September 23rd, 2011 - JUGSWO Meeting In Hamilton

Friday, September 23rd:

7pm to whatever pm at Weever Apps new offices at the McMaster Innovation Park, Hamilton Ontario.

The Innovation Park is a big beautiful building hosting some great startups in the Hamilton area, as well as the Innovation Factory, which helps companies get their "big ideas" off the ground!

Location: 175 Longwood Road South, Hamilton, ON.  Weever is in room 319A on floor 3A (hit 3A in the elevator)
http://www.mcmasterinnovationpark.ca/contact-us/directions-to-the-mip/

Agenda: Big Ideas!

*Weever Apps will provide some refreshments.

7:00 pm - Meet at Weever Apps

7:30 pm - Informal discussion on Joomla!, Open-source, and today's web.  Sites, browsers, mobile, apps and beyond.  News and discussion on the JPlatform and CMS split, as well as as Nooku and other new Joomla! powered frameworks.  Big Ideas!  What can we do to engage and promote open-source and open data more in SWO and beyond?  What's shaping the web today and what can we do with it?

9:00 pm - Stay and Mingle.  Stay as long as you like and mingle with Joomla! users from Southwestern Ontario.

RSVP:

RSVP to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Bring a friend along.  Even if they can only spell Joomla!, or they work with another CMS, they might learn something new!

Also Invited:

Open Data Hamilton, and the software community in and around Hamilton.

April14/2011

Agenda:

7:00 pm - Meet:  at the Slainte in Hamilton at 33 Bowen Street (upstairs).  Google Map

7:30 pm - Presentation:  Joomla! Eye Candy - 10 Ideas That Can Make Your Joomla! Site Gorgeous - galleries, sliders, rotators, cck's, pretty boxes, flipping books, templates and more.  Join Joomla! User Group Southwestern Ontario member companies - Sitaran Group, Picasso Fish, and Carta Nova for an evening of discussion on Joomla! design.

9:00 pm - Stay and Mingle.  Stay as long as you like and mingle with Joomla! users from Southwestern Ontario.

RSVP:

RSVP by April 5th, 2011 to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and you could win a copy of the Official Joomla! Book. Bring a friend along.  Even if they can only spell Joomla!, or they work with another CMS, they might learn something new!

February 17th, 2011

Date:  Thursday, February 17, 2011

Time:  7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

Location:  Personal Computer Museum, 13 Alma St.,  Brantford, ON, N3R 2G1
(walk up the driveway, use sidewalk left of the residence and enter building in backyard)

Agenda:

This month, we've got Andrew J. Holden & Robert Gerald Porter from CartaNova - they're a full service web design and marketing agency with a collective aspiration for a greener, healthier planet. They help 'green' small business to grow in Canada, the U.S., the UK and Africa.  Tonight, they'll be talking about:  Democracy, The Mobile Web and Joomla!

Part 1 - Democracy:

• Tim Berners Lee: Long Live the Web
• Wired Magazine: The Web is Dead
• Key Concepts: Universality, Open Standards, Access
• Threats: Some SaaS Models, Walled Gardens, Censorship, 'Gate' Fees
• Towards the Mobile Web; Apple and AOL, FOSS CMS' Platforms

Part 2 - The Mobile Web and Joomla!

• The Opportunity for CMS Sites within the Mobile Web (expanding access)
• Key Principles of Mobile Web Sites (Speed, Usability)
• Access Barriers for Joomla! Sites (Client Types and Pricing)
• What's going on within Joomla! natively (not much)
• What's out there right now (Templates vs. Machine Apps vs. Web Apps)
• All About Testing for Mobile Devices
• What's in the future: Weever, Other Possibilities

RSVP

Please RSVP by February 15th, 2011 to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

January 6, 2011

Date:  Thursday, January 6, 2011

Time:  7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

Location:  Personal Computer Museum, 13 Alma St.,  Brantford, ON, N3R 2G1
(walk up the driveway, use sidewalk left of the residence and enter building in backyard)

Agenda:

This month, we've got Tony Scott from Akira Studio - they're a Joomla website graphic design company with offices in the UK and Canada.  He'll cover three great topics tonight:

Intro to Akira - who they are, how they approach design, and how they approach workflow in Joomla.

VirtueMart + SEO - a large part of their business is ecommerce sites.  He'll talk about building ecommerce sites with Virtuemart + the top 3 SEO plugins that help companies get found and increase sales.

Automating Backups - Cybercrime is on the rise - moreso with ecommerce sites.  He'll cover why it's critical to automate Joomla website and database backups to an on and off server location, and why updating Joomla and 3rd party apps to the most current versions has to be done to protect your sites.

RSVP

Please RSVP by January 4, 2011 to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

October 28, 2010

Date:  Thursday, October 28, 2010

Time:  7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

Location:  Personal Computer Museum, 13 Alma St.,  Brantford, ON, N3R 2G1
(walk up the driveway, use sidewalk left of the residence and enter building in backyard)

Agenda:  This month, we're very pleased to present:

Joomla! 1.6 and Beyond - A Look Into The Future

A showcase of new features in Joomla 1.6 and a discussion of what is ahead for the future of the Joomla project in terms of features and development strategy.

by Ian McLellan, a member of the core Joomla Production Leadership Team.

About Ian:  Ian joined the Joomla Project shortly after startup in 2005 and volunteered to work with the Developer Documentation project. Since then, he has become more involved with the project and has served in various roles, including GSoC mentor and administrator, developer documentation team leader, Joomla Bug Squad coordinator and Development Working Group Member.  He looks forward to the future as the Joomla community works together to further the goal of being a flexible platform for digital publishing and collaboration.

 

RSVP
Please RSVP by October 26, 2010 to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

May 20, 2010

We had a good meeting with a smaller group of about 7 Joomla! User Group members at the Personal Computer Museum in Brantford.  Our discussions focused on the following topics.

CMS EXPO 2010 - A Recap
Corrie Sloot was in Chicago for the 2010 CMS Expo, and gave us a great overview of what's new, what's hot, and where content management systems are heading this year.  READ MORE

JOOMLA SITE SHOWCASE
Linda McIntosh from CRM Connect spoke about her Joomla site - www.crmconnect.ca, and her experiences of learning and working with Joomla.

Next meeting is planned for September 16 / 10.  Have a great summer.  We hope that Joomla! 1.6 will be out this summer and we'll be able to talk about it at the September meeting.

March 25, 2010

We had another great meeting with around 10 Joomla! User Group members at the Personal Computer Museum in Brantford.  Our discussions focused on the following topics.  Links are provided for the sites / tools we discussed:

Understanding CSS in Joomla Templates

• We reviewed Cascading Style Sheets in detail, and provided examples by making changes to the JUGSWO website.
• CSS defines your website's colours, fonts, spacing, borders, positioning, background images, etc.
• They can be found in the back-end of Joomla, under Extensions => Template Manager, default template, Edit CSS
• How to understand CSS - great information can be found at: W3School
• A good CSS editor for Windows is Editplus; for Mac, Taco
• Others options for editing are Notepad.  Do not use Wordpad, or Word
• Firebug is an excellent tool for Firefox which allows you to quickly find which CSS you need to edit, and allows you to test out changes without changing anything on the website itself

Creating and Managing Customer Mailing Lists with Joomla

• We discussed the value of having customer mailing lists and how Joomla handles developing them and using them to communicate with your customers / audience.
• We reviewed the core syndication functionality in Joomla - RSS - and discussed the pros and cons
• There are more advanced components for RSS feeds other than what is built into Joomla
• Joomla has many newsletter extensions which allow you to automatically maintain a mailing list.  Some that we like are: AcyMailing, Acajoom, SM2 Email Marketing
• When creating your own newsletter, there are legal implications - CAN-SPAM Act - if you are doing it for commercial purposes, even in Canada
• External email marketing services - Mailchimp / Aweber.  Due to lack of time, we skimmed these at a very high level, but videos are available on both their sites.

Q&A

• A question was asked about how to do a basic joomla install (for people absolutely new to Joomla).  While we all had ideas / knowledge to help, we realized that a complete beginner's guide is yet to be found.....perhaps we should build one or find one.

Thanks to all who attended.

January 21, 2010

We had a great meeting with around 10 Joomla! User Group members at the Personal Computer Museum in Brantford.  Our goal for the night was to start building a Joomla! website for our group, essentially let people learn while doing. This was the agenda for the meeting:

• 7:00 - Everyone Assembles
• 7:15 - Introductions (emcee John Matecsa)
• 7:20 - Solicit feedback on the tentative sitemap found on the next page. Ratify changes. (Reema Duggal)
• 8:00 - Divide the sitemap into several parts. Solicit individuals or small groups of volunteers to work on each part.
• 8:20 - Refreshments & Restroom break & Networking
• 8:35 - Groups will meet to exchange contact info, chose a team leader, make plans and maybe even begin work. Please bring your laptop and/or paper and writing instruments. If there is a part of the site that you plan to volunteer for, you are encouraged to do preliminary work on it before the meeting.
• 10:00 - Good Night

November 21, 2009

A great turnout for our second meeting with around 15 Joomla! User Group members at the Personal Computer Museum in Brantford.  We had excellent presentations on using Joomla! for e-commerce. This was the agenda for the meeting:

• 7:00 Everyone Assembles
• 7:15 Introductions (emcee Joe Joomla)
• 7:20 E-commerce best practices (Greg Caughill)
• 7:50 E-commerce with VirtueMart (Corrie Sloot)
• 8:20 Refreshments & Restroom break
• 8:35 JUGSWO! vision & mission (John Matecsa)
• 8:50 Questions, answers and discussions about anything Joomla! (Reema Duggal)
• 9:30 Networking
• 10:00 Good Night

KickOff - October 8, 2009

JUGSWO launches!  Our first meeting occured on October 8 at the Personal Computer Museum in Brantford, ON

Thanks to Joe Joomla and Corrie Sloot who were instrumental in applying for, and receiving approval for registering our Southwestern Ontario Joomla! User Group (JUGSWO).  Joe and Corrie first met through the Joomla.org forum and wanted to meet other Joomla! users in the Southwestern Ontario area.   Through "word of mouth", the first meeting was well attended by 17 people including those from Picasso Fish who covered the costs.  This was the agenda for the meeting:

• 7:00 Guests assemble
• 7:15 Formal Introductions [Joe]
• 7:20 Joe Sonne Presentation [Joe]
• 7:45 Picasso Fish's history with Joomla / Mambo  - what we like / what we don't like / what we would like to see in the future [Greg]
• 8:00 Refreshment Break
• 8:15 Case Study [Stacy]
• 8:30 Our custom Joomla research and how it will benefit the community [Corrie]
• 8:45 Next Meeting Date? [John]
• 8:50 Computer Museum tour + fun stuff [Syd]
• 9:15 Ask Experts / Networking