Joomla! and Moodle take flight in Cape Town

A cold, wet and rainy Cape Townian start to winter greeted The Joomla! Southern African Portal Team on our pioneering visit to offer Joomla! End Users and Joomla! Developers courses to a few enthusiastic participants who answered our Joomla! Events Calendar advertisements / Joomla! Journal mailshots, sent to everyone that we had done business with in our brief four year old union with open source software, and in particular the Joomla! Content Management System.

Today saw the first Joomla! End Users Course go off quite smoothly, in a lawyers office in Boston, Bellville, belonging to my father in law, who kindly sponsored the venue.  Working off laptops, networked using an old 10/100Mb hub, and my presentation laptop running on a newly acquired Vodafone Huawei USB HSDPA modem to access the internet, we ploughed right into Joomla! 101 with the aid of the reliable Joomla! Stand Alone Server and the Joomla! User Manual and the Joomla! Visual Tutorials on www.joomla.org.za, we started to explore the notion of open source software and in particular Joomla!

Covering the basic concepts of the Joomla! architecture, such as the separation of content from template and the variations made possible by modular positioning within the template, the way to plan a websites structure and work from the article level back up to the menu structure, choices related to sections, categories, and static content items, the way to find  and select extensions to add features and functionality to the website-in-a-box package that is supplied on installation of Joomla!

Although the one day crash course is rather challenging for a newbie, and even disturbing to a php developer, who has become accustomed to working with a web authoring software application, by the end of the day the participants, who ranged from someone who had never seen Joomla! before, but had some experience with other content management systems, to a website developer, who was quite familiar the whole web design process through managing other professional developers all said that the day had been insightful, productive and useful.

Tomorrow sees the Joomla! Developers Course get underway, so there will be more to report on that post-course.

We enjoyed meeting a number of Cape Town based Joomla! developers & service providers at the Durbanville Mugg & Bean (but not their 5 min limit to complimentary wireless access - just enough time to check my Gmail to confirm our next meeting since my mobile's battery died as we arrived at M&B).

It was Moodle however that got the first slot on our busy schedule, when we met with Pierre de Villiers of AOSIS, who are the official Moodle Partner for South Africa , to discuss Moodle Training in South Africa to their growing client base who make up growing Moodle Southern African Community .

Evidence of the uptake of Moodle was confirmed later the very same day when I received an independent email from Markus Mostert, the Moodle Administrator at Rhodes University, which was copied to Robert M. Alfonsi (also at RU) and Anton Pienaar, the Moodle Administrator at UOFS who have recently deployed Moodle as their chosen LMS. Seems there is an interest to establish a Moodle User Group for Southern Africa too.  More on that in another email though.

Back to Joomla and other open source matters, first up was Mathew Philogene of Raramuri Design, a skilled coder who shared his thoughts on proper Joomla! template design , graphic recreation from print medium to web medium and some positive discussion about a Joomla! Day for Cape Town soon.  Anyone interested? We could use a venue / refreshments / wireless of course / participants etc..

Next was Nico Ungerer of In2One who like most of us, decided to switch all their web design to Joomla!, once they crossed paths with the humble, award winning CMS. Nico brings an impressive portfolio of systems development and integration, data warehousing, connectivity design, process development and are the MTN Partner for telecommunications. We look forward to all that Nico promises to bring to the community, including the recent registration of Joomza, which promises to be a Joomla! powered site in the very near future.

Lastly we were able to meet with Jeane at Hetzner, our trusty and reliable ISP (leading hosting company in SA at time of press), with whom we discussed some ideas that we would like to see included in the KonsoleH account control panel, such as a Joomla! Installer, a Moodle Installer and other reseller / managed server client resources that would ensure that they continue to provide the lead in website and email hosting in the country and beyond. 

Some exciting potential ideas were discussed here and we trust that Hetzner will see the value in developing their service portfolio so that their Joomla! and Moodle Southern African user clients will be able to do everything related to installing, backing up, copying, upgrading, restoring and optimising their CMS websites for speed, security and search engine friendliness, which is not entirely possible with the existing KonsoleH control panel.

A very promising idea that was put on the table by the Joomla! SA Portal was that Hetzner direct all Joomla! related queries to the Joomla! Southern African User Group's mailing list, which was recently deployed. This would have the effect of diverting the growing demand for support on Joomla! powered sites away from Hetzner and to the community. 

Coupled with this was the idea to de-brand the Hetzner Support Site, so that it could be added to the User Menu as a wrapper on any Joomla! powered websites , making for another quick reference resource that end-users, administrators and developers could refer to that would offer country and network and ISP specific knowledge and support, with the added option of adding / requesting advice and articles on a particular problem.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints we could not connect with Stephen of Com-du-IT who were no less than a 2006 Top Technology 100 emerging qualifier. If only Newlands and Durbanville were not so far apart and other meetings so tightly scheduled!  Hang, if only we lived here in CT! 

Now that brings me to another point; The Cape Linux User Group (CLUG) has really been a great support, in allowing us to send our Joomla! announcements on their mailing lists, which may seem OT for the users whose operating systems are purely command-line driven, however thanks to CLUG, following our email on Thursday afternoon, we managed to hold the two key meetings mentioned above and connect with Stephen, whom we hope to see on our next trip to Cape Town, for some more Joomla! Training and hopefully a Cape Town Joomla! Day, around 23 June 2007.


Well, that is a real mouthful for one days writing, so cheers and goodbye until next time.

all-4-Joomla!
Joomla!-4-all

Calling all Southern African Joomlarians!

Hopefully by now you are familiar with the Joomla! Content Management System [www.joomla.org]. If so you may be interested to know that Joomla! Training is now available here in Southern Africa. We are now offering courses in various location in Southern Africa to support the increasing volume of enquiries that are coming through the Joomla! Portal every day - asking for Joomla! template customisations, entire website developments, domain registration and hosting, specialised programming and of course training amongst others.

The four locations that are catering for training at the moment are;

•     Richards Bay, South Africa
  
•     Durban, South Africa
  
•     Johannesburg, South Africa
  
•     Cape Town, South Africa
  

So please drop us an email [support@joomla.org.za] should you be interested in the Training packages that we have created.

You can check out the Joomla! Training Courses on offer at the Joomla! Southern African Community Portal that we have created to foster communication, relationships and share the work being requested at www.jooml.org.za. 

Feel free to join the growing South African Joomla! Community at http://www.joomla.org.za and upload your website portfolio, customise your profile, join our Joomla! Powered Directory to become eligible for the Joomla! Referrals service and get connected to other Joomla!-minded folks here in Southern Africa.

"What about the Free stuff?", I hear you asking.  Well, everything in this site is free, and we hope to update the materials regularly from now on with an element of Joomla! that we are busy dealing with ourselves, such as creating dynamic forms for online entries, or upgrading to the latest version of Joomla!, or securing your site against hackers (yes, we have been nailed in our developmental years too!)

Feel free to contact us, discuss something in the forums, or suggest a topic that you would like covered in the Joomla! Training .

Oh, yes - we are looking for venues where we can offer the training sessions, and are willing to exchange training for venues in some form or another.

Watch this space for further developments in the exciting emergence of Joomla! in South Africa.

There is now also a Joomla! Southern African User Group available at [ http://groups.google.com/group/joomlasouthernafrican] where we hope to share ideas, exchange software and collaborate on areas of common interest.

Finally, we plan to develop a Learn Joomla! courseware site that is similar to The Shuttleworth Foundations generous offering of Learn Linux, which I am sure you are all familiar with.  Please contact us should you want to participate in this exciting development.  We would like trainers, designers, tutors, technicians and others who have an interest in seeing the educational aspects of Joomla CMS promoted widely as a free resource for all Joomla users, administrators and developers to use for their own benefit, for clients beneifts and more.

all-4-Joomla
Joomla-4-all

--
Regards

Sean Grant
Web : www.joomla.org.za
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel:   +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax:  +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email :  +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell:  +27 (0)82-5777-340

Google Alert - joomla - Joomla.org.za features in Google News Alerts

Hi Everyone

Glad to have you on board for what promises to be a really exciting adventure as Joomla! takes off in ernest in Southern Africa.

Check out our first recorded Google News Alert for Joomla.org.za (highlighted below) - very exciting indeed.

The Joomla Southern African User Group also seems to have gotten off to a healthy start with 11 Joomlarians who have accepted the first batch of email invitations, and are now members.  Please feel free to invite others - SA Joomlarians are popping out of the net, faster than we can reply to their emails, and this should continue to rise.

Exciting developments too on the "Learn Joomla!" front - I sent a proposal to the Shuttleworth foundation suggesting that we create some official Courseware materials (see http://learnlinux.tsf.org.za/moodle/ by way of an example).  This was copied to some of the Joomla Core Team members, which will hopefully ring some bells,  ( I will post more on this topic in a separate email so that you get the gist of what the proposal is about, instead of copying and pasting the email, or retyping everything.

Joomla 101 starts at the University of Zululand tomorrow with a class of about 40 students who don't know it yet, but are about to undergo a Joomla Users course, which we are putting together, using some VERY PROFESSIONAL Joomla Visual Tutorials, thanks to Brad Baker, which should see them developing the skills to use a Joomla site and all that goes with that - Forums, RSS, Extensions, SourceForge, Groups etc - I am sure it will blow their minds, considering most of them have not published anything online ever before!


Regards, Sean

all-4-Joomla!
Joomla!-4-all

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Google Alerts < googlealerts-noreply@google.com>
Date: 22-Apr-2007 04:21
Subject: Google Alert - joomla
To: slingshotsean@gmail.com

Google News Alert for: joomla

Joomla! Day Announced
php architect - Canada
This form allows you to type in a new comment. Keep in mind the following:. The system accepts input in plain text format. Newlines will be converted to the ...
See all stories on this topic

Google Blogs Alert for: joomla

Joomla!Day USA West Registration Opens
By Ryan Ozimek
Joomla!Day USA West Logo We've finally been able to get our registration system up and running for Joomla!Day USA West today, and while there's still some glitches (we're on it!) you can successfully register for the event now. ...
PICnet Blog - http://www.picnet.net/blog

The Season records musical tribute to Tech
Forever Changed was written by two Virginia Tech graduates, one of them a Roanoke Valley native who graduated from Glenvar High School.Click Play To Listen/audio/ForeverChanged.mp3Recorded by The Season ...
Joomla! powered Site - http://www.newrivervalleynews.com

redred on "Migrating from Joomla to Wordpress"
By redred
I moved 100s of articles out of joomla using it with no problems at all. The beauty is that once you get the content out of Joomla and into a better system like Wordpress you can move it anywhere you like (almost). ...
WordPress › Support: Last 35 Posts - http://wordpress.org/support/

Joomla Southern Africa
By Charl van Niekerk(Charl van Niekerk)
A Southern African Joomla community is finally getting off the ground. I actually knew about this for about a week now but there's just too much to blog about. This morning I received an invitation to join the Google Group so I thought ...
Charl van Niekerk » Blog - http://blog.charlvn.za.net/index.html

Convert Site to Joomla
Would like this site converted to Joomla http://www.graffitientertainment.com Flash banner at top will disappear and can just be our logo. Would like to remove Crazy Frog Racer theme. Crazy ... Budget: ( US$350 ) Bid End: 28/Apr/2007 ...
JoomLancers.com - http://www.joomlancers.com

---

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Remove this alert.
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--
Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel:   +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax:  +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email :  +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell:  +27 (0)82-5777-340

Joomla South African Portal - Clarification about Joomlaza

Hi Mr Dugdale

Thank you for your enquiry about the functions of www.Joomla.org.za.

As you know, we are all Joomla enthusiasts, and would like to share ideas, support one another, refer excess work and well, just enjoy our community of Joomla Users here in Southern Africa.

So here is your invitation to join the Joomla Southern African Group, until we have something more official in the Joomla Forums (which we have requested). This is an open list and will only be moderated to preserve the continuity of the group. So click right in and lets Joomla!

We are not really interested in competing to be THE official Joomla Portal for SA, merely hoping to network and collaborate with others in a Joomla Enthusisats Group .

Professionally, my interest is in Joomla Training, so that is where I will be expending myself.

I trust that clarifies matters. I am a registered member of Joomlaza as far as I remember, however have not received any new updates nor contact from them.

Their Forum seems to be doing all right with 240 members, although the frequency of posts is quite low. Anyway, I have subscribed to their newsletter and hope to receive something soon.

I also plan to contact them in connection with Joomla Training in CT later this week.

I trust that helps clarify our position on Joomlaza.

Regards, Sean

all-4-Joomla
Joomla-4-all

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Damian Dugdale
Date: Apr 22, 2007 8:37 PM
Subject: Re: World Cup 2010 South Africa: Joomla South African Portal
To: Melanie Grant

joomlaza have been up and running for several months.
what fuctions do you hope to fulfill that joomlaza are not?

i am asking, not only as a user of joomla, but someone that also runs a
few 'joomla' based websites

i would appreciate your feedback

Fwd: 9th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications: Abstract submission

Jumping Jiving Joomla!

The Joomla CMS training workshop that was submitted has been accepted for presentation at the WWW Applications conference later this year - a definite victory for Joomla in Southern Africa.  Delegates will be from numerous other institutions, corporates and the business sector.

An added bonus, is that the Joomla Southern African Portal will have an exhibition stand at the event to advocate and publicise the world's best CMS (as voted at Linux World 2005 and 2006).

Joomla for all
all for Joomla

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za < vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za>
Date: 07-Apr-2007 00:32
Subject: 9th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications: Abstract submission
To: sgrant@pan.uzulu.ac.za

Dear Mr SG Grant

Your abstract for a Workshop presentation for the 9th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications has been uploaded to the conference database as follows:

ABSTRACT: JOOMLA CMS TRAINING WORKSHOP

Mr SG Grant
Communication Science
University of Zululand
KwaDlangezwa
South Africa
sgrant@pan.uzulu.ac.za

Keywords:
Joomla content management system, Departmental websites, Wysiwyg editors, Open source software, Web portals

This workshop is designed for anyone with basic computer skills who want to get a dynamic web site up and running fast. At the end of the workshop you will have your own Joomla! web site on your memory stick, and be able to add news, events, links, users, content pages, media and understand how to make the most of your Joomla! powered website.

(minimum of 3, maximum 10 per workshop, time required 4 hours)

The workshop will cover the following topics;

    * Introduction to Open Source Software
    * Overview of the Joomla CMS!
    * Quick tour of some Joomla! powered websites
    * Intro to Joomla! site structure & control panel
    * How To: Edit content using various WYSIWYG editor
    * How To: Load media and insert it into content
    * How To: Add content & components to menus incl. copy, move & order
    * How To: Select & install extensions (modules, components & mambots)
    * Q & A Session - come prepared to ask all your questions about Joomla Development and Management


Participants: You may suggest a topic prior to the workshop that you would like me to cover in more detail during the workshop.

What is Joomla! ?

If you''ve read anything at all about Content Management Systems (CMS), you''ll probably know at least three things: CMS are the most exciting way to do business, CMS can be really, I mean really, complicated and lastly Portals are absolutely, outrageously, often unaffordably expensive.

Joomla! is set to change all that ...

Joomla! is different from the normal models for portal software. For a start, it''s not complicated. Joomla! has been developed for the masses. It''s licensed under the GNU/GPL license, easy to install and administer and reliable.

Joomla! doesn''t even require the user or administrator of the system to know HTML to operate it once it''s up and running.

Overview of www.Joomla.org.za , the Joomla! Southern African portal of information, resources and services

Joomla! features:

    * Completely database driven site engines
    * News, products or services sections fully editable and manageable
    * Topics sections can be added to by contributing authors
    * Fully customisable layouts including left, center and right menu boxes
    * Browser upload of images to your own library for use anywhere in the site
    * Dynamic Forum/Poll/Voting booth for on-the-spot results
    * Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX server, Solaris and AIX



What is Joomla South Africa?

The Joomla South African Community portal has been created by one of South Africa''s biggest Joomla fans (that would be me, Slingshot Sean).  I have been using Joomla sites for a number of years now, and am actively engaged in teaching and training clients and students, hosting and developing their Joomla sites.   I  hope to promote the use of Joomla to South Africans, who are relatively ignorant of many open source solutions that can be employed with ease and managed with convenience.

Joomla.org.za is geared to support and connect users, designers, developers, hosts and other interested folk, in a neutral meeting space, which keeps users abreast of Joomla developments and happenings from a South African perspective.

Sincerely

PROF PIETER VAN BRAKEL

----------------------------------------
9th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications
Tel:  +27 (0) 11 489 2189
Fax:  +27 (0) 11 489 2822
E-mail:   vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za
URL:    www.uj.ac.za/infoman
----------------------------------------


--
Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel:   +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax:  +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email :  +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell:  +27 (0)82-5777-340

Re: Joomla South Africa - Community of Joomla Website Developers: joomla afrikaans translation

Hi again Andre

I see that www.4him.co.za is an Afrikaans site. You may be pleased to
know that there is an Afrikaans Joomla language translation, which
converts the sites core files into Afrikaans.

You would need to load all your content in Afrikaans (and english for
a bi-lingual site).

There are some nifty translation extensions available in the Joomla
Extensions site at http://extensions.joomla.org.za.

We have used one
on our multi-national church's website, Thandaza Covenant Church
[www.thandaza.org.za] that translates the English content into
Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese, German, Dutch etc.

Unfortunately this complete translation in not available for Afrikaans
(at least not in the free version).

Hope that helps.

Sean

On 17/04/07, andre van zyl <andre@4him.co.za> wrote:
> This is an enquiry e-mail via http://joomla.org.za from:
> andre van zyl <andre@4him.co.za>
>
> sean
>
> i registered a new website at hertzner as www.nightmix.co.za. how do i start
> with joomla and the publish it on my website ?
>
> thanx
>
> andre
>
>

--
Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel: +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax: +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email : +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell: +27 (0)82-5777-340

Re: Joomla South Africa - Community of Joomla Website Developers: joomla installation query

Hi Andre

You have made a wise decision in choosing Joomla as your website
content management system. Welcome to the Joomla southern african
community!

Unfortunately Hetzner do not yet offer a Joomla Installer on their
system - we have requested it before, but it is probably still on the
konsoleH feature request wish list.

However we have a nice tutorial on our Joomla Training web area,
called Joomla Tutorials, which explains how to install joomla onto a
remote server. Suggest that you pop in there and take a look...

Alternatively, we could do the installation for you, for say R300 (to
cover a technicians time). To install joomla on your domain, we would
require access to your Hetzner account, so that we could create a
database and ftp the Joomla files onto your domain.

Let me know if you need further assistance.

Regards, Sean

PS: Perhaps it is time to ask Hetzner again to setup that Joomla
installer in konsoleH, even if we need to pay them to do it ourselves.

On 17/04/07, andre van zyl <andre@4him.co.za> wrote:
> This is an enquiry e-mail via http://joomla.org.za from:
> andre van zyl <andre@4him.co.za>
>
> sean
>
> i registered a new website at hertzner as www.nightmix.co.za. how do i start
> with joomla and the publish it on my website ?
>
> thanx
>
> andre
>
>

--
Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel: +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax: +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email : +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell: +27 (0)82-5777-340

SEO Tips from www.joomla.org.za

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sean Grant <mel@sling-shot.co.za>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:36:47 +0200
Subject: SEO Tips
To: slingshotsean@gmail.com

Search Engine Optimization Tips brought to you by Joomla.org.za (
http://joomla.org.za/ )

So
your website is online. You've spent a fair amount of money and time to
get it going and yet when you look for your site its not there or is so
far back (like page 10) on search engine listings (like Google, MSN,
and Yahoo) that you wonder how anyone will ever find your site.

Unfortunately many website owners are far more focused on how
their website looks - moving images, special effects and the aesthetic
appeal of the site. The bad news is that though the visual appeal of a
site is important, its not going to give you that first page ranking.
It may keep your visitors riveted but unless you have the content and
structures in place, your site will not be found to be appreciated.

There are endless resources on the Internet today, which will assist
you in optimizing your site (
http://joomla.org.za/content/view/118/105/ )
(in other words structuring, reworking, adding content, adding links -
all for the sake of a better rank on search engines). What I will do
through these newsletters, is give you some real handles on how to grow
your site and increase its visibility on the web. It will take time and
if you are lucky and have a content management system like Joomla (
http://joomla.org.za/ )
, it can be done quite easily without any extra cost. However, even if
you don't have a Joomla website, you can still do extensive development
to grow your site without any website designing knowledge and still
improve its positioning.

In the property circles you hear the
words "Location. Location! Location!!!" Well in the arena of websites
the key message should be "Content. Content! Content!!"

Content should be useful to the person visiting your site (with this
comes the consideration of why people have arrived at your site and
what they are looking for). It cannot just be a description of your
services or facilities. For example: if you have a guest house in
Knysna - include information (not just links) about activities in the
area, add a map of your town, a portfolio of any tourist attractions in
the area , even a calendar of events. All of this will enhance your
site and add content that adds value to your website. The more relevant
your information the more likely your visitor will make a reservation,
buy a product or refer someone to your site. (We will discuss how to
find and create these add-ons at a later stage).

With many
years of experience in the field, I know that the first step may feel
like a daunting one, but if you want your website to work for you and
for your site to grow your business, it will take time and effort but
the reward is increased income and a marketing edge.

If you have any questions and need some website specific assistance,
email mel@joomla.org.za (
mailto:mel@joomla.org.za?subject=SEO%20Advice ) . Or alternatively
you can contact me on 084 704 9614 /
035 - 772 4555 . We also offer Search Engine Optimisation Workshops (
http://joomla.org.za/content/view/119/106/ ) individually or in
groups to assist website owners and developers (
http://joomla.org.za/content/view/115/96/ ) . Our next course is in
Richards Bay on the 21st April. Should you wish to attend, please
contact me to book your seat.

Subscriptions

Change your subscription (
http://sling-shot.co.za/index.php?option=com_acajoom&act=change&subscriber=3&cle=631e42c76846a8d9c12325cfc7d8c59c&listid=2
)
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Sling-Shot Content Management Systems. ( http://www.sling-shot.co.za/
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--
Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel: +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax: +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email : +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell: +27 (0)82-5777-340

Fwd: Re: : Abstract submission - follow up on late submission : Grant, Sean

Tentatively positive response to abstract submitted to conduct a
Joomla workshop at the WWW Applications 2007 conference in South
Africa

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sean Grant <sgrant@pan.uzulu.ac.za>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:22:45 +0200
Subject: Re: : Abstract submission - follow up on late submission : Grant, Sean
To: "vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za" <vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za>

Dear Prof. VAN BRAKEL

Thank you for considering my four late submissions ( 2x paper, 2 x
workshop), as per our telecon today.

Please advise whether you require anything further from me.

Regards, Sean

Chris Hensley rf : 082-966-0789

On 07/04/07, vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za <vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za> wrote:
>
> Dear Mr SG Grant
>
> Your abstract for a Workshop presentation for the 9th Annual Conference on
> World Wide Web Applications has been uploaded to the conference database as
> follows:
>
> ABSTRACT: JOOMLA CMS TRAINING WORKSHOP
>
> Mr SG Grant
> Communication Science
> University of Zululand
> KwaDlangezwa
> South Africa
> sgrant@pan.uzulu.ac.za
>
> Keywords:
> Joomla content management system, Departmental websites, Wysiwyg editors,
> Open source software, Web portals
>
> This workshop is designed for anyone with basic computer skills who want
> to get a dynamic web site up and running fast. At the end of the workshop
> you will have your own Joomla! web site on your memory stick, and be able to
> add news, events, links, users, content pages, media and understand how to
> make the most of your Joomla! powered website.
>
> (minimum of 3, maximum 10 per workshop, time required 4 hours)
>
> The workshop will cover the following topics;
>
> * Introduction to Open Source Software
> * Overview of the Joomla CMS!
> * Quick tour of some Joomla! powered websites
> * Intro to Joomla! site structure & control panel
> * How To: Edit content using various WYSIWYG editor
> * How To: Load media and insert it into content
> * How To: Add content & components to menus incl. copy, move & order
> * How To: Select & install extensions (modules, components & mambots)
> * Q & A Session - come prepared to ask all your questions about Joomla
> Development and Management
>
>
> Participants: You may suggest a topic prior to the workshop that you would
> like me to cover in more detail during the workshop.
>
> What is Joomla! ?
>
> If you''ve read anything at all about Content Management Systems (CMS),
> you''ll probably know at least three things: CMS are the most exciting way
> to do business, CMS can be really, I mean really, complicated and lastly
> Portals are absolutely, outrageously, often unaffordably expensive.
>
> Joomla! is set to change all that ...
>
> Joomla! is different from the normal models for portal software. For a
> start, it''s not complicated. Joomla! has been developed for the masses.
> It''s licensed under the GNU/GPL license, easy to install and administer and
> reliable.
>
> Joomla! doesn''t even require the user or administrator of the system to
> know HTML to operate it once it''s up and running.
>
> Overview of www.Joomla.org.za, the Joomla! Southern African portal of
> information, resources and services
>
> Joomla! features:
>
> * Completely database driven site engines
> * News, products or services sections fully editable and manageable
> * Topics sections can be added to by contributing authors
> * Fully customisable layouts including left, center and right menu
> boxes
> * Browser upload of images to your own library for use anywhere in the
> site
> * Dynamic Forum/Poll/Voting booth for on-the-spot results
> * Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX server, Solaris and AIX
>
>
>
> What is Joomla South Africa?
>
> The Joomla South African Community portal has been created by one of South
> Africa''s biggest Joomla fans (that would be me, Slingshot Sean). I have
> been using Joomla sites for a number of years now, and am actively engaged
> in teaching and training clients and students, hosting and developing their
> Joomla sites. I hope to promote the use of Joomla to South Africans, who
> are relatively ignorant of many open source solutions that can be employed
> with ease and managed with convenience.
>
> Joomla.org.za is geared to support and connect users, designers,
> developers, hosts and other interested folk, in a neutral meeting space,
> which keeps users abreast of Joomla developments and happenings from a South
> African perspective.
>
> Sincerely
>
> PROF PIETER VAN BRAKEL
>
> ----------------------------------------
> 9th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications
> Tel: +27 (0) 11 489 2189
> Fax: +27 (0) 11 489 2822
> E-mail: vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za
> URL:

www.uj.ac.za/infoman
> ----------------------------------------
>

--
Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel: +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax: +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email : +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell: +27 (0)82-5777-340

--
Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel: +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax: +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email : +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell: +27 (0)82-5777-340

Joomla : Cutting Edge Content Management for websites

from article submitted for publication to Zululand Observer on 17th April 2007

Joomla!

What was that?

The name is somewhat of an unknown entity to those not in the know. Some may have known it's predecessor, Mambo - sounds like a dance or a jive. So what is Joomla?

Flexible Simple Elegant Customizable Powerful

Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.

In fact, Joomla! is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) that will help you build websites and other powerful online applications. Best of all, Joomla! is an open source solution that is freely available to everybody. In other words, anyone wanting to build a website can build one by downloading the software and customizing the system to suite their needs, with absolutely no website design experience needed. This system allows anyone with only a basic understanding of computers to generate a website which can typically costs website owners anything from R2500 to R100 000. And all of this for free!

Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate website applications. Here are just some of the ways people are using Joomla;

• Corporate websites

• Online shopping /commerce

• Small business websites

• Non-profit organization websites

• Government applications

• Intranets and extranets for Corporates

• School and church websites

• Personal or family homepages

• Community-based portals

Joomla! can be used to easily manage every aspect of your website, from adding content and images to updating a product catalog or taking online reservations.

The basic Joomla! package is designed to be easy to install, even for non-programmers. Most people have no trouble getting the software up and running, and there is plenty of support available for newbies on a very healthy forum, numbering tens of thousands of users. Once Joomla! is installed and running, it is simple for even non-technical users to add or edit content, update images, and to manage the critical data that makes your company or organization go. Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla! site.

An average of 172 new users sign-up every day world wide on the official Joomla website. On top of all that Joomla! won the Best Linux / Open Source Project at UK Linux and Open Source Awards 2006, in London last year for the second year running.  You will also find an amazing array of websites powered by Joomla including the likes of East Coast Radio, Yeigo, Felixton College and the Richards Hotel.

However, the most astounding fact of all is that the Joomla South African Portal, is managed, owned and continuously developed by our very own local yocals in little Empangeni; Slingshot Content Management Systems.

Not only have they made their mark on the Internet - the Joomla.org.za website is currently in first, second and sixth places on Google.co.za out of a possible  231,000 for joomla and even more impressively, ranks 17th out of a possible 44,700,000 for joomla internationally - and this position is improving on a daily basis.  this is due to the Search Engine Friendliness of the Joomla powered websites, although the same principles may be applied to non-Joomla sites that want to command the rankings, and by implication the business that flows from such dominance in the competitive online market.

Another exciting recent development was an invitation to present conference papers and a Joomla workshop at the 9^th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications, hosted by the University of Johannesburg in September. 

Sean Grant, the founder of the Joomla Southern African Portal, who is based at the University of Zulualnd in the Department of Communication Science, will present research papers on the Use of ICT in Education, particularly Joomla and Moodle, and will be offering a Joomla workshop to conference delegates. 

Sean hopes to have a Joomla Users and Managers course accredited by the end of the year, which could be offered at schools, colleges and universities as an official learning programme.  This work is due to be published in scholarly journals once documented and presented.

The team at Joomla South Africa are clearly breaking new ground in their pioneering efforts to catalyse the use of the Joomla Content management System nationally, by offering training courses in Richards Bay, Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg and ongoing support of ordinary people who are making use of the free Joomla software.

The team consists of Terri on email marketing and website development, Elinor on marketing and website development, Melanie on training and website development and Sean on training and website development.

If you want to build your own website, give yourself some real skills that you can use to make you more employable, or add value to your current occupation – go to Joomla.org.za. There you will find online tutorials on "how to". There is also online support as well as telephonic support if you need a bit of assistance.

Slingshot are currently offering a Search Engine Marketing course in Richards Bay this Saturday for anyone who is interested in increasing the visibility and effectiveness of their website - ideal for Public Relations practitioners, Marketing Managers, Establishment Owners and other SMME's - basically anyone whose business can benefit from more enquiries, leads and sales, most of which can be done online.

Contact Slingshot on 035-772-4555 or training@Joomla.org.za

Re: Joomla South Africa - Brilliant Web - Joomla Affiliation

Hi Brendan

Thanks for making contact with us.  There is obviously lots that we can do together, especially with you offering training at tertiary education.

I am based at the University of Zululand, in the Department of Communication Science, where my duties are technical support for lecturers, which typically translates into practical components of the course, where we use Joomla, Blogger, Moodle, Google applications etc.

The Joomla South African Team work from our office in Empangeni, which is made up of Ben on Technical & Network Support, Terri on Email Marketing & Content Management, Elinor on Reception & Content Development and Mel who manages the team and directs all Marketing & Communication.

There are a few blogs that I am posting updates to so that others can follow the progress of the Joomla Southern African Portal.  How do we setup a country forum in the official forums?

The next two terms I am hoping to finish my course development efforts on Joomla 101 and Joomla 102, which I hope to have accredited by the ETSETA and/or ITSETA.  I am responsible for Web Computing I (ACWCA22) and Web Computing II (ACWCB23) within which I plan to offer these courses.

We plan to be in Durban on 29 May 2007, myself for Joomla Developers Course and Mel for the SEO course (course details are included below).

We will definately include your Joomla powered sites and others like East Coast Radio and Yeigo in the Joomla Powered area of our site - you can even publish into that area yourself when sites go live, as a featured listing perhaps.

Please do Register on the site so that you can benefit from the Community Builder system that we have incorporated into the site, which will allow you to submit articles, links, documents, news etc.

More on these and other ideas later.

Thanks, Sean

PS: Hope you do not mind all the links, but I intend to use this content for my blogs - do you mind if I do that?

Search Engine Optimisation - full day course

Full Day Course in Search Engine Optimization

This course is relevant for website owners, designers, business owners and company marketers.

Course details:

8 - 4pm

Included are :

• refreshments on arrival and a midmorning tea/coffee break with snacks

• lunch

• mid-afternoon tea/coffee/juice break

• Notes for the course

• Email to book your group training workshop now.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

  Call me should you want to find out more (035) 772 4555

  International requests are welcome as travel costs are minimal if the group is a sufficient size.
  

Course Content:

Introduction:

• What are search engines?

• How does Google Work?

• Why is it so important to succeed online?

• Competitor Analysis

• Target Audience Analysis

  Techniques of raising your Page Rank & Popularity

• internal links

• external links

• quality content and copy writing

• submitting your sites to search engines

• blogs

• site maps

• meta tags

• meta descriptions

• keyword research

• email newsletters

• images and alt tags

• Misspellings

Joomla/ Content Management Websites

• Brief overview of content management systems

• How they can save you money and keep your site "alive"

• Details of the next Joomla training time

Options:

Large Group (up to 16 participants)

Cost: R1000

Small Group ( up to 5 participants)

Course content will be applied to participants personal websites and giving general advice on how to apply the search engine optimization techniques.

Cost: R1300

Individual

Course content will be applied to individual's personal website and giving specific advice on how to apply the search engine optimization techniques page by page as time allows.

Cost: R2400 (our venue) + travel costs (your venue)

Email to book your group training workshop now.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Call me should you want to find out more (035) 772 4555

International requests are welcome as travel costs are minimal if the group is a sufficient size.

On 12/04/07, Brendon Hatcher < brendon@brilliantweb.co.za> wrote:

Web sites with purpose!

42 Kenilworth Road Berea Durban, 4001 T: 031 208 0049 F: 031 208 0049 C: 082 434 5343 brendon@brilliantweb.co.za www.brilliantweb.co.za

Hi Sean

 

I am so glad someone has made a site for SA Joomla users.  I was hoping to get round to it, but never had the time.

 

I am keen to support you in any way I can.  Please let me know.

 

A bit of background...

 

I have been using Joomla since it was Mambo!

I run a web strategy and development company in Durban (a small company, just 4 of us)

I am a moderator on the Joomla forums

I do computer training for a commercial tertiary institution

 

If you need assistance with your courses in Durban I would be happy to lend a hand.

 

I'd also like to see your outline for your SEO course, I may be interested in attending.

 

Regards

Brendon

has notified the sender that this message has been received.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.26/748 - Release Date: 2007/04/05 03:33 PM

--
Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel:   +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax:  +27 (0)35-772-4555 / Fax-to-email :  +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell:  +27 (0)82-5777-340

Joomla South Africa partners with JoomlaTutorials to offer Joomla Training Courses

This week saw the marriage of Joomla Training and Joomla Tutorials.

After an unexpected immediate response from Brad Baker to my email sent late on Monday night South African time, moments after sending it, a reply popped into my inbox, offering to discuss our request to incorporate Joomla Visual Tutorials into our Joomla Portal for Southern Africa.

Having used the fantastic tutorials in both a classroom and individual training basis, and from my extensive investigations on the www, I could not have hoped for nor imagined a better answer to our prayers, when Brad agreed to let us use his hard work and dedication within our Joomla Courses website. This was all negotiated via Skype telecon., and link supplied to enable us to wrap his content into our site, appearing as if it were our own (don't do this without permission at home folks - piracy is a despicable and prosecutable offense!).

Within 30 minutes of hitting the send button on my email request, the Joomla Visual Tutorials were neatly wrapped into our newly created Joomla Training area on our website, for all to access and use, and all of this free of charge.

The South African based Joomla Trainers plan to use the tutorials as the framework for their freshly scheduled Joomla Training Course in Durban, South Africa which takes place this Saturday 21 April 2007, followed by a Search Engine Optimisation Course in Richards Bay, South Africa. Then the Joomla South African Team are off to the Mother city, for Joomla Training Cape Town, both as a Joomla-in-your-office one on one session, and a Joomla-for-small-groups training course. Then up to the golden rand for Joomla Training in Midrand, Johannesburg, still in South Africa and finally returning home to Joomla Training in Richards Bay for a web managers course.

Once participants have been through the one day course, they will hopefully be accustomed to the Joomla Online training materials, and will be able to see when the next course is planned. Slingshot Content Management Systems, the company offering these Joomla courses, has been using, managing and developing Joomla! powered websites since the very first Joomla 1.0 emerged after the split from Mambo, which they had been using until then, some four years ago.

The Joomla Southern African Portal is the place where all of this exciting Joomla developments are originating from, and the portal is already offering an interesting Joomla Referrals scheme, which directs enquiries for Joomla related work to the registered Joomla Designers, Joomla Hosts, Joomla Trainers, Joomla Developers and Joomla Supporters, whilst connecting ordinary Joomla Users, Managers and Administrators. The site is using the Community Builder component, of course, which allows each Joomla Registered User to create their own portfolio's on the site, advertise products and services and more.

There is lots more in the pipeline, such as SETA accreditation of the Joomla Courses, South African language translations and the development of a Joomla Southern African Community with Forum, Directory and national, regional and city Joomla Days, however Joomla.org.za are not letting all their code out onto the forges just yet - you will have to register on the growing Joomla SA Community site yourself, and / or subscribe to one of their Joomla blogs; Joomla Southern African Blog or the Joomla Journal, all of which have RSS syndication links for your News Readers.

Come and join fellow Joomlarians for a fast paced Joomla Course coming to the major centres in South Africa in April and May 2007 - visit the Joomla Training Southern African Calendar for more info.

So by now you should at least know two things - they are South Africans and they love to Joomla!

Joomla-for-all
all-for-Jooma

Joomla Training South Africa

Watch this space for the forthcoming announcement of the next Joomla Training Course which we are planning to run in Durban mid April 2007.

We are busy finalising venue and date details before posting the event right here on Joomla Journal, where we plan to post news, events and advice on using, managing, administering and developing Joomla Powered websites.

Check out for the Joomla Southern African blog, which is also set to enhance communication amongst South African Joomlarians.

You can also subscribe to this blog : look out for the "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)" link at the bottom of the page.

About Joomla.org.za

The Joomla South African Community portal has been created by one of South Africa's biggest Joomla fans (that would be me, Slingshot Sean). I have been using Joomla sites for a number of years now, and am actively engaged in teaching and training clients and students, hosting and developing their Joomla sites. I hope to promote the use of Joomla to South Africans, who are relatively ignorant of many open source solutions that can be employed with ease and managed with convenience.

Joomla.co.za is geared to support and connect users, designers, developers, hosts and other interested folk, in a neutral meeting space, which keeps users abreast of Joomla developments and happenings from a South African perspective.

In time we hope to arrange workshops, training days and other opportunities to enhance collaboration among Joomla users in South Africa.

Watch this space - register in our Joomla South African Directory, check out the latest extensions that we recommend and join us as we collaborate and enjoy doing what comes naturally to us as we explore the web with an inquiring mind.

Do visit www.Joomla.co.za today!

Calling all South African Joomlarians!

Firstly, let me offer what may be a belated but a heartfelt welcome to you!

Depending on when you registered for the Free Joomla Training Courses, you may have forgotten about this site already, since this may be the first that you have heard from us however we have just woken up to the fact that there are so many Joomla Users, Administrators & Developers registered in the courses.

Now, if you are still reading, you may be interested in some Joomla Training here in South Africa. We are now offering courses in various location in Southern Africa, due to the increasing volume of enquiries that are comming through at a rate of about one every day - asking for Joomla template customisations, entire website developments, domain registration and hosting, specialised programming and of course training amongst others.

Three locations that are looking likely for training at the moment;

• Durban
• Johannesburg
• Cape Town

So please drop us an email should you be interested in the Training packages that we have created.

You can check out the Joomla Training Courses on offer at the Joomla Southern African Community Portal that we have created to foster communication, relationships and share the work being requested.

Feel free to join the growing South African Joomla Community and upload your website portfolio, customise your profile, join our Joomla Directory (free for a limted time only) to become eligible for the Joomla Referral Service and get connected to other Joomla-minded folks here in Southern Africa.

"What about the Free stuff?", I hear you asking. Well, everything in this site is free, and we hope to update the materials regularly from now on with an element of Joomla that we are busy dealing with ourselves, such as creating dynamic forms for online entries, or upgrading to the latest version of Joomla, or securing your site against hackers (yes, we have been nailed too!)
Feel free to contact us, discuss something in the forums, or suggest a topic that you would like covered in the Joomla Training .

Oh, yes - we are looking for venues where we can offer the training sessions, and are willing to exchange training for venues in some form or another.

Watch this space for further developments in the exciting emergence of Joomla in South Africa.

PS: Please pardon the quality of the PDF attached - it was generated directly from the Joomla site in haste without any reformatting.