I can't tell you how many calls and emails we receive each week that go something like this:

I'm a client without a lot of technical skills, and I have a Joomla site. Can you help me because:

1. My site is still under construction but my Joomla developer is nowhere to be found, won't return calls or emails, and I don't know what to do.
2. My site was built and launched, but no one ever showed me how to use the site and make my own updates, which is why I wanted Joomla in the first place.
3. My site was built and launched, and I don't know how to do X and I can't get my Joomla developer to help.
4. My site was built and launched, but now I want some more stuff added to the site, and my Joomla developer is gone.

C'mon developers, what's WITH you???

We are thrilled to announce that we've launched a HUGE site we've been working on for the last few months, WineMaker Magazine.

WineMaker Magazine started in 1998, and it's about how to make wine at home, whether you start with fresh grapes, or whether you start with a kit.  The main goal for the website is to push subscriptions and sell back issues of the magazine.  The content surrounding that supports those goals.

Because the site supports a magazine, it should contain an issue-by-issue listing of all articles.  Some of these articles may be available online, while some articles might be listed, but purchasing a back issue is required to read it.

Once we had decided against using sh404sef, we were still left with the need to handle '404 Page Not Found' errors. Clear and explicit information on this wasn't particularly easy to find, so I thought I'd document how we did it here.

 In J!15, errors are normally handled by - surprise! - a template file. Look in the the system template folder for the file error.php. Standard J!15 error handling sends the user to this page for any unrecoverable error. Including 404 errors. If you copy this file to the root folder of your own template, you can then modify it to your needs.

In very simplified form, here is what we did:

My last entry here was inspired by the possible use of sh404sef in the site we just launched (YAY!). We ultimately decided against using it for this site. Despite many great features that would make it a valuable addition to any site there were just too many issues I couldn't address in the time frame available before launch.

The initial motivating factor that made us  look into it was a need to handle "404  page not found errors". Joomla 1.5 (J!15) does have the ability to handle these, but the additional facility to handle sef urls and reporting on site activity related to hack attempts and failed page access attempts are really exciting.

Unfortunately, the sef urls require specially written  functions for any extensions in use on the site through a sef_ext file. On this site, we are using Virtuemart and Azrul's MyBlog, both of which are supported out of the box by sh404sef. rsGallery2, another extension we are using might be supported through an older sef_ext written for the J!10 version, but I didn't have a chance to pursue this. And from what I could tell on their forum, rsg2 isn't yet supported in J!15. Additionally, there are a couple extensions I wrote for this site in addition to JoomSuite, none of which are supported at all.

http://nettuts.com/articles/google-enters-the-browser-wars-with-chrome/

HT: Anne Campbell.

The first pane of the first page of the comic book on Google Chrome says this:

"Today, most of what we use the web for on a day-to-day basis aren't just web pages, they're applications."

Ok, pop quiz: How many people's favorite non-technical friend has any clue what a web application (or any kind of computer application) is? What is a definition?

Yesterday, Google announced it was releasing its own open-source web browser to compete with Internet Explorer and Microsoft, called Google Chrome.  The big links include:

• The main Google Chrome web page (link not working as of this writing)
• A comic book describing what Google is doing with this new browser
• Screenshots of what Chrome will look like.

My initial reaction?  Why the heck would Google want to release a web browser?  If they want to support an open source web browser, why not look at Firefox?

Now that I've thought on this a little longer, and seen the screenshots, and waded through the never-ending comic book, here's a few thoughts.

Oh gosh! Been awhile since I wrote here.  We've been completely swamped by the impending launch of one of the most complex sites I've worked on. We're using a bunch of extensions with a variety of compliance to Joomla 1.5 coding standards. None of them perfect, but some pretty darn close.

Joomsuite has been a mixed blessing. Having the code encrypted makes it more difficult for me to be excited about it. The idea is fantastic, but I'm finding it's capabilities - at least for our purposes - quite limited. And it's buggy. And it has a long way to go to meet my standards for a fully Joomla 1.5 compliant extensions.

Given the desires of the client, and Joomsuite's limitations, I ended up writing a component to fill in the the gaps. This is where the blessing gets really mixed. I've been pretty surprised what I've been able to do, but it's created a number of nightmares for maintaining control over how and where to display content. But overall, I'm pretty impressed with some of the things I can do with Joomsuite and in the ways I've been able to get my component to cross-talk with it.

While on vacation, I used my phone for surfing the web. Each morning I check the weather, the news, stuff like that.  While away, I used my phone to do this.

So let's compare two news sites: The Washington Post and CNN, regular formats, and the Post and CNN, mobile formats.

NOTE: Yes, the Post is a newspaper while CNN is a cable news channel, so the comparison isn't absolutely perfect. But it's pretty good.

Azrul (who writes JomComment and MyBlog, in use on this site) is working on a new extension called JomSocial. Looks like an alternative to Community Builder from the limited amount on his site.  Given Azrul's great track record for building simple, easy-to-use interfaces, I would bet this will be better than CB, although I have not seen it yet.  An interesting development to follow!