5 Tips to Learning Joomla

As one of the most exciting web content management systems, you would obviously be eager to learn Joomla. But where can you learn it? That’s the subject of this article as we take a look at the learning environment for Joomla.

The Joomla Learning System:

This is the traditional way. It involves getting manuals, attending training classes, conferences and workshops that help you learn Joomla.  The other way is to simply get a package and start learning Joomla. At the end of the day, you need to be comfortable with Joomla. That’s it.

Apply What You Learn:

The easiest way to learn Joomla is to start creating a website as you learn the CMS. This way you would make mistakes and continue to learn. Unless you create a website, you would never know the nitty gritties of Joomla.

Joomla Resource Websites:

Another very good to learn Joomla is to frequent websites, discussion forums and follow threads that have a lot of useful information on how you can create and manage Joomla websites. There are Joomla videos, FAQs and learning sessions for beginners and professionals alike.

Joomla User Groups:

Just about every big city or metropolis would have a Joomla user group and yours must be having one too. The JUG typically has enthusiastic, ready to interact and knowledgeable Joomla webmasters teaching you the intricacies of the CMS. A JUG typically meets monthly, but this may vary according to the needs and time availability of the membership of the Joomla group. At these meetings, in addition to meeting fellow Joomla webmasters, you can also get the latest information on what's going on in the Joomlasphere, along with new useful tools and extensions.

Continued Practice:

As we already saw, that to learn Joomla quickly, you need to have hands-on practice during the early stages. However, the Joomla CMS is so dynamic that if you don't constantly practice and explore it, you may either lose track of where it is going or even forget some of the skills. However, if you are regularly engaged in tweaking your Joomla website and keeping up to date with what's going on, you will find out that learning how to design Joomla websites becomes much more easier and creative for you as you discover new tools, tricks and creative ways to make it do your will and design virtually any type of website using Joomla.

5 Easy-To-Do Tips to Learn Joomla

We all know Joomla has been one of the most effective content management systems over the past decade. But how does one learn it? Here are 5 tips for the same:

1. The Joomla Learning System: Through this, you can get a manual, or take Joomla training classes, attend workshops on Joomla, or simply get a package of what you can use and learn from. Whatever you choose, ensure that you’re comfortable with the quality of Joomla training and how well you’ll be able to design Joomla websites by the end of it all.

2. Apply What You Learn: This is the easiest way to learn Joomla quickly. Create a website as you continue to learn Joomla. Mastering Joomla will be possible only if you practise it constantly. Therefore, create a test site of one of your existing websites to practise Joomla on it.

3. Joomla Resource Websites: Another good way to learn Joomla is to frequent threads, discussion forums and blogs that have a mine of information on how to create content with Joomla. you can find articles, videos and lectures on how you can create Joomla websites faster and better. They also contain FAQs that help you out in your beginning stages as a Joomla developer.

4. Joomla User Groups: Almost every big city now has a local Joomla User Group(JUG) that has enthusiastic and interactive Joomla webmasters. A JUG typically meets every month, but this could vary according to the availability and needs of the members of the Joomla group. During these meetings, you can also get the latest information on what's going on in the Joomla sphere, new useful tools and extensions, latest Joomla tutorials and templates, in addition to meeting fellow Joomla webmasters. You would also receive a lot of support from your network of new found friends and fellow Joomla webmasters and learners.

5. Continued Practice: We have already seen why you need hands-on training during the early stages in order to learn Joomla quickly. However, remember that the Joomla CMS is fast-changing. It is dynamic to the extent that if you don't constantly practice it, you will lose track of it or even forget what you already.

However, if you’re regularly in creating Joomla content and also are up to date with the latest developments, you will soon find out that learning Joomla is that much more easier and fun.

How to Optimize Joomla! Security

Joomla! has become one of the most popular content management systems and is widely used by thousands of websites around the world. The rapid growth of Joomla! Makes it a good target for hacker’s attacks. For this reason, there are some things that you should know to prevent attacks and improve your Joomla! Site’s security.

1. Choose a Good Server and Host

For a website, selecting an appropriate server and host is extremely important. If you’re using a bad host, think about changing your host supplier or using a completely separate server to avoid shared security issues.

2.  Activate and Use the .htaccess File

Make sure that you change the .htaccess.txt file to .htaccess and put it in your site’s root folder. You can also add some rules to rewrite for it to prevent the possibility of unaccepted exploitation.

3. Change Your Site’s Permission and Default Administrator Account

Carefully settings permission files for CHMOD ( note that nothing must be settings to 777 which gives full rights to an account). Also, change your Joomla! Default account’s name so as to make it more difficult for hackers even if they intend to attack your website.

4. Have A Backup And Troubleshooting Plan

Remember to backup your site on a regular basis and take some time to design a plan used in case your site is attacked (prevention is better than cure).

5. Manage Your Extension Well

Keep your existing extensions installed on your site updated. Consider an extension carefully in terms of its security, its code, update version etc before installing it to your site.

6. Delete the Extension’s Version Information

By removing this type of information, you help prevent attacks since the exploitation from hackers tends to focus on the specific version of the extension.

7. Remove Unused Files

If you installed many extensions but use only some of them, you’re creating trouble for yourself. Check your site and remove all unused extensions for the sake of your website.

8. Protect Your Password

Create for yourself a good habit: Changing your password periodically with mix of upper and lowercase, special symbol, letter and number. Make sure that your database access is password protected at MySQL.

Running a Joomla Website? 5 Design Trends and Predictions for 2015

Almost approaching the end of 2014, there are tons and tons of expectations in the web design world. When asked US owners of many popular websites, this is what they said, “Poorly designed websites result in low conversion rates and below average returns on investment (ROI)”. How true it is!
The main objective of good design is to reduce unnecessary stress and make life easier. So...here we go.

Ecommerce Web Design Trends for 2015 to Keep You Ahead Of the Curve

The “Less Is More” Approach

Google, Microsoft, and Apple though the big shot competitors have made one point very clear: “Evolution f Flat design”. But substantially, it has to be more eyes pleasing, easier to understand, and made responsive. The core principles of skeuomorphism are applied to a digital palette to resemble real life scenarios as in like setting Call-to-action buttons.

Rich Content Experiences

Rather than infusing a BIG LOT of information in a website, A Joomla website with less text but with more creativity and, visual storytelling are being employed to communicate important information in coming days. Say for instance, creating a portfolio page/ an ecommerce website that relies on images and icons to convey information to the users instead of pure texts.

Responsive Typography Design Element

Say goodbye to boring old fonts such as Times New Roman or Arial. In 2015, most or not, typography gets serious available at affordable prices so that even small business owner can be spared from paying through the nose for complete font sets for their marketing materials.

The Formula of Device-Agnostic

The ecommerce web design must take into account a few considerations from now on while planning to have responsive web design: the amount of screen resolution combinations, browser capabilities, and loading speed to create the most enjoyable experience for visitors. The navigation structure should be product responding so that consumers need not pinch the screen, and get frustrated to having clicked undesired button, or to navigate away from frustration.
Micro UX Effects and Transitions

How to make an online shopping enjoyable? Well, adding fun little features! Including micro UX effects and transitions creates a memorable impact as in the effective color change and animation, hover effects on navigation bars, while keeping visitors engaged.

If you have been happy-go-lucky all these days, 2015 is the year to place importance on ecommerce webdesign.

5 Curious Trends Expected In Joomla Template Design For 2015

The end of 2014 is coming nearer and nearer and this is the perfect time for us to predict amazing trends for the next year. The new appearance of Joomla Templates 2015 is outlined here in this article.

Expected Joomla Template Design Trends in 2015

The Outbreak of Flat Design

From the beginning of 2014, Flat Design- a minimalistic design style evolved that focuses on usability lifting off the page receiving a ton of nice feedbacks from all users.

But however, in coming days the template interface will become much more attractive with neat flat designs, especially when hand-held devices are being adopted more and more.

Responsive Websites Will Take Over

If your website can appear probably well on every screen size, and with the coming of more hand-held devices, every day then why not ‘Responsive Design’ becomes a design trend in 2015. Whilst many companies run a dedicated mobile website, this trend is much more time-saving and impressive of marketing potential and designers are shifting traditional websites to responsive websites.

Pictures Speak-Less Texts

Making the content more attractive means designers tend to prefer imagery such as icon, info graphics instead of a website that’s full of text. Colorful images will make your website more eye-catching and notable to visitors. And, that’s why Less Text will become one of the most effective methods in the following year

Browser Compatibility Once Again Will Go Fabulous

Nowadays, people can have many choices to pick one browser and install it to their devices. This is why
Apart from these, if you have something to share, please let us know by leaving some comments bellow.

templates need not only be responsive design but also browser compatibility to ensure your website can display well on different browsers.

5 Reasons to Kick Start Your Online Store Using Joomla Over Wordpress

Even since decades, the war of CMS titans is largely being fought by biased individuals, rather than debated from an objective standpoint. So, the dilemma to choose an appropriate option for ecommerce website development is not something new.

But then, there are many overlaps of Joomla and WordPress as they can do a lot more things with their extensions and plug-ins.

Joomla Stands Out To Be A Worthy Investment

Check out a few of the exceptional difference among them before you get started.

Scalability

Building more functional website requires a number of extensions to adjust tiny detail - Joomla Website Development stands with that point. Plus, its installation is very easy for complicated components like specific user permissions, tightly controlled, community software, etc- natural for those website that powered by CMS.

Large Supportive Community

When it comes to website management approaches, WordPress consider minimalism while Joomla focuses on design and functionalities besides excellent community whilst both support enough documentation and their forums.

Intuitive Interface

As is obvious, ecommerce website developers choose a CMS platform based on their website management and excellency at its first look itself. Though WordPress looks amazing with comprehensible, it delivers basic options for your content editing and if we are comparing it with Joomla, we seem it becomes more complicated to get to the bottom.

Blogging

WordPress ‘s blog comes with some marvellous functionality, including tag cloud, teaser posts, built-in comments, post archives, post tag, and so on. To the contrary, you have to add third-party extensions to add a dynamic content in Joomla CMS.

Managing Media Files

Both of these ecommerce solutions are blessed with some marvellous features for media management strategy. WordPress lets you add all “alt” and “title” tags and caption for images in the database. Similarly, Joomla have great advantages of adding folders in a library. To get the best of two worlds, it is recommended combine both media file management options to make it a perfect system.

End of the day, choosing any of these purely depends on your target audience and business requirements. Whatsoever is your need, get a free consultation from a professional team, one such Openwave Computing Services, NYC before starting off. We are a reputed web development firm offering various services related to web design and development, especially shopping cart sites.

Top 5 Reasons to Have Joomla CMS Websites to Spice up Your Online Presence

In today’s fast moving pace, Php Website Development is considered the leading solution for many reasons. Perhaps, its affordable development rates, the low price hosting, the wide server support and robustness attract the start-ups and big companies equally. Better yet, the availability of scores of free and paid content management systems (CMS) has made it even more attractive.

A Brief Note on Content Management System

Content Management System (CMS) is a product installed on a web server that manages the content on your website. Having full control over the administration panel, you can add/ edit text, images, pages and features offering flexibility to expand with the needs of your business. There are many popular open source CMSs such as Drupal, Joomla and word press.

Joomla CMS Websites to Spice up Your Online Presence

Here are the top 5 reasons why Joomla Website Development is considered the ideal one to flourish your business CMS website.

• Open Source Matters: While many commercial CMS solutions are costly over time, Joomla CMS is free to use with no on-going licence fees.

• Intuitive User Interface: This solid platform provides an intuitive user interface for administrating the content on your website.

• Flexibility and Expansion: With 3,500 extensions available, ecommerce shopping cart development, photo galleries and email newsletter management adds value to your site.

• Perfect Customization: Joomla's template system offers complete customisation for efficient web design and development solutions with strong branding.

• Support Community: The growing Joomla 1.5 to 3.0 versions has strong community that can come into rescue when you need help and information.

To sum up, those who run small and medium businesses with a minimal budget, Joomla Content Management acts as the perfect solution to grow with the needs of your business website. Openwave Computing Services, a reputed web development company, NYC, with a decade plus years of experience enables you to develop an extensive library of resources and extensions to implement into effective web solutions.