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

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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Build a Wordpress Website

No - that's not a typo. We have just released a series of 20 lessons to our members on How to Build a WordPress Website.

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Recent Comments
Richard Pearce
Coke vs. Pepsi is a very different comparison to two open source CMS platforms. Customers have told us that they wished we provide... Read More
Tuesday, 26 February 2013 17:59
Tim John
Don't quite understand Bob's reasoning here. I already have "life access" so, for me, it's essentially something for nothing! Any ... Read More
Tuesday, 26 February 2013 20:34
Amory Kandy
Despite I love joomla, I'm so glad there is a chance to learn the other platform as well. Thank you so much. I really appreciate i... Read More
Tuesday, 26 February 2013 19:21
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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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How to add a PDF to a Joomla Article

How to add a PDF to a Joomla Article

VIDEO: A common request we receive is how to upload a PDF (or any file) to a Joomla site and then link to it in an article or module. Well, here is a step-by-step video demonstration on how to do just that.

Recent Comments
Richard Pearce
I downloaded the latest version specifically for this demonstration.
Thursday, 07 February 2013 20:24
Joe Podcast
Hi Richard, Been receiving your emails for some time now. So after the last one being the 200th one we wrote an article about yo... Read More
Sunday, 10 February 2013 03:03
Giovanni Yarabek
Hi Richard: With this process (described above) - is there a way to make the .PDF also a download for site visitors? #2. Is there... Read More
Thursday, 21 February 2013 05:40
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Sydney Joomla Training

I am running a classroom Joomla training course in Sydney, Australia on Saturday 23rd February.

Recent Comments
JP Fourie
Richard, the bus service will not make it. Hope you make a video available at a later stage. Thank you JP
Wednesday, 06 February 2013 11:01
Richard Pearce
At 8 hours in length, that would be a rather long webinar. Our online courses can't replicate the experience you get in a classroo... Read More
Thursday, 07 February 2013 19:24
Tina Maniacco
Hi Richard, Could you please provide the course times? I need to be back in Brisbane by 5pm on the 23rd Feb, so I'm trying to wor... Read More
Friday, 08 February 2013 11:48
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Introducing Personal Joomla Consultations

Are you looking for a head start to your Joomla website development? Worried that you won't have anyone to turn to if you hit a hurdle? Then take advantage of our new personal Joomla consultation service. 

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Two Become One

Our two advanced Joomla Training courses have merged into one complete package.

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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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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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