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

Have you got the Joomla Beat?

Have you got the Joomla Beat?

You might think podcasts are on the decline thanks to the rise of social media and video. However there are tens of thousands of podcasts listed on iTunes including Joomla Beat - a weekly production overflowing with Joomla news, views, reviews and interviews. Find out all about it and see if you recognise this voice ...

Recent Comments
Egg Bramhill
Interesting interview. I first learnt how to use Joomla via Richards free tutorials and listening to his own self-taught way of te... Read More
Friday, 28 June 2013 11:37
Giovanni Yarabek
Smooth professional interview with interesting content. Thanks for sharing!
Saturday, 29 June 2013 07:24
Peter Bui
Glad you enjoyed the podcast!
Saturday, 29 June 2013 08:54
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Website Review: Daniel Kaminsky Attorney

Website Review: Daniel Kaminsky Attorney

This is the first of a series of website video reviews. There are three main points covered - but do you think I covered the most important ones?

Recent Comments
Younes Aitouazdi
can you please review my website: http://www.transgateslimo.com, I did submit it before, and I am not using it yet, I am trying to... Read More
Wednesday, 15 May 2013 11:08
Richard Pearce
If it was submitted then it is in the list. There are no guarantees that I will do them all, and as there are 57 more to consider,... Read More
Wednesday, 15 May 2013 13:55
Lyndon Baxter
Thanks Richard, very informative and I agree with most of what you said, however, I think you could have gone further with the com... Read More
Wednesday, 15 May 2013 12:25
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CloudFlare Brings Joomla Optimization and Security to the Rest of Us

CloudFlare Brings Joomla Optimization and Security to the Rest of Us

We, like many in the web development world, have been slightly obsessed with optimization lately. Joomla is somewhat known for being difficult to optimize well for both speed and security, so it's seen as slow and insecure by some in the web development world. It can even feel that way for Joomla site developers who can't quite get their heads around how to configure things properly. Is Joomla really that difficult to optimize? Is the bad rep it gets deserved? In this article, we discuss a solution that may solve most of the problem for almost everyone...and it's dead simple.

Recent Comments
pdc
Which Basic Joomla Optimization did you use? Just cached etc, or things like JCH in addition?
Thursday, 04 December 2014 04:08
Richard Pearce
Cache and GZip compression.
Thursday, 04 December 2014 15:51
pdc
why do you keep deleting my question in the comments???? nothing sensitive in my question I think...
Thursday, 04 December 2014 05:16
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Forcing files to download with Skyline Simple Download

Forcing files to download with Skyline Simple Download

The web browser was invented to interpret HTML content and display it accordingly. But as it became practical to deliver other file types such as PDFs and MP3s, the browser become a multimedia viewer. However this isn't always desirable as there are times when you would rather have the browser download a particular file, rather than display it within a browser window. There are various ways to force a file to be downloaded using Joomla, but they either require an extension which is unnecessarily complicated or tweaking server settings which is not for the faint-hearted. In this review I take a look at a simple solution that is aptly named Skyline Simple Download.

Recent Comments
Richard Pearce
Not sure where you clicked, but as mentioned, this is a commercial extension.
Friday, 18 January 2013 15:25
jbyow
based on joomla sites, Phoca, jDownloads and DocMan are the best in this category.
Saturday, 19 January 2013 02:38
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Watchful.li Review: First Look

Watchful.li Review: First Look

This week we examine a new service that allows you to monitor and update multiple Joomla websites from one easy web portal dashboard.

Recent Comments
Richard Pearce
Interested to know what others think of this service. I love the idea, but the security scares me a bit. There is a discussion abo... Read More
Friday, 07 December 2012 07:43
Eng Ung
Thanks for the review Robert. I've been looking to simplify updates with multiple Joomla sites and I think Watchful.ly hits the sw... Read More
Friday, 07 December 2012 09:52
Trevor Mitchell
Watchful looks pretty good but recently I've been totally blown away by 'Audit My Joomla'. This has just gone online, and does a t... Read More
Friday, 07 December 2012 14:19
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Mail In Vote Makes Web Polls Portable

Mail In Vote Makes Web Polls Portable

If you've ever polled your online audience or asked them to vote on something, you might be interested in Code Haiku's new extension, Mail In Vote, which offers a bit of a different way to get feedback from your followers and friends. Instead of relying on them to come to your site for a poll, you can now easily send a quick ballot to them directly through email.

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Apptha Lets Joomla Developers Have Their Very Own Pinterest Site

Apptha Lets Joomla Developers Have Their Very Own Pinterest Site

Extensions for Joomla can range anywhere from a small plugin that sits inconspicuously in the background performing some small function to full blown applications. Social Pinboard for Joomla is definitely the latter. Apptha has created an extension that is in iteself an entire web build. In fact, your only template option when setting up Social Pinboard is the Social Pinboard template, making it much more of a web solution than only a Joomla extension.

Recent Comments
Richard Pearce
Yes but there is some additional setup required outside of Joomla to get it working.
Saturday, 28 July 2012 06:45
Richard Pearce
The developer has documentation on their site at http://www.apptha.com/pinterest-clone-for-joomla... Read More
Tuesday, 31 July 2012 06:53
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Free Joomla Form Builders

Joomla form buildersOne of the first things I looked for after discovering Joomla was a free form builder. Most sites require a basic contact form. Other sites might need to collect unique data or conduct a survey or create a simple order form. This post reveals the current state of play of free Joomla form builders.

Recent Comments
Ian Hayward
Having tried most of these at some time or other - and bought bfForms - I now use one you haven't mentioned - Google Forms. Not s... Read More
Thursday, 14 June 2012 18:17
Richard Pearce
I wanted this post to be about native Joomla form extensions. Here's a video on how to embed a Google form into Joomla.... Read More
Friday, 15 June 2012 06:37
JP Fourie
Thank you Richard.
Friday, 15 June 2012 09:00
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ACL Manager Review

ACL ManagerThe access control list (ACL) feature in Joomla 1.5 is quite basic and this was seen by many as its greatest weakness. Version 1.6 changed everything, but for some the opposite became true - the ACL was now too complicated. If this is the case for you, learn how to gain control again with this review of an extension called ACL Manager.

Recent Comments
Richard Pearce
I'm not sure which tool you're referring to; Joomla, ACL Manager or yourself. But thanks for taking the time to write such an insi... Read More
Tuesday, 14 January 2014 14:52
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AceShop Review: First Look

aceshopThe latest contender for the Joomla ecommerce crown has arrived. AceShop integrates the popular OpenCart application into Joomla. Does the combination of the stable OpenCart platform and the flexibility of Joomla lead to the ultimate ecommerce solution? We decided to find out.

Recent Comments
Peter
As a relatively new Joomla developer I was pretty nervous about upgrading one of my sites to add a shop. However I was pleasantly ... Read More
Saturday, 28 April 2012 19:01
Murray Cowell
A solid, reliable alternative to Virtuemart is certainly needed. I'd be very interested to see a series of reviews of alternative ... Read More
Saturday, 28 April 2012 22:01
Mikael Pettersson
My company is in the process of building our new ecommerce collution based on aceshop. The issues we are experiencing are mostly r... Read More
Monday, 30 April 2012 17:23
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