Clear the Cache

The javascript libraries and css have been updated and this can effect both the admin and frontend of your site giving some unpredictable effects. To resolve this you need to clear your web browser cache (not joomla cache) and reload the page. This ensures that things like modal boxes and checkboxes are working correctly.

Database Fixes

In some circumstances the one-click upgrade is not able to apply the small database changes. But don't worry Joomla can resolve this easily. All you have to do is click on the Database tab in the Extension Manager and the changes will be applied.

New Plugins and Modules

Sometimes some of the new plugins and modules will not be available in your control panel. The database fixes should resolve that but I always think it is better to be safe and not to assume anything. Go to the Discover tab in the Extension Manager. Click on Purge Cache on the toolbar and then click Discover. If any new extensions are listed you should tick them all and then click on Install.

Note if their were any plugins discovered then they will probably be installed as "disabled" and you will need to go to the plugin manager to enable them if required.

HTML Text Filtering

The text filtering options have been moved from the article manager to the global filters. As a result you might need to check that any filtering options that you set are still active. In addition, and most importantly, you should go to the text filters and save them, even if you are not changing anything. This prevents an unfortunate instance where all html is stripped from your article when you save it.

Frontend Javascript

On many sites people are using scripts to disable Mootools from loading on the frontend of their site. This may have been done by an option in the template or via a plugin. Due to a change in the way captions.js is loaded on the front end of your site if you are not loading mootools then other javascript may fail. IF you observe weirdness on the front end of your site and you have already cleared your browser cache and joomla cache then re-enabling mootools will resolve this.

What Version of Joomla Am I Running?

In the footer of your admin there used to be a notice with the exact version of Joomla that you are running. Due to a very low level security issue this is no longer there. If you need to check which version of Joomla is installed you can find this information from the System Information menu. Don't forget that there is now an icon on your control panel telling you as soon as your install of Joomla is out of date.

 

Should you drop the turkeys, adjust your practice, read a book or outsource. Perhaps you've signed up for everything and need to rationalise to ensure that you're maximising the potential on a few media instead of failing at them all.

There is no single answer to all of this as it will be different for everyone.

Having a foursquare login for your office is quaint but ultimately useless and just for vanity. Whereas an appropriate google map entry with a google places offer may generate considerable benefits if you are a business/organisation with a local or geographical focus.

Are Sharing Counters the new Hit Counter

We all remember the day when we proudly displayed that 53 people had visited the web site but along with stating that "this site is best displayed in Internet Explorer 4" it's not something we would dream of doing today.

Adding social sharing buttons to your web site is great if you have something worth sharing but will someone really want to tweet your contacts page? Does displaying that 5 people like your site on Facebook or displaying a twitter stream with month old data have a positive or negative effect?

It's called social for a reason

Sadly many, if not the majority, people and companies still think of Social Media as new free places to advertise.

Would you walk into a bar and shout "I've just finished writing a new book" and then walk out? Well you could but it wouldn't serve any purpose. Sadly that's exactly what far too many twitter streams or facebook pages look like. There is no engagement, no conversation and fundamentally no social.

If you only use social media for announcements then you're doing it wrong.

It's not just social it's instant

… or at least it should be. I often get a tweet and wonder what it's all about only to realise that it's in reply to something I said several days earlier.

You need to be monitoring not just what people are saying to you but perhaps more importantly what people are saying about you. If you are you can quickly respond to a misunderstanding, correct an error or close a sale.

Respond early, respond often and ENGAGE!

The Ship Inn, Wandsworth

On the night before JoomlaDay UK several of us met up for drinks in a pub in Wandsworth. Below is my recollection of the twitter conversation

23/09/2011 19:23 from @brianteeman With @pe7er and @v8x drinking warm beer @shipwandsworth

23/09/2011 19:34 from @shipwandsworth Oh dear is the beer not good

23/09/2011 19:43 from @brianteeman @ShipWandsworth its perfect temp for an Englishman. As a yorkshireman its flat, no head and not tetleys :)

23/09/2011 19:44 from @shipwandsworth LOL - we don't serve that fake nothern stuff with foam on the top but why not try an IPA

23/09/2011 19:45 from @brianteeman is it free?

By actively monitoring their twitter feed they were able to spot within 10 minutes what they thought was a potentially unhappy customer. Then by engaging in a conversation with me they ensured that it was a memorable event.

If you add it make sure you use it

Social media is not just something you can just add to your online presence it is something you have to actively embrace and adopt. It will take some time and effort for you to see any effects and not every social medium will work for you but it's a worthwhile venture.

It is not enough to create an account and wait for something to happen you have to dedicate some time and energy and most importantly of all take the time to learn how to use the medium .

Be active, be social and engage. 

In India I observed an overwhelming hunger for knowledge, especially coding, to enable people to support others with specific parts of their web site. In The Netherlands and Spain I mainly met professional web site builders who supply complete web sites for their clients and were looking to share knowledge and develop and maintain social networks with like minded people. In Bosnia we partied.

What we share

• Passion for the work we do 
• Thirst for knowledge 
• Hunger to learn and improve
• Desire to share our expertise and experience 
• Love for joomla and the opportunities it provides 

Lessons learned

• English is not the only language in the world
• Reliable and fast internet access can not be assumed
• Access to affordable, fast, well configured web servers with unlimited disk space is not universal
• Features that are essential in one part of the globe are useless in another
• The open source argument may not be an issue for some but is still a hurdle for others
• Joomla satisfies the needs of a wide variety of users

Joomla is not about software it is about relationships.

Joomla tries to be a one-size fits all CMS and that's not easy to be.

We've done alot to make it that way; with the ability to extend the CMS with thousands of extensions, be native in over 50 languages and run on almost any type of server. Now we have to continue the work to make sure that we have the tools necessary to move forward and become a single global community where the ability to speak English isn't a requirement and that Joomla can be a place called home no matter what you use it for.

Today Joomla is many communities. Let's all work together so that next year Joomla! really can be one community.

"ComputerWeekly.com is the leading provider of news, analysis, opinion, information and services for the UK IT community, and an advocate for UK IT professionals and the role of technology in improving organisations in all sectors of business and public life."

Each year they present a series of awards for bloggers, and now includes all social media, and this is a very prestigious award here in the UK.

I am extremely honoured to have been shortlisted in two different categories for the Social Media Awards 2011, IT Industry blogger of the year and IT Professional blogger of the year. 

The awards are decided as a result of a public vote with the voting closing on Friday.

So in a completely shameless attempt to not only win an award but to also give me the motivation and willpower to stop smoking if I win either of these then I will stop smoking when the award is announced on Tuesday 29th November.

So you know what you need to do if you want me to stop smoking - Vote Now!!

If by some miracle I was to win both awards then I am open to suggestions what crazy thing I should agree to.

[update] The slides from this presentation are now available with audio at slideshare (you can still click to the next slide etc) or as a video below.

The organisers of the Sydney Joomla!Day have invited me to give this presentation but as Australia is just one trip too many this year I will be giving it via the magic of the internet.

I have investigated numerous different technical options and have decided that Zipcast offers the best mix of audio, video and slides. An additional benefit is that anyone of you from anywhere in the world can log in and watch at the same time.

But don't panic it's not going to be in the middle of the night as the gracious organisers of the Joomla!Day have kindly shuffled the programme so that most of the Joomla!Sphere will be awake.

The presentation starts at 10:50am November 5th in Sydney or your time (probably on November 4th) and will last for about 40 minutes.

So why don't you sign up, hook up the computer to the big screen tv, grab some popcorn and enjoy the show. 

I hope that if this is popular then we will be able to make these online presentations a regular monthly event.

Don't Make Them Think

How many web sites have you been to that has a menu link called Log in / Log out? You either want to log in or log out not both. With Joomla the actual link used for the login/logout is the same for both tasks and the action changes depends on the users status. Or seen a big module called Register Now when you are aready registered and logged in. How silly is that?

The Joomla 1.5 way

With 1.5 we were able to create a new menu link called Log out that was only displayed to users who were logged in but unless you installed some extensions it wasn't possible to then hide the link to Log in.

The same was true for modules. It was easy to set a module to only display to users who were logged in but you couldn't hide one for those users as the access rules were hierarchical.

So we either ended up with confusing links and unnecessary modules or alternatively added another extension for you to manage, configure and maintain.

The new Joomla 1.7 way

All of this has changed with Joomla 1.7 and it's new ACL (access control) functionality. We can now easily set items to display to guest users and to be hidden from logged in users.

Many people have heard me say that ACL is hard and as Jen Kramer says "Just because you can doesn't mean you should!!". But whilst I'm not a big fan of creating lots of permissions for who can create, edit or delete I do see a strong need for deciding who can see and what they can see.

Change the Guest User Group permissions

If you look in the User Manager options you will see not only a setting for the default group that registered users are placed in but also the default group for guests (non logged in users). As the Joomla 1.7 ACL is no longer hierarchical we can use this feature to create a new group at the same level in the ACL tree for guests.

1. Create a Guest Group in the User Manager
2. Add a new Guest Viewing Access Level
3. Change the default guest group in the User Manager options

Assign menu links and modules

Now we can assign any menu link or module to the newly created Guest level and because it is at the same level in the ACL tree as Registered anything assigned to guest will not be visible to registered users.

Leaders influence others to achieve shared goals

{slideshare}[slideshare id=7642106&doc=kimgoodwinuxleadership201104-110415123048-phpapp01]{/slideshare}

 A short while ago I approached a few friends to write guest blog posts here and Joseph LeBlanc has gone one step further and recorded his thoughts on video.