Steve’s Blog

Recap of CMS Expo 2010

This was the third year of the CMS Expo in Chicago and it took another leap forward. Rather than getting lost in downtown or suburban Chicago they’ve moved to the suburb of Evanston, right on the lake and next to Northwestern University. It’s a good fit for a conference of 300 to 400 people. Was it worth going? Absolutely. I’ve only missed one Expo out of the four and wouldn’t make that mistake again. Here’s what stood out to me this year: More Drupal and other CMSs. Although the people and sponsors were at least 50% Joomla, this was the…

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Creating a Workflow for Drupal Users

This week’s tutorial is the second of a two-parter. We’ve had several students in our classes looking to build websites with multiple content authors … blogs, newspapers, university sites and more. A common request is to improve Drupal’s default handling of nodes. In the first part we covered how to give people easy to a list of their own nodes, using a module called workspace. In this second part we’re going to create a workflow, allowing you to choose who has control over a node. A newspaper website is a great example – a writer may submit an article which…

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Add a Discussion Forum to Joomla

Lots of websites use a discussion forum to help their users. Some websites have forums for people to chat freely on whatever topic they choose. Other websites use forums to provide support. People post their questions and staff members reply with the answer. Our choice of discussion forum for Joomla is Agora from JVitals.com. We use Agora to support our Joomla training students and in this tutorial we’re going to show you how to set it up on your site.

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New Product in the Joomla Shop: the Joola-Hoop

The Joomla team is happy to announce that they’re moving beyond T-shirts, hoodies and bags. They’ve decided that the Joomla community needs a sexier and more athletic way to show their love for Joomla. So say hello to the “Joola-Hoop”. Joomla has even been lucky enough to launch with a famous celebrity endorsement with Michelle Obama doing the Joola-Hoop dance on the White House lawn. Oh, and for you male geeks who aren’t sure if this product is right for you, we’ve been able to combine all your favorite things in just one irresistible photo:

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Drupal Users Have Their Own Workspace

This week’s tutorial is the first of a two-parter. We’ve had several students in our classes looking to build websites with multiple content authors … blogs, newspapers, university sites and more. A common request is to improve Drupal’s default handling of nodes. This week we’ll show you how to give each person their own control panel for their nodes. This will allow them to much more easily see, understand and update the content they’ve submitted. Without it they’d be reduced to searching and guessing their way through the site to find their content. Next week we’ll focus on how to…

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K2 – the Missing Documentation (Part 2)

The hottest new extension in Joomla is K2. Why? Normal Joomla articles provide you with a Title and Body. K2 gives you the flexibility to add much more information. Last week in Part 1 we covered the main administrator parts of K2: Installing K2 The K2 dashboard K2 categories K2 fields and field groups K2 items If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend that you go back and read Part 1 first. This week we’re going to focus on the frontend of K2.

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Yes, Joomla Admin Templates Are Worthwhile

Back in mid-2008, Kyle from JoomlaPraise.com approached me about writing a guest post. He was trying to promote AdminPraise, a new design for the Joomla administrator area. I was sceptical. Very. So sceptical that I asked him to basically defend the need for AdminPraise. His guest post became Are Joomla Admin Templates Worthwhile?. Fast-forward to early 2009 and I was able to review the next version AdminPraise2 and say: “No-one else is building administrator templates”. I didn’t see the point and it seemed many others didn’t either. Now in 2010, I’ve got this to say: Kyle, you were right. I…

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How to Block Spam Comments in WordPress

Have you heard people complain that Windows computers get more viruses and Apple computers? There are many reasons for that but one of the ones most commonly stated is that there are just so many more Windows computers out there. They make a much more inviting target. The same is true with WordPress sites. They make up around 2% of all websites and so are a very attractive target. It’s common for WordPress beginners to end up with 100s of spam comments on their posts. The solution? Akismet.com. They provide a great spam-blocking service. You’ll need it … around 83%…

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K2 – the Missing Documentation (Part 1)

The hottest new extension in Joomla is K2. Why? Normal Joomla articles provide you with a Title and Body. K2 gives you the flexibility to add much more information. For example, this is part of a K2 article about a camera called the Canon EOS Rebel: Beyond just an article, you can add information about: Price Weight Color A link for more information You can also add tags, videos, photo galleries, comments and more. You can see the full Canon EOS Rebel example article here. That is the essential benefit of K2 … you can create articles with far more…

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