This holiday weekend I had an enlightening conversation with a large company, that had been a training client of mine.

They got stuck on a little joomla issue with extension XXXX and just couldn't work out the problem or find the solution.

This client is pretty tech savvy and had followed most of the advice I gave in the training class.

"You're not alone, with so many users of Joomla there is a high probability that if you get stuck someone else will have faced the same issue before. So...."

1. Read the docs and faq
2. Search the forum
3. Search google

And this is where the problems really started.

They didn't find any documentation or FAQ that appeared to address their problem but they did find several people on forums who all appeared to have the same problem.

Unfortunately none of the forum posts had a resolution, and for me this is one of the largest problems with using forums for support.

The problem is not with the forum but with the user. Let me try to explain with an example.

1. Question: Help - how do I ...
2. Reply: What I would try is ...

Did you spot the problem there? There is no response from the questioner that says "Great it worked" or "You suck I'm switching to something else"

So what do you when your search for help and support comes across responses like this?

1. Do you reject the search result and keep looking for an answer that definitively works
2. Do you back up your site and test the advice
3. Do you ask your own question on the forum
4. Do you reject the software and switch to something else.

Wouldn't it be great if every forum question that is answered could be flagged as "solved - follow this advice".

But of course it's not that easy to do if the Questioner doesn't provide feedback on the advice they received. On one joomla extension forum that I visited recently I came across a thread where 20 different people all reported the same problem.

At first glance a visitor might think this extension ducks, "just look they have had this problem for ages and there is no solution". But each person who had posted in the thread had received the same advice "have you tried X and what are your settings for Y" but no one replied.

Now it could be that X was the solution or perhaps Y highlighted the error, it could even be that the users all moved on or there could be a bug the developer needs to address, we just don't know.

So don't sit there and bitch about using forums for support do something about it.

If you ask a question on a forum do it the smart way and be precise and informative when you describe your problem.

If you get a response make sure that you respond to it

1. Thank you - it worked
2. Almost but not quite, but your answer showed me the path which was to do Z
3. Sorry that didn't work here is some more information

Suport and help on a forum is a two way process.

Don't forget to provide feedback!!

In his now infamous book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S Raymond wrote "Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch."

1. Once you've started scratching does the itch go away?
2. Do you reach a point where the itch has gone but the software is not complete.
3. If you do what happens next?

Writing a new piece of software can be hard work and time consuming. You slave away at it in your spare time for days, weeks, months and even years until it works the way you need it to.

Then the problems start when you show it to a friend. Who shows it to another friend who shows it to another friend ad infinitum.

Now all these people are really impressed with the piece of software that you wrote, for yourself, and they send you little messages that stroke your ego.

1. "Just what I've always needed"
2. "You've answered my prayers"
3. "Thank you so much"

But then, as more and more people start to use your software, you start to get some other messages.

1. "The software doesn't work when I stand on one leg"
2. "Could you please add this feature as it is essential for me"
3. "Why doesn't it work in my language, all I see is English?"

At first you're happy to fix the bugs and to add the features because it's fun, but over time the demands on your time and your energy increase and it stops being fun.

To make it worse you no longer have the need for the software and the system that you wrote it for originally has changed so your code no longer works.

Now instead of the compliments you are bombarded with messages

1. "My business relies on this software, fix it now"
2. "When will this be fixed"
3. "I've been waiting for weeks and no updates"

So what do you do now?

1. Abandon the software, close the web site and stop answering your emails
2. Place the software on sourceforge.net in the hope that someone else "might" take it on
3. Look for a more positive outcome

One that will allow you to continue to support and develop the software and it's users. As it no longer "scratches your itch" and you have no "personal need" for it this solution surely must include a means to:

1. recompense you for your time
2. take over some of the drudgery e.g. support, documentation etc
3. provide a new "itch to scratch"

So that piece of software might start scratching your itch but end up filling your pockets.

A few months ago I joined the dark side and bought a Mac because I had an idea to build an iPhone app for one of my largest clients.

I'm not a programmer although I like to think I am quite good at reading code and hacking it, I just don't have the skills to start from scratch.

But my app was fairly basic, really not much more than an on-line book, so how hard could it be? Surely I would be able to re-use some of the skills I have learnt over the years with Joomla.

With my shiny new Mac I downloaded the iPhone SDK, bought a few books, installed the IDE and stared at the blank screen not knowing where to start.

As with so many things in life this looked destined to be one of those ideas that never came to fruition. So I put the iPhone development on the back-burner and moved on to other projects.

Fast forward to two weeks ago and I decided to have another look. I read some more tutorials and started to sketch out what I needed to do in my handy moleskin notebook (I keep one for each client and project).

I now have the app fully defined on paper but I still haven't a clue how or where to start.

Somewhere, and I forget where now, I stumbled across a link to Titanium from Appcelerator and the tag line had me hooked.

"Create, test, and distribute native mobile and desktop applications with the web technologies you use today".

The download page had one of those promises that you just know cannot be true

"You’re just a few minutes away from building native apps with Web technologies."

But hey I had a few hours to spare I might as well give it a go.

Unfortunately whilst I was downloading Titanium I realised that the ability to create Mobile apps was still in beta and I would have to apply to join the closed beta. Usually I would have stopped here but I filled out the application anyway and decided to see if there were any tutorials or documentation.

OMG!!! These guys really understand me.

They had everything I needed. The docs were clear, and concise, and it really did seem to do what it promised. But was I really going to be able to create my iPhone app so easily. Surely there must be a catch.

It was late so I went to bed but in the morning, amongst the usual Viagra emails, I had my acceptance for the beta program. So I fired up Titanium, entered my user details, pointed it at the Android SDK (did I say it builds android apps as well) and got ready to start turning my ideas from paper into a shiny iPhone app.

Of course things weren't quite that easy so I popped back to the Titanium documentation site over at Codestrong to look for the ubiquitous "hello world" example. Surely with that, and the promises Appcelerator made I would be "cooking on gas".

Almost but not quite, I found the "hello world" and another one called "kitchen sink" and imported them into Titanium, hit the "test and create" button and watched them both load on the iphone and android simulators. (Did I forget to tell you it came with the simulators as well).

It really did look now as if, even a non-programmer like me, can create the app of my dreams. I was just about to get started when I flicked back to the Appcelerator web site to check something out and they had redesigned the home page and there was a big long list of videos to watch.

I assumed they would be the usual 5 minute video clips that sound good from the title but offer little. How wrong I was!!! A few hours later I have sat through several training videos and by following the tutorial in one have even built an app.

How cool is that!!

3 hours after that I have built the first prototype of the app, I have content in two languages one of which is RTL, I have buttons, swipes, screen rotation and even a shake. All without learning any Cocoa, xcode or other mumbo jumbo, just using the html, css and basic JS I already know.

With screen shots taken of the prototype I was able to produce a very snazzy proposal for the client and now I just have to wait and see if they see the same potential in the app as I do. All in under a day!!!

No gain, no pain

I forget who said that but my experience with Titanium Mobile has to date disproved that. Of course it hasn't been plain sailing and I've had a few questions along the way. The first I sent by Twitter late one evening and got a response from several Appcelerator employees pretty instantaneously. The second I sent using the forum support on a Saturday evening and again I got a pretty instantaneous reply and solution.

"Titanium Mobile offers you a way to create native mobile applications using your favorite web technologies, like HTML and Javascript. You get access to all native features, like geo-location, local filesystem and database access, and multi-touch and accelerometer controls, but without having to write a single line of native code. And because it's cross-platform, your single codebase will work for both the iPhone and Android Phones. It's native mobile application development, without the native pain."

In the few weeks since I discovered it I've seen evidence of rapid development and of a company that listens to its users needs. There are promises of additional support for other mobile devices such as the Blackberry and even for php for Titanium desktop. (Oops I did it again and forgot to tell you that Titanium can also build apps for Linux, Windows and Macs).

Perhaps the biggest thing that sealed it for me was when I showed the Appcelerator web site to perhaps the longest established joomla (and mambo) extension developer. Now he knows me very well and is fully aware of my limitations as a programmer but after only a few Skype conversations, where I probably rambled on in glowing terms about Titanium mobile, even more than I am doing here, he rushed out and bought his first ever Mac.

When I started this blog I was not going to have any comments system at all. "Agree or disagree... I don't care" didn't really make sense if I let you comment but I was convinced otherwise.

The problem was, that I had never really found a joomla comment system that I liked. (Note I have never looked at closed source systems, or would I, so don't start telling me that product xxx does the job)

After running this blog now for 10 months I'm really happy with the choice I made and it would appear that many of you are if I go by the number of emails each week asking what I am using.

There are two parts to the comments system on this blog.

1. The comments themselves which are powered by Disqus using the plugin from joomlaworks.gr
2. The latest comments module which is the default joomla newsfeed module pointing at the disqus rss feed
   

So why did I chose disqus over a native joomla system

User authentication

I really didn't want to have people registering on this site and creating accounts before they had to comment. With disqus you can authenticate using twitter, facebook, openid or a disqus account. This way you don't need another login, with associated security issues, and I don't need to enable registration on the site. The less hoops you have to jump through in order to comment the more likely you are to comment.

Spam comments are an issue for everyone.

I hate captcha systems, they are not fool proof, and they just get in the way.

Disqus offers me several spam defense mechanisms. They have their own internal system to test if a comment is spam and block it before I even see it and so far that's worked pretty well.

When spam does get through or a comment is posted that I wanted to delete, usually because it is something like "just testing", disqus offers me the quickest method I've yet seen to remove it. All comments are emailed to me and if I reply to the email with "spam" or "delete" then disqus handles the rest. So I don't have to get to a PC, login to joomla, and remove the comment, I can do it directly from any email enabled device.

If I wanted to disqus also supports akismet but I haven't found the need for that yet.

Centralised Spam protection

One benefit of using a centralised system that I had not really considered before I started with Disqus is that if a comments on several disqus powered sites and they are marked as Spam by either Disqus or the site owner then Disqus will from then on mark "any" of that users comments as spam automaticaly.

Video comments

Although no one has used it yet on this blog Disqus also offers you the ability to comment in video. (Hint click on the media button).

Trackbacks and Social Media reactions

I have enabled trackbacks "Display links that refer to your posts" but I chose not to enable "Social Media Reactions" which find and display mentions and comments about your post from other services around the web (e.g. Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, YouTube).

Twitter

One thing you may have noticed is that if you have commented, and authenticated using your twitter id, then your comment and a link back to the blog is automaticaly tweeted. This has proven to be a great way of increasing the reach of the blog especially over time.