Joomlashack Blog and Updates

Tell us what you want

: Written by Barrie North Barrie North; Published: 05 August 2009 05 August 2009

What you really... really want!

Last week we launched our new promise of our 100% satisfaction guarantee.

This week we take another step in improving ourselves to better meet our customers needs.

We have launched our Uservoice feedback forum for the Joomlashack community. We want you to tell us what you'd like to see from Joomlashack, and we'll do our best to make it happen.

For general feedback, please post in our core forum: joomlashack.uservoice.com

Join the Joomlashack Email Test

: Written by Barrie North Barrie North; Published: 04 August 2009 04 August 2009

There are lots of email marketing services: iContact, Mailchimp, Aweber etc etc.

But I don't think there has been a scientific test and review of how well they deliver, all of them give their deliverability rates, but how can we compare them?

I need your help to do this very test and compare these services, here's how...

Joomla 1.5 turns 12

: Written by Tom Elliott Tom Elliott; Published: 09 July 2009 09 July 2009

Last week the Joomla Project team released Joomla 1.5.12, codename "Wojmamni Ama Woi." No explanation for the Swahili meaning was given, but this version's various security and bug fixes are easily explained by checking out the project's 1.5.12 release.

The notes on Joomla.org points out that the version of the WYSIWYG editor TinyMCE received an important upgrade in this release, which reminded us to remind you that if you aren't using WYSIWYGPro, you're mising out on the best editor available for Joomla 1.5.

Nonetheless, be sure to do your updates early and often, as there are likely bad people out there trying to hack your Joomla site. You can also check out SecureJoomla, which will add another layer of protection on top of the great work by the Joomla Project guys.

JCalPro final Joomla 1.5 release coming soon

: Written by Tom Elliott Tom Elliott; Published: 25 June 2009 25 June 2009

JCal Pro, one of the best-known Joomla extensions and a Top Ten winner in Joomlashack's Ultimate Top Ten Joomla Extensions survey, has a new release that is worthy of great attention from the Joomlaverse.

JCal Pro is the rare Joomla 1.5 extension that is taking huge leaps forward while maintaining excellent support.

And oh yeah- after years of asking, the most requested feature in the history of the JCal Pro series is about to be released!

New Joomla Resource Directory drives strong traffic

: Written by Tom Elliott Tom Elliott; Published: 24 June 2009 24 June 2009

The Joomlaverse was abuzz a few weeks ago about the launch of the Joomla Resource Directory, the Joomla community's official directory of designers, developers, and Joomla-related service providers. The directory, replete with listings for Joomlashack, our hosted and supported Joomla-on-demand service Simplweb, and Compass Designs, can be found at https://resources.joomla.org

But here's the big question: Is the JRD driving traffic to Joomla providers?

Review of New Joomla Security Extension

: Written by Barrie North Barrie North; Published: 24 June 2009 24 June 2009

Be sure to read a full description of SecureJoomla on in our Joomla Extensions and Components store.

Once in a while a product for Joomla comes along and really makes me sit up and pay attention. One such recent product was a <https://www.joomlashack.com/extensions/388-securejoomla-joomla-security-system">new Joomla security component called SecureLive. A simple module that you can install on your site and immediately secure Joomla more effectively.

Now, I'll admit to not knowing much about the hard core details of server and Joomla 1.5 security, so, I contacted someone who did, Tom Canavan, the author of Joomla! Security and a frequent speaker at Joomla events on the subject. I thought that we could install SecureLive on a real production site and we'd see if Mr Canavan could break in.

Over to you Mr Canavan....

10 Hours of Joomla Video Training Released

: Written by Barrie North Barrie North; Published: 22 June 2009 22 June 2009

We are very excited that some great new resources to learn how to Joomla are now available, Joomla! 1.5: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website (2nd Edition) and Fundamentals of Joomla! (Video Training)! The author is Joomlashack's own Barrie North.

The second edition of the book is an update of the best selling book on Joomla, bringing it up to date with the latest version of Joomla 1.5. It also has a completely new chapter on marketing your site and SEO, two topics that change continuously.

The Joomla Video Training is a completely new release. Its a packed 9 hour training video on Joomla 1.5. You can listen as I explain some of the most difficult Joomla concepts, like sections and categories and creating your site navigation.

If you'd like to get some insight into the background behind these new releases, you can head over to cmswire and Dee-Ann LeBlanc's interview about them.

New Update to Inspirion Joomla Template

: Written by Barrie North Barrie North; Published: 18 June 2009 18 June 2009

Joomlashack's Inspirion Joomla Template is one of the most innovative templates currently on the market. Its built using the 960 grid, a CSS system that gives you a tableless layout and a fast loading site, great for SEO!

Its one of the first commercial professional templates to validate XHTML Strict. This is a high benchmark to meet, and provides a great foundation to help you site rank in search engines.

On top of that, Inspirion has a full set of core Joomla template overrides. This means that your Joomla 1.5 site will be shown with no tables at all and makes use of semantic headings (h1-h3). I'll give you one guess why that is good!

I think that the Inspirion template might be the best template around for SEO right now. Making sure your template helps your SEO efforts, rather than hurts them, involves lots of factors, tabless layouts, valid code, semantic headings, SEO-friendly logo replacement- Inspirion has it all.

Ultimate Top Ten Joomla Extensions REVEALED

: Written by Tom Elliott Tom Elliott; Published: 09 June 2009 09 June 2009

Last month Joomlashack asked our community, "What are the Top Ten Joomla extensions?" So what did 2,591 voters and 12,642 votes reveal?

Announcing the Joomlashack Ultimate Top Ten Joomla Extensions, with cash prizes to the top two extensions. The grand prize winners:

#1 Virtuemart, "the complete e-Commerce shopping cart solution for Joomla" wins a $200 donation from Joomlashack!

#2 JoomlaPack, "an open-source backup component" wins a $100 donation from Joomlashack!

Congratulations to these two high-profile open source projects. Both of these extensions are licensed under the GPL and are available for free on their project websites.

Now, what about the other 120+ extensions suggested and voted on? And oh yeah- what's the Top Ten?

Read about the official Joomlashack Top Ten- with a tie!