Part 2 – New Blog Settings

Ok, so you’ve already installed WPMU and you’re able to log in (and you’ve already changed the admin password to something memorable, right? (Users > Admin, bottom of the page)).

The first thing you need to do is put New Blog Defaults in your wp-contenet/mu-plugins/ folder.  This little beauty will do several things: change the default first post category from “Uncategorized” to “Articles”, remove the wordpress.com and wordpress.org links from the Blogroll and replace them with a link to your site’s main page, and change the default permalink structure to /categroy/post-title/ among others.   The most important part here is that it places the link to your main page in the blogroll.  This will improve usability for all parties, but especially first time visitors to your site.

It’s time to put CETS Simple Dashboard in to play. Download, and place in your mu-plugins folder.

Next, you need to navigate to Site Admin -> Options.  Here, you need to change “Allow New Registrations” to Enabled (assuming you followed my instructions in part 1) and also change the text in the default first post, enable third-party plugins, and deactivate those annoying dashboard feeds thanks to Simple Dashboard.

At this point  I would also recommend Plugin Commander.  This handy little sucker goes in your /wp-plugins/ folder (with plugin-commander.php going directly in the folder, and it’s subfolder in there too).  This tool will allow you to bulk activate, bulk deactivate, and manually assign plugins to any and all blogs.  Handy if you want to enable wp-cache or something like that as a feature on all blogs.

Next time, we’re going to look at widgets, admin plugins, and some other handy plugins for your users you may want to give up.

Part 3 – Widgets, Plugins, and More Plugins (Coming Soon)

Today I’ll be writing about how to ensure a safe fresh install of WPMU.  This assumes that you know how to configure a wordpress installation and that you’re comfortable with the creation of new databases through whatever hosting service you use.  I’m going to be focusing less on technical how-to’s,  and more on pointing you to the resources and configurations that work best to secure your site.

Ideally, we’re starting fresh after a clean install of WordPress Mu (currently ver 2.6.5) and ready to upload plugins and change settings.

Part 1 – Secure Registrations

Let’s face it, if you’re reading this, you’re probably not about to break virtual ground on the next edublogs.com or talkislam.com or other major blog site.  You’re probably wanting to start one for a family, group of students, small corporate site, special interest group, or local school.  For this reason we need to understand that our user base is a known quantity. It is a group of people – a finite number of users – if you will.  This means that it will probably be within your or your fellow admin helpers ability to authorize individual blogs.

Currently, on LCHSTeachers.com, because we have someone “on the inside” and we only want those people who are known to them to be able to access it, we simply have registration disabled and comments turned off.  Anyone who wants a new blog on the sites has to request one.  If this is a feasible concept for your install, then I recommend it.  It will save you tons of spam fighting and comment heartache.

The second best solution is to use wp-reCAPTCHA and Moderate New Blogs together.  This creates an environment where you cut down as much spam registration as possible with a CAPTCHA application, and simultaneously reinforce it with a “click-to-activate” option for all new blogs created from the admin area.  You’re going to (I hope) get an email every time a new blog is created anyway, now you can choose who is and is not activated by going to Site Admin -> Blogs.

Beyond that, the minimum I would use is the wp-reCAPTCHA plugin by itself.

Part 2 Will Be: New Blog Settings

BannersManager is the most robust banner management system for Joomla that I have found yet.  The big drawback is the lack of reporting, but I don’t guess you can fault them in that they’re doing this inside someone else’s system as opposed to OpenX which is an independent system.

With BannersManager I was able to get my average cached page load time down to just over 1 second.  Un-cached times are averaging just under 4 seconds.  If you’re a purist, you want the whole page to load in under 2 seconds on a dial-up connection, but with the massive amount of information we have displayed I don’t think that’s going to be feasible.

So, in summation:

Pros

• has seperate clients, ad positions, and banners for maximum flexibility
• loads quickly

Cons

• doesn’t send out reports to clients.  Bummer.

During this process I’ve had to call on friends all over the place to Beta test for me so I knew where the bugs were.  Nobody can find the flaws faster than someone with fresh eyes.

My good buddy Bofe commented on my just-barely-better-than-craptastic load time on the site, so I’ve been engaged with speeding up my sites.  I find that my experiences with Joomla center around mastering one aspect at a time, so this time it’s optimization to reduce load time.

Right now, I’m using the 23-odd domains that I have to experiment with different caching techniques in Joomla so that I have a good basis of comparison.  The Extensions section on Joomla.org led me to a tool called PageCache 2.0.10 from JoomlaPerformance.com and the immediate results were good.  I saw, according to their measurements, auxillary page load times decrease to almost 1/5 what they were.

The problem was the index pages.  On one domain, RDL-USA.com, I saw page load time soar from 9 seconds uncached (high) to 17-19 seconds cached (outrageous).  Still haven’t figured this out yet.

So, after reading the usual “I know more than you ever will” banter on the Joomla forums, I found that I might have another issue: just watching the page load I saw that ads.mylogancounty.com stayed in the status bar in the bottom left of Firefox for quite a while.  When I unpublished the modules containing those calls to OpenX, the page load time dropped DRAMATICALLY.

So, if you’re out there, please- I’d love to hear about your experiences with managing a Joomla site with Cache enabled and banner management.  Thanks!

All my Google searches for how to edit the default list yielded nadda for Windows, so I did it myself.

1. Make sure PS is closed.
2. Navigate to Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CSx/Required
3. Make a duplicate of “Default New Doc Sizes.txt” so it says “Copy of Default New Doc Sizes.txt” – Safety step so you don’t foul up.
4. Open the file “Default New Doc Sizes.txt” in your best text editor, preferably something like Notepad++.  Windows Notepad will screw it up.
5. In my case, I copied from line 33-38 and pasted a copy of this on line 40, changing “Default screen sizes” to “banners” and changing the sizes accordingly.
6. Save, close, and then restart Photoshop! See your new sizes listed!

Looking at the stats I see that we’re already getting good organic search results and I believe it will only get better with time.

The site is running WordPress Mu 1.5.x and it rocks hard.  The flexibility of this thing is downright amazing.

By creating a front-end registration process, and then utilizing JoomlArt.com’s JA_Submit component with no WYSIWYG editor, you create an environment where you can simply and easily submit content, and you still only allow certain users to publish content.  That way anyone can register, anyone can submit, but only editors/managers get to publish the pertinent info.

Previously I operated under a faulty assumption – that you absolutely had to minimize visual clutter on the page in order to maximize user experience – but if there’s nothing on the page because the authors don’t really know how to post, then it defeats the purpose.  There is a balance to be found.

Visual Editor is broken. So sad. Trying to get help from WordPress forums.

1. Use JoomlaSEF from Artio: Before we go any farther, I need to let you know right now if you didn’t know, that Artio embeds some advertising for certain people in the Meta Generator tag on your site.  This is why they give it for free.  you can hack it, but it ain’t simple.  The string is not stored locally, and I have yet to find the call in the sef.php file.  Other than that: install it first, keep it updated, and make sure it’s working.
2.  Fill Out All The Meta Tags: Listen to me very carefully: no matter your SEO buddy tells you about how important H1 tags are, don’t forget that a page with pertinent meta keywords and descriptions is still going to rank better than one without it.  Fill out the article or content specific tags EVERY TIME ON EVERY ARICLE
3. Repeat the Keywords: If you’re writing an article about “baby dolls” then you need to mention “baby dolls” more than once in the piece.
4. Use Keywords in the IMG descriptions: Make sure that when you add a picture to a page that it has a description involving the primary focus of the page.
5. Turn Off Page Titles & Use < H1 > Tags: …and don’t be afraid of using real h2 and h3 tags for heading and subheadings.

Those are the bare minimum.  For more on Search Engine Optimization for Joomla please see SEOmoz

There are too many assumptions about how people use Joomla by the developers (I’m referring to 1.0.x here since I have done nothing more than install 1.5 – no testing).  One of the biggest problems I have with it is the RSS feed and it’s insistence on only publishing Front Page published items.  In my opinion, this is a biased and unnecessary decision… but I can’t argue with great free software.

Now, to remedy the problem:

• RD RSS: RD RSS does one thing really well… it allows you to create individual feeds for each content section, but it fails when it presumes that you once again just want “Front Page” items.  Works well with Feedburner, though.
• DS-Syndicate: although I have heard one person say that the relative URLs produced don’t work well with email delivery, I do know that it does parse well through Feedburner, and if you have PRO turned on, then I doubt it matters.  The big improvement here is that DS-Syndicate gives you the option to publish non-Front-Page articles to the feed.

Right now, we have a static front page on the RDL website, but I want to give customers as many options to pull our content through the channels as possible.  If they want to get updates through the website, through a feed reader, or however you want, I want you to have it.  What matters is our end of producing the relative content that informs the consumer.

In summary, I am switching to DS-Syndicate.  The good news is that since I have already changed all of my RSS links to the Feedburner URL, all I have to do is update Feedburner.

My dream is this: I want to be able to create new, clean “web2.0″ inspired themes for Joomla quickly and easily. I have considered using V5WebMarketing.com as a platform for development, but, once again, I have little time for that.

Editor’s Note: I know that “Web2.0″ is not a style, but it kinda is… it’s just so fresh and clean and stuff.

For now, there’s the option of using Barry North’s Joomla 1.5 CSS Template Tutorial and start from there. I still personally don’t understand the whole concept of correctly formatting my modules. I know the 0,-1,-2 options (kinda) and I think -2 will set it to display table-less, but I somehow get hung up there.

The other I had not.

Yesterday I received a very polite email from a gentleman asking me to remove his content from one of my blogs… and I found to my shock and horror that I had about 150 spam blogs and over 300 spam users on that domain. It was using more than 400% more of my bandwidth and disk storage than any other site on my server. I just had not been paying attention.

Moral of the story: No Mu is good Mu?

EDIT: I just want to point out that I am not going to stop using WordPress Mu.  Bofe is right (as usual), I just needed to have  it set up correctly.  I was just sharing a very surprising experience.

What I want to do here is go over some of the very first things I do with any Joomla install, and there have been several now. For this example, I will be referring to 1.0.1x versions of Joomla.

1. Install JCE : JCE allows you to have a considerably more functional WYSIWYG editor for Joomla (of which, I still only use like 10% of the buttons – consider deactivating some if you are running a public site). The two biggest additions that this site brings are the hyper link Manager and Image Manager giving you automatic links to any content item in the one and a Graphical interface for choosing your image on the other. ***Note that the image manager defaults to “float: left” and will not respond to the center command without editing the HTML
2. JoomSEF: Joom SEF allows for standard “Search Engine Friendly” URL’s and work with most basic installations. More complex installs with many front-end accessible components may cause some problems.
3. RD RSS: Let’s face it: the default Joomla RSS feed blows. It’s beyond horrible. I have take to cleaning mine up by installing this application and then burning the feed with FeedBurner. I should probably point you to this article about Joomla and RSS that helped me.
4. DS-Syndicate: This is a replacement for the embedded RSS feed generator in Joomla.  Previously I had recommended RD RSS for this solution, but I have since found out, much to my chagrin, that RD RSS (like the default Joomla feed gen) only publishes “Front Page” items.  You still need to burn the feed with Feedburner and change all of your RSS references to the burned feed.
5. Calendars: There are two good options if you need a calendar…
   1. jCal Pro: If you want a standard view of a calendar and fairly simple use (especially if you’re going to allow front-end users to add events) then I would go with this install. Don’t fail to take advantage of the “jCal Latest Events” module on every page to advertise your events.
   2. gigCalendar: if your calendar is meant to be more of a list with events spread out over time, then this is the calendar for you. Drawbacks: having to add every “performer”, “venue”, and doing some intermediate database level editing to change the band oriented labels.
6. LetterMan: Newsletters can be an integral part of your marketing effort. There is a lot of information out there about how to make effective newsletters so make sure and read that before you try to do this, but a great permission based newsletter campaign can really grow your business. LetterMan allows you to make them fairly complex, as well as supporting multi-part MIME messages.
7. Community Builder: If you are going to have many front-end registered users, you have to use this, and you need custom fields for the registration to get demographic information. See the available directory of custom apps for this component.

That’s all for now. That’s a great start. Email me if you need more info.

• Joomla! (probably the largest community overall – the continuation of Mambo)
• Drupal
• SilverStripe (Beautiful Admin Interface)
• CMS Made Simple
• PHP-fusion
• Alfresco (Enterprise Level CMS?)
  
• e107.0rg
• Pligg
• Xoops
• Geeklog
• NucleusCMS
  

Notable Mentions (non-CMS Open Source Projects)

• phpGEDview (Open Source Genealogy)
• CodeIgniter (PHP Code Library free to install on your webserver)

So, here’s what I’m going to do: (this is probably more for me than it is for you)

• hybridcars template (modified)
• JCE (replaces cluttered WYSIWYG editor)
• jCal Pro (better than the other cals)
• BSQ Site Stats (more complex site stats)
• jPack (backup software)
• mosList Messenger (mailing list manager)
• CommunityBuilder (haven’t done this before )

Demo on the Joomla Test Site

Also, once again, Google Apps will handle the email/dashboard. If you haven’t check it out, do so.

• JCE – Joomla Content Editor – A better interface for your content creation areas. Allows custom CSS to be applied to the editor simply by creating a new CSS file in your template css folder and making it work for you.
• jCal Pro – while still lacking in event repeating, the interface is better than ExtCal, and the bots and modules are cleaner. Overall, it’s an improvement from the clumsy interface of ExtCal
• jPack – a Joomla one-click backup that allows you to migrate and then re-up the entire site. Great f you went to test, then deploy (as is the case with the UMT website.

http://www.russellvillemethodist.com (and .org)

This came after a meeting Monday night. I already have them up and I hope to start re-building the demo site there (now that I’ve found some decent templates and don’t have to use all my time in developing to that end).

I am currently in the process of testing as many pre-packaged CMS’s as I can.  Right now, I have Subdreamer and Joomla running while testing MANY add-on modules, and I am obtaining several more from sourceforge.  I plan on sharing my findings with each, but ultimately it comes down to the discussion proposed by this topic: which is better?  The custom job specific to your needs, or a pre-packaged solution.

First, let’s start with a Custom CMS:

Pros:

• a perfect fit to your needs
• ideally, all the major components are there
• typically, an easier administration format, or at least one that is tailored to your org

Cons:

• development time: the larger your set of requirements, the longer to develop, and thus the further out is your publish date
• each new feature requires further development time
• all changes to style outside of content require EVEN MORE development time
• did I mention DEVELOPMENT TIME?

Pre-Packaged Solutions

PROS:

• easy updates to the software
• usually a team outside of your developers working on security, bug fixes
• easy to install new modules or components
• quick and efficient skinning or style changes

CONS:

• an administrative interface designed to do EVERYTHING, not just what you need
• content updates are done through someone else’s logic – going in to add or update content may no be intuitive
• frequently, the quality of modules or components are less than ideal, or do not cover your needs
• someone has to spend time finding components or modules – wether your or your developers.

I don’t  know if this helps or not, but it does at least give some frame of reference for choosing a solution.  Like I said, there will be more on the specific CMS’s that I test, specifically feedback on administration and overall presentation, but this is a starting point.

I’ve been using the js_royale free template and I have modified it till all that’s left are the ugly table borders.  I could go back and re-write the html with the content areas in mind, but I don’t really understand the whole visible/hidden thing and how certain things show up in some pages and not others.

For example: on the main page and the Events page I have it showing the Upcoming Events in a (I’m assuming) css block called user1.  There are 9 of these, and only 1 seems to able to be used in this template.  If I re-work all this I could make it where at least user2 and user3 are availiable at the bottom of the page.

More later – I’m going to get my daughter.