Future Searches

Ten Most Popular Joomla Components Available for Free

Here I offer the most popular components that are usually used for Joomla. The primary criteria for all of them are that they are all available for free, so you will get the unique opportunity to test them without actually spending a single cent.

1. Virtuemart

There’s no site of the eCommerce that can easily go without having the proper installation of the Virtuemart. The pit of the particular box shop is generally provided by the actual components. Due to the wide usage of the API components the solution has grown into the popular and self-catering web application useful for most of the developers. The other benefit of the Virtuemart is the wide range of the available plug-ins. With their help almost any freelancer is able to build the custom made processor for your internet payments.
The following products can be not just easily setup, but also can be customized to your liking. After trying Virtuemart be sure you’re not going to retreat to the idle OSCommerce ever again.

Joomla 1.6.0 Released

It’s been a long wait and finally Joomla has released version 1.6.0! Thanks to everyone who contributed, new version delivers many new features pleasing the site users and administrators like nested categories, ACL, improved language support & SEO, built-in redirects, template styles, & much more.  From my point of view, the most important improvement is the nested categories feature which means there is no more need to use 3rd party components to create a tree category structure.

Joomla created a launch page for the new version and decided giving the new improvements under 4 categories. Here is the official Joomla 1.6.0 features:

Designer Features

• Core layout files are tableless: New for Joomla! 1.6, all core output files are written in XHTML 1.0 Strict. HTML 5 is also supported in Joomla! 1.6.
• New core templates: Joomla! 1.6 ships with new core templates. On the administrator side, Bluestork is the default template, and Hathor is a fully accessible template to support those with various types of disabilities. On the site side, Joomla! 1.6 ships with Atomic and Beez2 (yes, the bees are gone!), plus the legacy Milkyway template.

Joomla URL Optimization Techniques

Joomla can be tricky when it comes to search engine optimization. You need to purchase extentions, modules etc. to achieve the desired results in terms of SEO.

Optimizing URL of a Joomla site should be the first step while setting up a Joomla website. The good news is you can have SEF URL structure while keeping your money in the pocket. Here is how it’s done:

First, go to the global configuration page at your Joomla website. There you will see SEO settings section. You need to configure Search Engine Friendly URLs and Use Apache mod_rewrite as yes. Before you click on the save or apply button, do the following changes in your htaccess.txt file:

Connect to your server and download htaccess.txt file to your computer. Open it using a  text editor then check for  “Options +FollowSymLinks”  and put a # before it. At the end  it should look like this:
# Options +FollowSymLinks

Save the file and upload it again to your web space.  Then rename the file as .htaccess (Dot should come before htaccess and nothing else )

Now you are ready to save your global configuration. Check out your website and enjoy your SEF URLs. Works like a charm isn’t it?

The Pros and Cons of Joomla

Joomla is one of the most popular open source content management systems (CMS) over the internet. Many website designers and owners use it once they understand how it works as it might need a little knowledge about website structure and maybe some HTML.
I have been using Joomla for a short period of time. In the beginning, I found it time consuming to chase after all those modules, extensions and plugins but once I got used to it, I am satisfied and confident to bring any Joomla website to the next level.
I need to say Joomla has drawbacks in terms of SEO but there are solutions for that issue so let’s create a pros and cons list for Joomla.

Joomla Pros:

- Fast and easy to use once you understand how it works.
- There are hundreds of support extentions, plugins and modules.
- It is very easy to create and operate a multilingual website with Joomla.
- It is an open-source platform and the website can be extended easily.
- It is free.