, offering RSS feeds of your site is even easier.

Just add the following to section or category page URL of your site:

?format=feed&type=rss

Instant RSS Feeds!

One of the biggest events featuring Joomla in 2008 will be the CMS EXPO at Denver in December. Its going to be a two and a half day event with over 24 great training sessions on Joomla! Even better, the CMS EXPO site has just released the news that speaking at the event will be Joomla Core Team members.

From the CMS EXPO site:

" [...]

There are many things that are important in your hosting company: stability, support and a price you can afford.

When it comes to hosting for Joomla, the picture is even more complicated. The average web host server is not usually optimized for Joomla. Not only that, getting help for your Joomla questions can be difficult, if not impossible.

Compass Design is pleased to announce the launch of a new service to solve the problem of easy to use Joomla hosting. The service is cal [...]

aka I found a really great site to share with you.

I have ADD.

I didn't know this when I was younger. In fact, when I was at school, ADD did not exist. I only discovered it when I taught high school for 8 years, saw lots of adolescent boys running round like they had ants in their pants and realized, "ahhhh, I have that!"

What does this have to do with the web?

I also now have a job where I sit around much of the day on the web. I go to alot of site [...]

I noticed a recent post on Arno Zijlstra's new blog about duplicate titles. He was linking to a recent post from Google where it was said that duplicate content was dead and buried and not an issue.

Unfortunately, I rather think the point might be being missed by everyone.

It used to be thought that duplicate content, something that Joomla is often guilty at creating, would earn you a penalty slap from Google. Those in the SEO community would often keep raising the issue as [...]

New versions of Jomcomment (3.0) and MyBlog (2.0) have been out a few weeks now. I have finally got my act together enough to upgrade.

There are a few nice feature additions, and it seems a bunch of bug fixing. You can find the full change log on Azrul's Member portal (which now seems to have been put on the back burner).

I decided to celebrate the fact my site did not implode on upgrading (it just took a few minutes) with a slight modification to the comment template. You can n [...]

Several weeks ago Joomla released a significant update, 1.5.6 for Joomla 1.5 due to a security issue. Last week there was a new release, 1.5.7 that was a more general update. There was 1 critical, 1 major and 2 moderate security vulnerabilities fixed in 1.5.7. For more information, visit the Security Center.

The official release reads:

Contributed by Hanh Brown of Investers Lounge Online

One of the first questions business people ask is "do I need a website?" The answer to this is a resounding, yes. Absolutely. Even if you think your business is too small, too obscure, or something frivolous you don't think will or can be sold online, you are mistaken.

Everything and anything can be sold over the Internet. There are 20+ million online shoppers these days, buying everything from computers to vi [...]

Need to get the most out of Joomla?

Steve Burge of alledia.com has a great summary of training across the US. There are 10 more days you can get world class experts to help you with Joomla at venues across the US.