Webmaster Tips – Page 2 – Webmaster Tips

Seven Joomla Extensions you must have

May 18, 2023March 22, 2021 by Webmaster Tips

1. JCE:

JCE is another popular extension of Joomla. JCE is a free content editor that provides the web designers with a set of WYSIWYG editing tools. The JCE is free, extendable and can also be customized according to the requirement of the designer. It makes writing articles for Joomla web design and related things a tad bit easier.

2. Xmap:

Xmap is based on the hugely popular Joomap extension. It allows you to create a map of the site you are designing based on the structure of your menus. It also fixes several bugs that had been reported by many Joomap users in the past.

3. JoomlaXplorer:

JoomlaXplorer is the File and FTP manager. It allows you to edit, copy, delete, rename and archive files directly on the server. Using the JoomlaXplorer is easy and that is probably the reason why it is so popular with web developer these days.

WMT Youtube Video Gallery – Joomla Component

May 18, 2023January 15, 2021 by Webmaster Tips

WMT Video Gallery is a powerful easy to use Joomla Component video gallery, based on the jQuery. Bring your favorite videos from YouTube to your Joomla CMS website and display them nicely inside a categorized gallery.

In WMT Video Gallery you can add short description to the enclosed videos and in each Category, which makes it highly suitable for portfolio websites showcasing video shooting samples as well as personal video galleries.

* Navigate using the keyboard.
* Responsive design

Settings in Joomla admin back-end:

Add unlimited number of categories
Add unlimited number of videos to category
Assign each category to individual Menu Item
Set custom player width value for best responsive performance on all devices
Set the number of thumbnails to show per page in the navigation panel
Lite and dark color schemes available to switch between for smooth design integrations
Automatic video start upon clicking a thumbnail
Show or hide top pagination links
Show or hide bottom pagination links

Essential Business Tips for Graphic Designers

May 18, 2023December 12, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Keep Portfolios Current

Graphic design changes according to trends over time just like any other industry. It is important to keep a design portfolio current. This means adding new work to the portfolio and removing redundant or dated work. New portfolio pieces should be created that address the most current trends. Detecting these emerging trends involves staying engaged with clients and the industry. A current and changing portfolio can draw in new business while also bringing back older clients.

Incorporate New Tools and Techniques

New technology affects graphic design in many different ways. Graphic designers should always strive to incorporate the newest tools and techniques when performing work. New software tools can provide unique effects that make work distinctive. They can also increase efficiency by making composition, layout and publication easier. Incorporating new tools and techniques will keep the business prepared for the demands of the future.

Get As Much Exposure as Possible

Graphic designers must get as much exposure as possible through advertising and marketing in order to attract work consistently. This means getting the name of the designer and some of the portfolio into many different websites and publications. Even small freelance job websites or local venues can help to generate business over time. Additionally, designers should take part in events and competitions whenever possible to increase the profile of the business. Marketing efforts should include both online and offline print strategies. The amount of exposure a graphic designer gets will directly affect the number of clients and leads generated each year.

WMT Pro Mp3 Player – Joomla Extension

May 18, 2023November 19, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Wmt PRO Mp3 Player is a flash based Mp3 Player for Joomla. Some of WMT PRO Mp3 Player Features: Unlimited numbers of Mp3 Players on website, Unlimited numbers of Albums in Mp3 Player, Custom Album cover; Mp3 Player settings: Auto Play, Continuous Play, On Complete Jump To Next, Repeat, Initial Volume …

WMT PRO Mp3 Player comes with Joomla Administration back-end Control Panel for multiple Mp3 Players customization.

To create new WMT PRO Mp3 Player:

1. Navigate to Components –> PRO Mp3 Player

2. In PRO Mp3 Player Control Panel click on New icon (upper right)

3. Enter new menu name (SMALL CAPS WITHOUT SPACES) and click on Save icon (upper right).

(New PRO Mp3 Player is created in Control Panel and new module is automatically installed with the name of that menu.)

Edit Newly Created WMT PRO Mp3 Player:

4. In PRO Mp3 Player Control Pane, click on newly created PRO Mp3 Player, to add cover images, to upload mp3 files and to make playlist.

4-1. Click on Upload Images to upload album cover images.

4-2. Click New Album to add new Album.

Here you can enter Album Name, select Album Cover image and select Album state.

Review of some recommended Joomla extensions

May 18, 2023October 9, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Akeeba Backup

Basically, Akeeba Backup is your safety net. This extension allows you to create fast, safe and easy backups of your website. You can then use the backup to restore your website on any server that supports Joomla through an AXA installer that has been implemented to avoid server timeouts. The configuration of the extension is fairly easy and functions through a wizard that does most of the work itself.

JCE – Joomla Content Editor

JCE is an editor that allows Joomla users without any working knowledge in XML, CSS, XHTML, etc. to edit the content of their websites. It is an environment that closely resembles Microsoft Office, and that is why it is so familiar and easy to use. You can use it to upload, edit and position images, create links that lead wherever you want them to and it also has an integrated spellchecker. It is also upgradable with file manager feature, media manager feature and so on.

Admin Tools

Created by the developer that brought us Akeeba Backup, Admin Tools give us a solution for many of those little problems that can take a lot of time to solve on your own. It updates your Joomla, creates a Secure Administrative ID, provides protection for your website and much more.

AllVideos

AllVideos is an invaluable tool for all websites that incorporate videos and music in their content. By using this extension, you bypass the problem of dealing with large chunks of code when sharing YouTube, Vimeo or SoundCloud and other media elements in your article.

Differences between using Joomla vs WordPress Hosting

May 18, 2023September 22, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Although today there is an ever expanding number of Content Management Systems (CMS) that a user can choose from, very few CMS platforms have gained as much popularity as Joomla and WordPress. A good number of people have the mistaken conviction that the two are hugely popular by virtue of being the oldest in the market.

The fact is that the two are neither the pioneers nor the oldest in the CMS space. There are quite a good number of CMS platforms that were in existence even prior to the turn of this century. Actually, WordPress didn’t appear until 2003, while Joomla only showed up around 2005.

What has contributed to the immense popularity of the two platforms is largely due to the ease with which they can be used. The entry of open source Content Management Systems has accorded millions of users the power of creating their own websites. Even a number of big and global brands have been turning to open source CMS for streamlining their processes of web content management.

Today, while the majority of CMS’s are still on-premises and open source in nature, there is a rising number of cloud hosted CMS platforms, yet WordPress and Joomla Hosting still lead the pack.

WordPress Pros

Open Source: What makes WordPress Hosting very popular among advanced developers as well as many beginners is the open source aspect. Basically, open source means you can easily download the CMS software source code and have it modified to meet your particular website needs. What this also implies is that you get the software free of charge.

Easy Setup: WordPress is so easy to setup, that you can do it in as little as 5 minutes. This was the platform developer’s main marketing message, but today that is generally a common feature with most platforms, so they have stopped using it for advertising.

Joomla 1.5 Module Flash Menu

May 18, 2023August 20, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Flash based Joomla Module “Flash Menu”.
Horizontal,Vertical and Square Menu, Icon format (PNG, GIF, JPG), IconSize 256×256, 128×128, 64×64,48×48 or 32×32, A special glow effect.
This Extensions is licensed under the GPLv2. Flash Menu, Joomla extensions are composed of Module (mod_flashmenu.zip) and Component (com_flashmenu.zip).
For this extension to function properly, You need to install both, Module and Component.

1. Install Component (com_flashmenu.zip)

2. Install Module (mod_flashmenu.zip

Module mod_flashmenu:

Here you can define menu shape (horizontal, vertical or square)
and dimensions of the menu (height and width)

Component com_flashmenu:

– Publish (menu Item)
– Unpublish (menu Item)
– Config (configure menu system)
– New Icon (add new menu item to flash menu)
– Upload Icon (upload icon to use with menu item)
– Delete Icon

Add new menu item:

Navigate to Components –> Flash Menu –> Configure
(here you can see all items that are included in flash menu)

Best Open Source E-Commerce Shopping Carts

April 16, 2024July 17, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

It may be that you have thought about using any particular software as the basis for your complete e-commerce website and you are not even considering changing it by near future. Thus, it is extremely important and significant that you have enough idea about which one is the best for you as you will not be able to change it later.

Following are some of the best open-sourced free shopping carts that are available and easily accessible over the Internet. You should be checking them out, testing them, and if the functionality they offer suits you then you can just initiate your business right away.

OsCommerce:

This is an Online Merchant open source for shopping online which is licensed under GNU General Public License and also for free. It simply holds a rich and well-to-do set of features that are the best while you are shopping online and enables the owners to properly set it up, run and then maintain their online stores with inputting minimum efforts that require no fees, costs or any other sort of limitations. This is supported by SQL/ PHP servers.

Visit OsCommerce: http://www.oscommerce.com/solutions/oscommerce

Zen Cart:

Tthis is a true art. It supports MySQL and PHP. This is an open source shopping cart application that is user-friendly and moreover free to use. Like-minded consultants, designers, programmers, developed this design and shop owners who thought that web designing for e-commerce should be done in a different manner than usual.

SEO Tools – Get the Facts on How to Get Started

May 18, 2023June 13, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process a certain web master or administrator would want his/her site to undergo in order to increase the site’s ranking on various search engines. Website ranking is very important since the higher your website is ranked, the more frequent it will get visited. An indication for a high-ranked site is every time you search for a certain keyword phrase (for instance, the keyword is “casinos”), the results found in the first page are the one that comes from the web page of that particular site.

But optimizing a web site does not seem as easy as it sounds. In fact, it is a very long process and does not have a very good success rate when done for a short time. Aside from being knowledgeable about SEO Techniques, you must also be adept in using various SEO Tools.

Below are common SEO Tools being utilized during Search Engine Optimization:

1. Personal Computer or Laptop
It all starts here. No one is capable of doing computer-related stuff without owning a computer or at least have access to using it on a regular basis. It is like trying to watch a DVD without a DVD player. It’s as simple as that.

2. A Web Site to Optimize
You can’t get started either if you do not have a target website. This will serve as the baseline to the succeeding things you will be doing on the project. In other words, it dictates everything.

Website Performance and Speed Checking Tools

May 18, 2023May 18, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

In other words, if your website is extremely slow to load, then you will be losing many visitors. Having Visitors are useful in grabbing traffic, and if you have less traffic, it will have a great impact on your reputation, and you will be unable to generate the potential revenue.

Therefore, the slow-loading effect should not be ignored at all. You should know about what your website is built up with instead of jumping into the web coding and then trying on your own to speed up things; this is because it just cannot be done without knowing about the issues that are causing your website to load slowly.

Following are some of the useful and significant web tools and services that would be extremely helpful in diagnosing and analysing your website. Some of the prominent web services are:

Pingdom:

This is useful in testing your website object’s loading time, such as iframes, CSS, Javascript, images, HTML, and others. You can easily analyze how speedily each of these elements are loading and you can work out for those which have slow loading. A report will be generated telling about the time website takes to load, each elements loading time, the number of elements and their sizes.

Visit Pingdom: http://tools.pingdom.com/

GTmetrix:

This is an extremely useful service that provides with your significant suggestions about what you should be improving on your website. You can use it with all the browsers.

Make online forms with Jotform

May 18, 2023April 29, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

After making a form, you can integrate it into your website and collect submissions from your users for free. You have two choices to receive form submissions: receive them instantly by email, or you can log into your JotForm account and view form submissions.

JotForm also integrates with PayPal, Google Checkout, WorldPay, 2CheckOut, ClickBank and OneBip payment gateways, so you can even collect payments from your website visitors and customers.

JotForm can check if the form is submitted by a real browser or bot. They also support CAPTCHA verification on the forms you make.

If you open free account, you can make unlimited forms, run reports in Email, Excel, CSV or Web, get 100 form submissions per month, make 3 secure SSL forms per month, receive 3 payments per month and get online forum support.

Which Web Hosting Providers make it Easiest to Transfer a Website?

May 18, 2023March 3, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

If you are running a website—a small, personal or a larger business site—a time may come when you want to move to a new host, and you may need a good guide to transfer a website. It is possible that your site has outgrown the current hosting plan you have. You have probably been disappointed by the support or service you are receiving from your hosting provider. You could even simply want to move as you have found a better price deal.

Finding a Good New Website Host

On any single day, website owners in their thousands are transferring websites from one hosting provider to a different one for a variety of reasons. For a website owner, this is usually a very daunting undertaking to go through. The first step towards transferring a website would be finding a suitable web hosting company.

Today, there are endless hosting providers you can select from. You will, however, need to be extremely alert as you select because you certainly will not want to keep on hopping from one platform to the next one so frequently.

There are huge, big and established hosting companies that are going to show up whenever you carry out a Google search—certainly, you’ve come across names such GreenGeeks, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, BlueHost, Web Hosting Hub and Hostgator, just to give a few examples. Besides these leaders, there are smaller companies in the thousands, ranging from the extremely cheap to some which are fairly expensive.

Webmaster Tools

May 18, 2023February 2, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Online CSS optimizer tool

When you decide to optimize your CSS file, you can choose “Optimize CSS via URI” (online file), “Optimize CSS via File Upload” (CSS from your computer) or “Optimize CSS via Direct Input” (by copy/paste file into an online form). You can also choose if you want a CSS optimizer to remove line breaks in your file or not.

Firebug-webmasters a must tool

With a click on an element, you will see the CSS source, and you can edit and preview it. Very useful is that Firebug gives you info on what line is that particular CSS element. Imagine working with more than 1.000 lines of CSS code. This can save lots of time searching for mistakes. Firebug also includes a powerful JavaScript debugger. It lets you pause execution at any time and have a look at the code.

Seomoz SEO tools collection

TermExtractor analyzes the content of a given page and extracts the terms that seem to be targeted at search engines. CrawlTest discovers the problems search engine bots run into while crawling your website. The HTTP response codes your page return, cache dates, title tags and much more. GeoTarget determines how well a site is targeted to region-specific search engines.

Icons

November 16, 2021January 23, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

Icon Factory – thousands of free icons

You’ll find packs named “Somatic Rebirth Extras”, “Hello Kitty”, “Star Trek”, “WALL•E + EVE”, “Inauguration Day pack”, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and many other interesting packs. Icon packs are free only for personal, desktop use.

For commercial works, development projects and websites Iconfactory have royalty-free, stock icon collections in bitmap and scalable vector formats. Website have one more interesting feature for visitors – Preference Settings.

That page allows visitors to configure viewing Iconfactory with their own settings – List Sorting, Preview Size, Page Length. Each setting is stored in a cookie that’s maintained by browser.

Visit Iconfactory.com

Free Icons Web – over 15.000 free icons

Navigation, Icons, Folder, Network, People, Objects, Database, Document, Character icons, Computer, Button Icons and Gif Animation Icons).

5 Joomla Language Extensions

May 18, 2023December 22, 2019 by Webmaster Tips

Joom!Fish:

The Joom!Fish is a language extension module that allows you to exert total control over the translation of the Website’s Joomla content. The Web Developer can translate any content to and from any language with the free extension available and with Joom! Fish 2.1, the Web developer, can also exercise control over third-party extensions.

GTranslate: URL:

The GTranslate module is a must-have for all web developers with its extensive list of languages to translate into. With over fifty-eight languages, it has a reach to over 98% of the internet users. The GTranlate has various versions compatible with all versions of Joomla, like Joomla 1.5 and Joomla 1.7and it makes the content of the website known worldwide with a large language base. The GTranslate uses Google Power to translate and then hides tabs and suggestions over foreign words that prove a hindrance to many users.

Translations manager:

The Translations Manager is compatible only with Joomla 1.5, but despite this limitation, it is a powerful extension every Web Developer must be aware of. Once the Translations Manager is downloaded to your website, it manages all language-related content. The Translations Manager will not translate the language but checks the translations for correct usage and proper grammar and makes it an easy and must-have tool for websites.