Compass Designs

I suddenly had some curiosity to put www.joomla.org and www.mambo.org into the Alexa traffic rank tool. The graph I got was pretty interesting.

A Joomla website has several elements that all work together to produce the web page you see in your browser.   All of the information on the site is stored in a database. The information can be in several forms:

• Content Items– these are the articles of your website
• Components – more complex content such as forums
• Modules – smaller content that usually allow interactivity, like a poll/survey

All of this content is pulled from the database by the CMS and arranged/presented as determined by the site template.

So what exactly is a content management system anyway? To better understand this, let's briefly take a look at your common, garden everyday web page. We will have to talk a little about some of the technology of web pages, but it's worth it to understand the power of a CMS.

If you happen to be near Leeds, UK on July 30th 2006, there is a Joomla event organized, I'll be one of the speakers and will be talking about template design.

JoomlaDay UK is an annual event driven by, and for the UK Joomla community. The event includes a range of speakers and other attractions, with a unique atmosphere.

Drop by and I'd like to meet you! 

The second web site in the United Nations organization, www.unric.org,  has been launched using Joomla. In December, the United Nations University Centre was launched. This has been followed in June by the United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC). Along with sites like Porsche and Hyundai, seeing bigger organizations using Joomla underlines its reliablity and flexibility.

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to come up with a reliable solution for sending out the Compass email newsletter. www.aweber.com with a technique I have developed to integrate it into user registration.

A client emailed me recently with a concern about tables in Joomla:

"It has become clear to me that despite claims to the contrary, Content Management Systems do NOT meet accessibility requirements"

This is not really a complete picture of how Joomla handles accessibility. I have made the point a few times on the Joomla forums that th elink between accessibility and tables is not a direct one.