News

Jeremy Wilken is presenting Joomla 2.5 to the Austin JUG on January 31

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:19:58 +0000

Joomla! 2.5 stable is now available. Version 2.5 is packed with multi-database support, automatic core update notifications, enhanced searched, and many more features. But don't take our word for it: a full list of all the new features is available at http://joom.la/25features.

Jeremy Wilken will be giving a presentation to the Austin Joomla Users Group (JUG) on Tuesday, January 31 remotely from Houston. The meeting is at Opal Divine's Freehouse at 6:30pm as usual, followed by catching up with Jeremy online. If you are in Austin and haven't already reserved a spot, it's too late for this meeting. Joe will be checking with registered attendees to make sure they are all coming, and open up spots if some need to back out at the last minute.

Joe recently took over as the organizer/facilitator of the Austin JUG, and it is a great bunch of Joomla enthusiasts. If you live in or near Austin, we highly recommend becoming a part of the Austin JUG.

Jeremy Wilken joins the Cory Webb Media team!

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:21:31 +0000

I am pleased to announce that Jeremy Wilken has officially joined the Cory Webb Media team. Jeremy has been working with the web since the late 90's using numerous technologies. Most recently, he has focused significantly with Joomla driven websites, building full websites, custom applications, templates, and just about anything Joomla. Jeremy has worked with clients such as NBC Universal, the Scottish Government, Joomlashack, Joomla Bamboo, and numerous other Joomla companies. Jeremy spends a lot of time engaging with the Joomla community. He helps organize J and Beyond, the largest international Joomla conference, has spoken at numerous events on many things Joomla, and maintains Square One CMS, a Joomla distribution.

We're hiring!

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:44:22 +0000

Cory Webb Media is growing, and we're looking for an experienced developer to join our team. If you think you have what it takes to join the CWM team or know someone who does, get more information and apply now!

Joe LeBlanc joins the Cory Webb Media team!

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:19:14 +0000

I am pleased to announce that Joe LeBlanc has officially joined the Cory Webb Media team. Joe has been an active part of the Joomla community since back in the Mambo days, and many in the Joomla community already know him well. He has authored the book Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development (Packt) and numerous articles for HowToJoomla.net. He has also recorded the video series Joomla 1.5 Essential Training, as well as Joomla! 1.7: Programming and Packaging Extensions (Lynda.com). Joe holds a B.S. in Management Information Systems from Oral Roberts University and lives in Austin, Texas. He is an outstanding developer, and his Joomla expertise and unparalleled grasp of the Joomla framework make him a great fit for our team.

ImagineSolutions.com launches a new Joomla-powered website

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:15:18 +0000

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new ImagineSolutions.com. Imagine Solutions is a provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, with their Encapture® enterprise capture platform and a complete range of ECM services and consulting. When Imagine Solutions needed to update their web presence, they came to Cory Webb Media because of our extensive experience and expertise in building world-class websites powered by Joomla.

With Joomla, we were able to build them a flexible and scalable system that is easy to manage and ready to grow with them. With an excellent design by Clutch Creative, we gave them a modern website that is attractive, easy to use, and easy to navigate. We helped them achieve their goals, which were were to give the site a fresher and more current look, to organize content in a way that better aligns with our solution offerings, and to create an online platform for richer online interaction with clients and prospects going forward.

2 years and counting - James Hafner celebrates 2 years with Cory Webb Media

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:24:33 +0000

I met James Hafner a little over 2 years ago on, of all places, Twitter. Score 1 for social media. At that time, my Beginning Joomla book had just been published, and my business was really starting to take off. As a one-man-show, I was beginning to get a little overwhelmed by all the work I was doing, and I knew I needed help.

James was tweeting about Joomla, and I noticed he was a fellow Texan (even though he's originally from Missouri, but I didn't hold that against him). Naturally, this piqued my interest. I always love to meet other Texas Joomla developers. I checked out James' site and portfolio, and I liked what I saw, so I set up a meeting with him to discuss the possibility of getting his help on a few projects.

With the birth of my son in June of 2009, and an increasing workload, I knew I needed James to become a full-time member of the team. He accepted the position, and started working with me full time on July 1, 2009. It's been a real pleasure working with James. He is a competent, self-starting worker with a lot of great ideas, and I'm thankful to have him as part of the Cory Webb Media team.

Happy 2 years, James!

Going mobile with Joomla using TapTheme

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:14:38 +0000

Our friends at Pixel Praise build great products for Joomla. They are the ones who made it cool to build Joomla admin templates. Before them, no one was really doing that, but now it seems like everyone is doing it. They are innovators and pioneers, helping to drive Joomla to bigger and better things.

One of their newer products is TapTheme. It's actually 4 products, all built around optimizing your site for mobile devices. They offer 3 templates optimized for the iPhone, iPad, and Adroid devices, as well as a plugin that will automatically switch your template for the end user based on the device used to access your site. For example, you can set the TapTheme iPhone template to be displayed whenever a visitor hits your site with and iPhone, the iPad template for iPads, and the Android template for Android devices. With the plugin, you can even assign different templates for different browsers. It's a clever way to easily optimize your site for any situation.

We recently used TapTheme to optimize a client's site for mobile devices, and we absolutely loved it. It's easy to work with, and each template comes with several different color themes to suit your taste. If you need to optimize your Joomla site for mobile devices quickly and affordably, look no further than TapTheme.

Cory Webb to present "Joomla Site Planning" at Joomla Day Austin on September 15, 2011

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Mon, 23 May 2011 19:04:35 +0000

Mark your calendars for Joomla Day Austin on September 15, 2011. Our very own Cory Webb will be presenting "Joomla Site Planning" along with fellow Wrox author and Joomla-head, Jen Kramer. This will be unlike any other Joomla Day event you've ever been to. Yes, the day will be packed with great speakers and networking opportunities, but it's set up to take each participant through the process of building a Joomla-powered website, from planning to design to development to deployment. Oh, and it's in a really cool theater on 6th Street called the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz. Kyle and Melinda from Pixel Praise have gone to great lengths to make this a uniquely "Austin" experience, and you definitely don't want to miss it. As an added bonus, Austin's ACL Music Festival starts the day after Joomla Day! So join us on September 15 in downtown Austin for the most Austin-y Joomla Day ever!

Cory Webb to present "Getting Social with Joomla" at Joomla Day Chicago on August 5, 2011

cory@corywebbmedia.com (Cory Webb) — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:44:18 +0000

The Joomla community in Chicago will be putting on Joomla Day Chicago, August 5-6, 2011 in... you guessed it.... Chicago, IL. Cory Webb has been invited to present at the event, and he will be presenting "Getting Social with Joomla." Cory will discuss the various ways to incorporate social media into your Joomla website, from basic links to your Twitter and Facebook pages all the way up to integrating advanced social networking tools like Community Builder, JomSocial, and Anahita Social Engine. If you're in the Chicago area, or if you just love traveling to Joomla Days (who doesn't?), then make plans now to attend Joomla Day Chicago this August 5-6.

Exploring New Territory with GetSimple CMS

james@corywebbmedia.com (James Hafner) — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:33:04 +0000

Though we at Cory Webb Media are huge fans of Joomla (obviously), every once in a while we run across a project where Joomla is overkill for what the client needs.

We had one such example recently, so I went in search of a light-weight CMS that we could get up and running easily. I came across quite a few, including PyroCMS, Stacy, and Unify. However, I settled on a CMS called GetSimple, a sweet little PHP/XML-based CMS that did everything we needed, specifically things like

Dead simple templating
Custom fields (via the I18N Custom Fields plugin)
A simple modular blocks system
Built-in 'Undo' function on almost everything
WYSIWYG editor for users (not my favorite, but it works)
Easy file management
Easy to extend with lots of plugins

One really attractive thing about GetSimple's PHP/XML setup is that there isn't a database involved. This means that version-controlling the whole site (files and data) is easy and you don't have to worry about setting up database dumps in your repositories. Despite this awesome, inherent quality, GitSimple has built-in backups and archiving. Creating and rolling back a backup is super easy via a GUI in the administration.

Getting GetSimple running was a piece of cake, and the end result is a fast, usable site that our client can use to make basic changes whenever they want. If you haven't checked out GetSimple, I encourage you to. The lead developers are doing a great job building on what they have so far and fostering a growing community. I don't think this will be the last time we'll use GetSimple, and hopefully we'll get a chance to contribute back to the project in the future!