Professional Joomla Templates

If your looking for a professional looking Joomla! template, Simplethemes has some really colorful, fresh, and simple Joomla! designs. Simplethemes offers commercial templates at a very reasonable rate considering what you get: They include the original source PSD/PNG graphics used to create the template, commented CSS code, and phenomenal customization support. This allows anyone just getting into Joomla! to have a really high profile design without breaking the bank.

GPL Joomla Templates Builder

We recommend the Joomla! Template Builder for anyone just getting started with Joomla! This is not only a great tool for getting started with Joomla! and templates, but also serves as an excellent tool for rapid prototyping multiple color schemes for your clients. It even has a module image generator for that extra flare. Perhaps the main advantage of the Joomla! template builder is the generated code from the application is 100% GPL - which means you can use as many templates on as many domains you wish without restriction. This means YOU are the author of your template design! Check out the video and then look at some of the samples created with this great tool. It only costs $25 to join and download, but compared to other Joomla! template alternatives, this is the best deal for everything you get.

JoomlaTraining.com is the largest provider of Joomla training classes in the world.

With over a dozen teachers across the United States, Canada and Britain, we have classes running almost every week. Students get six months of support after each class as well as over $300 in extra bonus templates and support.

We hold Joomla beginner, intermediate, template and Search Engine Optimization classes.

Ongoing Joomla Class Locations These are the cities we hold Joomla training classes every few months: South-West Austin Dallas Houston Phoenix California Los Angeles San Francisco South-East Atlanta Charlotte Miami Nashville Tampa North-East New York Toronto Washington North-West Seattle Vancouver Mid-West Cincinatti Denver Milwaukee

Details About the Joomla Classes How long are the classes? 7 hours. We start at 9 am and finish at 4 pm. We provide lunch for students and regular breaks. What do I need to bring? Nothing. We provide computers, all training materials and also snacks, drinks and lunch. Do I need to know anything about Joomla? Not for the beginner classes. We have had students who had never heard of Joomla before their companies sent them to the training. We will take you through everything you need to learn to get up and running with Joomla. For the more advanced classes such as template, coding, SEO and intermediate, please see the "Pre-requisites" box on each page. How many students are in the classes? 16 is the maximum. We aim to keep our classes as small, intimate and friendly as possible. How many teachers are in the classes? Whenever possible, we have two teachers. One runs the class and the other circulates to help students with individual questions. How much are the classes? $299. Whether it is a beginner class in New York or a template class in Los Angeles, that price is always the same. Do you offer discounts? Yes, we do for people attending multiple classes: Attending two classes? Use the coupon "twoclasses" for a 10% discount Attending three classes? Use the coupon "threeclasses" for a 20% discount Please click here to contact us for other discounts if you intend to register multiple people. Will you cancel on me? We have never canceled on a student. We don't want to say we never will cancel on a student, because sickness, plane crashes, earthquakes etc (touch wood) might intervene one day, but we hope our record speaks for itself. If a student signs up, we will do all that is humanly possible to be there. Can I cancel on you? Yes. This is our refund policy: 100% refund if requested more than 4 weeks before the class 50% refund if requested more than 2 weeks before the class 0% refund in the last 2 weeks before the class What do I get to take away from the classes? Ongoing access to all training materials used in the class. 6 months membership to the Joomla Support Club after the class ($99 value) Free membership to the Alledia.com SEO Club ($99 value) Free copy of the Alledia.com Bolt and Breeze templates ($120 value) A flash drive full of tutorials and best-of-breed Joomla components

Moving Your Joomla Website

So, how do you move your Joomla site from one host to another, or from one location to another... easily?
We've found the best success once again, using the free tool www.akeebabackup.com

There is full documentation on the process here,  as well as video tutorials here.
However, we're going to provide you a 'quick and dirty' below which should work for most people.

1. Download and install on your Joomla site the component AkeebaBackup, be sure to use the correct version: www.akeebabackup.com
2. Using the AkeebaBackup component in the administrator interface of your Joomla site, perform a full backup.
3. Download this backup to you local machine. (Advanced users may choose to use SCP instead to copy this to the new location)
4. Copy this full backup file to the new location of your destination Joomla site. (for many people, this will be into your public_html folder)
5. Download and upload the kickstart.php file from www.akeebabackup.com
6. Point your browser to this file. ie mydomain.com/kickstart.php
7. You will need to have the details of a valid mysql database that you have created for us in this new location. You may need to create it from your hosting control panel. Be sure to also create a database user and grant them permissions on the database. In many cases this database name, as well as database user will be prefixed by your cpanel username. ie cpaneusername_databasename and cpanelusername_databaseusername. For support with this aspect, you will need to talk to your Joomla Hosting provider.
8. AkeebaBackup should do the rest for you, and in these few steps you will have migrated/moved your entire Joomla website.

Following this simple procedure will make the process of moving your Joomla Website simple. All the hard work is done for you.

More details and the 'manual method' is also explained here: docs.joomla.org/Copying_a_Joomla_website

Many people assume that the www is needed at the beginning of all their Joomla website URL's. Read the fact and tips about this below.

Joomla's default media manager is a powerful tool. Find out how to put it to best use on your site using the handy guide below.

Joomla can work seamlessly with Mootools of course. See how you can get started by referring to the guide below.

What is my absolute path?

The Joomla! forums see many posts regarding Installation or Performance issues, Permissions and Security questions. To assist with such questions and to highlight many of the common problems seen the following tools have been developed to help end-users and the Joomla! Working Group Teams quickly and efficiently resolve these issues in the fastest time possible with the least amount of effort.

Joomla! Tools Suite (JTS) and Joomla! Health, Installation, Security Audit (HISA) have been developed with the sole purpose of providing Joomla! end-users with a Self-Help Advice and Information system.

1. Pre-Joomla! Installation Server Environment Audit
   Before you install Joomla! check if your server is likely to support it fully or if your environment may need some modification
2. Post-Joomla! Installation Server Environment Audit
   Following the installation of Joomla! keep your installation functioning and optimal with a variety of maintenance tools
3. Trouble-Shooting and Problem Resolution
   Obtain additional diagnostic and configuration information to aid or speed up the process of problem resolution

Directories and Files
  Green    : Generally sane and acceptable
  Blue       : Elevated pemrissions but could still be acceptable
  Red       : World-Writable, potential of a security exposure ( name also highlighted yellow )

Files Only
  Warning Triangle : Potentially suspect file found ( .pl, .cgi, .zip, .tar, .tar.gz )
  Size and Last Modified Date

Extension Differentiation
  Green    : Joomla! Core extension
   Red       : 3rd Party supplied extension

Unix/Linux permissions can be a confusing thing. I have seen a large number of posts asking about permisisons, so I hope that this
might go some way to assisting folks to understand what they are and how they work.

The basic unix permissions come in three flavors;

Owner Permissions : These are permissions that you have on your own files or directories.
Group Permissions : These are permissions that you and anyone in your group have on the file files or directories.
Other Permissions : These are permissions that other people have on your files or directories if not you, or in your group


So, in Unix, when permissions are configured, the server allows you to define different permissions for each these three different categories of users. In a Web Serving environment these permissions are used to control which website owners can access which directories and files.

What do Unix permissions look like?
When viewing your files through an FTP client or from the servers command line;

filename.php username usergroup rwx r-x r-x

The first entry is the name of the file, the next entry is your username on the server, the second entry is the group that you are a member of and the last entry is the permissions assigned to that this file (or directory).

If you notice, I have intentionally spaced out the permissions section, I have grouped the 9 characters into 3 sets of 3. This separation is key to how the permissions system works.

The first set of 3 permissions (rwx) relate to the username seen above, the second set of 3 permissions (r-x) relate to the usergroup seen above and the final set of 3 permissions (r-x) relate to anyone else who is not associated with the username or groupname.


Owner (User) relates to username
The Owner (User) is normally you, these permissions will be enforced on your hosting account name.

Group relates to usergroup
The Group permissions will be enforced on other people that are in the same group as you, within a hosting environment, there is very rarely other people in the same group as you. This protects your files and directories from being made available to anybody else who may also have a hosting account on the same server as you.

Other relates to everyone else
The Other permissions, these will be enforced on anybody else on the server that is either not you or not in your group. So in a Web Serving environment, remembering that no-one else is normally in your group, then this is everybody else accessing the server except for you.

Each of the three sets of permissions are defined in the following manner;

r = Read permissions
w = Write permissions
x = Execute permissions



Owner Group Other
r w x r w x r w x

As many of you already know, permissions are normally expressed as a numeric value, something like 755 or 644. so, how does this relate to what we have discussed above?

Each character of the permissions are assigned a numeric value, this is assigned in each set of three, so we only need to use three values and reuse them for each set.

Owner Group Other
r w x r w x r w x
4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1

Now that we have a value that represents each permission, we can express them in numeric terms. The values are simply added together in the respective sets of 3, which will in turn give us just three numbers that will tell us what permissions are being set.

So, if we are told that a file has the permissions of 777, this would mean that the following was true.


Owner Group Other
r w x r w x r w x
4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1

Thus...
4+2+1 4+2+1 4+2+1
= 7 = 7 = 7

The Owner of the file would have full Read, Write and Execute permissions, the group would also have full Read, Write and Execute permissions, and the rest of the world can also Read, Write and Execute the file.

This article the work of RussW who has given permission for it's use here.

For those of you that are either developing or delivering your Joomla! Web-Sites from the Windows environment, it is sometimes difficult to obtain relevant information regarding permissions. Unfortunately, it is a fact that most Web-Serving is offered under Unix and that Unix is pretty well documented within this environment. Hopefully the following information will go some way to clearing up any confusion and provide a little guidance.

Windows Web-Servers Overview
Firstly, lets discuss the differences between servers, in general most Windows folks appear to be using either Apache(Win32) or Microsoft IIS, these two servers operate very differently and utilize slightly different models of delivery.

Apache(Win32) generally runs on the host computer as the User that it was installed under, whereas IIS installs under a specific user but will run under a newly installed user " IUSR_ ".

Permission Defaults
By default, Unix tends to only give full access to the "owning" user to files and directories, in opposition to this approach Windows by default will also assign the Group "Everyone", Full permissions. The first thing any good Windows Administrator does is remove the rights of the "Everyone" group, to improve security. For local PC testing, this is probably not necessary, but explains why, if "Everyone" is not removed and you run some form of permissions check script or the Joomla! Pre-Installation check, on the whole you will have Full "Read, Write and Execute" permissions, because you are aquiring the rights of the "Everyone" Group.

Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)
IIS comes in two main flavours, PWS (Personal WebServer), and IIS (Internet Information Server). Essentially these are the same application, PWS is just a cut-down version of IIS designed for desktop environments, whereas IIS is designed for Server environments. PWS limits you to a single main site, so your application installations will generally be in sub-directories of the main site. IIS, on the other hand, provides the functionality for Virtual Hosts to be run from these directories, delivering multi- site capability.

Due to the different functionality limitations, PWS does not have the "Permisisons Wizard" as it is determined to not be needed, only one user will be using the Server, but in IIS many users will be using the Server, thus differing permission assignments are needed.

Once the "Everyone" account is removed, Windows IIS is now left with the " IUSR_* " account having top-level rights to the Web-Server directories, a pemrisisons check now should yield different results. Only the IUSR_* account has full permissions and other users shuld acquire eihter "Read Only" or no rights. Read only rights are determined by which other users have been assigned what rights to the IIS directories manually.

Assigning Permissions
Assigning permissions in Windows is reasonably straight forward, but can be a little confusing at times.
Right-Click on the appropriate folder or file, selecting "Properties" or "Sharing and Security" will enter the Windows Security Management pane. Selecting (cick once) on any user name listed will display the rights that user has (in the bottom half of the pane), some rights might be "greyed" out, these are unavilable, either because the current user (you are logged in as) does not have higher enough pemrissions to alter them, or they are inherited from the directory above and have been set to use that higher level directories pemrissions (this is generally the default mechanism).

As you can see, Windows utilises the following Pemrissions/Rights scheme;

Windows file permissions can be seen as having ^similar properties as UNIX or Linux file (Modes) permissions they are just represented differently.
For example, you are probably used to having permissions represented as 644/666 755/777, instead of being described in the terms above. So, when you are quoted to use 644 this equates to:

   The owner of this file can read and write to it.
   The owner's group can read the file.
   Everyone else can read the file.

^ Windows and Unix permissions (Access Control Lists) do not equate exactly, as Windows does not use "Groups" mechanism in the same manner, but for this discussion and in regards to the Web-Hosting environment they can be summarily equated.

Ah but,  in windows "Groups" are not used and "Everyone" should have been removed.....

So this is where Windows and Unix do not quite equate, but what can be done is to "match" or "correlate" equivalent meanings. So this outline is not really going to provide you with a Windows or an NTFS specific permissions guide but more of an understanding of how the commonly quoted numbered UNIX/Linux style permissions correlate on a machine with an NTFS file system.

 
The files that are placed in the www or public_html root folder, or whatever directory your site (www.domain.com.au or localhost) points to on your hard drive should be owned by your user account, but only if that user is not what i sconsidered as a privileged user like "Administrator" on Windows or "root" on UNIX/Linux. These accounts should not be used for everyday use.

Commonly used security practices suggest that all FILES should have the following permissions.

       Owner  :  Read & Write

       Group   :  Read Only

       Others : Read Only

    all DIRECTORIES/FOLDERS should have the following permissions.

       Owner  : Read, Write & Execute

       Group   : Read & Execute

       Others : Read & Execute

Arguably, this is not necessarily "optimum" security, but a balance must be struck between security, functionality and maintainability.

Windows, unlike Unix, does not maintain a single ACL for "Execute", but simply provides "Read & Execute" combined, which does not imply "Write". The "Read & Execute" ACL does however also implies "List Directory Contents". Therefore, if you have only Read & Write permissions on a directory but no "Execute" you will not be able to see the contents of the directory and may also have problems when attempting you run the file through a Web-Browser.

Unfortunately a little understanding of UNIX/Linux permissions is required to fully equate/corrolate in to Windows permisiosns, the following "cheat-sheet" should assist;

So as a comparison example to Unix Modes, when you are quoted something like 644, you would now need to break that in to three entities;      6  :  4  : 4

The first number represents the "Owners" permissions, the second represents the "Group" permissions and the third, the "Other" permissions.

So the Windows equivalent would be something like;

  Owner (6) : Read & Write

  Group (4) : Read Only

  Others(4) : Read Only

Hopefully, this example provides some insight in to the how to correlate Unix Modes/Permissions in to Windows Permissions/ACL's. this document does not include more complex subjects such as "effective". "Inherited" or "Special" permissions, despite Windows ease of use, Microsofts' Permissions and ACL's mechanisms are actually reasonably complex and very extensive, but this might just give you a quick reference to try and eleviate some of the confusion surrounding Unix and Windows Permissions translations.

Permissions Under phpSuExec