Category Archives: Technical

Technical

First look at ZipApp

Actually it’s more of a second look. My first look back in April showed a product with a lot of promise but was clearly not ready.

What is ZipApp?

Simply put, ZipApp is a free tool from Microsoft to help you  build Apps for Windows 8. You don’t need to be a programmer. You get full access to the source code. It’s designed to be simple and quick to get going, with dozens for templates provided.

ZipApp
ZipApp

You can create a Zip App account at www.zipapp.co.uk and start to put your app together.

To build the app package from the Zip App project file you’ll need to download a copy of Visual Studio Express from here http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/visual-studio-express-for-windows-8

This will give you all the tools you need to build an app.

Once you’ve got an app, in order to submit it to the store, you’ll need to sign up for a developer account – info can be found here https://appdev.microsoft.com/StorePortals/en-us/Account/Signup/Start/

There is a small charge for a developer account (individual or corporate) however you get a free developer account with an MSDN subscription if you have one. As an aside, you get an MSDN subscription as part of Biz Spark which can be an extremely cost effective way of getting a load of free software and networking opportunities.

Windows 8 Phone has recently been added with Beta support.

 

ZipApp templates
ZipApp templates

Then you’ll be able to submit as many apps to the store as you wish. There will be the option to have a third party publish your app too. Microsoft are currently working on a solution to enable people to publish their ZipApp application via a 3rd party, but it’s not ready for broad availability. In effect you would simply press a button and someone else would publish your application using their store account. This option currently leads to a mail form. We added our address to this in April and to date there’s been no response.

In summary, the tools work really well to create the app, but the unsophisticated developer/designer is left hanging at the end with no way to actually the app onto a Windows 8 device.

Technical

CiviCRM London meetup April 2013

It’s London Meetup time again next Wednesday 24th April. Do come along! Registration and more info here: http://civicrm.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=293

Here’s the agenda so far:

  • Welcome & introductions – Dave Melkman
  • First Session – CiviMail – Jamie Novick
  • Second Seesion – Surveys using webform & CiviMail – Owen (LLR)
  • Break (15 mins)
  • Third session – CiviCRM on a shoestring – Implementation with tiny budgets – George Steven (LMS)
  • Fourth Session – Community update – TBC
  • Fifth Session – CiviBooking – Jamie Novick
  • CiviCRM Open Workshop

What is CiviCRM? Find out here

Technical

Tomcat 5.5.x no longer supported

The Apache Tomcat team announced that support for Apache Tomcat 5.5.x ended on 30 September 2012.

This means that after 30 September 2012:

– releases from the 5.5.x branch are highly unlikely

– bugs affecting only the 5.5.x branch will not be addressed

– security vulnerability reports will not be checked against the 5.5.x branch

 

Three months later (i.e. after 31 December 2012)

– the 5.5.x download pages will be removed

– the latest 5.5.x release will be removed from the mirror system

– the 5.5.x branch in svn will move from /tomcat/tc5.5.x to /tomcat/archive/tc5.5.x

– the links to the 5.5.x documentation will be removed from tomcat.apache.org

– The bugzilla project for 5.5.x will be made read-only

This is all done now,

The final release was 5.5.36 on 10 Oct 2012 and is, and will always remain, available from the archives.

Customers using Tomcat 5.5 should especially note that security updates are NOT being produced for Tomcat 5.5 any more. Therefore they should consider migrating to Tomcat 6 or later as soon as possible.

Technical

What are the best Joomla Extensions?

Best Joomla Extensions

Mostly we use the Joomla Extensions that we need for the job in hand, but sometimes there’s a choice of several Joomla Extensions  that do the same things. So which is best? Often the answer to this will be which once best matches the particular problem we’re trying to solve.

For example, we have used two support desk Joomla Extensions in the 2020Media customer portal because the first one we used didn’t, after being in use for a while, actually meet our expectations.

So a ‘Top Ten’ list of Joomla Extensions is a bit of fun more than anything else, but it’s always good to hear others views, and learn something new.

Readers of the Joomla Community Magazine have voted for their first round of 10 Best Joomla Extensions and here they are.

Extension: ACL Manager

ACL-Manager
Extension Developer: Sander Potjer

Extension Developer Website: http://www.aclmanager.net

Why do you love this Extension? With this extension it’s a piece of cake to make all kinds of administrator access levels in a Joomla website.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? The summary of acces levels.

Submitted by: Connie de Buijn

Submitter’s Website: http://webartenco.nl/

Extension: AcyMailing

AcyMailing-Starter
Extension Developer: Acyba

Extension Developer Website: http://www.acyba.com

Why do you love this Extension? Excellent extension to make emailing quality! Support is very good, with a very, very responsive forum. Regular changes, for better efficiency always.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? Thanks to this extension, my site has a extremely good management newsletters!

Submitted by: Fabrice Zavattero

Submitter’s Website: www.lalumieredesfees.fr

Extension: EasyBlog

EasyBlog
Extension Developer: StackIdeas

Extension Developer Website: http://stackideas.com/

Why do you love this Extension? EasyBlog has been a huge help on our theater web site. They give first rate support and have been most helpful.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? Makes blog posting easy!

Submitted by: Gala Lindvall

Submitter’s Website: www.ForestTheater.com

Extension: EasyCalcCheck Plus (ECC+)

EasyCalcCheck-PLUS
Extension Developer: Kubik Rubik

Extension Developer Website: http://joomla-extensions.kubik-rubik.de/ecc-easycalccheck-plus

Why do you love this Extension? Easy to use, lightwight, free… and EFFECTIVE!

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? Frees me from SPAM… really.

Submitted by: Ivo Schmid

Submitter’s Website: http://www.Lehrmittelperlen.net

Extension: Fabrik

Fabrik
Extension Developer: Fabrikar

Extension Developer Website: http://fabrikar.com

Why do you love this Extension?

Because it is:

  • Free of charge.
  • Easy way to use and manage.
  • Very useful forum.
  • Constantly updates for security issues and enhancing.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website?

It allows me to manage and develop:

  • Databases
  • Forms
  • Lists
  • Statistics
  • Visual Charts

Submitted by: Bader Ajhar

Submitter’s Website: http://www.lamafurnituresy.com/index.php

Extension: JComments

JComments
Extension Developer: JComments

Extension Developer Website: http://www.joomlatune.com/

Why do you love this Extension? Works out of the box. Very useful features. Add the comments to the articles.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? This is a functionality that Joomla has been lacking in the core.

Submitted by: Fermin Jimenez

Submitter’s Website: www.najar.ca

Extension: Joomla Content Editor (JCE)

JCE
Extension Developer: Ryan Demmer

Extension Developer Website: http://www.joomlacontenteditor.net

Why do you love this Extension? Absolutely a must have. Editing articles is breezing plus tons of features. And it’s free 🙂 It’s always the first extension I install after installing Joomla. And believe me – I use a lot of extensions.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? Its image manager makes my site have images in the first place. I work with people whose experience editing content is next to zilch and JCE’s easy ways of inserting various objects (links, images etc) is second to none.

Submitted by: Olek Trembowiecki

Submitter’s Website: www.biblioteka.koszalin.pl

Extension: Komento

Komento
Extension Developer: Stackideas

Extension Developer Website: http://stackideas.com/

Why do you love this Extension? Komento is useful, powerful and free.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? With Komento you can add comments to articles and share them on social networks. My clients love it!

Submitted by: Lucía Otero

Submitter’s Website: http://www.movilidadelectrica.com/

Extension: Ozio Gallery

Ozio-Gallery
Extension Developer: Alessandro Rossi

Extension Developer Website: http://www.opensourcesolutions.es/en/ext/ozio-gallery.html

Why do you love this Extension? Very easy to use, and very powerful for my photo gallery in most of my website.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? I am able to give that extra touch to the images being able to offer them in an interesting perspective to the navigator, also with the new version that makes the gallery responsive fits very well with mobile devices.

Submitted by: Matteo Montanari

Submitter’s Website: http://www.sensiparrucchieri.it/sensi-vip.html

Extension: sh404SEF

sh404SEF
Extension Developer: Yannick Gaultier

Extension Developer Website: http://anything-digital.com/sh404sef/seo-analytics-and-security-for-joomla.html

Why do you love this Extension? Installation is easy, great documentation, helps my sites with SEF friendly URLs and powerful tweaks when needed.

What does this Extension do to enhance your website? SEF URLs, special page titles.

Submitted by: Tanya Flores

Submitter’s Website: http://www.massageforhealing.com

Technical, Tips and Tricks

WordPress Meetup

If you are interested in WordPress, live or can get to London, and are free this Thursday evening (22nd November), why not come along to the London WordPress user group meeting?

October WordPress meetup
October WordPress meetup

Talks arranged include:

Developing with WordPress and Git

Tailoring WordPress To Meet Your Client Needs

WordPress 3.5 Accessibility Update
It’s all completely free of charge and you get a look around the Google Campus office in London.

Signup and more information is at
http://www.meetup.com/London-WordPress/events/76680502/