RusselvilleDental.net (.com) is currently undergoing review (at the .com address) for final install.

Russellville Dental Lab, LLC (demo)

Pro Struck, a company with a new branch in this geographic region, is getting a new site from me. That will be prostruck.com . They will be using Joomla for content, Google Apps for email, and Google Analytics for stats (first combination with Joomla, but all early reports are that it works very well).

LoganCountyRepublicans.com underwent a MAJOR renovation recently. Be sure to check that out. More content is coming soon.

The Russellville Arts Council has talked to me about setting something up for them, so I’m hoping to get that knocked out this week.

I have proposed that the Logan County Tobacco and Heritage Festival needs an autonomous web presence seperate from the Logan County Chamber of Commerce, but that is taking a back seat until at least the ’08 Festival.

RussellvilleMethodist needs a facelift now that I am more comfortable with Joomla and designing for it, but it is functioning. Training members of the “web team” for this and LCRP is the biggest obstacle to overcome.

I am developing courseyblog.com and fullerblog.com in my spare time. Hopefully I’ll be able to have MORE spare time after I get done with some of these projects.

MyLoganCounty.com and ShopLoganCounty.com have also been relegated to “spare time” projects. I know what MyLoganCounty will be, and I know how to do it, but I don’t want to do it a little at a time – I want to go full board and get it done in one spurt. ShopLoganCounty.com will be a premium extension of MyLoganCounty.

Wish me luck.

• 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.

Normally my wife will leave around 3AM for her continuing education at Morehead State and I will get up and get going.  This morning the baby woke up, the baby wouldn’t go back to sleep, I fell asleep putting the baby to sleep, my new rig would not function, and two trips to the *gulp* computer repair shop did nothing either.

Big shout-out to  Matrix Computerz for at least taking a look at it to reaffrim my suspicions – it was hopeless.  New motherboard was D.O.A.  I’ve boxed it up and it will go out Monday.

Now, back to business.  Let’s identify the keys for success in the remaining time we have today…

RussellvilleMethodist.com(.org)

• create new demo site on their server
• install newest versions of colophone, JoomlaCal, etc.
• update current “Coming Soon” page to include location, address, etc…
• organize link/content structure to new ideal

LoganCountyRepublicans.com

• install AdvancedPoll and WebCalendar
• create new link structure

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’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.

Joomla uses Sections, Catergories, and Content items to organize.  It’s a (now that I think about) simple, outline-esque way of organizing information.  Even static information. Here’s how it works…

1. Food (This is a Section)
1. Meats (This is a Category)
1. Pork (Content)
2. Beef (Content)
3. Lamb
4. Chicken
2. Fruits (Category)
1. Apples (Content)
2. Oranges
3. Pears
4. Tomatoes

So, you can link to the Food Section and it will show you all of the content in Meats and Fruits.  If you link to the Fruits section it will only tell you about Apples, Oranges, Pears, and Tomatoes.

I love it when the light goes on.  Some of the phrasing in Joomla is still ambiguous, but you can figure it out.

Currently, the UMT website can be found at: http://www.leecoursey.net/methodist

This website is operating on the Joomla! CMS backend. This is my first experience with this CMS product and it has been an entirely so-so venture. Thus far I have been able to figure most things out, but a few things still avoid me. Today will be primarily focused on creating a new template for Joomla for the church and updating and inputting actual content.

Currently installed plugins/features:

• Joomblog
• EventsCal
• TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor

Pros and Cons of using Joomla thus far:

Pros: it’s fairly easy to install and set up and it’s also fairly easy to input content once you figure out the lingo.

Cons: learning the lingo, the fact that Joomla seems to be designed primarily as a way to relate articles, clumsy controls about creating content (creating a page on the site and creating a new News article function and happen the exact same way)

Overall it’s a very cool product for the money – free. There also seems to be a very large user group and plenty of developers – many of whom seem to be looking to make a profit too. It’s not an entirely open-source community. Templates seem to be the primary money-maker.