Category Archives: Technical

Technical

Joomla News

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Joomla logo
Joomla Hosting

Here’s a few extensions for Joomla CMS that we’ve found very useful so we thought’d we’d share them with you.

  • jLoginAlert Emails you when someone tries to login to your site.
  • Mobile Joomla Reformats your site to fit mobiles
  • JoomArt Extensions Manager Centralised management and updating of extensions
  • Docman document/download manager with user login, notifications and a big supporting community.
  • VirtueMart free ecommerce extension that can also be used as a catalogue.
  • ReDJ allows you to create short urls on your site that redirect to actual pages. See www.2020media.com/contact for an example.

Coming soon for Joomla fans is going to be the release of Joomla 1.6. This is actually quite a major update, the current 1.5 release has been going for around 3 years and the release of 1.6 will open up Joomla far more to integrate with other services. This is an approach the Drupal has used very successfully so its a case of Joomla catching up with how the web is developing now.

Domain Names, Technical

Brusells ICANN Meeting

ICANN Brussels
Promotional items from potential new gTLD applicants

2020Media’s Management team attended the recent ICANN (policy making body for gTLD domains and IP numbers) meeting in Brussels, Belgium. The week long conference is part of ICANN 3 annual worldwide meetings to engage with all internet stakeholders, from representatives of government to non-commercial internet using private individuals.

The main topics for discussion were the release of new gTLD (global top level domain names), and the .xxx domain. The last was rather a moot point as ICANN revealed on the last public discussion that they had taken a decision in principle to approve the application, subject to various caveats. After an independent review which found ICANN’s previous decisions was flawed, the board really had few options left.

New domains like .shop, .canon, .london provoked much more discussion, this time about the various guidelines and rules that ICANN has come up with. ICANN is seeking comment on it’s latest release of the applicant guidebook.

Of note to the technically minded was further steps along the road to secure DNS (DNSSEC) with more top level domain signings. The root zone itself is due to go live in July.

Technical

10 Years of Tomcat

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Apache Tomcat is the world’s most widely used web application server, with over one million downloads per month. Tomcat originated as a Sun Microsystems project, with the goal of providing an example implementation of Sun’s newly created Java Servlet and JSP specifications. Sun developed Tomcat internally through Tomcat 2.x. In 1999, the project was donated to the Apache Software Foundation, where it was developed under the Jakarta project.

Since becoming a separate project in 2005, Tomcat has been developed through version 6.x. The next version of the project, Tomcat 7, is expected sometime in late summer of 2010,  corresponding with the release of Servlet 3, which Tomcat 7 will implement.

2020Media has supported servlet hosting for 11 years now. It was the first to offer shared Tomcat hosting in the UK – before Tomcat, it offered J-Run.

Technical

Web Professional Offer updated

WebsiteSpark
WebsiteSpark

2020Media.com already partners with Microsoft to offer web development software at no upfront cost. Now WebsiteSpark membership has been expanded to include a membership in the Microsoft Partner Network. With Microsoft Partner Network membership you get a community of fellow members, evaluation software, expert support, incentives, newsworthy articles and announcements about products and initiatives, lead generation, sales demonstrations, and training.

WebsiteSpark provides software licenses that you can use for three years at no cost. WebsiteSpark also provides a path to get exposure and participate in the developer community (through the Partner Program, BizSpark Camps, etc.).

Technical

Datacentre

This week, the owners of the datacentre where 2020Media colocates it servers officially opened their third building on the Docklands site. In a colourful ceremony involving Japanese saké barrels and glitz and glamour, we were reminded how Telehouse pioneered datacentres in the UK, and how they have maintained their status as the key networking hub of the UK. This is important to 2020Media, as we aim to provide the very fastest connection speeds for our servers and broadband customers.

The evening was rounded off with a speech by Mike Harris about technology pioneers who came out of the blue to disrupt the incumbent processes of the day (Twitter is the most recent). It was also great to hear Tim Berners-Lee described as the inventor of the internet yet again.