Category: Resources
Posted by John Sundberg in Resources Friday, 19 February 2010 View Comments
Two related events inspired me to take another look at my online backup strategy this week – building a new desktop computer to replace my aging Dell 690, and moving from XP Professional to Windows 7 Ultimate. The move to Windows 7 had a few small “bumps” along the way, mainly with some software and hardware that weren’t
compatible with the new OS, but overall it has been a very good move. However, this post is not about Windows 7, it’s about comparing two online backup services, so here we go.
As an afterthought, I should add that if you’re not backing up your data, why aren’t you? Speaking from experience, hard drives fail, computers stop working, and disasters happen. Online backup services are easier to use, more accessible, and cost less than ever before, so why wouldn’t you want to use one to protect your stuff (data)?
Posted by John Sundberg in Business, Free Stuff, Resources Friday, 15 January 2010 View Comments
Google announced this week that they will be adding file sharing and storage to the feature set of Google Docs, one of the applications that makes up Google Apps. That includes files of any kind, limited in size to 250 MB (limited??) per file and 1 GB of storage per user. Not enough storage space for your needs? The price to increase that quota is minimal.
Gone are the days of trying to email big files, send them through the mail on a CD, or paying a third-party service for the privilege of uploading and downloading files to and from a shared folder. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m excited about this and looking forward to integrating this service into the daily routine of Black Hills Web Works.
This is probably a good time to make a plug for Google Apps. Custom Gmail with your organization’s domain name, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and now file sharing and storage. Google Apps comes in different editions – Enterprise, Education, Nonprofit, and Standard, which is a free version.
With companies like Google offering services and products like Google Apps we no longer saw the need to offer email as part of our hosting service, but we can help you set up Google Apps for your organization, and we have already for Black Hills Web Works and several of our clients.
Posted by John Sundberg in Business, Joomla!, Resources Tuesday, 12 January 2010 View Comments
Back in December Brian Teeman wrote a blog post called Joomla Manual for Users, and in that post he highlighted a new service called Joomanuals. The idea behind Joomanuals is to provide end-user manuals that a website builder could give to the owner(s) of a new Joomla website so that they would know how to use their new website and manage its content.
It seemed to me like a good idea so I bought a subscription to the service, followed the directions, and downloaded a sample manual for a website I had recently completed. Considering that the service is fully automated (as far as I can tell) the manual that it produces isn’t too bad. I guess I was looking for a little more attention to detail and customization for my own clients though, so I spent a few days last week producing an administrator’s manual complete with relevant screenshots and then published it in a PDF format.
Clicking on the image to the right will open a PDF excerpt from that manual. There is admittedly some more refining to be done, but this is where it’s at for now.
For starters, our plan for these manuals is to include one with each website that leaves our “workshop,” customized as necessary for that website, to enable our clients who are so inclined to effectively use and manage the content in their new Content Management System website.
Posted by John Sundberg in Business, Free Stuff, Joomla Extensions, Joomla!, Life in General, Resources, Technology Thursday, 31 December 2009 View Comments
This post could go in numerous directions but I’m going to try to stay focused on web-related discoveries, since this is, after all, a blog that lives on a website about and for Black Hills Web Works.
One conversation in particular with an old friend I reconnected with on Facebook is worthy of being called “the milestone of 2009.” I was remodeling the website for my construction company and experimenting with Dreamweaver and static HTML pages and he suggested I look into using a CMS like Drupal or Joomla!. I took his advice and looked at both of those platforms, and though he was pushing me towards Drupal I felt drawn to Joomla!, and the rest of 2009 is history. Black Hills Web Works was born, websites were built, new languages learned (HTML and CSS to name two), and my thinking and experiences were significantly broadened.
And so, here is my list of “significant” discoveries that I made or learned about this year. Some, most, or all of these may be familiar to you already. On the other hand, it’s just possible that there is something new in here that you haven’t found yet. Have a look…
Posted by John Sundberg in Joomla Extensions, Resources Thursday, 3 December 2009 View Comments
An unpleasant reality of life with the Internet is spam, and if you have a website that uses a contact form eventually you will be a target of spammers. One solution to fighting spam is to use a Captcha form along with the contact form. The problem with Captcha is that it can be discouraging to the real person who wants to use your contact form but they can’t read or figure out what they are supposed to type in the Captcha form – especially if the Captcha looks like one of these examples.
Mollom and Moovur – a better way
One solution I’ve started using for my websites is Mollom and Moovur. According to their website, “Mollom is a web service that helps you identify content quality and, more importantly, helps you stop spam on your blog, social network or community website.” How does it work? For the complete answer you should check out this page on their website, but basically everything that is submitted through your contact forms (and login forms) is run through Mollom to determine if the submission is by a real human or a spam bot. They are claiming an average efficiency of 99.74%, meaning 26 out of every 10,000 spam messages are making it through their system. Those are pretty good odds, in my opinion.
To use Mollom on a Joomla! site you’re going to need a free plugin called Moovur provided by Moovum. Moovur is what makes communication between Joomla! and Mollom possible, and it can be downloaded from this page on Moovum’s website.
Of course, Joomla! isn’t the only website platform that works with Mollom – plugins are available for Drupal, WordPress and others, and the list continues to grow. Check out the full list on this page on Mollom’s website.
Another caveat – if you’re using a third-party extension for your contact form instead of the form that comes with Joomla! you’re going to need to do some codework to make it work with Moovur. You can read more about that in this PDF from Moovum.
So does it work? Spam or ham?
The real question that needs to be answered is “Does it work?” In my experience, yes. At this point I can only recall one instance of a spam message that made it through Mollom’s defenses since I started using Mollom. And what didn’t make it through? Click on the screenshot below to see screenshots of Moovur’s dashboard from four different websites. In the graphs, orange denotes spam, and green denotes “ham” – the good stuff that Mollom allowed to get through.
