Steve’s Blog

Joomla Goes CCKrazy

CCK for JoomlaApologies for the lack of blogging over the last few weeks, I’ve been wrapped up in something else since the beginning of September.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve always tried to be honest with people and acknowledge that Joomla had two achilles heels:

  1. It didn’t allow a lot of control over what people can and cannot access (ACL or Access Control Level)
  2. It didn’t allow you to customize your content articles with extra fields or extra layers of categories (CCK or Content Construction Kit)

Joomla’s Ecosystem is Strong

If you want proof that the Joomla ecosystem is strong, you can find it here. Lots of commercial providers stepped in to create ACL solutions and then this week we had the announcement that ACL has entered the Joomla core.

And then there’s CCK:

Before 2009, there was really only Sobi2 and Mosets Tree, both of which were really business directories that could be repurposed. Now it seems that you can’t turn around without tripping over a new CCK release.

Continue reading “Joomla Goes CCKrazy”

Read MoreJoomla Goes CCKrazy

Denver Colorado Joomla Training Class Next Week

Denver joomlaBack to the Mile-High City …

We had the great fortune to be in Denver last year as winter arrived and the CMS Expo rolled into town.

We’re back again next week with one of our day-long Joomla training classes. If you need to get up to speed quickly with Joomla, consider joining us next Wednesday in Denver. The class is just south of downtown in Denver’s main tech district and its on September 30th from 9 am to 4 pm.

Continue reading “Denver Colorado Joomla Training Class Next Week”

Read MoreDenver Colorado Joomla Training Class Next Week

Aktuaya, FindWhere, Porsche and Other Great Joomla Designs

This is a guest blog post by Edward Rid from Bestjoomladesign.com. Don’t forget that the official Joomla showcase site is also available at community.joomla.org/showcase.

On our website we’ve been trying collect examples of sites that can be inspiring to Jooma designers. Below is a short roundup of Joomla sites that have been already submitted to us. These designs illustrate the power of Joomla.

Continue reading “Aktuaya, FindWhere, Porsche and Other Great Joomla Designs”

Read MoreAktuaya, FindWhere, Porsche and Other Great Joomla Designs

Our 100th Joomla Class Will Be Free to Non-Profits

100 Joomla ClassesOver the last year our business model has evolved quite substantially. From being a traditional webdesign firm we’ve increasingly focused on Joomla training. After starting slowly last summer, we’re now holding up to 15 classes per month.

We’re proud to announce that we’ve scheduled our 100th Joomla class.

We’ve also decided to make it special. The 100th class will be completely free to non-profit or charity organizations.

Continue reading “Our 100th Joomla Class Will Be Free to Non-Profits”

Read MoreOur 100th Joomla Class Will Be Free to Non-Profits

10 Ideas for Really Popular Joomla Articles

Top Ten Joomla ArticlesSometimes its hard to think of ideas for a blog post, so here are ten topics that will guarantee a really popular Joomla article:

  1. Why Drupal sucks
  2. Why WordPress sucks
  3. Why Drupal and WordPress both suck
  4. Why the GPL is great
  5. Why the GPL sucks
  6. Compare rival extensions (the developers are sure to chime in)
  7. Start charging money for a previously free extension
  8. Someone at Joomla.org doesn’t think I’m right in everything I say
  9. Someone at Joomla.org didn’t answer my email within 5 minutes of me sending it
  10. Write a useful tutorial (wait … that sounds a little too constructive …)

Sit back and count your new links and traffic …

Read More10 Ideas for Really Popular Joomla Articles

Review of iJoomla SEO from iJoomla.com

iJoomla SEOBack in March I was able to test iJoomla.com’s new SEO component called, somewhat appropriately: iJoomla SEO. It didn’t impress me much. You weren’t able to add metadata to menu links or third-party extensions which meant that the homepage and many key sites pages were missed.

6 months later and a new version arrived, so I gave it a spin. My opinion this time was much different:

Continue reading “Review of iJoomla SEO from iJoomla.com”

Read MoreReview of iJoomla SEO from iJoomla.com

AppalachianTrail.com Launched on Joomla

Appalachian TrailFor several months now I’ve been hinting that we have a major geographic domain name to launch on Joomla.

Well, life got in the way … the Joomla training classes became really popular, we had other sites to launch and almost everyone we work with is having a baby this year.

So, although its missing a lot of features that are currently unpublished and being worked on, its time to soft-launch AppalachianTrail.com. The A.T. is huge, running all the way along the eastern side of the U.S.. It starts in Maine, up by the Canada border, and finishes down in Georgia, about an hour north of Atlanta.

Continue reading “AppalachianTrail.com Launched on Joomla”

Read MoreAppalachianTrail.com Launched on Joomla

What’s going on with Joomla 1.6?

  • Student: “What’s going on with Joomla 1.6?”
  • Steve: “User management is going to get more sophisticated, you won’t be restricted to sections and categories for articles any more.”
  • Student: “OK, but these guys are volunteers, right? How much have they got done? When can I see what it’ll look like?”
  • Steve: “Errrrrr ….. ummmm …… when I get back I’ll take some screenshots of the current Alpha version and write a blog about it.”

Continue reading “What’s going on with Joomla 1.6?”

Read MoreWhat’s going on with Joomla 1.6?

Joomla 1.5 SEO Extension Comparison

One of the confusing things for anyone optimizing a Joomla site is that there are so many options out there.

We ran a Joomla SEO class in Atlanta last week and one thing became clear … it was easy to grasp that there are several SEO extensions available and several issues that they fixed with Joomla.

The problem was … which extensions fixed which things? This chart is an attempt to make that much more straight-forward:

Continue reading “Joomla 1.5 SEO Extension Comparison”

Read MoreJoomla 1.5 SEO Extension Comparison

One Really Busy Joomla Training Week

Its time for us to put the coffee on and get some more Red Bull … starting tomorrow we’ll have a really busy week over at Joomla Training. In total, there are 8 classes in 8 days coming up on the JoomlaTraining.com schedule, including 3 in the Mid-West, 2 in Texas and 3 in the South-East.

Mid-West

Cincinnatti JoomlaAll three classes are led by our expert teacher, Rod Martin. They take place at the beautiful Mets Center on the Ohio and Kentucky border, right next door the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. About four tickets are left for each of these classes:

Continue reading “One Really Busy Joomla Training Week”

Read MoreOne Really Busy Joomla Training Week