Content Management Systems: Opensource Joomla!

By. dj_bumba

A web CMS is a content management system software used for managing content for the web.

The software manages content (text, graphics, links, etc.) for distribution on a web server. Usually the software provides tools where users with little or no knowledge of programming languages and markup languages (such as HTML) can create and manage content with relative ease of use. Most systems use a database to hold content, and a presentation layer displays the content to regular website visitors based on a set of templates. Management of the software is typically done through a web browser, but some systems may be modified in other ways.

A Content Management System (CMS) differs from website builders like Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver in that a CMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. Website building tools like FrontPage and Dreamweaver require more technical knowledge and training on average. A CMS is an easy-to-use tool that gives authorized users the ability to manage a website. A CMS is a website maintenance tool rather than a website creation tool.

Let's talk about Joomla! Content Management System now.

Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.

One of the ways people use Joomla! CMS:

* Corporate websites or portals

* Online commerce

* Small business websites

* Non-profit and organizational websites

* Government applications

* Corporate intranets and extranets

* School and church websites

* Personal or family homepages

* Community-based portals

* Magazines and newspapers

* the possibilities are limitless…

Joomla! can be used to easily manage every aspect of your website, from adding content and images to updating a product catalog or taking online reservations.

Advanced use of Joomla!

Out of the box, Joomla! does a great job of managing the content needed to make your website sing. But for many people, the true power of Joomla! lies in the application framework that makes it possible for thousands of developers around the world to create powerful add-ons and extensions. Here are just some examples of the hundreds of available extensions:

* Dynamic form builders

* Business or organizational directories

* Document management

* image and multimedia galleries

* E-commerce and shopping cart engines

* Forums and chat software

* Calendars

* Blogging software

* Directory services

* Email newsletters

* Data collection and reporting tools

* Banner advertising systems

* Subscription services

* and many, many more…

You will probably ask yourself what’s the catch?

There is no catch. Joomla! is free, open, and available to all under the GPL license.

The Benefits of Choosing a Sourcing Company for Your Online Project

by. LTS Media Ltd.

1. Expertise At Your Fingertip

90% of Development Sourcing and Project Management Companies have programmers and staff in-house that used to work in the development arena, clearly separating them from traditional Recruitment Companies. This ensures that the right technology will be chosen for your project and that you are not limited to the solution a Development Company has on offer as their standard. Sourcing Companies usually chose their suppliers on merit unlike recruitment companies, which just believe everything a developer tells them. Further, the majority of Development Companies specialises in certain fields only (e.g. program languages, development styles) and might not have the correct technology for your online project.

2. Strategic Online Planning & Project Management

A good Sourcing Company is usually very good at speaking geek. They do understand the processes involved in building systems and usually have a very good idea of the time scales involved. In addition, a professional Sourcing Company will make sure that your brief, sitemaps and wireframes are clearly set out, eliminating all miscommunications with the chosen Development Company from the start. They know which web designer you need; they will get the right programmers as well as overlooking and controlling the work constantly. Getting your project right from the start is essential and can be a risky task without proper project management and strategic planning in place.

3. Stay Within Your Budged And Save Costs - Yes you can!

Professional Sourcing Companies are your personal firewall to protect you from being overcharged by individual specialist providers. Professional Sourcing Companies know exactly what it takes to design, to program, to develop, etc. and it is a vital part of their business model to make sure that your online project will not only be completed within your budged but also work towards cutting your costs without compromising.
In addition, Sourcing Companies have an extensive knowledge of available Opensource solutions, where to find them and who to speak to. This means that an online project does not need to be build from scratch as there is often a pre-build solution available. A lot of those solutions just need modification in order to suit your needs. Again, this makes it possible for you to stay within the budged and even save costs.

Before you Spend Any More of your Money for Software

By. Jeffrey A Solochek

This morning as I was going through my inbox I saw an email from a marketer about this software called ForumEqualizer. Now in the old days I would have just gone to the site and saw a use for the software and then went ahead and purchased it. After spending a fortune during the last 10 years I now do things a bit more frugally.

I like to use a tool called Copernic Agent Pro to do all my research so I would first open this application and do a search for ForumEqualizer and read any review on the product I could find. Then I would think to myself about exactly what the software does and then do a search on the phrase "Forum submitter" This brought up in the matches a link for PHPBB poster so I went ahead and looked at this software which cost less than half of what ForumEqualizer cost so now I was getting somewhere.

My next search was done on the site Sourceforge. I did a search for anything with PHPBB in the name of the description and came up with almost 400 matches. It never ceases to amaze me how many times I am about to buy something and all of a sudden I find an Opensource version. Not this time though.

The keyword submitter could also point to the word poster so I did another search for "forum poster" to see what I would find. I had no idea that people actually get paid by others to post on their forums but in the matches I found some forums where people who did this stuff could post as well as people looking for people to do this stuff for them. It is truly amazing what you can find on the Web these days.

Before we go on let me explain why I went through all of this. Take Microsoft Office which sells for almost $1,000. There is also WordPerfect Office and Lotus Smartsuite out there and both of the later 2 do not cost as much as the Microsoft one does. Now I could stop right here knowing that buying the WordPerfect or Lotus version I would be saving some good money but then I think to myself is there anything out there that does what I am looking for that has no money cost? that's when you discover Openoffice which is the free version office suite.

My son just went ahead and had some software created that helps people to make money on MySpace. Now nobody has the corner of the market with their software and there will always be alternatives out there. Most people who we just looking to add friends to their MySpace profile would probably buy something like BadderAdder. Another software out there create MySpace profiles called Spacepromoter. And then there are still a lot of other softwares out there that each do something on MySpace. Now if you went ahead and bought all these little apps the dent to your pocketbook would be rather large. My son has created a great office suite for MySpace which does all these things. Now eventually there will be other softwares that do what his Buddypromoter can do but there are always choices out there.

Linux Web Hosting – Too Many Positives to Ignore

By. Smita Mathur

Linux Web hosting has a history of prominence – helping millions world-wide with safe and secure hosting options. Net craft, the UK-based prominent internet monitoring company, has already reported that the eight of the ten most reliable web hosting companies of the world run Linux as the OS in their web servers. Let’s dig deep into the subject of why Linux is rapidly becoming the center of attraction for most world-wide.

1. Stability
Linux, the ‘UNIX-like’ OS is based on OpenSource architecture. That makes the source code readily available to peers for regular reviewing. The resultant effectiveness in spotting bugs and incorporation of effective codes to affect enhanced stability of the entire programming structure is not hard to imagine. Any assurance for ‘long uptime’ and ‘crash-proof’ server performance is another option that is ready to be enjoyed with every Linux Web hosting facility.

2. Security
Not just because the stability factor that leads to better solutions concerning to security of the Linux Web hosting variety, the availability of Apache HTTP web server offers several secure options that are too important to be ignored.

3. Ubiquitous ness and cost-effectiveness
LAMP; the computer software-web server combination that defines the architecture of Linux Web hosting service offers perfect instance of ubiquitous ness (as the entire package comes in a bundle with maximum Linux distributions).

The ubiquitous ness and innate OpenSource architecture makes the entire Linux Web hosting package highly cost-effective too.

Few words on LAMP
LAMP is an acronym for Linux (OS), Apache (web server), MySQL (database), PHP/Per/Python (scripting language) – the four essential ingredients that form the solution stack of technologies for successful structuring of Linux web hosting service.

Well, so it all ends up to a situation where you are to choose from Stability, security, ubiquitous ness and cost-effectiveness.

Wonder ever one got so many positives to choose from!

The Best Open Source Gadgets

Author: Dan Ionescu

Open source gadgets mean any software whose source code is made available for use or modification for users or developers.
The advantages of the open source gadgets are evident: since everyone can modify the source they are improved continually by software communities and the vast majority of open source programs are free.

Being free is a huge advantage sometimes you, the computer owner want to do simple, one job, like editing a document or a picture, and you don't want to spend a small fortune doing it, so the free open source programs are your best friends.
The most of the open source gadgets were initially created for Linux owners, but in the last period of time more and more open source gadgets were developed for Windows. And in this article I'm going to tell you about the best gadgets for Windows users.

The free and open-source software that you should use are: web browsing - Mozilla Firefox, video player and video podcasting: Miro, instant messaging: Pidgin, e-mail - Mozilla Thunderbird, RSS: RSSOwl, peer-to-peer filesharing: Cabos, video player - Media Player Classic, DVD ripping and video conversion - Media Coder, word processing suites - OpenOffice.org, podcasting: Juice, sound recording: Audacity, photo editing Paint.NET, FTP - Filezilla.

I'm currently using: OpenOffice.org to write and manage documents, Filezilla for FTP connections, Paint.NET to work with graphics and Thunderbird to read and write emails.
Don't aspect the open source gadgets to have as many features as the paid ones, after all you get them for free.

Well known are the open source Google Desktop Gadgets like: Google-battery (Never lose track of your power. Always tell you how much battery power is left) Google-calculator (Calculator gadget for Google Desktop), Google-cricket-news (Displays cricket news headlines and images), Google-cricket-videos (the same like the previous only it displays videos on your desktop), Google-desktop-sdk (Complete examples of using the Google Desktop Gadget APIs) Google-digital-clock (is one of my favorite desktop gadgets, it is obviously what it does: it shows time, but in a beautiful manner ),Google-flower-pot (It is a Virtual Flower Pot which will grow to full bloom right before your eyes if you give the flowers some water using your mouse like the old Tamagoci games), Google-moon-phase (Displays the moon's current phase) and Google-timezone (Find what the time is in different locations).

For now the most used software's are the paid ones, but the free open source ones come fast from behind. Each day communities of developers work on them for us to have a better experience and free programs.