New Joomla Patch Released

Yes, it's that time again...

After six months of respite, we have a Joomla! upgrade in the 1.5.X series. You are viewing it now on this website, and I am "testing it" so that you don't have to. I always wait about 48 hours to let the dust settle a bit before I patch the numerous client sites entrusted to my care, because I want to watch the forums to see what issues arise, so that I can take special care when doing the upgrades of some sites which will develop "known issues" after upgrade.

Why should you fix something that isn't broken? Because Joomla! has just announced to the entire world how to crack your site. Upgrading Joomla! really is not difficult (usually), and not particularly time consuming absent issues, but if you don't want to do your own contact us. We will do it for you for a low fee. Better yet, for a little more, we will share your screen with you and demonstrate how to do it so that you can confidently do your own from here on.

SEO and Joomla - What is the best tool?

In this morning's email, from a friend and occasional client:

"What Joomla tool do you recommend, to be able to have a site in the first positions of the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query?"

I sat a few moments thinking about this, and re read the question several times. What follows is the answer I gave.

It's not really a question of tools, although there are some that are useful...

I get my understanding of the topic from occasional trips to Google's Webmaster Tools.

Everyone WANTS to believe that the are "shortcuts"... "Why can't I just pay some money to someone and wake up tomorrow ranked high on Google (I need first page, please... HIGH on First page if it isn't too much bother)".

The truth is, there are no short cuts... You read it right - NO shortcuts.

The only thing one can do that makes sense is to research how people find the highly ranked sites with which you wish to compete, and do whatever it is they do BETTER than they do it. Now that makes it sound IMPOSSIBLE, but in reality, it isn't, and often, it really isn't even difficult.

Your client must know who he is trying to reach, and how that "person" finds what he's looking for on the internet. He must then make sure that his new website has original content relevant to his target's interests AND that the content is thoroughly indexed by Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Once he has done this, he gets to do it some more. And then even more, until your client is the one people are trying to beat.

In some ways, I wish there were a tool for you to buy... In other ways, I'm glad there isn't.

Styling Individual Joomla Pages

One of the most frequently posted questions in the Joomla! forums is:

"I need to style my HOME page differently from the rest of the pages. How can I do this?"

While there are many, many MANY ways to do so, one of the best I have seen was recently posted by user "beanluc".

I am reproducing this as an image, so you won't be able to copy/paste it, but it's only 3 lines, four counting the body tag.

The three lines are inserted just before the closing head tag, and then the body tag is altered.

For those new to Joomla!, the end result is that one can set CSS styling based on:

• Whether or not the current page is the home page.
• The Menu ID of the current Page.

This may not sound like any kind of break through, and it isn't a cancer cure, but it gives a developer/designer enormous freedom to control the appearance of any (and every) Joomla! page.

and that's what it's all about.

RIP Edward Moore Kennedy

As a life-long Republican, I often thought Ted Kennedy was the Anti-Christ. I get that out of the way early so as not to be mistaken for a Democrat.

No matter what my politics or yours, it is impossible not to admire much about Ted Kennedy. Others have eulogized him far better than I could, so I won't attempt that here.

He will be missed.