Steve’s Blog

Joomfish Nooku

A New Alternative to Joomfish on Joomla 1.5

Joomfish NookuFor years, there has only been one option if you wanted to build a multilingual Joomla site.

Joom!fish is one of the most popular and widely-used extensions in the Joomlasphere and has a great team behind it, including Joomla core team members Alex Kempkens and Robin Muilwijk. Its recently been updated to work on Joomla 1.5.

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Diversify

What Joomla People Can Learn from Bear Sterns

Diversify

Does putting yourself in a position where someone else can turn off all your income just by saying two words (?You?re fired?) sound like a safe and secure situation to you? Does having only one income stream honestly sound more secure than having 10?Steve Pavlina.

Not long ago a developer was told me that his wife wanted him to diversify away from Joomla. Not leave Joomla, just diversify. I’ve since talked with a lot of people who don’t seem to think its worth the effort.

She was right. Too many people who assume the Joomla gravy train will never end. It will. It might be next week or it might not be for many more years, but it will. You and I both need an exit plan. Relying on one income stream is dangerous, whether its a job or a website business.

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Joomla Weblinks

A Simple Way to Use Internal URLs for External Links

Joomla WeblinksThis is the answer to a question we’ve been asked repeatedly:

I’m looking for a Joomla component that will allow me to change outbound links from direct urls into internal urls.

Essentially they’re looking to change a link from http://www.bbc.co.uk to http://www.alledia.com/link/bbc/. The link still goes to the BBC, but it first goes to a url on the webmaster’s own site.

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Color-Switcher

Drupals Garland Theme Inspires JoomlaShack and Rockettheme

Color-SwitcherAlmost a year ago now (April 27th 2007) we covered the new color-switcher in Drupal’s Garland template.

It allowed you to either choose from one of sixteen default color sets, or to select your own colors for the site’s base, links, header and text. You can also upload and install a new logo and favicon directly from the same interface. My view was that:

"I doubt it will be long before we see a similar tool for Joomla. Making it easy for people to design and customize their own templates is a big step towards making software more attractive for non-techies.

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UK and US

Joomla Extension of the Month – April 08

UK and USAs a Brit living in the U.S. I really know what George Bernard Shaw was talking about when he said we are “two countries divided by a common language”. Some of the things Americans say really don’t make much sense and I’m sure lots of Yanks think the same about us.

Thankfully our Extension of the Month for April is here to solve all those problems.

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Good Web Practices

First Member with 100 Comments Plus Free Membership and Tuition

Good Web PracticesThis blog has been live for about 18 months now and one of our users just hit a milestone … David from GoodWebPractices.com has 100 comments to articles here. He’s been a source of wonderful advice both on the blog and in the forums and its great to have him around.

David is also a blogger. There aren’t many people in the Joomla world who provide regular, high-quality posts. I can think of Barrie, Amy, Anthony and now its possible to include David as well. Make you subscribe to his RSS feed – its full of worthwhile Joomla tips and tricks.

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Forum and CMS

phpBB3 Integration Can Be The Joomla 1.5 Killer App

Forum and CMSDuring conversations with clients over the last few months, one key question keeps coming up: "should I use Joomla 1.0 or Joomla 1.5?" In fact, I can trace the first time I was asked that question back to October 2006.

Now that 1.5 has officially launched, I tend to point the non-technically minded to 1.0 and those who don’t mind dealing with a few bugs to 1.5.

However, until this week I don’t think I’ve found a compelling reason for anyone to use 1.5 rather than 1.0. That may have changed:

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SEO-Browser.com

See Your Site As Google Does

SEO-Browser.comI recently came across a cool SEO tool:

http://www.seo-browser.com

SEO-Browser.com displays a website the way search engines view your site.  The site is displayed with all images and formatting removed, leaving just the links, headings, and text.

Viewing a website the way the search engines do reminds us of and enforces the key elements of SEO.  

I have used this tool to show clients how their web site looks to the search engines.  Seeing your site as simply text demonstrates how important relevant text is.

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Joomla Expo

Joomla SEO Training in Chicago

Joomla ExpoUpdate: We now have classes all across North America. Click here for full details on our new Joomla Training site.


Its been a long time coming, but I am very excited to be able to announce our first Joomla training event in the US. Its going to be the day after the Joomla EXPO 2008 in Chicago.

The EXPO is on Friday 16th of May, and the training is on Saturday the 17th. The classrooms are right next to the hotel where the EXPO is being held.

I’ll be there in person to give the training session and you’ll be able to follow up with me in the weeks after the event … all SEO training attendees get a free Site Review membership. We also have some great trainers for the other sessions, recognized leaders in education as well as Joomla. Book your spot soon as the places are very limited.

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Aaron Wall

Interview with Aaron Wall from SEOBook.com

Aaron WallToday we’re delighted a have the chance to talk with Aaron Wall from SEOBook.com. Aaron’s SEO Book has been around since 2003 and he writes probably the best one-person SEO blog in the industry.

As we did here at Alledia, Aaron recently shifted his business model from pay-to-download-my-book towards a more community-based training system. His new site is built with Drupal, so we asked him about SEO and Content Management Systems:

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Easter Egg

Easter Special: 20% Discount on SEO Club Memberships

Easter EggHere’s an Easter special for all our readers.

Over the Easter weekend you can use the coupon code “easter” for a 20%? discount all membership plans.

This offer works for new and renewing members. It starts right now and ends on Sunday night.

Note: Membership prices are going up by 30% on April 18th (the club’s half-year anniversary), and so now is a great time to get in for only 50% of next month’s price.

Click here to join the Joomla SEO Club today.

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