Bloggers

Jack

I love Joomla! and the way component evolves around it. Full time kick ass Joomla developer!

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Sam

Sam has not set their biography yet

Recent Posts

Andrew Rogers

The main man in StackIdeas for all customer relationships, partner collaborations, marketing ideas and sales promotions.

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  • We recently conducted a webinar on how to blog in Joomla with EasyBlog. The webinar was organized by our partner CloudAccess.net who specialized in cloud hosting solutions where over 200 Joomla users around the world participated in it. For those who missed the webinar, you could view the recorded version below:

    (We hope you could finish the entire video, watch out for a SPECIAL GIFT at the end of the video :D)

    There are other features not covered in this video but you could still check out our Documentations on some how-tos such as:

    You could also refer to the following tips to get MORE out of EasyBlog:

    1. How to add comments into image galleries in Joomla?
    2. Install blog templates in Joomla 3.0
    3. Blog from your iPad with Blogsy
    4. Monetize Your Joomla Blog with SocialAds

    We are ever ready to support you for that smooth experience in using this powerful blogging extension for Joomla websites. Feel free to contact us.

     

  • Joomla is super versatile when you want to create great looking websites with great features, like an online store, an online directory, a helpdesk, a blog site and more. In this webinar, StackIdeas and CloudAccess will zoom in to the blogging part of Joomla using the all-in-one EasyBlog extension.

    This will be our first webinar and our effort to reach to all our users in a personal level and tell you more about us and how EasyBlog works for you. Our lead developer Mark Lee will be sharing on behalf of the StackIdeas team and if you have any sort of questions, you are free to ask him that time.

    It's tomorrow!

    When: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 9:00 am EST
    Cost: FREE

    Register early as space is limited

    REGISTER NOW

  • The Joomla!dagen Netherlands 2013 was a great experience of sorts. I can say it couldn't get any better in the organisation of this great event. Of course, this event was not the first time Sander Potjer (of ACL Manager) and his team running the show as it was the 8th time to be held in this land of beautiful tulips and historic windmills.

    We only had 3 days to spend -- one in Amsterdam and 2 days were for the actual Joomla!dagen event. And in both days, the talks were a good mix of technical and non-technical topics that were mostly in Dutch language. The organisers were very thoughtful as they didn't leave out the English speaking attendees where each hour slot had an English speaker in it. Naturally, we went to most of the English sessions except for one that requires prior technical and programming knowledge to understand (I'm in marketing and Chang is our frontend developer).

    Attendees also get to meet with the experts in one-to-one sessions via the Doctor Joomla where these 'doctors' will be stationed at a large desk to answer and guide these curious attendees.

    20130421_133425.jpg

    Topics covered ranged from the future versions of Joomla 3 to the right selection of font type to attract visitors to stay in your site and it was all truly insightful and enlightening. The highlight of the event goes to speaker Paul Delbar and his 2-piece band singing the Joomla Blues song and the Story of Brian (Teeman??) where he shared about the trials and tribulations of maintaining a website.

    DSC_1369.JPG

    We stayed at the Wouschoten Hotel and the distance between the room and the event was just a few steps away. I must commend again the thoughtfulness of the organisers for this awesome planning. Double thumbs up!

    The relationships with people that we've contacted via email and Skype were renewed as I personally met the Joomla 'big guys' like Brian Teeman, Peter van Westen (NoNumber.nl), David-Andrew de Boer, Theo van der Zee of ThemePartner, Sander Potjer, Dianne Henning, Robert Deutz, Jisse Rietsma, Denis Dulici, and the SiteGround team.

    20130421_111202.jpg

    20130421_143241.jpg

    I can sum up and say that all the years of running the Joomla!dagen had indirectly produced a whopping 15 Joomla! User Groups (JUGs) in the Netherlands! This reality was shown in the over 300 attendees who turned up at this event. I think Joomla is a common tool that many Dutch web developers are comfortable with. We were also proud to know quite a substantial attendees we've spoken to are familiar or have used EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss and Komento!

    We want to thank the organizers for the opportunity to sponsor the Joomla!dagen Netherlands 2013! You could also view more pictures here.

  • Put it this way, EasyDiscuss is the Swiss Army knife of a Joomla forum. If you've seen the likes of StackOverflow, Yahoo! Answers and Quora, or even Kunena and phpBB, then EasyDiscuss is capable of doing them all in one single installation.

    For a limited time, we want you to give EasyDiscuss a try and see the wonders in it. Go on and install it in your localhost or live site and play with it with all your might.

    What you will get:

    Your free EasyDiscuss license entitles you:

    • 6 months worth of EasyDiscuss Professional ( Valued at $39.5 )
    • Unlimited software downloads
    • Unlimited professional theme downloads
    • Regular software updates
    • Access to documentations
    • Participate in our forum to get support
    • Access to priority technical support. See what others are saying about our awesome support.

    I want my FREE EasyDiscuss!

    Getting your free license of EasyDiscuss is easy. Purchase any of our Joomla extensions (EasyBlog, Komento, and Bundles) and we will add in the EasyDiscuss license into your account.

    Here are some terms to get you through:

    1. Only for new purchases made from today onwards from our website. Purchases before April 16th, 2013 is not eligible for the free EasyDiscuss license.
    2. If you buy any of the single EasyDiscuss license from April 16th onwards till 18th, you will receive the additional 6-months to your license.
    3. Not valid on any license renewals, upgrades and JomSocial addons.
    4. Not valid with any other promotions/offers, e.g. the use of coupons is not allowed.
    5. Bundles that has EasyDiscuss included will be added 6-months to the license.
    6. Please allow 24-hours for your free EasyDiscuss license to appear in your account.

    EasyDiscuss is free for 3-days from April 16th - 18th, 2013 at 2359 hours (UTC -8) Pacific Time.

    THIS OFFER HAS ALREADY EXPIRED

  • We are extremely happy about Joomladagen Netherlands because we will be there! We last sponsored Joomlday Netherlands in 2011 and this time we are sponsoring again and want to be upclose and personal with fellow Dutch Joomla fans there.

    You can expect Joomla 'celebrities' like Sander Potjer (ACL Manager), Brian Teeman, Ronald Pijpers, Peter Martin, and more to give you the low down on Joomla and things that revolved around it. If you havent got tickets, you better grab them now.

    We will be arriving at Amsterdam on April 18th for a short day trip in the city and the next day on 19th, we will be at Zeist in the Meet & Greet session where sponsors, speakers and participants get to mingle before the actual event day on Saturday, April 20th.

    If you guys are in Amsterdam or at Zeist, come and introduce yourself. We would love to meet each and every one of our Dutch Joomla users better!

    GET TICKETS TO JOOMLADAGEN

     

  • Whether it is a website on photography, catalogs, or an online family album, you will need a reliable image gallery extension to do the job for you. Better if both the gallery and comments tool work smoothly together so you could save more time in development. You could search the JED for the right Joomla extensions for the perfect combo but in this blog, you don't need to search far -- we've got just the right recommendations for you.

    Enter FW Gallery and Komento in this new integration effort between StackIdeas and FastW3b!

    FW Gallery contains useful features that's flexible for any kind of website to display beautiful image galleries. To enable comments for these images, just use Komento. The latest FW Gallery version 2.1 is compatible with Joomla 2.5 and 3.0 and is optimized for Komento with the help of the Comment Plugin for FW Gallery. 

    See how Komento fits like a glove within the images displayed inside FW Gallery:

    komento-integrates-fw-gallery-joomla-main.png

    Deploying this combo doesn't require rocket scientist. You just need 3 items to make this work:

    1. FW Gallery extension
    2. Komento extension
    3. Comment Plugin for FW Gallery (the all important tool to bridge both extensions)

    Download and install all 3 items in your Joomla. In the Plug-in Manager of your Joomla backend, make sure that Komento is selected inside the Comment Plugin basic options tab.

    komento-integrates-fw-gallery-joomla.jpg

    After that, go to Komento backend > Integration and select Komento-FWGallery integration.

    komento-integrates-fw-gallery-joomla-3.jpg

    Make sure that comments are enabled and check other settings that may be important for you.

    komento-integrates-fw-gallery-joomla-2.jpg

    You're done! You now have an online gallery that's ready to receive comments and feedback from viewers.

    DOWNLOAD KOMENTO   DOWNLOAD FW GALLERY

  • From time to time, we introduce to you new aspirations to build your websites in Joomla. If you are a Wordpress user and looking to start a blog, you can count on Joomla for scalability and wider functions. And if you have customers looking to start a blog for their company website, why not introduce them with Joomla? 

    Today, we are happy to give you another tip to build a beautiful blog in Joomla, powered by JSN Mico, the brand new Joomla template created by JoomlaShine.

    Here is a screenshot of JSN Mico with special styling done to support EasyBlog, the preferred Joomla blog extension:

     a1sx2_Thumbnail1_Recent-blog-posts---EasyBlog-no-flip.jpg

    You could also view the live demo of JSN Mico template at our DEMO page.

    JSN Mico is a fun template for any variety of website or a blogging site. This Joomla template has also been optimized to support EasyBlog and its powerful blogging features. You can rest assure that JSN Mico is fully responsive and it will look great in smartphones, tablets and iPads. Bear in mind, you need to have your website to be in Joomla 2.5 or 3.0 to make this template work.

    Here's how JSN Mico looks in its original form:

    a1sx2_Thumbnail1_Professional-business-Joomla--template-JSN-Mico-by-JoomlaShine.com---Home.png

    This is the 5th template with EasyBlog styling built by the creative team at JoomlaShine. The other four Joomla templates were:

    We'd like you to check out the beautiful templates from JoomlaShine if you are shopping for a brand new Joomla theme. If you are a StackIdeas customer, you will automatically enjoy 30% discount on JoomlaShine's templates. Click on our Partners page to get the coupon code.

    The JSN Mico-EasyBlog combo is all you need to create a solid Joomla website with a blog. Go ahead and download EasyBlog today.

  • I had a short stint as a counselor in one of the summer camps in Charlton, near Boston. It was 10 years ago where I last explored the streets of Boston and I must say it was a great experience working with an international staff and having fun with the kids at camp. I won't be going to Boston this time but StackIdeas will, in a form of sponsoring Joomla Day Boston.

    Joomla Day Boston 2013 will be held on March 16th (that's this weekend!) at Microsoft's NERD Center where you get to learn all about Joomla and most importantly, relationship building amongst Joomla fans and users. This full day learning event will be held in 3 main rooms catered for beginner, intermediate and advanced Joomla users so regardless of which level you belong, there sure are lots to learn!

    If you are an aspiring Joomla extensions/template developer or looking to build your network and possibly know who's who in Joomla. Some of the important folks to shake hands with are Paul Orwig, President of Open Source Matters, Elin Waring, Joomla Bug Squad, Andy Tarr and Michael Babker both from Joomla Production Leadership Team, and lots more.

    StackIdeas is proud to be the Emerald sponsor for Joomla Day Boston 2013 and we were given 2 entry passes to attend the event. Unfortunately, we won't be able to make it and we want to give the passes away to deserving fans and users of our extensions.

    All you need to do to get the passes is drop us a comment below and tell us WHY you deserve to attend the Joomla Day Boston.

    You have until this Friday, March 15th, 2013 to send us your comments!

  • Of late, we've been receiving growing interest in our question-and answer tool EasyDiscuss from users looking to start a forum in their Joomla website. We are happy to discover that users are now learning about the real use of EasyDiscuss in managing opinions and feedbacks amongst users. And soon enough, we will see more Joomla templates supporting this extension as well.

    In fact, there are already a handful of Joomla template developers built templates that integrate with EasyDiscuss. Recently, there is a new Joomla template supporting EasyDiscuss -- Xyst by ThemeRox.

    Xyst is a responsive Joomla template best for corporate websites and it works on Joomla 2.5 and 3.0. Some of the main features includes:

    • 5 types of slideshows
    • 8 colors to choose from
    • 4 columns supported
    • 30 Photoshop files for customization
    • and many more

    Take a look at EasyDiscuss in the Xyst theme:

    easydiscuss-joomla-template-by-themerox.png

     

    This theme is the sole product offered by ThemeRox and is available at ThemeForest template marketplace. You could also go in-depth into this theme in their demo.

     VIEW THE XYST-EASYDISCUSS DEMO IN JOOMLA 2.5 / 3.0

  • Our partner Fastw3b recently worked an integration of its popular real estate component FW Real Estate with Komento!

    FW Real Estate is a top-rated Joomla property listing component with advanced features that you can use to create a full-featured real estate site. The new version 2.0 is compatible with Joomla 2.5.x and 3.0 and supports Komento and its other features as well.

    Build interaction within your property pages

    With this integration, Komento gives your property listing site more value as it allows visitors to comment on a particular property page itself. These comments represents the opinions of visitors and they are important decision factors for buyers to get the best property they desire. Of course, negative or abusive comments can easily be contained with Komento's filtering feature, presenting a 'clean' property website to your audiences.

    Some of the main features of FW Real Estate includes:

    Features for property agents and property sellers:

    • Subscription facility – option to charge agents to add their properties
    • Watermark feature
    • Automated/manual agent approval
    • Option to upload unlimited properties images, PDF files, video files, etc.
    • Unlimited categories and types
    • Google Captcha, and much more

    Features for users and property buyers:

    • Favorites list with add as favorite feature
    • In-depth searches on price, property type, bathroom numbers, floor areas and more
    • Add comments with Komento
    • Apply simple-to-use filters like availability filters, lease term filters, ‘order by’ filters, etc
    • Save searches option
    • Share via Twitter, Facebook and email
    • Print option
    • View on Google Maps (Street view included)
    • Add properties via front-end and much more


    Check out the demo of a property listing site powered by FW Real Estate >>

    And this is how it looks like when Komento works in FW Real Estate:

    fw-real-estate-integrate-komento-demo_20130225-090353_1.jpg

    You will need to have 3 items to make this work:

    1. FW Real Estate component
    2. Komento component
    3. FW Real Estate plugin for Komento

    The FW Real Estate plugin is free to download at FastW3b website.

    SPECIAL OFFER FROM FASTW3B:

    The Fastw3b team is happy to grant all Komento users a 10% discount on all FW Real Estate Packs except Custom/MLS Pack. Please contact Fastw3b for more details. This offer expires on March 20th, 2013.

  • Other entries by Andrew Rogers

Jason Ramos

Jason Ramos has not set their biography yet

Recent Posts

  • Posted by - 24 Comments

    Media Manager for EasyBlog is a brilliant solution for you to insert images, audio and videos easily into your blog post. Since its initial release in EasyBlog 3.5, we have gathered numerous valuable feedback from you guys and rolled them into our next release. So here are some of the juicy stuff to expect from Media Manager in EasyBlog 3.6:

  • Posted by - 0 Comments

    If you have just purchased any of our products and you are unable to access your downloads at "My Accounts" page, do not fret, we are resolving this issue right now!

    What went wrong?
    Due to recent API changes in our friendly payment gateway provider Plimus, all new purchases made through Paypal are not returning sufficient transaction data to our billing system to unlock your software downloads.

    Hang in there! Your downloads are on the way!
    Our support team is currently verifying all recent purchases made within 6 hours ago against Plimus right now and gradually enabling downloads for you. Our developers, on the other hand, are working frantically to adapt our billing system to the new API changes in Plimus.

    We know you are excited to download and install our extensions right away and we appreciate your patience for delaying your gratification of using our software!

    If you are still having issues accessing your downloads, please log a ticket with us at http://helpdesk.stackideas.com

     

    Updates: This issue has been resolved and you should be able to get instant access to your downloads now after making the payments via Paypal.

  • Other entries by Jason Ramos

Richard Pearce

Producer of great Joomla tutorials at Build a Joomla Website

Recent Posts

Andy

Andy has not set their biography yet

Recent Posts

  • Posted by - 10 Comments

    We've compiled some tools that you could use to start your very first community blogging website in Joomla. These tools will not only works great but also looks stunning.

    If you already have the latest Joomla 2.5.x installed, we recommend dressing it up with JA Social theme by Joomlart. I presume you already have JomSocial installed and most importantly, have EasyBlog installed too. And to complete the community blogging part, you will need some EasyBlog plugins to work that out.

    We would like to announce that themes from Joomlart integrates with EasyBlog.

    Here's how EasyBlog looks like inside the JA Social template... after the jump

  • Posted by - 1 Comment

    Just weeks ago, we announced about a new Joomla theme that supports EasyBlog and had enjoyed positive responses from our users. Once again, EasyBlog has a new partner! We are proud to announce Mainstream, a brand new theme by ThemeXpert.com also integrates smoothly with EasyBlog!

    Mainstream is a great template for news sites where contents can be highly configured to appear in a streamlined manner. This template release also marks the all-new version of their template framework Expose 3, which is the main powerpack for all your template layout needs when you use any of ThemeXperts products in the future.

    If you intend to start a news portal using Joomla, this EasyBlog-Mainstream combo has got great tools for you to kick things off, fast and smooth!

    More reasons to start NOW as you can get EasyBlog and Mainstream
    at 15% off each, for a limited time.

    Get them by clicking on these buttons and use the coupon codes:

    Offer lasts till Saturday, March 17th, 2012 at 2359 hours GMT+0.

    Happy blogging! ;)

  • Other entries by Andy

Mark

I am a PHP Joomla developer...

Recent Posts

  • Posted by - 22 Comments

    Based on the feedback that we have received from our users when we released EasyDiscuss 3, our dedicated developers have been burning the midnight oil working on EasyDiscuss 3.1. Before I start bragging about some of the key features of EasyDiscus 3.1, it is my duty to let you know that we are also working on a new extension concurrently. More details will follow up very soon about our new extension, in a separate blog :)

    Here are some of the reasons why you'll love the awesome EasyDiscuss 3.1:

    A new theme

    Twitter Bootstrap is great but we noticed that there are just too many sites that solely rely on their base styles. This makes every site look pretty much the same and kinda boring too! Some improvisations were done and our design engineer crafted this:

    b2ap3_thumbnail_discuss_frontpage.png


    And oh, if you must know, our creative designer is now working on another prototype design (Still in the works, yeah).

    Branching

    Quite often on your site, some of the replies are worth being a discussion itself. In EasyDiscuss 3.1, we have introduced branching where you as the site administrator or your moderators can branch existing replies to be a discussion itself.

    b2ap3_thumbnail_discuss_branch.png

     

    Converting comments as reply

    At times, your user might post their answers through the built-in comment in the discussion itself and there wasn't any way to move the comment into an existing discussion and have it work as a reply. With EasyDiscuss 3.1, you will be able to convert existing comments on the site into a reply.

    b2ap3_thumbnail_discuss_comment_convert.png

     

    Online Status

    A problem that most site owner's had previously was when the user's does not know the online status of another user. There is no way to tell if the moderator is currently online or not. In EasyDiscuss 3.1, we have introduced the new online state which appears beneath the author's avatar and name. This of course, is configurable as well.

    b2ap3_thumbnail_discuss_online_status.png

     

    Post types

    In EasyDiscuss 3.1, you will also be able to define new post types for your site. When users create a new discussion, they would then be able to select the type of the post. It could be feature request, issues, tasks, bugs or anything else that would suit your site.

    b2ap3_thumbnail_discuss_post_types.png

     

    New post statuses

    In EasyDiscuss 3.1, moderators can assign additional post statuses for the discussions on the site. This would then allow other users to view the state of the current discussion.

     b2ap3_thumbnail_discuss_post_status_20130517-061047_1.png

    That's all folks. Stay tune to updates from our Facebook and Twitter page.

  • Posted by - 4 Comments

    We received numerous requests from non paying customers where their site has been hacked. Upon inspecting on some of these sites which downloaded EasyBlog and EasyDiscuss, some of the codes in the software has been injected with some "backdoors" which allows the hacker to gain super admin access to your site.

    We would like to inform all non customers who obtained the extension from any external sites that we will not be providing any support and we do not hold any responsibility if your site is being hacked because you downloaded the archive from a 3rd party (warez / unofficial site).

    If you are already using an unofficial copy, please do consider purchasing a valid subscription and install the official versions available only from out website http://stackideas.com.

    If you are using the official copy, you are absolutely safe from all these reports :)

    Again, we would like to stress out that we will not be responsible if your site is hacked because you installed an unofficial version.

  • Posted by - 0 Comments

    We seem to be experiencing some email delivery issues by our mail provider Mandrill, earlier but the issue has now been resolved and you should be getting the mails really soon. Apparently the emails that we have sent out from our helpdesk a couple of hours ago wasn't delivered. If you have submitted a support ticket or email but still haven't received a reply yet, please do let us know.


    Thank you for understanding and sincerely apologize for any inconveniences caused.

  • Posted by - 19 Comments

    We have recently just noticed that there is some issues with the automated updater in EasyBlog if you are using version 3.7.14091 or lower. In order to update to the latest version using the automated updater, you will need to download the patch file.

    Tagged in: easyblog updates
  • Posted by - 5 Comments

    Over the weekend someone came up to me requesting for a module that displays a list of entries in a pull down list. I gave it a thought and felt that it should really be useful for site's that want to allow easier navigation for visitors.

    I managed to pull this off quickly and the module is now available for free and is download-able from our downloads section.

  • Posted by - 4 Comments

    A new hotfix for Komento is available for download now. A very helpful user pointed to us a little issue in Komento and we had to postpone our restful weekend to get it fixed and resolved.

  • Posted by - 0 Comments

    There has been somewhat of a confusion over what Blog images are and how it is used. To sum it all up, think of Blog Image a way for you to identify your blog post with an image.

  • Posted by - 10 Comments

    While most of you have been busy surfing around with your mobile devices, some of you might been asking yourselves, "How can I make my Joomla! powered site mobile compatible?". Don't fret as Weever Apps has actually came up with something amazing for your Joomla! powered sites. To begin with, their component setup is extremely easy.

    So, what do we have in store for you in EasyBlog 3.5? :)

  • Posted by - 28 Comments

    This is actually my first blog post after joining the company not long ago. Some of you may have known me since back then but those who have never get to meet me yet, I am Mark one of the new developers here.

    I hoped you guys are excited when the earlier post about EasyDiscuss 2.0 as it will be one of the biggest change ever. While working on EasyDiscuss, we were a reluctant to actually create YAC (Yet Another Comment) plugin but after developing it on the initial wireframe stages, it got us thinking that this is pretty cool and it allows easy searching when the replies are actually done in the discussions itself.

    The plugin allows you to automatically link the articles in Joomla back to EasyDiscuss and vice versa. So, here it is some screenies of how it works and how it's going to help you build your site to allow collaboration between your site members and the author's on the site.

    This is what the front page would look like after enabling this plugin.

     

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Keith

Keith has not set their biography yet

Recent Posts

  • Posted by - 0 Comments

    Besides continuous product development, we strive to provide the best support experience our users can get. Everyday, we get dozens of support requests in different levels of complexities, both big and small. Over time, we have seen some of our users seeking support get frustrated due to the urgency of the technical support.

    Documentations is a good place to start if you are a new and require some basic steps like getting started or even installing our Joomla extensions, hardware and software requirements, etc.

    Not finding what you want? Our discussion forum is the next best thing for users like you connect with us and interact with one another. You're bound to find tips and tricks that may have shared by an experienced user in the forum itself.

    Still unable to resolve your issue? Our friendly technical experts are just an email away. To help us serve you better, please have the following ready before you send that email to us:

    1. Error messages that you encounter, copy that and show it to us
    2. Screen shots of the issue(s)
    3. Access to your FTP -- the username and password

    By providing us with the above items, it will help us understand your questions and allow us to come back to you sooner; providing you with the best solution that you need.

    Getting help is easier if you help us to help you better.

  • Posted by - 2 Comments

    To get the best out of EasyBlog, we encourage all of our users to keep it up-to-date. From time to time, the development team will release new builds containing enhancements and bug fixes so I'd like to encourage you to take advantage of your subscription by downloading the latest releases of EasyBlog and perform updates on your Joomla site.

    These updates consist of enhancements in the usability and, most importantly, security fixes that will give you peace of mind in website management.

    It’s fairly simple to perform updates and here I have a step-by-step guide on updating EasyBlog, after the jump.

  • Posted by - 8 Comments

    Creating a blog post that’s rich and engaging to the audience isn’t always easy. This can take up some time and effort even for the seasoned blogger. If you want to focus on putting together a good piece and spend less time looking for materials relevant to your post, you may have found the right tool for it.

    And, what if you have a virtual assistant who can add some zest into your blog content, in real time?

    Read more after the jump.

     

  • Posted by - 0 Comments

    Congratulations to John-Pierre and Friederik! They won the professional subscription copy of both EasyBlog and EasyDiscuss respectively at the recent Joomla! User Group Montreal meeting. If you are around there, you should also try to participate in their meetings! It's really cool!

    .

  • Other entries by Keith

Apson

Apson has not set their biography yet

Recent Posts

  • Posted by - 13 Comments

    Just so you know, SectionEx is now compatible with websites that are using Joomla 2.5 and Joomla 3.0!

    You can now have a beautifully organized Joomla website the way you have always wanted. SectionEx works like a site map or directory tree, where you can browse all your articles and categories in a listed format.

    sectionex-features-list.png

    It has an easy-to-use and smooth interface for both front and back end.  Our designer came up with a new theme for SectionEx, it is called Default.

    sectionex-features-theme.png

     

    You can learn more about the features of SectionEx 2.5.93 here or grab the latest SectionEx by clicking the button below:

    I want my SectionEx

  • Posted by - 2 Comments

    Site of the week is where we feature different Joomla sites that use our Joomla extensions. You can take this as a case study on our products and also to know how other users are experiencing our Joomla extensions and their thoughts on them.

    Today we are featuring a travel site, KinderJet. Their site uses our Social Professional Bundle that consists of EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss and Komento. The site is basically blogging about family traveling and outing.

    We have interviewed Paul Toth, President of KinderJet to ask about his view and experience on our products, and this was our conversation:

    1. Have you used any Joomla extensions before EasyBlog?

    Yes, we started with another blog extension but it was so clumsy and difficult to work with that we were considering to just use the stock Joomla article. Then I found EasyBlog and the rest was history.

    2. How did EasyBlog help you better manage your blogs compared to your previous Joomla extensions?

    EasyBlog is very well thought out and includes pretty much everything you need when running a blog. From adding media to scheduling posts, EasyBlog has allowed us to be flexible in how we need to manage our site. And it looks great out of the box! We have done a few minor tweaks to the overall look to match our template but what you see is more or less stock.

    3. How did you get to know about our extensions and why did you choose them for your site?

    After being so frustrated with the other extensions I started to look around at various blog extensions or components. We wanted more control over everything on our site, which is why we stayed away from WordPress and Blogger. EasyBlog gives us that control and flexibility to operate and manage our site. We've added EasyDiscuss and Komento as well. One of the things I like is that all these components are made by Stackideas so they fit together as you'd expect, plus any support issues you may have will get solved.

    4. If there is one thing you can add or change in our product, what would that be?

    I really do think that your products are very well thought out that there's nothing major. If there was one thing that I think would benefit me and probably other users is having a 'Profile' component. So regardless of whether you are using EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss or Komento they would all use the Profile component. As it stands right now each product has it's own and while getting them to talk to each other was not hard it was just a step that I probably didn't need to take if there was just one Profile component (I'd call it EasyProfile).

    5. What do you think about our support team?

    The Stackideas support team is outstanding. Response was generally very fast and always polite, but more importantly they are very helpful. I had a recent issue that not only did they solve but suggested additional code to make it do what I needed it to do. I doubt that there is another support team out there that is as attentive as Stackideas.

    See our Joomla extensions in action for KinderJet:

    EasyBlog

    easyblog-kinderjet.jpg

     

    EasyDiscuss

    easydiscuss-kinderjet.jpg

     

    Komento

    komento-kinderjet.jpg

    Special thanks to Paul for the opportunity to showcase his website here. 

    Paul Toth, President of KinderJet.com

  • Posted by - 39 Comments

    It is a great pleasure to announce that EasyBlog version 3.8 is launched. We want to thank you all for your patience as it took us some time to make sure everything were as close to perfect before releasing it. Our developers had gone through all your suggestions and we have picked the best features to be added in this version of EasyBlog.

    Download EasyBlog 3.8   OR   Buy It Now!

    The new EasyBlog has some new and exciting features that you will love. Here are some of them:

    Responsive layout

    No more weird layouts when viewing your EasyBlog posts in your iPhone , iPad or any mobile devices -- EasyBlog is now fully RESPONSIVE!

    easyblog-responsive-layout.jpg

     

    New blog theme

    We have designed a new theme for your next Joomla blog -- Vintage.

    easyblog-vintage-theme.jpg

     

    Schema tags

    We've now added schema tags for Ratings and it is great for SEO.

    easyblog-schema-tags-rating.jpg

     

    Share in Facebook Groups

    In EasyBlog 3.8, you can now configure auto posting to your favorite Facebook groups, the shares would be posted automatically when you create a new blog post.

    easyblog-share-in-facebook-group_20130424-162900_1.jpg

    Apart from some of these key features in EasyBlog 3.8, these are some of the other exciting new features to brag about:

    • Improved workflow in RSS Feed Importer
    • Improved workflow for blog image sizes
    • Subscribers will now receive a confirmation email upon successful subscription
    • Improvised author section to include recent blog posts by the author
    • You will now be able to selectively resend notifications for each blog post
    • Improved integrations with Alpha User Points when a blog post is rated
    • and many more exciting and cool features...

    If you would like to check out the changelog of the latest EasyBlog fixes, click here.

    Download EasyBlog 3.8   OR   Buy It Now!

  • Posted by - 1 Comment

    This week we are featuring a community website that serves as a hub for information exchange amongst the Maori community in New Zealand. The Ka Pao site uses all three Joomla extensions EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss and Komento to empower communication between the Maori members for business networking, discussions and current news.

    We got hold of Terry Perkins, the web developer for this website, who trusted our Joomla extensions in building this site for a short interview.

    week-15.jpg

    1. Have you used any Joomla extensions before?

    Yes. I've built websites since around 1996 and started developing them in Joomla in 2007.

    2. How did Stackideas’ extensions helped you better manage your website compared to the previous Joomla extensions?

    It's the integration between each components, their similarity of design and purpose, and StackIdeas tech support that makes the difference.

    3. How did you get to know about our extensions and, why did you choose them for your site?

    From the JED, and reading though the glowing reviews there I decided to go with StackIdeas ' extensions ... What I found was a well laid out site that explained each component very well and had an active support area. After purchase it was less than a week before I posted a positive review on JED as well (and I never do that).

    My initial purpose with Ka Pao was to build a site that allowed people to interact in as many different ways as possible and to make it very easy for them to do so. So, I chose the StackIdeas Professional bundle because it's perfect.

    4. If there is one thing you can add or change in our product, what would that be?

    If it was possible to create separate administrator announcement blog posts that hide author/date, etc. I could do away with the native Joomla article space on the front end altogether.

    5. What do you think about our support team?

    Your support is the best I have ever encountered for any software (including graphics, 3D, and video software... not just for website development)

    Below is how our extensions look like in Ka Pao:

    EasyDiscuss

    week-15-3.jpg

    Komento

    week-15-2.jpg

    We want to thank Terry for sharing his valuable review!

  • Posted by - 0 Comments

    Bunnies, chocolates, colorful eggs...do they all remind you of a special day? You've guessed it right, it is Easter! At Stackideas we want to make this Easter day filled with sweet memories that will lasts.

    Want to blog about your Easter celebration, start a discussion with your peeps to plan for the best Easter ever, or leave comments at your friend‘s blog post? We want to make your Easter celebration EXTRA special with a limited offer on all our Joomla extensions.

    GRAB YOUR EASTER GOODIES TODAY!

    We are giving you an additional 4 months support license with any purchase made in our STORE. No coupons needed, just purchase like normal and the extra 4 months will be added automatically. This offer will start today and end on March 31st, 2013 at 2359 hrs (GMT+0).

    What are you waiting for? Hop into our store and grab your Easter goodies now!

    Other Easter offers from our partners:

    JoomPlace is offering you 20%OFF all of our extensions offered in our STORE! Just use the discount code – EASTER20JP – when purchasing any product. This sale will expire Sunday night (March, 31). Hurry up!

     

    Use ENJOYEASTER to get 15% off for all FW Gallery subscriptions, VirtueMart Rental products and other nice extensions. The deal is valid till April 1 only.

  • Posted by - 7 Comments

    In Joomla, there are many tools that you can use to make your site work better for you. With the help of Content Construction Kits (CCK) - like K2, FlexiContent and ZOO - you can do wonders with your content. Komento now supports these CCK and you can enable your comments in these articles. Today's blog is all about a new integration with the upcoming CCK -- Cobalt 8.

    Cobalt 8 is a fast growing CCK that works in Joomla 2.5 and 3.0 also, this can be used to construct any kind of websites from online galleries to e-commerce. We are happy to announce that you can now add Komento into articles created from Cobalt 8. Cobalt 8 already has it's own built-in comment system but, you may still use Komento if it is your preferred choice.

    Take a look at how Komento works in Cobalt 8's articles page:

    komento-cobalt.png

    Activating Komento is really easy. You obviously need to have Cobalt 8 and Komento installed to your site.

    b2ap3_thumbnail_step-1.jpgFrom the backend of your Joomla, under Komento integrations, you should see a Cobalt 8 button, click on the button and this will bring you to the configuration page.

    b2ap3_thumbnail_step-2.jpgFrom here you can enable / disable how you want Komento to work on theses pages.

     

     Simple as that!

     

     

     

  • Posted by - 1 Comment

     

     

     

    Jen Kramer

    Author, Speaker, Instructor and Owner of jenkramer.org

     

    We found out that Jen Kramer is quite an avid blogger so we decided to do a little interview with her recently about blogging. We’ve also chosen her site, jenkramer.org as our site of the week as she is one of our valued user of EasyBlog too!

    If you are not aware, Jen Kramer is a trainer who provides training for website design, website development, content management system (CMS), international marketing and website planning and strategy courses for adults.

    She chose EasyBlog blogging tool to share about the different technology, Joomla extensions, some programming tutorials and more.

    We’ve asked the lovely Jen about her experience with EasyBlog and below are the details of the conversation:

    1. Before EasyBlog, what other Joomla blog extensions did you used?

    I always try to use core Joomla wherever possible, and I only add extensions when absolutely required. I wanted to be able to tag the blog posts, plus I wanted easy commenting. I also wanted the posts to be tied into social media. Unfortunately, Joomla core does none of that. I previously worked with MyBlog, when my site was in Joomla 1.5 and sadly it seemed to have security issues.

    EasyBlog was well recommended by the community, was compatible with Joomla 3, and seemed to have an easy interface. StackIdeas was also a supporter of Joomla Day New England, so that also helped to make the decision to use EasyBlog an easy one.

    2. How did EasyBlog helped you better manage your blog compared to the previous Joomla extensions?

    It's a little easier. MyBlog did not have the social media integrations, but then, it came out in 2008. You had to integrate comments separately. But again, this was ancient history in the Joomla community, and blog extensions have changed quite a bit since then.

    3. How did you learnt about EasyBlog and amongst all, why does EasyBlog fit the bill?

    I typically go to the Joomla Extensions Directory, like most people in Joomla, and I look at the extensions offered. I look for extensions with a long track record, a solid company behind them, good recommendations, and timely responses to any negative comments. I look for an active support forum (where that is obvious). I look at what the company is contributing to the Joomla community, and I look at what my fellow Joomla developers are saying about a given extension and its company. All of this was favorable for EasyBlog.

    4. If there is one thing you want to change in EasyBlog, what will that be?

    Nothing comes to mind.

    5. How do you find our technical support services?

    I've never needed to use them.

     

    Here is a screenshot of how EasyBlog looks in jenkramer.org

    week-14.jpg

    If you are looking for someone to provide training on web development, design and anything to do with websites, Joomla or not, you could contact Jen for an obligation-free consultation.

  • Posted by - 9 Comments

    Site Of The Week is back! This is the first site for 2013. We will be featuring more interesting Joomla sites that are using our extensions.

    The site that we are featuring this week will be RedShark. RedShark is a site that uses EasyBlog to blog about technology news, gadget know-how, applications and more. The site uses EasyBlog and lets see how EasyBlog works for them http://www.redsharknews.com/post

    week-13.jpg

    We interviewed Piotr Gasiorowski, Web Developer of RedShark, where he shares on what he thinks about EasyBlog:

    1. Have you used any Joomla extensions before EasyBlog?

    Yes, many. Though I'm a developer, I don't always need to create own extensions from scratch if it's available somewhere there.

    2. How did EasyBlog helped you better manage your blogs compared to your previous Joomla extensions?

    The installation and configuration was really straightforward. The default layout looks nice and it's quite easy to brand it.

    3. How did you get to know about our extensions and, why did you choose them for your site?

    I've heard about Stackideas from a colleague who is also a web developer/designer. I don’t only check on what's available in the extensions and whether it's easy to install, configure and customize but also how their codes look like, if it's following programming standards and if it is secured.

    4. If there is one thing you can add or change in our product, what would that be?

    Komento - absolutely nothing. EasyBlog - I could provide a list of functionality that I had to customize.

    5. What do you think about our support team?

    First impression was fantastic. I got help off working hours, which I didn’t expect.

     

    Tell us what do you think about this week’s site. Leave a comment below, and you will get a chance to try EasyBlog for 3 months FREE.

    Want your site to be featured in our blog? Drop me an email apson@stackideas.com we will be happy to feature your site.

  • Posted by - 3 Comments

    Site Of The Week features different Joomla sites that use our Joomla extensions like EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss, and Komento. Last week we did a site about responsive templates, if you missed it you can click here to read the blog.

    This week’s site is NLP University.

    week-12.jpg

    NLP University is a German site that has a blog about the study of hypnosis. Click here to see how EasyBlog works in their site.

    Below are the conversations that we had with Julian Wolf, owner of NLP University:

    1. Have you used any Joomla extensions before EasyBlog?

    Yes, plenty. EasyBlog is the first blog component that I tried out.

    2. How did EasyBlog helped you better manage your blogs compared to your previous Joomla extensions?

    As I can´t really compare it with other blog components, I only can point out that EasyBlog is unbelievably clean and easy to use.

    There is only very few components on the market that really work this nicely. The backend and frontend are well ordered, clean and self-explanatory.

    The price of EasyBlog might be slightly higher than the others, but I would love to spend more money also for other extensions just so that I can achieve a workflow so professional and smooth as found in EasyBlog.

    3. How did you get to know about EasyBlog and, why did you choose it for your site?

    Simple -- your advertisements!

    4. If there is one thing you can add or change in our extensions, what would that be?

    This does not happen often to me. I didnt find any bug and I really don't know anything that could make EasyBlog more perfect.

    There are a few minor things that can be improved but there is one thing I'd like to have is adding another picture for the Facebook auto-posting.

    I suggest adding some features in EasyDiscuss that would make it possible to use EasyDiscuss as a User voice-System.

    5. What do you think about our support team?

    It´s amazing! My inquiries got answered in just a few hours! The answers were fair, quick and very respectful. I really love the support experience!

     Julian Wolf, owner of NLP University.

    What do you think of this week’s site? Do you like how EasyBlog blends in the site? Leave your comments and opinions at the comments section below, you might be getting a free EasyBlog license worth 3 months.

    If you would like to have your site featured in Site Of The Week, drop me an email to apson@stackideas.com.

  • Posted by - 0 Comments

    Welcome back to Site Of The Week where different Joomla sites are featured here to show you how our Joomla extensions like EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss and Komento work in a typical Joomla website. Did you missed out last week’s site? If you did, you can read the blog post.

    This week we are featuring WS-Theme!

    week-11.jpg

    WS-Theme is a German based site that produces responsive templates for Joomla and it currently uses EasyDiscuss as a customer support page and forum. Click here to see how EasyDiscuss works on their site.

    We interviewed Brokk Oli, owner of the site, and this is the conversation we had:

    1. Have you used any Joomla extensions before EasyDiscuss?

    Before switching to EasyDiscuss I had used FAQ Book Pro from Minitek but there was no flexibility and the guests can't be notified when a new message is posted, which is very important for me. It was also difficult to make it work smoothly in my Joomla template.

    2. How did EasyBlog helped you better manage your discussions compared to your previous Joomla extensions?

    EasyDiscuss is truly Plug-and-Play, after installing the extension all the settings were done. I had to run through a few changes in the well-structured admin options to fit this awesome component to my needs. I gotsome minor issues fixed and after sale support was really a great experience!

    3. How did you get to know about our extensions and, why did you choose them for your site?

    I found out about StackIdeas some time ago when searching for a simple blog and tagging system for Joomla 1.5 (yes, long time ago). I've found it through Google search and the JED (Joomla Extension Directory) and found EasyBlog which was the best rated blog system for Joomla. I got a copy of EasyBlog and had a wonderful support, and I must say, I have fallen in love with the whole thing. It was a good decision!

    4. What do you think about our support team?

    Like I mentioned, the pre-sale and after sale support was really awesome. I want to create the same support system as appeared in the StackIdeas forum where it shows the Joomla user details and FTP account info. I requested for your support and within a few hours later, you guys sent me the full override!

    Brokk Oli, Owner of WS-Theme

    Did you enjoy this week’s site? If you have any comments we are glad to hear them. Leave your comments below and you could get a free EasyDiscuss license worth 3 months.

    Do you like your site to be featured? Drop me an email at apson@stackideas.com we will be glad to share your site to the Joomla community.

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Jewei

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  • Posted by - 6 Comments

    Some of you guys may have been using the awesome Autoposting feature in EasyBlog. We got news recently that whenever new blogs are published, this feature didn't automatically post to your Facebook wall anymore?

    No worries, baby. The real issue here is that your Facebook access token may have expired.

    a1sx2_Thumbnail1_eb35_autoposting_settings.png

    This is a common issue where your Facebook token expiry date arrives. What you should do now is you should renew the access token.

    If you're still running on EasyBlog 3.0, go to the backend and look for EasyBlog settings. Then, under the Social Integrations tab, click on the Facebook subtab.

    a1sx2_Thumbnail1_eb3_facebook_autoposting_settings.png

    Locate the link "Revoke Access" and click on it. After that, sign in to Facebook again.

    If you're running on Easyblog 3.5, Autoposting is no longer under the Settings tab. You will be expecting a quick access button on the panel now.

    Once you're in Autoposting setting page, provided you've previously setup and linked to the Facebook app, click "Standard Settings". If you want, you can use the step by step guide to setup the Autoposting at http://stackideas.com/docs/easyblog/autoposting.html

    a1sx2_Thumbnail1_eb35_facebook_autoposting_settings.png

    Inside the Autoposting standard settings for Facebook, you should locate the "Renew Token" button. Click on that to renew the access token. You're done!

    Since the maximum lifespan of the access token is 60 days, please be remember to renew it within the 60 days period. Yes, it is troublesome, I know. But we've made it easier for you in EasyBlog 3.5 -- it will notify you the date when the access token will be expired. Say bye-bye to token expiry from now on!

    Happy autoposting!

    Tagged in: autopost easyblog
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