PHP-CSS-DIV-CMS Joomla-Java Info - News
Migrating to Google Apps Without Interrupting Email
22.07.11
I have recently been working with an Education School - The Upper Valley Educator Institute - to migrate their internal email systems to Google Apps Education Edition.
Their email was stored on a traditional server and everyone was using a different email client (no-one had backups!). Google Apps would provide some clear advantages in efficiency and management.
Incase you didn't catch the heads-up on joomla.org yesterday - a new security patch for and full version of Joomla 1.5x has been released.
Apparently a bug in 1.5.5 was allowing unscrupulous fellows to change people's login passwords... which is quite a big deal in my book. Typically the error is reported to leave the main site admin account open to editing! You can read more on this issue in the Joomla Developer Blog .
Security bugs are always a little scary but one thing to note with Joomla in general is that the loopholes always get closed very quickly - in fact, when you cruise through the Joomla forums its hard to find many posts reporting sites being hacked due to security flaws in Joomla core.
I recommend upgrading your Joomla 1.5.x site immediately to 1.5.6 - there are simple patches available on joomlacode.org (scroll down to the 1.5.6 upgrades section) which you can download and just upload on top of your current install; a process which takes just a couple of minutes.
There's a really simple new approach to defining what a site's default homepage is now with Joomla 1.5: All you have to do is go to Menus>mainmenuand, select the menu item you'd like to be the homepage and hit the new 'Default' button - you'll see a star appear in the table row for that item. Now, whenever people land at your site they'll see that page/view/component!
Joomla 1.5.11 has been released, and it includes security patches, so its important to update. But getting your Joomla site upgraded to the new version can be tricky, especially if you are using FTP.
Fortunately, there is an easier way, check out Joomlashack's tutorial How to Update Joomla 1.5 Versions.
You'll need SSH access, and remember to back up first!
Of course, if you want to never have to bother with updating Joomla or your extensions ever again, you can try [...]
The much anticipated launch of our online Joomla training course for Beginner Joomla-ites, Joomlashack University, did not disappoint last week. In less than 24 hours we sold out all 100 seats in the inaugural Shack U class of October 2009- and then some!
Joomlashack University is our attempt to make learning Joomla online a fun, interactive, affordable, and "at your own pace" experience. Instructors Forest Linden and Barrie North are guiding the first class through the very basics of getting a Joomla website installed, set up, and built with compelling content.
We're limiting the number of beginner students in our "Charter Class" to keep "class size" small, so we can lavish attention on our students and get the curriculum right. In November we'll re-open ShackU and let another class of eager online learners in!
There has been some debate and a little confusion (and some misinformation) about whether or not extension developers should upgrade their extensions to Joomla 1.6. The short answer is "yes, except if you have an extension that is now ruled obsolete by the new functionality."
Last week a great new directory was launched at joomla.org, the Joomla Resource Directory. Its a place where those that offer Joomla services can advertise their Joomla services.
There are already many different categories, and it looks like that the listings will be free, but with an option for paid listings.
The official blurb reads:
"In response to overwhelming interest and requests from the Joomla community, the Joomla Project is pleased to announce the Joomla[...]Its been a while since we have been able to post new tutorials here at compassdesigns.net. I have been hard at work on the 2nd edition of my book and the accompanying video.
But I am excited to say that I managed to convince David Towers from Good Web Practices to take some time and contribute one for us:
How to Optimize Images in Joomla 1.5
Check out the tutorial, there are some great tricks and tips how to unlock your images for SEO
David Towers is an SEO Manage [...]
If you are in the Vermont or New Hampshire area and work with open source in education, you might want to head over to the 2009 FOSSVT - Vermont's Open Source and Education Conference, Friday, April 10th, 2009 at Lake Morey Inn, Fairlee, VT.
Hopefully I'll be giving a quick "lightning session" on how school's can use Joomla to create a better, more dynamic, and more effective web presence.
I am pretty excited to be speaking at this event, much more than most events [...]
Joomla 1.6 and 1.7 introduced some new features regarding search, which may be helpful to you when building websites.
If you didn't know, I am a great fan of iContact.
I think that every website should be engaged in email marketing, and I think 3rd party systems are better than Joomla extensions.
But there is one feature that's missing, the ability to create a segment of anyone that's ever opened or clicked on one of your emails.
Being able to segment your email lists is real really important. Companies such as Amazon excel at this and their ROI on email shows it.
How does iConta [...]
As a new element of the planning and budget process, each Joomla! leadership team (Production Leadership Team, Community Leadership Team, and Open Source Matters) has set major goals for 2011. This goal setting effort has the following benefits:
- Allows our project’s budget to be a more effective tool for supporting the project's planned priorities for the upcoming year.
- Allows each leadership team to better understand what the other leadership teams are planning to work on, which will improve inter-team collaboration and support.
- Allows the community to be aware of goals and priorities for the upcoming year, which will improve transparency and openness and enable increased support and volunteer contributions.
- Will make it easier to bring in more sponsorship contributions, due to prospective sponsors having a better understanding about what initiatives their contributions will be supporting.
The major 2011 goals for each Joomla! leadership team are listed below. The goals are all numbered for reference purposes (but not as an indication of priority). A bullet list of some tasks that are planned to be worked on in support of these goals during the course of the year are listed below each goal.
The Joomla! project is also pleased to publish its final 2011 budget.
2011 Production Leadership Team goals
PLT Goal #1: Develop four iterations of the Joomla Platform project.
- Develop Joomla Platform 11.1. Target release date is 10 April 2011.
- Develop Joomla Platform 11.2. Target release date is 10 July 2011.
- Develop Joomla Platform 11.3. Target release date is 10 October 2011.
- Develop Joomla Platform 11.4. Target release date is 10 January 2012.
PLT Goal #2: Develop two iterations of the Joomla CMS project
- Develop "Bowerbird". Target release date is 10 July 2011.
- Complete development of com_localise component.
- Complete development of Joomla-MediaWiki importer to support localised documentation.
- Develop the next CMS release. Target release date is 10 January 2012.
PLT Goal #3: Release updates to the current LTS release (Joomla 1.5) as required
- Releases to be made until 3 months after GA of the next LTS. Number, timing and nature of these releases will depend on circumstances.
PLT Goal #4: Outreach and promotion of Joomla to a technical audience.
- Promotion of Joomla at technical conferences and events, particularly in respect of the Joomla Platform.
- Outreach to new developers under a Joomla Student Outreach Program (JSOP).
2011 Community Leadership Team goals
CLT Goal #1: Communication/Interaction with the Community
- More consistency in meetings and publishing of meeting notes/minutes
- Increase CLT membership to ease individual workload as well as broaden representation within leadership and public facing (the community) Task: Assign a member to join the communications team with OSM and PLT
- Volunteer forms for each area of the CWG (JRD, JED, People, JCM, Forum)
- Volunteer recognition program: rewards, public mentions, badges
- More updates to the CWG channels (google group, people site, blogs) about things happening within the working group
CLT Goal #2: Joomla.org site maintenance, usability, effectiveness and improvements
- New joomla.org family site design: volunteer committee run design
- Phased upgrade to 1.6 (and beyond)
- Enhanced Directory Listings
- Single sign on/auto sign on
- Evaluate possible forum software alternatives such as Kunena
- Integrate User Notes for directory and people sites
- Website upkeep - eg. security, third party upgrades, recovery in the event of compromise
CLT Goal #3: Active participation in live events
- Have more CWG attendance at Joomla events (team members)
- More representation of CWG leadership at events
- Joint Leadership Summit
- Video and live steaming of events
2011 Open Source Matters Goals
OSM Goal #1: Increase revenue from sponsorships, shop, and website monetization opportunities
- a) Switch the shop over to spreadshirt.com b) create new souvenirs (key ring , Mug, etc...)
- Brainstorm & update sponsor opportunities/pages
- Increase publicity of new sponsors and sponsor opportunities
- Increase Google Ads revenue using prime locations
- Brainstorm & implement Joomla hosting page
- Try to add international team members to improve international sponsors.
OSM Goal #2: Solidify/stabilize the Trademark team
- Confirm (Acting) Trademark Team leader
- Document Trademark-application processes
- Document and simplify Trademark rules
- Recruit new Trademark Team members & involve more board members
- Implement new Ticketing software to better manage submissions and communications
- Use ProjectFork software to manage above internal tasks
- Clarify Trademark priorities
- Try to add international team members to translate process documents and follow up with international issues.
OSM Goal #3: Establish Joomla supporters club
- Brainstorm details
- Create requirements
- Fix firm dates for going live
- Confirm who is going to develop & costs
- Ongoing publicity & monthly promotions
- Ask for help to translate information to different languages.
OSM Goal #4: Simplification and documentation of our processes
- Document Treasurer responsibilities and processes (for normal duties as well as project-wide processes such as budget/planning, funding requests, and contractor engagements), and add to the Wiki
- Document processes for Events and add to the Wiki
- Document trademark processes and add to Wiki
- Organizing of OSM organizational documents
- Document travel process for leadership team members (Orbitz, etc.)
- Identify repository for international documentation.
OSM Goal #5: Improve support for Joomla events
- Build an events team
- Finding a long run strategy for events
- Defining the target groups for different event types
- Establish Joomla world conference
- Documentation sprints and developer conferences
- Create translations for documentation.
OSM Goal #6: Improve PR/Promotion efforts to raise positive global awareness about value of Joomla
- Raise awareness of Sponsorships
- Publicise Supporters Club
- Translate documents.
Please discuss this blog here.
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Latest Joomla News: August/September 2011
27.09.11
Much is happening in the Joomla community! Get the latest on upcoming events, interesting threads, latest news, and what to watch for in the week ahead. Did you hear about the new Joomla Template Directory? If not, be sure to read on...
SourceThe Ultimate Top 10 Joomla Extensions
09.05.09
When we speak at events, or do Joomla training, one of the questions we get asked again and again is:
"What are your favorite Joomla extensions?"
There have been lots of people that have tried to answer this question, and its a hard one. One thing that I think makes it hard is the question isn't "what is the best extension?" That sort of question is really focusing on a particular scenario. The questioner perhaps means something like "what is the best [...]
Gregory Maassen: using Joomla for simple publishing and document downloads
09.05.09
Though it may not win any awards for innovative design, development consultant and Rotterdam School of Management professor Gregory Maassen's personal website is an excellent example of how Joomla provides a ton of accessible functionality.
developmentwork.net was built in Joomla 1.5x with a suite of free/Open Source extensions by Gregory himself.  As its main function was to serve as a repository for his publications, docman served well in easily creating an interface for organising file downloads and offering them up within articles as referenced links.
Some info about the site from Gregory's write-up on the Joomla forums:
It serves as an archive and introduction to my academic publications, and management experience with business development and judicial reform projects, legislative initiatives and educational programs in developing countries such as Afghanistan, Macedonia and Armenia.
The audience of the site is relatively limited:
- Students and other course participants who like to download materials;
- Other professionals who work in developing countries who may want to read some of my work and/or get inspiration to set up their own sites for their projects; and showcase what is possible with Joomla.
Its definately worth checking out the site and referring to his post on the forums describing the process by which he came to the right mix of extensions to create this site.
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Yootheme announces Zoo - cck for Joomla
09.05.09
In somewhat of an ambitious statement last Thursday, Joomla template and extension development firm Yootheme announced that they are almost ready to release 'CCK for Joomla' - an extension they're calling 'Zoo.'
As of now, Zoo seems to offer Joomla developers an easy interface for creating content types other than the standard 'article' type which is the basis of content currently in Joomla.  The concept is exciting - but I wouldn't be so quick as to liken Zoo to CCK; you see the Content Construction Kit for Drupal ('CCK') is a highly advanced extension which provides an infrastructure for complex content types which can interface with each other and be presented in a myriad of ways through dynamic GUI-created-and-controlled views and panels.  Then again, once Zoo is released I expect a hugely positive reaction from the Joomla community and that could speed up development of its feature set; depending on how easily people can extend it.  Yootheme have mentioned that a template engine will be included; it will be interesting to see how this stacks up to the Views/Panel modules for Drupal.
I've blogged before that there are a few different people working on custom content types for Joomla.  Building a CCK for Joomla is an excellent idea and I'm loving the attention its been getting since the introduction of Joomla 1.5, though I really want to see the idea translate into an extension that is built with sustanable scalability in mind.
Ultimately I feel this functionality should be included Joomla core - with extensions being provided by the community offering new types of fields which can be combined to create content types; an approach which exists in the Drupal community.  Over the past few years CCK has become an integral part of most Drupal websites and this has even spurred a donation effort to raise enough money to get it fine tuned enough to be included in an upcoming Drupal core. 
Reading through the commend thread on Yoo's announcement, it looks like they:
- will be releasing Zoo under GPL (nice!)
- have built it in a plugin system to afford scalability (double nice!)
- are keeping Joomla 1.6's ACL advancements in mind (triple nice?)
So I'm super excited to check Zoo out and will be posting a full review as soon as the extension is released (no release date posted yet.) 
Hopefully some of the other chaps working on a CCK for Joomla like bContent can link up with Yoo and come together behind one strong solution for the community @ large.
Can the Real Web Design Industry Please Stand Up
11.01.11
OK, so this is firmly in the rant category. I recently got an email from a good friend of mine who is a veterinarian. She is starting her own practice and seeking website advice. I said I'd be happy to help, and in our emails back and forth she sent me a link to a site she liked. I checked it out, and it was OK. It was created by a company that makes vet websites. I looked at some of their services, and a gradual sense of horror took over.
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