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Tutorials, reviews, case studies and other tips to help website owners and website developers master the Joomla content management system.

Is this the CRAZIEST Extension Ever?

Is this the CRAZIEST Extension Ever?

I am a fan of JoomlArt, one of the oldest and most respected Joomla extension developers. However their latest release has me scratching my head. It’s either fiendishly clever or downright evil. Would you let this extension lose on your website?

Recent Comments
Kevin Morrison
I wont click a link to share or endorse anything just to view it. I will not install anything on my sites that force a like to vie... Read More
Friday, 20 June 2014 06:45
john sitjar
good day sir pearce do you have a tutorial on joomla and virtuemart thanks
Monday, 23 June 2014 13:11
Kevin Morrison
You need more than a tutorial for VM John. Actually a prayer would serve you better...... Read More
Wednesday, 25 June 2014 13:46
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Shine up your UniForm with this (almost) free form builder

Shine up your UniForm with this (almost) free form builder

Looking for an easy-to-use form builder for Joomla without a hefty price tag? UniForm from JoomlaShine is the answer and in this post I walk you through it's major features.

Recent Comments
Nance Briscoe
I started learning JOOMLA! 2.5 last fall and needed a form - I've been using UniForm and as a novice I applaud the developers - it... Read More
Saturday, 12 October 2013 22:20
Richard Pearce
You should talk to JoomlaShine about this. That doesn't sound right at all.
Sunday, 13 October 2013 06:46
Dawn
Is it possible with Uni Form Pro Standard version to have a list of recipients on a form and the submitter chooses who the form wi... Read More
Monday, 25 November 2013 15:34
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Sneak Peek: The Next Big Extension to Hit the Joomla World

Sneak Peek: The Next Big Extension to Hit the Joomla World

The folks who brought you groundbreaking Joomla extensions such as EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss and Komento will soon release their latest creation. Read on to discover what it is and if you should be adding it to your Joomla website.

Recent Comments
Andrew
"Last time I counted," Richard you have too much time on your hands :-) Having looked at the intro site it appears to cover the ... Read More
Friday, 26 July 2013 11:31
Richard Pearce
Andy - I don't know if this is the best solution for your goals. Rather than try to compare it to WordPress, think of it as your o... Read More
Saturday, 27 July 2013 10:28
Michael Ellis
Richard, great overview of the Joomla social extensions. You didn't mention JFBConnect which seems to be attracting a lot of users... Read More
Friday, 26 July 2013 19:19
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Speed Up Your Joomla Website with JCH Optimize

Speed Up Your Joomla Website with JCH Optimize

How to speed up your Joomla website is a topic that's been discussed quite a bit in our forum lately. In this article we will look at just one technique, how to combine and minify your JavaScript and CSS files. The tool we'll use is a freely available Joomla Extension called JCH Optimize, and it can help speed up your Joomla site dramatically.

Recent Comments
Kevin Morrison
This is great Robert, I just ran it on a site that I have with lots of images and lengthy articles. I saw an instant 44% decrease ... Read More
Friday, 26 April 2013 11:44
Robert Wilson
Awesome Kevin! Thanks for reporting back with your results. We hope to do more articles on optimization in the future, so it's... Read More
Friday, 26 April 2013 17:56
Minnesota based Joomla expert
Slowness is one of the biggest pitfalls for Joomla, so great to post an article on speeding up Joomla sites. This is a quality ext... Read More
Friday, 03 May 2013 05:08
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CDN for Joomla Makes Content Delivery a Snap

CDN for Joomla Makes Content Delivery a Snap

Every webmaster wants the sites that they manage to load faster. Highly optimized, quick loading pages are important for many reasons. A speedy site, according to Google, is good for SEO. Mobile devices, where bandwidth is limited, definitely need quick loading websites. This is also very important from a usability perspective as we all know how quickly we navigate away from a page that just hangs as everything loads. It seems that nothing is more frustrating these days than a slow loading web page. In a matter of seconds, people will decide to go elsewhere. Let's look at one way to prevent that from happening.

Recent Comments
Jana Jrik
CDN really powers up any Joomla, Wordpress or Drupal site. Described extension is really easy to use and make work your CDN to fa... Read More
Tuesday, 02 April 2013 22:04
Giovanni Yarabek
Well done Robert. Thanks for this in depth and time consuming trial and error report! should have a link available or code, so the... Read More
Thursday, 04 April 2013 06:34
Dan
Thanks Robert... I started tinkering and went to the gmetrix.com site you pointed out... great link, btw!! dealt with the first it... Read More
Thursday, 04 April 2013 07:10
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Testing and Troubleshooting the User Experience

Testing and Troubleshooting the User Experience

The biggest feature to hit Joomla 1.6 was the vast improvement with access control. However this greatness comes with responsibility and it can be a pain to test a development site or troubleshoot issues with a live site. Joomla Administrators would love to be able to login as a particular user, without knowing that user's password. Well ... it turns out that this is indeed possible.

Recent Comments
Ric Raftis
What a fantastic extension Richard. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I've already shared it with a couple of others. Having... Read More
Thursday, 21 March 2013 11:26
Clemon Allison
Hi Richard, I'm having a time troubleshooting an issue with trying to get the admin page to come up after I go through the install... Read More
Saturday, 27 April 2013 00:04
Richard Pearce
The only time I have had issues in the past is when something was showing as 'No' in the pre-installation section of the web insta... Read More
Monday, 29 April 2013 13:14
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Captcha Wants to Know - Are You a Human?

Captcha Wants to Know - Are You a Human?

CAPTCHA is one of the most used and hated pieces of technology on the web. It almost defines the term "necessary evil" while driving website visitors completely insane. Webmasters love the fact that it can cut spam on their sites to almost nothing, and website visitors sometimes completely abandon their form submissions over frustratingly garbled words and numbers.

People have lamented over and over, "There must be another way!" Well, there are other ways, and we'll look at one in this article. This alternative, however, could be just as controversial as CAPTCHA itself.

Recent Comments
Richard Pearce
Personally I think this one is too clever. Do I want to see a better Captcha solution for Joomla? Yes. Is this the answer? Well .... Read More
Thursday, 07 March 2013 13:08
Ian Hayward
Much as I detest captcha - me nor. I've ended up using EasyCalc - http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/social-web/social-share... Read More
Thursday, 07 March 2013 19:27
Robert Wilson
Thanks for the comment Ian. We actually have plans to look at EasyCalcCheck PLUS as well as a comparison in a future post. By th... Read More
Thursday, 07 March 2013 20:02
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15 Comments

Easy YouTube and Vimeo Integration with JUserTube

Easy YouTube and Vimeo Integration with JUserTube

Video is clearly becoming the king of media formats on the internet. Adding video to a website is one of the most common needs today, but relatively few people do it because it's not always the easiest thing to accomplish. Most people with a decent understanding of online technology can upload a video to YouTube, and embedding a player has become easier over time, but getting a great looking playlist on your site is normally a different matter...until now.

Recent Comments
cyndie
Can you recommend the easiest way add a .swf video to a Joomla 2.5 site? I am new at adding videos to a site and am getting frust... Read More
Friday, 15 February 2013 13:15
Richard Pearce
Try AllVideos
Friday, 15 February 2013 13:27
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Having trouble working Facebook into your Joomla website?

Having trouble working Facebook into your Joomla website?

As Facebook has become the definitive standard for social networking online, more and more web developers are looking for better and easier ways of working it into their websites. This is just as true for the Joomla world. What's great about using a CMS like Joomla is that you have so many options for including services like Facebook into your web pages. We've come across another easy way to do it.

Recent Comments
Mike Wharton
I can't get it to show anything other than the header in my site. I have selected the Like Box... added my FB URL and it shows not... Read More
Friday, 11 January 2013 13:57
Xhafarre Kua
Thank you for your post. I've tried this extension today and it's not working!
Friday, 11 January 2013 19:28
Peter Gleeson
Thanks for the tip Richard. I can put it to good use.
Saturday, 12 January 2013 21:27
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10 Comments

Business Directory Options

We're often asked how to create an effective and good-looking business directory. Here are a few places to start looking.

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