Good news for folks wanting more structured training in Joomla, on a beginner or intermediate basis! JoomlaChicago members OS Training are holding two training sessions soon, and offering a 25%'discount to fellow members. All you need to do is enter the dicount code "jcchicago" when signing up, and poof! Discountio! Here are the links to the two sessions: http://www.joomlatraining.com/chicago/ http://www.joomlatraining.com/chicago-intermediate/ Now, here's the difficult part, forcing you to make a choice: the dates for training are on September 13th and 14th. The 14th is our regular JoomlaChicago meeting on the 2nd Wednesdqy of the month at Durty Nelloe's. Ha! Bottom line is, as long as you're getting your Joomla fix, that's all that matters, so it's a WIN no matter which you choose!

That said, providing first-timers an intro to Joomla! has served an important purpose for the past four years. It's given dozens of local folks valuable insights on how to go about implementing Joomla, while providing them with vital contacts to help them when they run into trouble. The question now is, should it continue?

 

So in this Quick Poll, we ask that if you're a registered member of JoomlaChicago, please login and vote. 

You have three choices:

Vote Yes = Continue offering KickStart during the regular monthly meetings
Vote Yes, But Not At Meetings = Provide a separate time and date for KickStart training
Vote No = Discontinue offering KickStart at meetings, and refer folks to local area training pro's or online resources

Please take a moment to vote on this important question:
Should JoomlaChicago Continue Offering KickStart Training For Newer Joomla Users?

{acepolls 1}

Thanks for your input! Once you vote, you can click to see the results. If you'd like to discuss this issue further, login first, then head to the KickStart Discussion to chime in!

Hi Ho:

Just wanted to report that I've been upgrading my sites to Joomla 1.7, and all is going well so far.  I like the one-click upgrade!  (One of the few advantages that Wordpress had over Joomla is now gone.)  In the course of my upgrading, I have discovered a couple things I thought I would share:

• I noted that item identifiers in Joomla menus had changed from IDs to Classes.  This was a pretty simple fix in my CSS.
• I did see some language .ini files get overwritten, so you probably want to make backups if you've been customizing your language files.

Other than that, the backup went smoothly/as expected.  I haven't done this yet on any sites with lots of third-party extensions, but I soon will!

 

So far this year, we have:

• 36 new members in 2011
• Held 5 free monthly meetings on the 2nd Wednesday of the month
• Additionally, held a free "Meetup Monday Night" during CMS Expo
• 8 local Joomla Chicago members were featured as speakers at the annual CMS Expo, receiving international exposure in the CMS Community
• Averaged 48 attendees per meeting, with 88 at Meetup Monday Night
• Offered over 16 FREE Learning Sessions on Joomla! CMS
• Provided free lunch for over 200 attendees
• Established new location for meetings in Palatine
• Member Mike Carson is planning JoomlaDay Chicago (Aug 5th & 6th)
• In the process of the 3rd major site update/upgrade to JoomlaChicago.com
• Received over 7,000 unique site visitors
• Over 150 volunteer hours by our Core Team on learning session planning, presentations, meeting planning, site development, writing design & admin
• Lunch Sponsors Arc Technology Group & JoomlaZoomla provided over 250 complimentary meals to JoomlaChicago attendees

Looking forward, in following our mission of providing the best resource for Chicago area Joomla! users, here is what is planned for us to accomplish for the balance of 2011:

• Hold 6 free monthly lunch meetings on the 2nd Wednesday of every month (July through December), 2011
• Provide 18 free learning sessions for those interested in Joomla! CMS
• As part of one scheduled meeting, focus on a business networking mixer local Joomla! enthusiasts
• Recruit at least 30 new members to participate in JoomlaChicago
• Provide support to the JoomlaDay Chicago event in August, 2011
• Complete our 3rd major site update/upgrade, using Joomla! 1.7+
• While keeping in step with the current site design, improve functionality of the site, with focus on establishing an improved Forum and User Profile/Directory
• Research additional location(s) in Chicago to hold monthly meetings

If you have suggestions on what to do to make the JoomlaChicago Group better, feel free to share them with a comment, or contact us via email, phone, or in-person, at one of our monthly meetings.

Pardon our dust over the next 10 days as we work on upgrading to the latest version of Joomla! We're moving from 1.5 to 1.6 via jUpgrade, so we'll have some minor hiccups along the way, especially when it comes to our 3rd Party extensions.

The JUpgrade component was key to this migration. I won't get into every step here but I followed this one to the T and it worked well. Now is the biggest issue I ran into afterward the process completed.

Article and categories permissions were wonky. For some reason my front-end editors couldn't edit articles on the front-end of my site. So long short, their permissions needed to be set. Is this a bug or issue with the upgrade tool? No clue! For some reason all my migrated categories were marked "Inherited" and had the message "Not Allowed" at the same time. So it appears that they didn't have the correct ACL perms.

So my fix? Open the category, then click save. After doing so somehow it gave itself the correct permissions. How did I know this? I created a new category and compared the default ACL settings. Now this wasn't the only spot. On all the articles that people edit on the front-end I needed to follow the same process. Open, then save. Poof permissions corrected. I still need to hit the JUpgrade forums to see if anyone else ran into this. It would be much better done with one sql query. I'd still like to know if this is an upgrade bug with JUpdate or just something we are all going to have to do because of the new 1.6 ACL features. If anyone has some comments or insight pleas post comments below.

Other than that, I will admit that 1.6 rocks!!!! Unlimited categories is extremely helpful. I love the admin overhaul, I find things are more logically grouped. I love the one view for extensions as well. Just use the drop down box to select, component, plug-in or module and bam, your display changes. Oh and the gantry template framework is even cooler in 1.6.

I'll post some more as I finish up my intranet migration into 1.6. I'm sure I'll have some other findings to share with you all.

Cheers,

Nick

"Raise the fist of the Joomla child" m/

Linda and I wanted to send out a special thanks to everyone who helped make the 2011 CMS Expo a big success. Joomla! was well-represented this year, with speakers and attendees coming from all around the world to share their insights and advice.

We're all very fortunate to have many incredible leaders in the Content Community, right here in Chicago! Many of those local-grown superstars were leading CMS Expo, including: Nick Martinelli, Justin Kerr, Kendall Cabe, Colleen Carroll, Jeff Eaton, Bob Baty-Barr, Don Gingold, Matthew Lechleider, Edward Knight, Avery Cohen, Robert Jacobi, Liz Strauss, Michael Uzquiano, and Chicago wanna-be Scott Liewehr.

We look forward to making next year's CMS Expo, and next year's Joomla track, even better. No doubt, Chicago will continue to lead the way.

Did you know that there's a new, additional meeting time now set up for folks who are Joomla! lovers?  It's true!  In addition to the monthly lunch meetings, the "CMS Agencies" Group will meet this month on Monday night, August 30th at Lido's Cafe in Oak Park.

August Topic: "Outsourcing and Subcontractors: Best Practices for Integrating Third-Party Help Into a Project"

Thank you to Justin Kerr and Estelle Carol, along with several other folks who are organizing this group, to give more people a chance to learn and use Joomla! - an amazingly successful Open Source Content Management System built for organizations of all size.

To learn more, sign in to your JoomlaChicago Member account first, so you can participate in the Discussion here, or see the sign-up form here, with all the specifics.

Active members of Joomla Chicago will not be surprised that the house was packed when Avery Cohen and Ken Novak of web Internet marketing strategy, implementation, and web analytics firm Metrist Partners gave a seminar this morning sponsored by the Evanston Chamber of Commerce. What many come as a surprise is the high pitch of interest in web development, online business, content management systems (CMS) and epublishing business in Evanston.

Avery and Ken were peppered with questions from members of the audience, including advertising/creative promotion provider Linda Frothingham from Frothingham Communications, writer/editor Jim Morris from Tagline Jim, and film/video producer John McCarthy from InterImage, about how to improve Return on Investment (ROI) using web analytics. Business people like attorney David Kahn and Henry Funkenbusch of Sign One zeroed in on issues like how to use Google Analytics and do search engine optimization (SEO).

Evanston is filled with innovative tech firms that are keen to expand their web presence - firms such as biotech company Precision Biomarker and high resolution sensor and test system provider Psylotech, as well as the "Technology Incubator" (Technology Innovation Center) that houses them and about thirty other tech firms. Some, like advanced IBM partner Taishan Works, are Internet experts and yet still found plenty to learn in the Metrist presentation.

Other participants included landscaper Nature's Perspective, NWU affiliate The Family Institute, patent specialist Cardinal Law Group, financial planning firm JAS Financial Services, and portfolio manager Blue Sky Investment Partners Inc.. Key your eye on them for upcoming web enhancements.

Jonathan Perman and Brooke Saucier of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce, together with Chuck Happ of the Technology Innovation Center and Laura Folkl of the Downtown Evanston marketing/promotion association, were on hand to foster follow-on opportunities within the group and with the rest of the Evanston business community.

With all this interest in web business and content management (CMS) for the web, is it any wonder that the CMS Association has has selected Evanston as the site for the 2010 CMS Expo?

Stay tuned for more developments in the Evanston web community! Thanks, Avery and Ken!

Joe Scarry is head project manager for Chicago firm Arc Technology Group -- the web design, development and content management company whose open solutions drive business success.

I have to say I'm impressed with the Joomla Chicago Web site.  I'd love to know what you're using for your blogging component, and I don't have time to try to take a peek under the hood right now.

I am editor and publisher of eNews Park Forest, a news site serving Park Forest, IL, and surrounding communities. I'm looking forward to networking with all of you, and, hopefully attending a few meetings here and there as my day job permits.

Again, very nice site.