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JoomlaBlogger - Is Joomla Evil?

Joomla has a large user base and it seem it is now getting attacked for it. People attack what they don't understand I guess? JoomlaBlogger  addresses some of the accusations..

...and elsewhere in the blog addressing the issue of choosing extensions. His off the cuff list goes:

* sh404SEF (SEO)
* CommunityBuilder
* JoomFish (multi-language)
* JCE (WYSIWYG editor)
* VirtueMart (shopping cart)
* Events Calendar
* SOBI2 (directory component)
* JoomlaXPlorer (FTP and File Manager)
* DocMan (document management)
* JoomlaPack (backup)
* K2 (CCK for Joomla)
* Xmap (sitemaps - both HTML and XML)
* JCal Pro (event calendar for Joomla)

 Another very good article elsewhere on Joomlablogger, a post about Scribefire and Joomla. Here I feel like he misses a few of the points:

• Scribefire is a great way to add content and also for posting to more that one site (you can post to many blogging systems too).
• As it actually retrieves post from Joomla (or another blog) so you can use it to move posts from one site to another.

and I feel like he missed out a few vital steps here.

• You need to enable a web services in your main site configuration panel
• I found I needed the MovableType XML-RPC Plugin at:
  http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/content-a-news/blog/3831
  and of course enable it!

I'm not sure why he mentions the native online editor for Joomla as using Scribefire is an entirely different idea. You write the post locally on your computer and just upload when you are finished. A boon for people still on slow connections.

Scribefire now also handles images by FTP and you can configure each account to upload to the relevant server and keep you images organised.

All the same lots of very useful stuff for Joomla buffs. more at:

 

 

It's not easy being green, but just like everything we do, we always strive to do the best we can. If the current trends continue we may find that the internet is one of the best ways to organise environmentally friendly shopping, so think about transfering your business on line and save emissions too. People who shop on line instead of driving to the shops pollute less and the postal service is lot more economical on resources.

One step we have taken is to run a virtual office. This means that all of our team telecommutes to work. No one ever drives their car to our office in the morning to come to work. (Some people don't even ever seem to get out of their pyjamas, you know who you are. We don't actually encourage that!) This obviously reduces pollution caused by CO² emissions.

Over the years we have also reduced the amount of paper we use. In fact, most of the time the only paper that is utilized in our office is for our contracts and our clients cheques but we do encourage on-line payments too. All other documents are kept securely in a digital format and backed up (you do back up don't you?).

We are continuing to make environmentally friendly choices where ever we can. If you are not making earth friendly choices, we encourage you to start now. 

Please ask us if you want advice, asking is free!

Photo cc by willgame

 

Joomla is open source software. Just like most of the software that powers the internet.  So it's free then right? Well yes it is but it does need to be supported. Much of the software is written by people outside of their paid work but much is also written to 'scratch an itch' as part of some work for a client.

Here is a hypothetical scenario:

Billy Gatesopen is a freelance web designer and programmer  who is pretty conversant with Joomla and has a client, let's call him Joe Cattlegrid.

Joe wants a web site that will help him sell his farm products direct to the public and help him cut out Fred Middleman. Joe also wants a special piece of software that connects up with his milking machines which measure how much milk is being produced by his herd. He know that if they are producing milk he will have cheese for sale by mail order six months down the road and this will give him a rough idea of how much cheese he will have in stock.

Billy goes off and designs a handy component for Joomla that does the calculation and displays the number of cheeses that are in stock in the farm shop on-line.

Joe is happy and pays Billy. Billy then publishes the component on the Joomla Extensions Directory. Many web designers notice that there is a Milk to Cheese component and some of them think they will offer it to their local farmer as part of a new web site deal. They also notice a few bugs and want a few modifications done and they ask Billy if he can sort them out.

He can and they are happy. Some of the money they charge for the web sites they sell they donate to Billy as a way of paying him for the extra work of supporting his Milk to Cheese component.

They is obviously a fictional scenario but it is the way it can happen. Sometimes the details differ and sometimes people don't pay back where and when they should. The big advantage of the system is that everyone who is involved in the development process has an interest in making the product work and work well with all the other parts of the system.

This is very different to all commercial software which is bogged down with licensing systems that tie the user in or even worse, propriety data formats that will only work with one software system. At the very least, your data needs to be open. If you can't find a way to export and import easily from the software you are using you are really sunk.

There are other ways to pay back for all the 'free' software that you have had the use of. One way is just develop something really useful to the world and just don't ask for any return. Thanks the Tim Burners-Lee, the world wide web is built on software code that was released for nothing and look where that got us...

 

 

You may well ask. In fact I don't have one on-line. I can point you at a few web sites that I have worked on but web sites are a team effort and I can't take the credit for the content or design of a lot of the most successful web sites I have had a hand in. The ones I'm not proud of I would rather you didn't see (for obvious reasons! :-)).

Some of them I wouldn't want you to see because the client may have insisted on a particular issue and as they are paying the piper... I have to dance.

Sabrina Dent, the well known and fabulous web site designer in Cork has suggested that we web designers should write a Standardised Stalinist Web Design Manifesto, maybe slightly tongue in check, but I tend to go along with the sentiment.

Many designers, myself included have spent sleepless nights studying and learning from our own mistakes. We are persistent souls. We have developed 'an eye'. We look at something called 'white space'. This is why you pay designers to design something for you! We cry when we make a design in nice colours and you say "Well by wife thinks it would look better in pink".

If you want to design your own flyer/web site/whatever, do go ahead and have a go. Many good designers started like that. But if you want it done well, pay someone who has trained and most importantly learnt a few of the basic lessons.

Have a look at my template design site at 51-designs.com if you want to get an idea of what I do.

(See also >> Typography for Lawyers)

 

I came across a rather nice little site today. I'm always gasping speechless at the basic disasters of design that happen on web sites. Even the most basic typographical rules are completely ignored.

What can you do? I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said that there is no point in arguing about matters of taste. Point out that double spaces after a full stop is just wrong, centring all your text and using six different typefaces in one document is ghastly and your friends may well just stop talking to you.

Matthew Butterick manages to explain every common mistake clearly and with humour. Just refer your friends to this site, they may just listen to a lawyer. They may even thank you for it.

http://www.typographyforlawyers.com

I just lost a client today. Not good for business? ...or was it? This client asked me to set up a web site about six years ago and over that time, despite paying the hosting and design bills they only ever gave me one item to put on the web site. The web site grew old and dusty and eventually I took my name off it because it started to look dated and the information was no longer accurate.

I realise that the interaction with this client was a waste of my time and even the small amount of income from the hosting bill was not worth the effort of invoicing them. They were making me look bad into the bargain.

 The lesson learned? Choose your clients well and make sure they understand their side of the deal. They are not just employing you. It is a partnership.