Chris Salmon Technologies

It's now time to take a look at our basic website layout.  The absolute MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER about this, is that the layout is separate from the content, and THE LAYOUT CAN BE CHANGED OR ALTERED AT WILL!  I've seen even very smart people, be fooled by this aspect of Joomla.  They see a particular look to a site in development, a particular layout, and they just think that the layout is going to be that way, that this is what it is going to look like, etc.,  I've realized over time that these clients aren't seeing what I'm seeing.  I'm seeing a look that is always temporary and ready for change, that can be made and remade like sculpting a piece of clay, then working it back into a ball and sculpting it into something different.  I'm seeing something that is really just a placeholder for the important part of the site - THE CONTENT!!  The content, and in large part that means text, is what the search engines care about, it's what they index and search, and it's the most information dense part of most websites.  So don't be fooled!  You can't judge a book by it's cover, you can't tell what someone is capable of by their clothes, and the various appearances which a site can adopt at will are nothing more than mere clothing on a base of content.  And actually it's probably more work to change your clothes than to change the look of a Joomla website.

That being said, I must admit that, at least this morning I'm having a hard time coming up with much of a starting look and feel for Lisa's site.  You can see what I've come up with so far but it's not really ... thrilling me just yet.   However I do like the plaid/tartan background for a school site.

I'm using a tool called Artisteer (advertised on the left) which is a great prototyping and design tool for Joomla.  It has a number of built-in prepackaged layouts, headers, menus, etc., that you can combine in whatever way you wish.  But it also does all the css and Joomla template coding for you in any custom format you might want to create.  It's highly recommended and is a great time saver - and it doesn't limit you as to what designs you might like.  

I'm going to take a little break and take some quiet time and give this some thought.  Then I'll come back to it and see what other kinds of layouts we might do.  Lisa likes this site:  Har-Ber High School but I'm personally not too thrilled with that one either.  I've written her to see what it is that she likes about it so much.

There is one other consideration - how exciting should a school/class site even be?  This isn't a video game and we're most worried about the functionality of the site, not a flashy appearance.   If anyone has suggestions, put 'em in the comments, I'm happy to listen.

OK so we have our teacher's website all up and going.  But, it's only a base install with the default look and feel, and the default data that you can include with it.  I prefer to include the default data on the install and modify it later, because it gives at least a bit of structure to build on.  But I may be changing my mind about that on my next Joomla project.  Not sure I need anything but a blank slate anymore.  

At any rate, I don't wish to re-install so let's dig in and clean up the data that is on there now.  I don't need any of the articles that come with a default joomla install, so let's just mass-delete all of those.  We log into the administrative back end, and go to the article manager.  On the top left is a checkbox, that will cause all the articles to be checked.  We check that, and delete all articles.  

OK now let's take a look at other content we can delete or modify.  The front page is showing several modules, like the newsflashes and the poll, that we won't need right now for Lisa's website.  So let's just unpublish them.  This will leave them in the database for later modification and usage, rather than completely deleting them as we did with the articles.  We won't ever need the text from those articles, but it doesn't hurt to have some of these modules all set up and premade so we can merely modify them for our own usage later.  

We go into "module manager" and merely uncheck the "enabled" checkmark on the modules we don't want to use right now, which is most of them. 

OK so out of the many modules that come with the default Joomla install, we've only kept 8 of them in an enabled state.  Main menu, who's online, search, top menu, footer, syndication, user menu, and login form are the modules that we'll find most immediately handy for our application.

Now then, this leaves us with a very clean basic set of menus and modules with which to start our site development, as you can see below.  In our next article, we will use a tool I really like called "Artisteer" to create a nice look and feel for the site, and modify the layout.  Then, we will begin to add the tools and software integration we need to do the things that Lisa wants for her kids.

We've also, at Lisa's request, decided to make this project larger by adding Moodle into the mix.  I've never worked with Moodle so this should be very fun and educational for all of us, including myself!! 

Here is our cleaned up default Joomla install:



I'm definitely ordering a top-of-the-line iPad, as quickly as possible.  Now, some people are saying that you might be better off waiting for the second generation, and they're probably right in many ways.  But for myself, I think I will need one to report on it's usage here on cst.net and when I'm ready for the next version, I can give the first one to my child or sell it on Ebay or here on the site.  Why top-of-the-line?  Because of the price difference.  The difference between the very best iPad with the absolute most features, memory, and communications capabilities and the worst iPad appears to be only $329 - so why would anyone order the bottom-of-the-barrel model, with no cellular (3G) capability and only 1/4 as much memory?  The answer? "I have no idea."

See iPad pricing here

Earlier today, Apple had a very basic mis-coding on their website that prevented one from clicking through to the pre-order page, so I will include the URL to be notified when the iPad is available for ordering here:

Apple iPad Notification of Availability

It appears that they may have fixed their URL problem in the last few minutes, at least from here in Vail it appears so.  It was the typical old mistake of putting a slash in front of a relative URL so it became just /ipad/ by itself instead of www.apple.com/ipad/ - kinda funny to see such an old-school mistake made by an industry leader.  But, it happens.

Anyway there are some stories going around the 'net right now that the iPad is not yet FCC approved, and thus it's not legal for Apple to sell them yet, even as a pre-order.  Apparently, due to several factors, the iPad feature set will vary from one region to another, even within the USA, not to mention from one nation to another, so that is another consideration.  You likely will not be able to use all the features of the iPad in all the regions in which you might travel.  Here is more on this story from our friends at Wired Magazine - an old favorite of mine!

Wondering Why You Can’t Pre-Order an iPad? It Isn’t Legal Yet

FINALLY a tech leader SAYS IT - JOBS GOES OFF ON GOOGLE ... hallelujah and thank you Steve!! Jobs says Google's "Don't be evil" mantra is BULLSHIT!! YES!! It's about damn time more people recognized it ... ROCK ON STEVE !! I'll definitely buy an iPad now !!

For YEARS now, Google has hidden behind their formerly golden reputation as a worth opponent and possibly slayer of the evil Microsoft dragon.  Goodness knows, back in the late 90's when Microsoft was sticking me and my technicians with the costs of supporting their "free" crap internet browser and their "free" crap internet email client - which was forced on users by MS pressuring OEM's to include them on all computers shipped (see the anti-trust settlement if you don't believe me ... it's unbelievable!!) - back then I was a HUGE Google fanboy.  Plus I loved their story, two young computer scientists come up with a new and relatively simple way to index and search the giant database that is the WWW.  Awesome.  But then I've seen them morph over the years into just a mirror image of the very thing I thought they were opposing.  I credit much of this change to the influence of the Venture Capitalists who funded Google's pre-IPO growth and their hive mentality.  Hiring Eric to run the business end, and basically putting Serge and Larry in charge of "green initiatives" and all kinds of fun social goodness BS (so they would be out of the way, in my opinion) was a signal that the good company that Google started out to be had begun to morph into something evil.  Their monopolistic and octopus like behavior over the years has only proven that.

Well the media people (newspapers and book publishers especially) and the other leaders in the tech industry, are finally not only catching on, but willing to express the evil reality that is Google today.   Now it appears that someone that was there when I started into computers in the late 70's (I still have Apple and Apple II ads in my late 70's BYTE magazine collection!) is stepping up and finally saying out loud what everyone's been thinking for years - the "don't be evil" mantra is total and complete bullshit.  Here's the story from Wired:

Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs

And yes, I do have Google adsense on these pages, and I do use some Google tools.  I do that largely because my choices are very limited - thanks, in large part, to Google themselves.

And I don't think they're completely evil - as with Darth Vader "there is still good within them."  They are master technologists, that's without question.  But I, and many friends in the internet business, have reason to understand just how evil Google can be, upon their whim, and to whom they please.  They can literally make or break websites at their whim, they can raise and lower your traffic with absolutely no explanation of why, or how.  There is NO ONE AT GOOGLE YOU CAN TALK TO ABOUT ANYTHING.  If you don't believe me, just try to call them.  It's literally impossible.  Email them, you get a form letter spit back by a computer.  No one is home, and if you DO get to talk to someone, all they say is "it's the algorithm, it's the algorithm..." like some kind of zombies worshiping at a Santeria ceremony.

Sometime soon, I will write an entire article about my experiences with Google and those of my friends in the business.  But suffice it to say, there is a definitely a dark side to the GOOG and it's getting biggger.

I hope Steve and some of the other Silicon Valley leaders can actually do something about it.  Or maybe some new search technology will step forth.  I had big hopes for Wolfram Alpha, as I've always be a fan of his, but it's been a disappointment thus far.  At any rate, read and comment here at cst.net about this topic... it's really very important to all of us in tech as to who and what will slow the Google train down.

As it is, we might well be getting into an IBM of the 60's and 70's or MS of the 80's and 90's situation here with Google if something doesn't happen to break their hold on the web.