A Facelift for NZTechie.Com

This weekend I implemented the most significant change to NZTechie.Com in several months. I have ditched the former style of using a sparse Google-like interface and have moved to an open source content management system called Joomla.

Joomla comes with a very professional-looking template which I have adopted (however, there are many more available online!). After some work, I completed menus to point to my Privacy, Policy, Copyright Notice, and Legal Notice. I have also included links to both my blogs, YouTube Channel, and Photo Gallery.

The advantage of using this content management system is that I can make modifications to the site from anywhere that has Internet access. I am no longer restricted to editing my pages in Frontpage or Dreamweaver, and then uploading them by FTP. (Before you say, I know what Frontpage Extensions are!)

There are a few nifty built-in features which I have retained such as the ability for users to create accounts (you can restrict access to content by accounts), and I have retained the poll facility which was included as "sample data", however I have changed the question. There is also the inbuilt capability for registered users to submit articles for inclusion on the site.

One initial downside to using Joomla is that it has no native support for any advanced HTML or scripting. This posed as a problem for how I would list my recent YouTube videos, and how I would implement my Adsense code. I was also worried how I would get Google Analytics working as well.

Fortunately, Joomla is very extensible with a multitude of 'extensions' being available for download from the Joomla. For this particular problem I used an extension called SpecialHTML written by Rony Sandra Yofa Zebua. This module allows you to insert HTML at any location. It has worked effectively for my Adsense adverts, Google Analytics, and Google Video Bar.

There have been a few teething problems with how Joomla is displaying my RSS feeds. I have configured the CMS to display the most recent post from all three blogs I maintain. However, on inspection it appears to not be showing the most recent ones. Joomla appears to have selected much older articles then are available in the RSS feeds. I'll try to fix this during the week. [Update: The CNS has updated itself since I published this post!]

The new site generally retains all of the functionalitymy former homepage had with one minor exception. I did have the facility to perform a search that will crawl all of my posted content from all sources. This was using the Google Custom Search facility. Joomla of course does not come configured with this.

It does however come configured with a search that will search all content published within the Content Management System. I may consider using SpecialHTML to include Google Custom Search back at a later stage.


Joomla!
http://www.joomla.org/

Joomla! Extensions Directory - SpecialHTML For Jomla [sic] 1.5
http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,4089/Itemid,35/

SpecialHTML Download Mirrors: [Mirror 1] [Mirror 2]

Additional Information: Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable. -joomla.org