Food For Thought http://t.co/nzKKJnxQ
We Build Web Sites That Work As Hard As You Do
About Us
Universe Design is one of the top Joomla! CMS web design companies in Massachusetts & the USA. Our team of top professionals provide web design and internet related services to a broad range of clients ranging from small businesses to large corporate organisations. Our services include web design, web development, internet marketing, graphic design, multimedia and consultancy. Our aim is to provide our clients with the very best website possible, on time and within budget.
Universe Design takes pride in the fresh approach we bring to all web design projects thanks to a unique mix of skills combining creativity and technical expertise. Universe Design is constantly researching new web technologies and the ways in which technology can be harnessed to enhance and promote our clients business activities.
Our Joomla! Content Management Sytems (CMS) puts you %100 in control of your own website. Don't get taken hostage by those other web companies, call or contact Universe Design today and take control of your own web site!
If I could give you a web site that had the flexibility to add any type of content yourself, whenever you wanted, using just your web browser and delivered it in 3 days, at an affordable price, would you be interested?
That's Right! Add Your Own
- Articles. News & Events
- Pictures & Movies
- Products, Menus & Specials
- Support Downloads, Documents & Help Files
- Forums, Catalogs & Portfolios
- Reservations & Newsletter Subscriptions
- & Much More!
Unvierse Design In Peabody, MA Can Get You There At A Fraction Of What You Might Expect To Pay!
What Is Joomla?
Joomla! is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) that will help you build your website content and manage powerful online applications.
Joomla! in Action
Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications. Here are just some of the ways people use Joomla:
- Corporate websites or portals
- Online commerce
- Small business websites
- Non-profit and organizational websites
- Government applications
- Corporate intranets and extra nets
- 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.
Joomla! for End Users
Once Joomla! is installed and running, it is simple for even non-technical users to add or edit content, update images, and to manage the critical data that makes your company or organization go. Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla! site.
Via a simple, browser-based interface you will be able to easily add new press releases or news items, manage staff pages, job listings, product images, and create an unlimited amount of sections or content pages on your site.
Taking Joomla! to the Next Level
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 Universe Design to install and customize powerful add-ons and extensions. Here are just some examples of the hundreds of available extensions Universe Design can build into your website.
- Automated Billing & Online Invoicing
- Shopping Carts for E-Commerce
- Document & File Management Downloads
- Image and Multimedia Galleries
- Secure Personal Messaging
- Customer Support or Community Discussion Forums
- Event Calendars & Classified Ad Systems
- Newsletter Subscription & Autoresponders
- Community Directories & Membership Information
- Data Collection & Reporting tools
- Banner Advertising
- Live Webcam Broadcasting
- and many, many more?
Universe Design provides professional, customized Joomla website design and development services. Our professional Joomla website design is fast and affordable. We can build a website that works as hard as you do! Contact us for a FREE design consultation and to learn how Joomla is taking the internet by storm!
Call Us: 978-210-6148 In The United States
Joomla CMS Websites are suitable for virtually any type of business. Whatever you want to achieve with your online presence Universe will deliver a fast, professional and easy to manage web site. We provide all of these features and functionality for a fraction of what you might expect to pay.
Universe Design provides web design and internet related services to a broad range of clients ranging from small businesses to large corporate organisations. Our services include web design, web development, internet marketing, graphic design, multimedia and consultancy. Our aim is to provide our clients with the very best website possible, on time and within budget.
Universe Design takes pride in the fresh approach we bring to all web design projects thanks to a unique mix of skills combining creativity and technical expertise. Universe Design is constantly researching new web technologies and the ways in which technology can be harnessed to enhance and promote our clients business activities.
Five Crucial Components of Web Design
Five Crucial
Components of Web Design
Professional website developers know the importance of web design and the role it plays in making a website successful.
Designing a successful website is no easy task, especially for someone who is new to the world of web development. With the help of web development applications many people can and do create decent websites. But decent in most cases is not good enough to make a site successful from a traffic or financial standpoint.
There are five crucial components of web design that you must focus on in order to make a site valuable to its visitors and successful for you.
• SEO -
Getting free traffic to your site.
• Usability -
Ease of navigating around the site and finding desired information quickly.
• Aesthetics -
Visual appeal.
• Content -
Valid, up-to-date, relevant information.
• Graphics -
Eye candy that relays relevant visual information to the visitor.
SEO
Before you ever lay down a byte of HTML code for a site, you have to know and understand at least the basics of SEO and how it fits into the design. SEO is the art of designing a site in a fashion that gives the site an advantage for obtaining free and abundant traffic.
The number one aspect of SEO is selecting keywords relevant to your site. The keywords you select should be based on high usage, low competition and relevancy to your topic. Once you select keywords you can then begin the development of your site. Keep in mind keywords are a critical aspect of the design. The keywords you choose will be applied within the design in strategic fashion to benefit the flow of traffic to your site. To understand more on how to implement SEO you should read and learn more about this important subject. If you don't, your website success will be difficult to achieve.
Usability
Your website must be easy to navigate and designed in a way that makes it easy to find information. Visitors will not stay long if it takes more than one or two clicks to get the information they want or if it takes brain power to figure out how to get the information they want. One of the goals of your site design is to keep usability easy, and simple. To do this, apply the following three fundamentals of usability.
• Provide a site search tool.
A visitor in a hurry can quickly find the info they desire then move on to the action they desire.
• Provide simple, intuitive and consistent site navigation.
This provides visitors the tool they need to leisurely explore their way through your site.
• Provide logical and simple to follow content.
The message of a site should start off in a simple and basic fashion with well defined links pointing the way to more detailed information or explanation as needed.
In the cases above, the goal is to make it easy for your visitor to find the information they want without frustration or difficulty. Doing this well will have a positive effect on increasing the return of your visitors.
Aesthetics
A website has to look clean, uncomplicated and strike a balance in layout that is pleasant to the visitor. Pleasing aesthetics come about when the colors of a site complement each other, the graphics blend and lend continuation of the theme and the layout brings unity and openness to the page.
Often overlooked by novice designers is the color palette of the site. While you can select color in a willy-nilly fashion and still provide a visually appealing site, a better idea for color selection should be based on an understanding of the color wheel and proven color strategies.
Many web designers often view a web page as an opportunity to blast a visitor with lots of information in hopes this will convince the visitor to take action. Usually this results in a quick exit due to the overwhelming visual effect and complicated look. A better approach is to provide less content and open space (referred to as white space) to allow visitors eyes to scan and explore with ease.
Content
An important feature of any website is the quality of the text content. Visitors come to a site expecting to find answers to their questions, solutions to their problems or for entertainment value. The content offered at your site must be well-written and without grammatical or spelling errors. It also has to be relevant to the theme of your site, with valid, up-to- date information for your visitors. Content is King!
Graphics
You can have a functional and usable website without graphic elements. However, if there are similar sites to yours that employ graphics, guess which site will get the most traffic. The necessary companions to any well-designed site are the images and illustrations that grace its pages. The images can't be any willy-nilly graphic that you might think is cool. Graphic imagery has to support your branding, and communicate the message you are trying to convey. Before you incorporate graphic elements into your site, take some time to look around the web. Notice what looks good and how elements are laid out. These same layouts techniques can be used as models for your site.
The Internet is a highly competitive business arena. To be successful with a commercial website, you have to keep these five crucial web design elements in mind. Contrary to what many will tell you, it is rarely possible to have commercial success without the benefit of a professional website. This is not to say that you must hire a professional, however you must implement professional design elements to improve your chances for success.
About The Author
Woody Longacre, Internet Web Design. We invite you to visit the Web Hosting Goods Store for Web Design Services, Web Hosting, and Domain Registration.
Joomla Cms – The Right Way Forward For Successful Content Management
If you own a website that requires fresh content every time, or require more control over your website content to suit the tastes and needs of your online audience, then it is time to think about a content management system. In your profession, you may be a content manager or a website professional managing a dynamic website that needs to be updated repeatedly. In this case, you require a Content Management System (CMS).
A CMS does precisely what we have discussed. It allows you to manage and change content easily on your website in a professional manner. The evolving nature of the web and the advent of Web 2.0 design have made content management indispensable for every professionally meaning website. A CMS thus offers the right way ahead in content management for a wide variety of portals and websites from an extensive range of industries.
One of the best CMS packages available presently is Joomla CMS. In fact, Joomla CMS is extremely easy to use and it has extensively attracted the attention of website developers all around the world. It leads the way in content management and suits the needs of a vast majority of web professionals including designers and managers alike. It is also called a 'dynamic portal engine' because you can use it to build dynamic websites as well.
Joomla is best suited for a variety of B2B and B2C portals and applications and easily meets the specifications for web development set out by companies that require direct access with informative content to their visitors online. Joomla CMS effectually meets the needs of companies and individuals in this information age. With Joomla, companies access vast and limitless possibilities to create open and powerful web applications in amazingly less time. You can easily put video, audio, blogs, and forum on your website. Plus, the availability of templates makes your task of building the website an easy one.
Since Joomla is flexible and adaptive, there are a number of advantages of using this package over several other competing content management systems. The simplicity of Joomla means that it is easy to use even by non-technical users. At the same time, it is an open source content management system and is available free of cost from the Joomla website. Besides being easily maintainable, it allows for faster and better organization of web content.
The open source nature and free-of-cost availability of this package means that the Joomla community comprises of many distinguished entities such as community forums, corporate portals, ecommerce websites, corporate intranets, educational websites, website directories, and many more.
Due to its flexibility and ease of use, Joomla has received a lot of support from large and small companies, businesses, and even entrepreneurs. With the Joomla community growing day-by-day, many web development companies now offer a variety of Joomla related solutions that are proving to be effective and valuable in this competitive business scenario.
5 Reasons Why Your Business Should Implement A Content Management System
I have been building websites for many years. In this time it became evident to me that there had to be a better way to create websites that were easier to update and offferd my customers more. Joomla CMS has arrived! A lot of web designers think differently, they claim that CMS's are restricted and enjoy the trickle of income that comes from website updates. A lot of customers don't even know what a Content Management System is. What you're average person needs to know is that it is a system that holds all the content of your site in a databse that you access through a nice website backend. If you can use basic Microsoft word functionality, you can update your website. So how exactly does this benefit you?
Get Inbound Links by Sharing Content
It's the timeless question: how do you get other sites to link to you? The most commonly discussed ways are reciprocal linking (swapping links) and buying links. Yet there's another important tool for building links that should be a part of your toolbox: distributing content in exchange for one-way inbound links.
Content Sharing vs. Other Linking Methods
- Reciprocal Linking: The big advantage of content distribution over swapping links is that the links built are one-way, and therefore presumably more valuable. Of course, reciprocal links still have value, but relying primarily on them might hamper your SEO efforts.
- Indirect Reciprocal Links: I link my site A to your site, so you link your site to my site B. The problems are that this can be a lot of work, and also, Google can detect indirect links if you do it more than once with the same group of sites, which might make your linking arrangements look like a link farm.
Paid Links: The problem with paid links is 1) the costs add up; 2) search engines are getting better and better at discounting paid links. According to Matt Cutts' blog, ?I wouldn?t be surprised if search engines begin to take stronger action against link buying in the near future...link-selling sites can lose their ability to give reputation (e.g. PageRank and anchortext).?
Migrating from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6
With Joomla 1.6 officially released, there have been a lot of questions as to how to migrate or upgrade to Joomla 1.6 from 1.5. This guide will take you step-by-step through the general procedure of how to migrate to Joomla 1.6. Please read through all the material as this is not a light undertaking.
Contents[hide] |
Before Upgrading
Don't let the numerical closeness of 1.5 and 1.6, mislead you. Joomla 1.6 took three years to develop and has been a major undertaking. Countless hours have been spent by many volunteers from around the world to put it all together. Although much of the code is the same from Joomla 1.5, much of it has been written from the ground up, and the changes are comparable to the changes from Joomla 1.0 to 1.5. Because the changes from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6 are so large and because of the massive effort put into getting Joomla 1.6 to where it is today, there is no core upgrade path, this is indeed a migration. In planned future releases of Joomla (which will be released every 6 months), such as Joomla 1.7, 1.8, etc, the changes from version to version will be more incremental and a core upgrade path is planned. Now that Joomla 1.6 is finally here and stable, a community initiative led by the developers of Joomla is turning towards jUpgrade (a 3rd party Joomla extension on the JED originally developed by Matias Aguirre) for help and to help. Many of Joomla's developers (who are all volunteers that freely contribute their time) are volunteering to put the finishing touches on jUpgrade.
jUpgrade allows you to migrate from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6. Lets get started!
Review the Requirements
Please, please save yourself (and possibly your clients) a lot of headaches and make sure that your server (and in the case of jUpgrade, your browser too) is up for the task. please review the technical requirements for Joomla! 1.6. Please review the requirements for jUpgrade as well.
Before You Get Started
Before you get started, there are a few things that you are going to have to check and/or think about:
- Is your Joomla 1.5 version up to date? At the time of the writing of this tutorial the most up-to-date version of Joomla 1.5 is 1.5.22. Much of the testing of the migration has been done from Joomla 1.5.22 to Joomla 1.6. If your version is not up-to-date you should probably upgrade to 1.5.22 before migrating, especially if you are running Joomla 1.5.11 or lower.
- Do all your extensions have Joomla 1.6 native versions? At the time of the writing of this tutorial there are 108 available on the JED. Please note that jUpgrade is not currently able to upgrade Joomla 3rd party extensions, so those will have to be done via their respective upgrade procedures. This is however a work in progress.
- Have you modified any core files? Any changes that you have made to core files in Joomla will be lost so please be forewarned.
- Is there a Joomla 1.6 compatible template available from your template provider? If not, do you feel comfortable making the changes yourself? There are a couple good resources:
- Chad Windnagle's Joomla Community blog
- Chris Davenport's "Template Changes for Joomla 1.6" presentation
- Joomla's Docs Template Tutorial Please note that although jUpgrade is not able to currently upgrade templates, the developers are working hard at implementing the feature.
- Is your language pack available in Joomla 1.6? Find your Joomla1 1.6 Translation.
- Do you have folder or file permissions issues in your Joomla 1.5 installation?
- Do you NEED to migrate to Joomla 1.6? Joomla 1.5 is powerful and very mature. For many people there is not a need to rush into Joomla 1.6. Joomla will continue to support Joomla 1.5 for at least another year and three months, releasing security updates and bug squashing updates when needed.
The two main features of Joomla 1.6 that makes it superior to Joomla 1.5 are: Access Control List (ACL) and nested categories. Gone are the days of simply having guests, registered users, authors, and editors, without being able to specify what they can and can't do in the frontend. Also, with 1.6 you can have more flexibility of organizing (and therefore displaying) your content with nicely organized categories within categories. No more being restricted to the section >> category structure. Those are all great things to have (especially the ACL), however, for many 1.5 users, it isn't needed. The main point is to decide for yourself:
- For a massive list of changes from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 1.6, please see: http://docs.joomla.org/What%27s_new_in_Joomla_1.6
Backup, Backup, Backup
Skipping this part is perhaps the biggest mistake you can make. If you have a proper backup (or several) you can always revert back if needed. However, if you don't properly backup your site and something goes wrong, you are going to waste a lot of valuable time, and sometimes a lot money, getting things back to the way they were. So please backup!
Upgrading
Download jUpgrade
Download the latest version of jUpgrade. It is highly advisible, especially when development still is progressing, to always use the latest available version!
Optional Testing Environment
If you are really nervous by this point and your heart is beating fast, then you should probably set up a testing environment.
Install jUpgrade
Go to your Joomla backend. e.g. www.yoursite.com/administrator
Extensions >> Install/Uninstall
Browse >> Select com_jupgrade >> Upload File & Install
Enable Mootools Upgrade Plugin
- Go to Extensions | Plugin Manager
- Search for "System - Mootools Upgrade"
- Enable the plugin
It is important that this plugin is installed and that it has been set to enabled, as the proper functioning of jUpgrade depends on it.
Migration
Components >> jUpgrade
Start Upgrade
Do not exit the screen until everything has finished loading. Scroll down to check if finished.
Success!!!
Please note that jUpgrade currently does not migrate templates, only default templates.
Behind the Scenes
As explained in the background information, the changes from Joomla 1.5 and 1.6 are quite significant. The fact that jUpgrade creates a new Joomla 1.6 installation for us is, in my opinion, pure genius. If the migration process was not 100% successful, your Joomla 1.5 is still perfectly intact and none of your users are affected. You have an opportunity to check out your site both in the frontend and the backend to make sure everything is up to par. So what actually happens? jUpgrade downloads the latest version of Joomla 1.6 for you to the jupgrade directory (which it creates) in the root folder of your Joomla 1.5 installation. It then extracts all the files from the download. Once extraction has completed, jUpgrade installs Joomla 1.6 and then proceeds to migrate your old database to the new Joomla 1.6 database which it has created. Your Joomla 1.6 site will be installed in www.mysites.com/jupgrade assuming that your Joomla 1.5 installation is in your html root.
Check Your Joomla! 1.6
Please do a full site review of your Joomla 1.6 installation and make sure everything is set up properly. Your Joomla 1.6 site will be installed in www.mysites.com/jupgrade assuming that your Joomla 1.5 installation is in your html root. Here is a general checklist to check:
- Banners
- Categories
- Contacts
- Content
- Menus
- Modules
- Newsfeeds
- Users
- Weblinks
- Templates - Work is currently being done on the template upgrade feature of jUpdate and it is not yet fully functional. Your module positions may have to be adjusted in module manager.
Backup Joomla! 1.6
If everything looks good to go, then let's backup the new Joomla 1.6 installation.
Overview of the Rest of the Process
Quick overview of what we are going to try to do now:
- Relocate our Joomla 1.5 installation to a subfolder as a "just in case".
- Relocate our Joomla 1.6 installation to the html folder.
'It should happen in this order' If you do it in reverse order, the Joomla 1.6 files will get mixed with the Joomla 1.5 files (many of 1.5 files will be overwritten) and you will have a big mess! Your site will likely still work, but it's a security ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
Going Live
Next log onto your host's file manager (e.g. cPanel, Plesk, etc) or an FTP Client, however, preferably a file manager. The general procedure is (it should take about 30 seconds if you review the steps before you start):
- Create a subfolder (e.g. myoldsite) for the Joomla 1.5 installation in your html root, e.g. public_html/myoldsite
- Select all the folders (***except the jupgrade folder***) and files in the html root and move them into the Joomla 1.5 subfolder (e.g. myoldsite)
- Select all the folders and files in the jupgrade folder and move them to the html root
- Double check the frontend and backend
Troubleshooting
- first check, if you have php5 at least. (use phpinfo() or /usr/bin/php --version)
- jUpgrade cannot download Joomla 1.6 package? - When the download fails (timeouts, javascript issues, etc) you can download it manually here: http://anonymous:@joomlacode.org/svn/joomla/development/branches/jupgrade/pack/joomla16.zip and put this file into your ROOT/tmp directory. Then, in the preferences of jUpgrade, you must set 'Skip Download' to 'Yes'. After that, run the upgrade again.
- Are you getting errors with the progress bar in Internet Explorer (Windows XP)? - Use Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
- Go through the Requirements and Before You Get Started sections above and double check everything!
- Report Bugs: http://matware.com.ar/foros/jupgrade.html
- Support: http://matware.com.ar/foros/jupgrade.html
How You can Contribute & Help
Creating an extension as significant as jUpgrade requires an enormous amount of time and effort considering the major structural changes between Joomla 1.5 and 1.6. Add to this the fact that during each release of Joomla 1.6 betas, the extension would have to be modified to work with the new changes between releases, and all of a sudden it's too hard for any one person to complete in a short period of time (especially when you are not being paid). With this being said, it's time to step up and make a difference, whether big or small. Have you profited from Joomla in the last year? Are you excited about the future of Joomla? Would you like to contribute back and show your gratitude? Now you can in this project! We, as part of the Joomla community, are calling on the entire Joomla community to help out in whatever way you can. You don't have to be a master developer, just go through this tutorial on a test site and if you come across any bugs, report it. If you know how to fix it, create a patch for it. If you are a master developer, step up to the challenge.
- You can report bugs here: http://matware.com.ar/foros/jupgrade.html
- You can volunteer and ask questions about volunteering here: http://www.matware.com.ar/forum/projects/jupgrade/volunteer-information.html