Joomla on Linux Web Hosting...

Web Hosting helps you to make your website live on the web and Content Management Systems provide users with a simple platform to create and manage the content of their websites, without having to incur web design fees for all changes.

As a lot of people prefer to use open source operating systems and application software, Joomla on Linux hosting is a favourite combination for today’s webmasters.

Joomla is a free open source CMS (Content Management System) that provides you with a powerful yet simple interface to add, remove and modify website content, images and develop product gallery pages. Here is a list of features that come with Joomla!

Page caching for better performance
RSS Feeds
News Flash
Blog
Polls
Search option
Language internationalization

With these features developers can design advanced Web 2.0 websites easily. RSS, Blogs, Polls, Search options and Internationalization or Localization are the features very much essential for modern interactive websites and you get all the features under one roof by choosing Joomla!

Professional Linux web hosting providers offer Joomla as an integrated part of their hosting service. Like Linux, Joomla is also an open source application built with PHP and it uses MySQL database by default. Joomla on Linux hosting offers a flexible website management environment for users.

Linux hosting providers generally offer Joomla for free as a part of their hosting plans. While choosing your web hosting service, look for the provider that offers Joomla so that it becomes easy for you to manage you website.

Joomla! 1.5.6 was released in August 2008 and solves a lot of security issues. Popular hosting service providers have already upgraded Joomla so that their clients can access the latest technologies.

If you have been using Joomla, upgrade it now, or contact your service provider to inquire if they can help you get the upgraded version.

Upgrade To Joomla Cms Website...

If you have an HTML based website or blog and want to get a more distinctive and original look you should upgrade to Joomla. Maybe the site that you are using currently is limited in the features that you can use. This is not the case with joomla. This is a content management systems website that will give your site a professional image. Who is the best candidate for this type of website? Anyone that needs a competitive edge over their competitors should consider it. There are many reasons to check it out.

Open source software

Joomla is an open source software system. This means that not only is it free to use and design, it is constantly being updated. Once these new features are in place they can be put to use by your website. Any bugs or problems will be corrected and any requests for additional features will be created. You can create the site yourself. If you need your site completed right away it can always be outsourced for a nominal fee. Just make sure that you can see examples from some of their previous work to get an idea of what type of work they’ve done.

Professional look

If you look at the sites created for major corporations you will see that they use Joomla. If it is good enough for million dollar businesses surely, it will enhance the quality of your website. Many of the other systems don’t appear to be for business use. There are many cases where a basic site will look terrible and cause you to lose customers. There are so many templates that are available to enhance your site. The purpose for your website is to get marketing presence and sales for your business. Upgrading to Joomla will accomplish that purpose.

Features

Most websites have basic features without a lot of pizzazz. With this system you can create just about anything. If you want a forum, blog, members only site, or poll created there is a plug in component that will do this. You can even integrate the latest social media outlets like facebook to your site.

International presence

As your business grows, you’ll want to get an international presence. Joomla supports international languages with their cms system. You could possibly have more traffic to your site with this benefit alone.

If you are ready to take your site to the next level and join the big boys’ club you should upgrade to a joomla cms website. The various features and components that come with it make it crazy not to. If you are adventurous you could easily find free tutorials and videos that will show you exactly what you need to do to create your site. The many templates that you can use will allow your site to have a professional image and bring visitors to your site. You can easily get support from the Joomla website forum that will help you with any setup or installation questions.

Use Joomla in Web Design & Website Hosting...

I was recently asked by a potential client why I recommended Joomla! to be used for building their website. Let me explain the benefits of using Joomla versus using anything else, and by anything else I mean comparing building a website using some type of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver, or building a website with a comparative type of software package. Joomla! is a Content Management system, which means that it is built to ensure that website pages can easily be maintained and updated. This includes for example, adding new pages or removing pages. This is the main advantage above building a website in straight forward HTML that would normally be the end product of using some type of HTML editor.But why Joomla? Why not something else like a Microsoft based product or another commercial product? Joomla is Open Source, which means that there are no licensing fees payable, that you have often pay for a Microsoft product or a commercial product Because Joomla is Open Source, there is a huge pool of community resources available to provide support or go to www.master-web-graphics.com

The Joomla community is huge worldwide as well as in local countries – there are often local user groups which are very well supported often even in small countries such as South Africa. There is an enormous pool of people supporting the product. The forum on the Joomla.org site has over 200 000 members all providing support and input into making Joomla! a better product. There are millions of sites worldwide (about 10 Million if you do a guestimate using Google) that runs on Joomla. It is therefore extremely popular and widely used which also means that it will never be difficult to find developers and people to support it.Because it is so popular, it also means that by now there have been quite a few books written about Joomla! from various perspectives to assist both the developer as well as the end-user. Some other good reasons to use Joomla!One of the most attractive features of using Joomla! is the fact that is so very easy to extend its functionality. You can build anything from a brochure website to a full-featured shopping cart or interactive membership site. This is because there are over 3500 add-ons and plugins available to extend its functionality. This ranges from shopping carts, image galleries, video plugins, forums, blogs, project management tools, etc etcThe Joomla templating system also makes it easy to change the look and feel of your site without having to redo the whole site from scratch you can visit www.impacts-audio.com

You can literally change the whole graphic design/look of the site in a matter of seconds while retaining the content. There are also over 2000 templates, most of them free, available to change the look and feel of your site.But again, why Joomla! Why not Wordpress, for example?I have to admit, Wordpress is also extremely popular and Wordpress also makes it extremely easy to add new pages. Wordpress also has numerous free templates available and it makes Wordpress an extremely attractive option to build websites quickly and easily but it must always be kept in mind that Wordpress is essentially a blogging platform. Although it also has numerous plugins available to extend its functionality, it just does not have the raw power with regards to its underlying infrastructure to allow it to easily plug in something like a shopping cart, for example.So what is the catch? It can’t be all roses?Having worked with Joomla! for a couple of years (and before that, with its predecessor, Mambo) I can tell you exactly what the shortcomings areJoomla’s membership capabilities fall far short of what they could be. There is very limited support for various access groups and access levels.Because it is so popular, it attracts a lot of attention and Joomla! sites get hacked – quite often. The only solution for this is to be aware of your server security settings and to upgrade regularly to stay abreast of the latest Joomla! security updates.Joomla! might be a bit top-heavy for smaller sites, although it still remains the tool of choice for even my smaller sites – it does leave room for expansion later without having to upgrade to a different tool or product!Joomla!’s native search engine friendliness in the older versions leave a lot to be desired, although this has received attention in the latest upgrade. Despite this drawback, most of my Joomla! sites perform well in the search engines due to judicious use of various plugins to rectify this shortcoming.Altogether, Joomla! is an excellent tool to build websites that are easy to create, easy on the eye and easily extendable.

Selecting a Suitable Approach for Joomla Installat...

Joomla is made for those users who want to create website easily without learning programming languages like HTML, PHP or database languages. But if you have been a webmaster for a long time and rely heavily on coding to create website then you will find motivation to switch to this extremely user-friendly Content Management System (CMS). However, if you are novice to web development and looking for software for free then it will help you to create website easily, Joomla is the solution which you will definitely love.

There are mainly three ways to install Joomla.

The First:
The easiest one to install Joomla, directly using widely popular software known as CPanel. CPanel is provided by most of the web hosting companies as an interface to manage your hosting. An average hosting plan for Joomla will cost you roughly $10-12 per month. Log into CPanel and access one option known as fantastico. Once you click on the fantastico link you will find Joomla as by default selection.

Once you select Joomla option, all you need to do is to follow the wizard and login using credentials. This is the easiest method to install Joomla as you do not have to bother about creating database because it is created automatically. For beginners, this method is strongly recommended.

The Second:
Manual installation – if server does not support CPanel then this is the method most users uses to install Joomla on their server. This method is pretty complicated but do not get confused because you can find all steps in detail on official Joomla website.

As an overview, you can follow below steps as a general guide:

1.From Joomla official site, download the latest version of Joomla and upload the zip file to your server and unzip it.
2.Create a database and grant it to a user with full privilege.
3.Access your website and follow the installation wizard.

The Third:
Is meant for techies, those people who want to test Joomla on their local computer before making it live on the Internet. Prerequisite for this method is, a server must be installed in your computer because Joomla cannot run solely on a browser. You can download XAMPP and install this software in your computer. XAMPP will create a server environment and will allow you to run Joomla. There are other alternatives for server installation but so far XAMPP does a pretty good job overall in less time. It does not require much technical knowledge and is easy to pick up. Remember this method is easy for technical person, if you do not have much technical knowledge it will be difficult for you to handle XAMPP.

The first method is relatively easy if you have access to a server with CPanel software. Installation of Joomla can become little frustrating for you especially when you do not know what went wrong.

Copyright © 2009

Joomla For Development Of Custom Website...

Among all open source Content Management Systems (CMS) available online, Joomla is one of the leading and powerful CMS used extensively around the world for award-winning web sites development. Joomla extends all typical advantages of an open source CMS, including extensibility and ease of use. Understandably, Joomla CMS has shaped a large number of world web sites and widely implemented for creating

Corporate web sites development e-Commerce websites Online magazines/ newspapers/ publication houses Government websites Non-profit organizations Community websites Small business websites Personal websites and so on.

A popular choice for professional web development, Joomla composes a bundle of core features that make it different and special from the others. The design of Joomla is intrinsically search engine friendly.

The Banner Manager

A very effective tool to generate traffic, banners in Joomla represent volume of published and unpublished active banners, client details and categories to organize these banners into published or unpublished.

Contact Organization

The feature lets you organize your ‘contacts’ in terms of their details and organization of the details. Joomla allows you to edit the data in both arrangements custom to your business requirements and make it work your way.

News feeds

Popularly termed as RSS feed, News feeds in Joomla facilitate generation of significant web traffic and hence important for development of website from commercial point of view. Any web based development seeks to earn by means of online visibility and Joomla’s news feed feature allows linking to the recently published articles on a particular subject(s) and manage them efficiently and intuitively. If into web based development jobs yourself, Joomla allows you to efficiently take care of the interests of your clients hence and in turn take care of own commercial interests in more than one ways.

Search

Sparing integration of a special web-based software solution during development of website for the job, Joomla’s search feature automatically keeps track of SEO-oriented information for you that helps ascertain the performance of the website on a consistent basis.

Content Management Systems: Opensource Joomla!...

A web CMS is a content management system software used for managing content for the web.

The software manages content (text, graphics, links, etc.) for distribution on a web server. Usually the software provides tools where users with little or no knowledge of programming languages and markup languages (such as HTML) can create and manage content with relative ease of use. Most systems use a database to hold content, and a presentation layer displays the content to regular website visitors based on a set of templates. Management of the software is typically done through a web browser, but some systems may be modified in other ways.

A Content Management System (CMS) differs from website builders like Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver in that a CMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. Website building tools like FrontPage and Dreamweaver require more technical knowledge and training on average. A CMS is an easy-to-use tool that gives authorized users the ability to manage a website. A CMS is a website maintenance tool rather than a website creation tool.

Let’s talk about Joomla! Content Management System now.

Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.

One of the ways people use Joomla! CMS:

* Corporate websites or portals

* Online commerce

* Small business websites

* Non-profit and organizational websites

* Government applications

* Corporate intranets and extranets

* School and church websites

* Personal or family homepages

* Community-based portals

* Magazines and newspapers

* the possibilities are limitless…

Joomla! can be used to easily manage every aspect of your website, from adding content and images to updating a product catalog or taking online reservations.

Advanced use of Joomla!

Out of the box, Joomla! does a great job of managing the content needed to make your website sing. But for many people, the true power of Joomla! lies in the application framework that makes it possible for thousands of developers around the world to create powerful add-ons and extensions. Here are just some examples of the hundreds of available extensions:

* Dynamic form builders

* Business or organizational directories

* Document management

* image and multimedia galleries

* E-commerce and shopping cart engines

* Forums and chat software

* Calendars

* Blogging software

* Directory services

* Email newsletters

* Data collection and reporting tools

* Banner advertising systems

* Subscription services

* and many, many more…

You will probably ask yourself what’s the catch?

There is no catch. Joomla! is free, open, and available to all under the GPL license.

Joomla Content Management System And SEO...

We should first be clear that SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization and that SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from any search engines. In other words, the objective of the SEO is to give the web-page more visibility through ranking, and more depth through linking. SEO is also referred to as being SEF, or Search Engine Friendly. It should be noted that most of the search engines do have the facility to submit feeds which can be utilized to enhance the search capabilities of the engine. This feature is particularly of use to those web pages that require to be updated on the contents at regular intervals or frequency, while there are pages that are static but could do with some feed to boost their capability to enhance visibility. It is important at this juncture to know that each page is on a sitemap, which in turn is a collection of hyperlinks that clearly define the overall structure of a particular website. The sitemap facilitates not just the user, but also the search engine spider, to navigate and also index the website more efficiently. This in turn provides a very clear view of the contents of each website.  

In defining the co-relation of Joomla and SEO, it is important to know that one of the major advantages of running the Joomla content management system is the fact that you can download and install a number of different sitemap components that will on configuration automatically display the contents of your web site in a site-map format to the visitors as well as the search engine spiders. It is heartening to note that in looking towards this as a requirement, Google has itself endorsed the need for the inclusion of a sitemap on the website and has accordingly created the option Google Sitemaps.

It is very imperative that prior to creating a sitemap, we ensure that the page titles, meta descriptions and the SEO clearly reflects the contents of your individual page. This will then assist the site visitors and search engine spiders to understand the contents of the web page, and be able to index as well as rank it accordingly.  

Now, when writing the contents for the Joomla web-site, you must create it for the users and not the search engines. In other words, you will have to focus on creating the contents relevant to your web-site on a Joomla template site rather than focus on writing content for the Joomla templates itself. This is where most fail to create a demarcation. In Joomla, it is worthwhile making the targeted keywords in H1 and H2 for highlighting, which otherwise have no significance in SEO. Once you have defined your target audience, irrespective of the search engine being used, try and build up a list of sites with similar interests.  

Lastly, if in Joomla you are not using sections and categories for the static page/s, then do create a generic section for these as a website content. In fact, create separate categories for each static page.

Use Joomla in Web Design & Website Hosting...

I was recently asked by a potential client why I recommended Joomla! to be used for building their website. Let me explain the benefits of using Joomla versus using anything else, and by anything else I mean comparing building a website using some type of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver, or building a website with a comparative type of software package. Joomla! is a Content Management system, which means that it is built to ensure that website pages can easily be maintained and updated. This includes for example, adding new pages or removing pages. This is the main advantage above building a website in straight forward HTML that would normally be the end product of using some type of HTML editor.But why Joomla? Why not something else like a Microsoft based product or another commercial product? Joomla is Open Source, which means that there are no licensing fees payable, that you have often pay for a Microsoft product or a commercial product Because Joomla is Open Source, there is a huge pool of community resources available to provide support or go to www.master-web-graphics.com

The Joomla community is huge worldwide as well as in local countries – there are often local user groups which are very well supported often even in small countries such as South Africa. There is an enormous pool of people supporting the product. The forum on the Joomla.org site has over 200 000 members all providing support and input into making Joomla! a better product. There are millions of sites worldwide (about 10 Million if you do a guestimate using Google) that runs on Joomla. It is therefore extremely popular and widely used which also means that it will never be difficult to find developers and people to support it.Because it is so popular, it also means that by now there have been quite a few books written about Joomla! from various perspectives to assist both the developer as well as the end-user. Some other good reasons to use Joomla!One of the most attractive features of using Joomla! is the fact that is so very easy to extend its functionality. You can build anything from a brochure website to a full-featured shopping cart or interactive membership site. This is because there are over 3500 add-ons and plugins available to extend its functionality. This ranges from shopping carts, image galleries, video plugins, forums, blogs, project management tools, etc etcThe Joomla templating system also makes it easy to change the look and feel of your site without having to redo the whole site from scratch you can visit www.impacts-audio.com

You can literally change the whole graphic design/look of the site in a matter of seconds while retaining the content. There are also over 2000 templates, most of them free, available to change the look and feel of your site.But again, why Joomla! Why not Wordpress, for example?I have to admit, Wordpress is also extremely popular and Wordpress also makes it extremely easy to add new pages. Wordpress also has numerous free templates available and it makes Wordpress an extremely attractive option to build websites quickly and easily but it must always be kept in mind that Wordpress is essentially a blogging platform. Although it also has numerous plugins available to extend its functionality, it just does not have the raw power with regards to its underlying infrastructure to allow it to easily plug in something like a shopping cart, for example.So what is the catch? It can’t be all roses?Having worked with Joomla! for a couple of years (and before that, with its predecessor, Mambo) I can tell you exactly what the shortcomings areJoomla’s membership capabilities fall far short of what they could be. There is very limited support for various access groups and access levels.Because it is so popular, it attracts a lot of attention and Joomla! sites get hacked – quite often. The only solution for this is to be aware of your server security settings and to upgrade regularly to stay abreast of the latest Joomla! security updates.Joomla! might be a bit top-heavy for smaller sites, although it still remains the tool of choice for even my smaller sites – it does leave room for expansion later without having to upgrade to a different tool or product!Joomla!’s native search engine friendliness in the older versions leave a lot to be desired, although this has received attention in the latest upgrade. Despite this drawback, most of my Joomla! sites perform well in the search engines due to judicious use of various plugins to rectify this shortcoming.Altogether, Joomla! is an excellent tool to build websites that are easy to create, easy on the eye and easily extendable.

Artisteer Template Generator For Joomla. How To Ma...

Finally, there is a way to easily make your own designer template.

Artisteer makes it possible for you to make amazing templates in no time. You don’t need to be a designer guru or a Photoshop expert to make great temples for your Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal or regular HTML site.

My name is Peter, I am 29 years old, and I help peopel in my family and some friends with their websites. Before I discovered Artisteer, where I forced to use the same pre-made templates as everybody else with that CMS system, and they were never perfect.

Now I can make some awesome templates you would think a professional web designer had made.
Further more Artisteer templates are without difficulty exported to Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal and HTML.

Artisteer has all the great features you need to generate your own attractive, unique and user friendly templates in an as little as 20 minutes!

The interface is very simple and Artisteer is so easy to use. If you are used to windows, is this like a walk in the park! However, don’t get fooled, because it is simple to use, doesn’t mean that it isn’t powerful.

Artisteer uses a unique WYSIWYG approach that does not require any experience to design the templates. You simply click a few buttons to view design suggestions, change the color schemes, change menu bar and button themes, arrange page layouts and so on. The list is very long…

Your choices are instantly applied to the built-in preview and can be customized even more by adjusting the properties for individual elements.

Artisteer includes a variety of background images, textures, photo clip art, font themes and other design elements to help you create your template without the need for additional resources.

In other words, you can modify all details/aspects of your templates, so it is just the way you want it. Furthermore, the templates are all fully cross-browser compatible!

One cool feature is: hold your mouse over a menu effect and the template will automatically update with that feature applied … move the mouse away from the menu, and the template will change back again – such a great way to quickly try things out!

Besides web design, do I also help with Google Adwords and Search engine optimization. There is Artisteer also great because the template is made with clean codes by Artisteer. This will make it a lot easier for you to get the high ranking on Google that we all want.

Furthermore, no coding skills needed. How ever, it is possible to modify your template after words if you want.

Artisteer is an amateur template designer’s dream comes true. Only your imagination and the sky is the limit!

When you are happy with your template design, you simply export the template to Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal, Blogger or standard HTML code and upload it.

It’s so easy…

You can even try a full version of Artisteer for free, before you pay so you know if it is something for you.

Note: The free demo version of Artisteer adds an obtrusive watermark to your exported template.

Regards from Peter Munck, author and home made web designer ;o)

Did you find this article helpful? If you did, then take a look at this website and try the free Artisteer demo. All functions are available and no credit card information needed.

What Is Joomla And How Does It Work?...

Joomla is an innovative Content Management System that helps web designers design and build state-of-the-art websites even if they have had little or no prior experience with website building. With an abundance of powerful online applications, Joomla is a boon to amateur and professional web designers everywhere.

What are Joomla templates?

Joomla templates are a series of html, php, xml and image files that serve as basic foundation designs within the Joomla Content Management System. You can avail of several pre-made Joomla templates that are available freely or the internet or you could custom-make your own Joomla template for absolute creative control over the presentation of the content and the overall appearance of the website.

Using Joomla templates, web designers as well as end-users can easily and effortlessly manage and maintain dynamic websites regardless of their level of proficiency or knowledge of the code.

How Joomla templates work

When the content is inserted into a Joomla template, it inherits the menus, link styles, colors, navigation and text size of the template, undergoing a radical transformation in appearance.

When you use a pre-made Joomla template, you are given various options for editing “css” and “html”. CSS or cascading style sheets are what control the look and feel elements of your website and html refers to the file that controls the positioning of the text.

Graphics are typically linked in the html file and users have the option of using their own graphic image by simply changing the reference to the image of their choice. It has to be noted however that if the size of the graphic is different from that of the original, the appearance of the site could undergo some unpredictable changes.

All you need to do is select a Joomla template from amongst the many freely available on the internet and just implement the necessary changes to your website. With just a click of a button you can convert your website into a rich text editor right in the browser itself.

How Joomla templates help

Joomla templates help you design and build new websites and upgrade existing ones without the need to hire expensive web designers. Joomla templates make it easy to insert additional pages, audio and video and also to add or edit text, pictures and menus.

Flash joomla templates can be instantly and easily applied to alter the color, positioning and graphics of the site without changing the content. This gives your website a brand new appearance while leaving your content intact; just the way you want to.

The multi-user and multi-environment that joomla offers, allows several users to interact and contribute towards the development of any joomla-based website. The users can be allocated to different groups, each of which has different privileges. The “What You See Is What You Get” or WYSISYG editor facilitates online editing of content.

Joomla templates that utilize Cascading Style Sheets or CSS help users generate layouts without the need of using tables. This helps the web site load faster and makes it easier to maintain. It also makes it easier to authenticate the template code to the atandards set by the World Wide Web Consortium