Blog

James Hafner joins the Cory Webb Media team!

by Cory on July 01 , 2009

I am pleased to announce that James Hafner has joined the Cory Webb Media team! James brings to the team years of experience working with Joomla! and other popular CMS platforms. He's had his hands in web development for over 5 years, building websites for people and companies in his spare time. He graduated from Missouri State University with a B.A. in Electronic Arts. From there he moved to Austin where he worked for three years providing hundreds of businesses and organizations assistance in getting their site online and honing their web presence. In late 2008 he left that company to focus completely on freelance web development and consulting. James and his wife, Elizabeth, have a photography company called Vignette Photography, so if you're in the Austin area and need a great photographer, check them out!

Welcome aboard, James!

Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development now shipping

by Cory on April 08 , 2009

I'm happy to announce that my new book, Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development, is now shipping! You can order it from the publisher's website, or from most online book retailers.

Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development will take the reader step-by-step through the process of building a website with Joomla! 1.5. From beginning to end, the book will explain a concept and show how that concept relates to the development of an actual sample web site the reader can access online. This book applies each concept to a real-world example every step of the way. Once a concept is explained in theory, it is then illustrated by showing how one would implement each concept in a real web site.

What happens in Vegas...

by Cory on January 23 , 2009

What happens in Vegas will definitely be blogged about here, because I have just signed up to attend Joomla! Day Las Vegas on April 4. I haven't yet decided if I wan to attend any of the training classes on April 3, but they all look really interesting.

Joomla! Day promises to be a great event, with an A-List line-up of speakers, including multiple core developers. These events are always a great time to meet other Joomla! enthusiasts and learn a few tricks of the trade. I can't wait!

HowToJoomla! Resources: A Joomla!-Specific Search Engine

by Cory on January 07 , 2009

I am happy to announce that I have just put the finishing touches on a Joomla!-specific search engine at resources.howtojoomla.net. HowToJoomla! Resources started as a way to easily search Joomla!-related sites that offer useful resources to the Joomla! community. Using traditional search engines to search for terms like "templates" or "components" won't turn up Joomla!-related information, but using this search engine will because it only searches sites that offer services and resources to the Joomla! community.?

If you have a site that you think should be included in the list of resources, please feel free to submit your site for consideration. Not all sites will be accepted. Only sites that provide Joomla!-related services and resources to the community will be considered.

Smashing Magazine gives HowToJoomla some love

by Cory on January 05 , 2009

Mitchitized just posted a link on Twitter to an article at Smashing Magzine titled "Joomla Developer's Toolbox". Glancing through the article, I noticed that my site, HowToJoomla.net, is mentioned several times along with many excellent resources.

Check it out.

JomSocial is finally available

by Cory on December 09 , 2008

The team at Azrul.com have finally announced that JomSocial has been released to the general public. If you haven't heard of JomSocial yet, then take a few minutes and head over to their website to learn more about it.

JomSocial is going to revolutionize the way that social networks are created with Joomla. Before JomSocial, the only option for building a community-driven website with Joomla was Community Builder. With the release of JomSocial, you now have a choice. At $149, it is more expensive than Community Builder, but quite frankly, it is worth the price. It has many features that make it comparable to Facebook, but its integration with Joomla gives you a powerful tool for building a rich, interactive website easily and for a reasonable price.

Check it out.

ProjectFork has finally been released

by Cory on November 02 , 2008

Congratulations to the guys over at JoomlaPraise for releasing ProjectFork! ProjectFork is an open source project management system built for Joomla! 1.5, and I believe it will prove to be one of the killer apps for Joomla. I've been looking forward to this since I met Kyle Ledbetter (one of the JoomlaPraise guys) at the Joomla! Bootcamp in Austin this summer, and I'm excited to finally get to start using it.

Nice work, guys!

Joomla!-powered Startups

by Cory on September 29 , 2008

I've been thinking a lot about startups lately. It seems like every time you turn around, there is a new startup built on Ruby on Rails or some other rapid application development framework, but you never really see any Joomla!-powered startups. I'm not talking about startups that cater to the Joomla! community like JoomlaShack, Azrul, or even Cory Webb Media. I'm talking about startups with applications built on the Joomla! framework. There are millions of sites built on Joomla!, but not a whole lot of applications.

The closest example I can find is Quizilla, but that's not as much a startup as it is a product in the "N" Network from Nickelodeon. I know that the framework in Joomla! 1.5 is powerful enough to build anything, so why haven't we seen more startups? Maybe it's time one of us does something about it.

Have you come across any Joomla!-powered startups?

I finally joined Twitter

by Cory on September 26 , 2008

Well, I finally did it. I joined Twitter. I usually try to avoid things that seem like fads to me. (I didn't get the first generation iPhone, although I guess I never really thought that was a fad. I just thought it was too expensive.) The more and more I hear about Twitter, the more I can see its usefulness, so I'm going to give it a try. If you want to follow me, go here http://www.twitter.com/corywebb/.

Am I the only Joomla! developer in the Waco area?

by Cory on September 25 , 2008

I think I must be the only Joomla! developer in the Waco, TX area. The only way I get to interact with other Joomla! developers (besides online... but that doesn't really count) is through user groups in Dallas and in Austin. Are there any other Waco Joomla! developers out there? If so, stand up and be counted.