The below post are some notes I have typed up from the Melbourne Joomla Day 2010. Please feel free to correct me if I have misquoted or interpreted anything in the wrong way. There are some great links to template sites, 'how to' videos, Joomla Extensions and Browser Plugins.

Melbourne Joomla Day 2010 13/2/2010

Joomla 101 and Administration - Presented by Raoul Callaghan
Hosting a Joomla site on local PC

http://www.virtualbox.org Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.

http://jumpbox.com/app/joomla15 JumpBox for the Joomla! Content Management System Version 1.5.x
How to run a JumpBox on VirtualBox > http://blog.jumpbox.com/2008/12/22/jumpbox-on-virtualbox/ [video]

Advice for beginners Never use “admin” as a username. For security reasons.

Joomla Extensions

• JCE – A content editor for Joomla. It is a better WYSIWYG editor. http://www.joomlacontenteditor.net/

• ReDJ – shortens urls, url redirection, aliases etc. http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/structure-a-navigation/url-redirection/7189

• Access to admin area by using a IP address blocker. Go to http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/access-a-security/site-access to browse extensions. To find your own IP address go to http://whatismyip.com/

• inlineACL Content Plugin Plugin – simple access control within an article. “The access to your articles or even a part of them can be hidden/shown for the users of your site.” http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/access-a-security/content-restriction/5673

• Akeeba Backup – backup your Joomla website. You can also zip your local site and import to a live site. http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/1606/details

Joomla Template Design & Development - Presented by Norm Douglas Firefox Plugins

• ColorZilla http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/ Advanced Eyedropper, Color Picker, Palette Viewer and other colorful goodies

• MeasureIt https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/539Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage

• http://browsershots.org/ is a website where you can compare compatibility of your website with many browsers

Joomla Extensions

• xml generator - http://mediensozialismus.de/tools.html

• http://www.ijoobi.com/ has many great extensions. Receive 25% off using the following code, “Melbourne-Joobi-Apps”

• CCK (Content Construction Kits) go to http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/news-production/content-construction K2 is a major player > http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/news-production/content-construction/8061Video demo here http://community.getk2.org/video/the-k2-movie-bliptv Zoo is also a major player http://www.yootheme.com/blog/item/root/zoo-20-beta-released

SEO & Self Promotions
Go to unanswered posts on forum and reply to them with a solution

Social Networking - Presented by Azrul Rahim

http://www.jomsocial.com/ lets you create your own social network > Groups, media, Facebook connect, follow users, share photos

Starting Joomla for Designers - Presented by Nick Sibbing

Template websites

• Siteground - http://www.siteground.com/joomla-hosting/joomla-templates.htm

• Joomlashack - http://www.joomlashack.com/

• Joomlacapital - http://www.joomlacapital.com/

• Youthemes - http://www.yootheme.com/ Yootools Bundle http://tools.yootheme.com/

• Youi : can not find site

• Rockittheme - http://www.rockettheme.com/joomla-templates

Joomla Performance - Presented by Mark Giglio

• Turn on Gzip for faster browsing > if the host is well configured for it > check first

• ping web address in cmd promt to find out communication speeds

• geoip tools have around 90% accuracy of where your website server is > make sure you get a hoist that is very close to your target audience location

• Firefox plugin = yslow

• Yahoo! YSlow https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5369 > YSlow analyses web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. > check in administrator/index.php?option=com_config before and after using gzip on/off

• static joomla sites should turn their chache module on > please read more into this http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=470&t=326990&start=30