Joomla Community

Extreme Makeover Joomla Day Austin Edition

Monday, 15 August 2011 16:44

Extreme Makeover Joomla Edition Joomla Day Austin is right around the corner, held on September 15th in Austin, Texas. JDay Austin will be unique for several reasons such as being held in a historic Austin movie theater located in downtown Austin and using an entirely different presentation method. The most important difference is that the team of speakers is currently constructing a new Joomla website for an Austin Non-profit, Minis and Friends.

A Special Format

Movie Theater for Joomla Day Austin

Since JDay Austin will take place in one movie theater for 8 hours, we had to get creative with our presentation method. The normal workshop approach of multiple rooms with multiple tracks wouldn't work in a theater. Instead we opted to put well-known Joomla speakers in teams of two. Each team of two would represent a different Joomla profession. These teams will present on how to build a Joomla site from beginning to end, from soup to nuts, all on one big movie screen.

A Special Non-Profit

Minis and Friends

The back-to-back teams of two solved the format issue, but one question remained: What kind of site would we build? We have some of the absolute best Joomla teachers, contractors, designers and developers in the industry. Should we waste all that effort and talent on some fake company and site? No, that wouldn't be right. Instead we decided that a local non-profit would be much more deserving. A contest was held to nominate the most deserving, mostly with applications from members of the Austin JUG. In the end we decided that Minis and Friends was the perfect candidate. Everything in their site screamed the need for Joomla (the site even somewhat resembles the milkyway template even though it's not a Joomla site).

For those in the States, this truly feels like the Joomla version of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" where a lucky/needy family is selected and a team builds a fantastic home for them.

I challenge you to visit the Minis and Friends website and not get a little emotional, and want to lend a helping hand.

A Special Team

The Joomla Day Austin team of speakers is second to none. Working to help a deserving non-profit is the most rewarding aspect, but working with this team is definitely second-most rewarding:

Site Planning
Cory Webb & Jen Kramer
Template Design
Andy Miller & Kyle Ledbetter
Extension Development
Alex Andreae & Jeremy Wilken
Site Deployment
Brian Edgerton & Joe LeBlanc

Last, but certainly not least we'll have closing comments by Ryan Ozimek & John Coonen.

A Happy Ending

Before and After

We're currently in the re-design process, but you can be certain that the final outcome will be a wonderfully built Joomla site. I'm personally working on my design entry, which will go head-to-head with Andy's design :)

Giving like this is exactly what Joomla is all about. When you put the world into perspective it's about people and helping, not small irritations in our beloved CMS.

#jpositiv

JDay Bosnia - Make Joomla!, not war!

Sunday, 14 August 2011 03:33

the-and-was-that-joomla

Tešanj (pronounce 'Techagn') is a small ancient town in the North of Bosnia and Hercegovina, a now independant country that was once part of what was Yugoslavia.
Although it looks now totally peaceful, nothing showing, except for a few bullet holes on some walls, the terrible war that took place in that region of the world from 1992 to 1995, I am told that, beyond the curtains, some old loves and hates are stil present between the 3 communities.

It is there that was held on August 12th and 13th, the first JoomlaDay ever in what was Yugoslavia. The ancient Illyrian ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria ) sun symbol was chosen as the logo of the event, to further show the need for unified efforts in the region.

It was the occasion for 3 co-founders of Joomla – Emir Sakiċ, Brian Teeman and myself– to meet again in person for the first time since the 2005 first Joomla core Summit.
Happily, that reunion was not the most significant part of that event.

It was also not only the first time a formal Translation Teams meeting was held in Joomla history, but also a great symbol of the slogan: "Make Joomla!, not war!"

After the terrible choc of the recent wars in this region, it demonstrates that people of good will have no borders and can cooperate to help communication between torn apart nations.
I do feel strongly that Joomla! showing the example is a great accomplishment.
The photo hereby speaks more than a thousand words:

Launching a first time JDay on 2 days was a challenge and attendants did have to face long trips on winding roads to reach Tešanj (21 hours bus for Ilia to come from Macedonia). It is therefore with extreme attention that the various conferences were listened to. Between the presentations, which went from the history of Joomla, muultilanguage in 1.7 to developing with MVC, the Bosnian coffee pauses were the pretext to go further into the respective experiences with Joomla. Tweets went on and, yes, wifi was working great (a steady 2.44 mbps) and was free, contrary to some hotels in California…

Although it will not surprise our international language communities, the diagram hereby demonstrates more than with a thousand words the importance of Joomla in some countries. The statistics concerns the .mk domain names. http://top.net.mk/

diagram

The Translation Team meeting was very positive. Things are so much easier when the virtual forum aliases are replaced by real life people! The latin alphabet users (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian) agreed to extend their collaboration, not only for the language packs, but also concerning help online and tutorials.

Before the last trip to the Internet Café and its delicious 'čevapčiċi' (search on google ), the hard core organisers and conference presenters gathered for an ultimate group photo in the town theater.

Thanks again to Admir Agiċ and team for the perfect organisation of the event (http://joomla.ba).

The last words were: "Let's meet next year in Sarajevo!" Joomla! rocks! "Joomla! je zakon" or "Joomla! је закон"
Another symbol, I guess.

Cultural Events in Bosnia Run on Joomla

Wednesday, 10 August 2011 08:20

and-joomla-this-the-weekend

Joomla Day Bosnia and Herzegovina is this weekend and this year we've been celebrating each Joomla Day by featuring local Joomla sites. For Bosnia and Herzegovina, we have two large cultural events in the country:

First is the International Film Festival Kratfofil Plus at http://kratkofil.org which is also taking place this weekend.

Get a Wonderful View of Joomla Day Chicago

Thursday, 04 August 2011 08:20

the-chicago-joomla-tower-day

Joomla Day Chicago is this weekend and this year we've been celebrating each Joomla Day by featuring a local Joomla site. For Chicago, we have the highest point in the city.

Sears Tower (recently renamed to Willis Tower) is the most famous landmark in Chicago. 103 stories up, at the top of the tower, you'll find the Sky Deck with wonderful views all across Chicago. Their website at http://www.theskydeck.com runs on Joomla.

Have fun if you're going to Joomla Day Chicago on Saturday and Sunday!

Who is Joomla-jenkins?

Wednesday, 03 August 2011 01:33

the-someone-code-requests-branch

The other day someone watching the platform at github asked me “Who is Joomla-jenkins?” That certainly seems to be someone doing a lot. Except it’s not exactly someone.

Jenkins is continuous integration software (a fork of the Hudson project) which is used to ensure the stability of the platform by running unit tests, style checks and various analytics.

Ian MacLennan recently announced a process change where all pull requests (requests from someone to have code committed) should go to the staging branch. That’s to allow the commit to be made and tested. If the tests fail then the “pull requester” needs to fix the code before it is committed. That way test breaking code never makes it into the “point of truth” master branch.