Blog Entries

Building Online Communities with Joomla

contact@compassdesigns.net — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of being invited to speak at a class about Open Source Content Management Systems at Marlboro College Graduate Center. Taught by Jen Kramer McKibben, the course is focused on using Joomla to build online communities.

Most of my recent speaking at events has revolved around using Joomla to build sites, Joomla templating or SEO. I thought I would take the chance on something new for me and reflect on the nature of online communities and how Joomla c [...]

Free Software Does Not Come Cheap

contact@compassdesigns.net — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

What are the best, free open-source solutions for e-commerce? My needs include robust international transactional functionality, a shopping-cart mechanism, and something that can be easily customized to handle products and Web content on a global scale, from Japan to Brazil.

Read the CNN Small Business Post about open source ecommerce and Joomla

Joomlashack Releases its latest native Joomla 1.5 Template

contact@compassdesigns.net — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Introducing the latest native Joomla 1.5 template from Joomlashack - JS Relevant!

Joomla templates are fast becoming overloaded with widgets and code
bloat. Relevant is a refreshingly clean template that let's your all
important content speak for your site, and not get buried under a
distracting template. Built to be SEO optimized and take subtle
advantage of Joomla 1.5's template override features, Relevant will
bring a professional finish to your site.

Community Builder Goes Joomla 1.5 Native

contact@compassdesigns.net — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

A couple of weeks ago the Community Builder Team released the next version of Community Builder, one that runs natively on Joomla 1.5.

Community Builder is one of the most popular extensions for Joomla. Its been a hot item on the Joomla Extensions site since I can remember, and is one of the top editor's picks. In a nutshell, it transforms Joomla into a social networking powerhouse. It provides features and tools centered around the the Joomla site user, like blogs, profiles and galle [...]

Joomla Powered Pancakes

contact@compassdesigns.net — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

mmmmmmmmmm...

I was browsing an interesting tool I found recently, inspired by Steve Burge's recent blog about bigger sites running Joomla.

I discovered that you can get Joomla Powered Pancakes!

The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) is running on Joomla, 1.0 by the looks of it.

Some other sites I came across?

National Down Syndrome Society
Austin City Limits
Austrian Embassy
City of Boulder, Colorado
SteynOnline

Know any other Joomla powe [...]

JContact Released Powerful Email Newsletters for Joomla 1.5

contact@compassdesigns.net — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In a previous post, Increase Your traffic with Professional Email Marketing, I briefly discussed how to leverage email marketing to increase the repeat traffic at your website.

To make this easier, Joomlashack has released a powerful Email Newsletter component for Joomla 1.5; we call it J!Contact.

J!Contact is a component that provides an alternative registration process for your Joomla site.

Subscribe people registering to a list on iContact:

Exponentially bui [...]

When is getting Slashdotted not Getting Slashdotted

contact@compassdesigns.net — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Answer: When the traffic goes elsewhere!

A review of my Joomla book was on Slashdot.com earlier today. Fortunately, there was no links to my site, that would have crushed the poor VPS I run on.

Overall it seems that the book got a favorable review, which is nice to see:

Joomla! A User's Guide is a logically organized and potentially quite valuable resource for beginning and intermediate Joomla developers -- perhaps the best Joomla book currently available.

I especi [...]

Increase Your traffic with Professional Email Marketing

contact@compassdesigns.net — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

One of the most important things for a successful website is traffic. That might sound like an obvious point, but alot of people get lost in the technology and don't see the forest for the trees. Just traffic isn't good enough, it has to be defensible traffic. Something that doesn't dry up overnight just because you lost your top ten spot in Google.

There are four basic strategies to defensible traffic.

SEO (Organic)
Pay Per Click (Adwords etc)
Referral (link building)
[...]

Editing HTML in a Joomla Module or Article

contact@compassdesigns.net — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

There are lots of times you might want to work in raw HTML in a Joomla article or module. For example, embedding Google maps, or maybe using a widget in a module like Feedburner.

Unfortunately, sometimes the editor screen you are using will strip out the HTML code, or cause an error. Rather than having to turn the editor on/off in global configuration, there is an easier way.

Try this trick.

Make a super administrator, I call him "noeditorguy". and th [...]

Do You Have a Refund Policy

contact@compassdesigns.net — Sun, 25 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Many readers of this blog are one of two types of business,
customization/design of Joomla websites or downloadable digital
products. Prompted by a chat among some of my colleagues, I'd thought
I'd see what people think about an important part an online business -
your refund policy.

Why do you need a refund policy?
To Protect Yourself and your Customers

If you don't have one yet, you should stop reading and draft one right now. While you are working on it, you really should [...]

Chicago Joomla EXPO Presentation-Creating a Pure CSS Template in Joomla 1.5

contact@compassdesigns.net — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Here is my presentation about building a website in Joomla that was given at the Joomla EXPO in Chicago in May of 2008.

| View | Upload your own

Chicago Joomla EXPO Presentation-Building a Successful Website with Joomla 1.5

contact@compassdesigns.net — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Here is my presentation about building a website in Joomla that was given at the Joomla EXPO in Chicago in May of 2008.

| View | Upload your own

Joomla EXPO in Chicago a Huge Hit with Users

contact@compassdesigns.net — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Last Friday, close to 300 Joomla users and developers gathered in Chicago for the first ever JoomlaEXPO, followed on saturday by the hands on classes of Joomla University.

The events were a great success with people coming from all over the US, Europe and even as far away as Malaysia and Costa Rica. The atmosphere was enthusiastic, the questions insightful, and the beer was flowing :).

Click here and also here to see photos of the event.

Should I use Joomla 1.0 or 1.5

contact@compassdesigns.net — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Right now I am sitting on an airport heading the the Chicago Joomla EXPO, and I just *know* someone is going to ask me this question!

Pondering over my foo foo Latte from Starbucks, I think I might have actually found the answer. I did a little digging in the official Joomla forums and found some interesting stuff.

I looked at the topic and post counts for Joomla 1.0 and 1.5 in two forums, the one where end users ask general help questions, and the one where developers have [...]

ACL is back in Joomla 1.5.3

contact@compassdesigns.net — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

OK, so its not quite ACL as most people think of it, but a feature that was in 1.0 has found its way back into the 1.5 series. A handy little trick using authors.

In Joomla 1.0, Front End authors had the feature that they could edit their own content articles. This meant they could submit content, get it published and then go back and edit if needed. This was great for organizations like schools who might have each teacher maintain their own page (for example).

It seemed that this [...]

New Joomla.org Dev Blog

contact@compassdesigns.net — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

If you are a frequent visitor to developer.joomla.org, you'll know their blog has been offline for a while. I understand there was a security issue with the "Wordpress in Joomla" extension that was being used.

The blog is now back up and new and improved.

It seems to now just be simple Joomla content articles with a comment extension. I have been a frequent advocate for this when using Joomla to create blogs.

What's more exciting, viewing the source i [...]

Joomla and Model, View, Controller

contact@compassdesigns.net — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

As I have grappled with template over-rides in Joomla 1.5, I have tried to get my head around the MVC concept. I just stumbled across a great post that explained this really well at Coding Horror.

I'll be using this picture and explanation in my presentation in Chicago... nice one Jeff!

Using a Blank or Skeleton Joomla Template

contact@compassdesigns.net — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

When creating a site, its often easy to get quickly distracted by the colors and templates of the site. When working with a client, the problem can sometimes make a project crawl as discussions revolve around the exact shade of red that's needed on that header.

A powerful way to bypass this and have a more efficient process is to use what's known as a blank or skeleton template.

The concept is to use a simple wireframe template with no color, font or graphical design t [...]

Joomla 1.5, SEF, Traffic and Getting Naked

contact@compassdesigns.net — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Over at Copyblogger, Sonia Simone made a recent post about Getting Naked. No, it wasn't a college party, but rather the concept of being honest, sometimes painfully so in your blog. Current wisdom among bloggers is that this is a good standard to follow, you'll see popular bloggers ranging from Dooce, SEOMoz and even Joomla's Alledia sharing things that traditionally would be thought of as perhaps private. In each case, the sharing has been well received, and all importantly, worthy of traffi [...]

Extra Class Added for at Joomla University

contact@compassdesigns.net — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Due to demands we have been able to add another class at our Joomla University training event on the 17th may in Chicago - "Building a Joomla site from Scratch in 3 hours". The Class will be taught by Brian Teeman.

Co-Founder of Joomla & Open Source Matters Inc, Brian was honored to receive the 2005 award for best UK contribution to Open Source software for his work. He has been working with faith based and voluntary sector organizations for over 25 years helping them [...]