2013 was a very quiet year for this blog but that is all changing in 2014.
Just because I was quiet here didn't mean I was quiet in the Joomla world, (do you really think I can ever be quiet?), as I tried to contribute in many new ways. For me some of those were successful others less so.
I have learnt new skills which I hope will I will be able to continue to improve. I definitely understand more code now than I ever did before and one day I will be able to completely stop asking friends for help.
We are not that long away from the scheduled release of Joomla 3.5, the next LTS (Long Term Release) and at this point in time I believe we really should not be looking at adding any game-changer features. My understanding, and hope, is that by the time we release 3.5 it should be a rock solid release and will need little more than minor maintenance and security releases for the rest of the release's life.
With just a few weeks to go to J and Beyond it’s time to start your preparations. A few minutes spent reading this check list will have a lasting and beneficial effect on your experience at the event.
If you have other suggestions then please share them in the comments.
Joomla! 4.0 or Next, Joomla! Platform or Framework, WTF is going on!?
A lot of discussion and confusion has been going on lately about the direction of the Joomla! project. What's in store for the CMS, what's going on with the Platform, why a new direction with the Framework, and how's all of this tie together. I personally don't have all of the answers, but what I can share is my own vision for the future and how everything ties together.
This is a guest post by Michael Babker
As a trainer I am occasionally asked if there is any Certification available after the training and all I can offer is a certificate of completion or attendance.
(There is definitely a cultural difference where some countries and cultures place a high value on formal qualifications.)
In the final days of Mambo I was excited about the possibility of the project offering a more formal "official" certification process. That never happened and today I am glad it didn't as I do not believe that there is any real value in certification or that it can work in the real world.
Several years ago now I switched from a windows/linux computer to a Mac and since then I've always been using MAMP as my local development web server.
MAMP is great as it lets me do all the initial development of a web site on my laptop before ever going near a live server.
The one thing I've really been missing is that it is not possible to send emails so any functionality that requires that, such as user registration, contact forms or notifications, can't be tested until I upload the site to a live server.
In the middle of 2012 I was invited to speak at the Joomladay in Melbourne Australia in January 2013. I've tried the virtual presenter thing before and I really didn't enjoy the experience. A Joomladay is not just about the sessions that you attend but also the people that you meet. You just can't do that properly in a virtual world, at the very least no one can really buy me a beer (cold or not) over skype.
So on January 14 I will be boarding a flight for the rediculously long flight to Melbourne. At a little over 21,500 miles (34,700 km) it will take my air miles for the preceding 12 months over the 100,000 miles (160,000 km) barrier. It is truly amazing how many bad movies you can watch on a tiny screen when you are trapped insode a flying tin can.
Over the years I have written many blog posts about Joomla! websites being hacked. But that is nothing compared to the number of websites that I've been employed to fix.
Several years ago I came to the conclusion that it would not matter how diligent you are at ensuring that your server is correctly configured and your extensions are always up-to-date there is still the possibility that your site could be hacked.
After all there will always be a time between a vulnerability being discovered and a fix being released. In fact I coined a phrase "exploited yesterday, hacked tomorrow".
Okay so I haven't been blogging much lately, if at all, but if the truth be told I'm not really had much to say – shock horror!
Back in April when I redesigneded this web site, I emphasised the benefits of working with as many core components as possible or should that me working with as few extensions as possible. Today I decided to put that the ultimate test.
Joomla! 3 is scheduled for release sometime today but because I like to live dangerously, and the alternative was to do some real work, I thought I would have a go at upgrading my Joomla! 2.5 website to a test release of Joomla! 3.0.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU DO THIS. There is no need to upgrade your Joomla! 2.5 website. I did it because I can not because it was the most sensible thing to do.
