Tools YOU need to know about

Good Day to you and welcome to Tools you need to know about.

This article is part one of the TOOL Series. In this I want to introduce you to some of my favorite tools. In the first few articles, I will discuss them generally, then in future articles, I'll spend time discussing each one.

The tools discussed will be both GPL and NON-GPL tools as well as Joomla based tools. Your comments are welcome and I hope that you find this series helpful.

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Joomlashack University Reopens Today

In October 2009 the new Joomla training course - Joomlashack University opened its door to its first class of 100 students. For the last 4 weeks, these students have been learning how to Joomla with our rich video screencasts and tutorials and asking questions and networking in our forums.

Before launching Shack U, we knew we had a great product to offer. We gave leading Joomla figures a sneak look at the content and, as you can read yourself, they loved it.

As well as teaching insider Joomla tips and tricks to our first students, we have been taking feedback and improving the course. We have streamlined the student path through the learning content and added more courses.

After 4 weeks, we are ready to open our doors again.

Read more: Joomlashack University Reopens Today

Help! I've been hacked! - Now what?

Good day, if you are reading this, I hope you will take a few moments to really consider the need for a good incident management plan for your website. Ask yourself, What WOULD you do if you were hacked?

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Joomlashack's next template is all about Community

Community, our latest theme due later this month, will be Joomlashack's first 1.5 native Joomla template to include matching themes for the JomSocial extension.

With social networking features become standard for many websites, JomSocial has become the must-have extension for Joomla users.

Our new Community template will integrate seemlessly with JomSocial, and give your site a consistent color and style scheme across every page.

Community will be a powerful SEO-optimized template built on our own modified 960 grid system. It'll be as fast, flexible, and simple to use as our last template, eBusiness.

We're putting the final touches and color schemes together and will release very soon.

Want to win a free copy of Community? Follow us on Twitter and look out for our pre-release Tweetaway!

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Joomla User Survey early results

Joomla Survey

It's early yet, but the early results from the Joomlashack 2009 Joomla User Survey are already sparking conversation about who uses Joomla, and how.

Launched 10 days ago, the Joomla User Survey has already received more than 1,000 responses, yielding a rich pile of data about many important Joomla-related questions, including:

And many more questions. Read on to hear some early results and to comment on the survey!

Haven't taken the survey yet? Want to be entered to win over $1,000 in prizes! Then take the survey!

Read more: Joomla User Survey early results

Joomlashack to Match your Charitable Donation

Donate TodayJoomlashack's annual holiday charitable campaign is back with a new twist: We'll match your donations!

For the fourth year, Joomlashack is rallying our community to support a worthy charity during the holiday season.

This year we're supporting the important humanitarian efforts of Doctors without Borders (aka Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF.)

For every dollar contributed by our community, Joomlashack will match up to a total of $1,000. Other partners may match even more!

What is Médecins Sans Frontières?

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An Introduction to Joomla Security

As a security guy, I get asked frequently about Joomla, and if it's secure. I start to answer, and am always interrupted with something along the lines of:

"..I know it's not, I just want to know how insecure it is.."

As if security is measured on a 1 to 10 scale..Security is not a scale, but a total philosophy, a set of tools and actions. Yes, it can be measured, but taking Joomla and singling it out is foolish. Looking at Joomla as part of your total site security makeup IS the right answer. You must measure security holistically. Any part of your security that is weak,weakens the entire infrastructure.

So how do you answer it? To begin with, Joomla is only as secure as the platform it is on, the extensions installed on it and the proper safeguards that are put in place. In fact, many times if a Joomla site is hacked, it could be any number of things. But here's the part that is hard for some to swallow...It's not typically Joomla's fault. it's many times the administrators fault for failing in some basic areas. Now to be fair to the admin, security is an entire practice itself, and in this article I will lay out some basic concepts both Joomla and non-joomla to help you understand how to secure your site.

Read more: An Introduction to Joomla Security

Joomla Security Primer

As a security guy, I get asked frequently about Joomla, and if it's secure. I start to answer, and am always interrupted with something along the lines of:

"..I know it's not, I just want to know how insecure it is.."

As if security is measured on a 1 to 10 scale..Security is not a scale, but a total philosophy, a set of tools and actions. Yes, it can be measured, but taking Joomla and singling it out is foolish. Looking at Joomla as part of your total site security makeup IS the right answer. You must measure security holistically. Any part of your security that is weak,weakens the entire infrastructure.

So how do you answer it? To begin with, Joomla is only as secure as the platform it is on, the extensions installed on it and the proper safeguards that are put in place. In fact, many times if a Joomla site is hacked, it could be any number of things. But here's the part that is hard for some to swallow...It's not typically Joomla's fault. it's many times the administrators fault for failing in some basic areas. Now to be fair to the admin, security is an entire practice itself, and in this article I will lay out some basic concepts both Joomla and non-joomla to help you understand how to secure your site.

Read more: Joomla Security Primer

How To Make Multiple Page Layouts Easily

This How To article piggy-backs off one of the recent articles, How To Change the Layout on the Frontpage. In that How To we discussed how changing a few parameters in the frontpage menu item could totally change the look and format of the frontpage. This How To will show you how Joomla! makes it just as easy to do the same thing on other pages as well.

Read more: How To Make Multiple Page Layouts Easily

How To Find Available Attributes for Parameter Elements

This how-to is aimed more at Joomla! developers than our beginner or intermediate Joomla! user crowd. When creating an extension (module, component, plugin, or template), it's often necessary to give users the ability to choose custom settings by giving them Parameter options. Interacting with parameters will be for another How-To, but today I want to show you how to find the available attributes for a particular parameter element.

Read more: How To Find Available Attributes for Parameter Elements