StackIdeas

It's official! We just released the stable EasyBlog 1.8.152 NEO a while ago..

This stable version includes all the major and minor fixes made to comply with Joomla! 1.6 and is now available to download.This is only for our registered and paid customers of EasyBlog.

See what our satisfied customers had to say about EasyBlog in the Joomla! Extensions Directory

If you are looking to start blogging in your Joomla! site, start right away from as low as $45 at our online store.

Start blogging with EasyBlog now with Joomla! compatible!

We started StackIdeas not too long ago but have already received lots of love and support from all our Joomla! users around the world. The people in the Joomla! user group, both new and experienced have showed their endless support in our products and in return of that, we give our best to attend to inquiries and problems they face.

In today's blog, we're happy to tell everyone that StackIdeas.com has been awarded and recommended as a Best Web Tool provider by WebHostingSearch.com and these are the words of recognition directly from them:

"StackIdeas.com has been awarded and recommended as a top rated web tool and development provider by Web Hosting Search who provide some of the best webhosting reviews on the internet."

EasyBlog has been the Joomla! blogging component that have been well received by our users and I think because of the ease setting up and running a blog in the Joomla! environment that had us garner this award. This is our first award in less than a year of operation!

We would like to express heartfelt appreciation to the folks at WebHostingSearch.com for trusting in our products and having faith in the services that we offer. And to all our users and customers, we couldn't be more proud to give our thanks to of you!

You already set up your Joomla! website, beautified it and got all the content ready, so what's next? Make money, of course! It may be free to use Joomla! CMS but who pays for web hosting services? domain names? Joomla! extensions and plugins?

These costs money and you as the site owner have to fork out few hundred bucks for this. In this blog, I am sharing one of the ways to make money from your Joomla! site. It will not be a list of money makers but specifically making money from advertisement.

This article written by JoomlaIsreal spelled out the criterias to follow to get your Joomla! website prepared for selling advertising spaces. It may not be a one-size-fits-all solution but it's quite informative albeit some points in it seem to be common but hey, the first step is always the hardest but who is stopping you? ;)

Read the full report HERE

In the meantime, I wish you best of luck in your money making endeavors!

We are excited to announce EasyBlog Community is now available!

Prior to this, EasyBlog was supposed to be named with a 'Professional' word in it and from today onwards, that word will be there - EasyBlog Professional. Both versions are the same except for Community comes with only 3 templates (from 11 templates) and a 'Powered by StackIdeas' link back at the bottom portion of the blog layout.

The reason for making this version available is because we want to encourage more users aware of the goodness of blogging, especially websites that run on the Joomla! platform. We want more people to start blogging and that means having the component easily adopted by experienced or novice users. EasyBlog Community has a price tag easy enough on anyone's pocket to start blogging right away at $45 a copy.

You will also be offered professional technical support from us and regular component updates on every 2-3 months cycle. Plus, an auto-subscription of our regular newsletter for the latest from our stables on products and news too.

This is an important launch and we are glad to share it with you with a little discount on both EasyBlog versions.

For EasyBlog Community, we are offering a 10%-off at $40.50. Use this coupon code to redeem : easycom10

For EasyBlog Professional, a huge 25% discount is given and you only have to pay $44.25 using this code : easypro25

We wish that blogging in Joomla! will not be burdensome from today onwards. We at StackIdeas hope EasyBlog could also make your like easy!

You can start using the coupon codes now to redeem the discount. Oh, this offer starts today until January 23rd, 2011 only.

Firstly, we'd like to wish you all Happy New Year 2011! It may be a little too late to wish but our heart says better late than never.

It's a brand new year and what better way to start it with fresh ideas and new approaches. We wouldn't want to call it resolution because it sounds stressful. A little bit of stress is OK but too much of it will restrict creative juices from flowing. So, yeah, in this blog post, we'd like to make a few announcements of what's coming your way, both for the company and our products.

Let me start with the StackIdeas team. Looking at the number of EasyBlog users going up month-by-month, we cant help but to grow as well. It's not easy dealing with growing number of paid subscribers with the small team we have so in the next month or so, we will be welcoming new mates in the team. They will be in charged of both development and designs so do expect more products coming in, with a little more better eye candy in them!

There will be a couple more new products we're aspiring to release this year. One of them will be a social topic sharing component and the other will also be a social-based component, potentially adding more value to your website

Our pioneer product, SectionEx will still be available for subscription. We will still maintain updates on it but it will not be as regular as EasyBlog. More time will be spent on developing new products. You know you want new stuff so we're focusing more on that. However, if you still haven't got SectionEx, check out what it does for your Joomla! site HERE.

As for our blogging component EasyBlog, it will have more features in store. Hold your horses now because we will be releasing the details soon, but not today. :)

This May 2011, EasyBlog will turn 1 and to celebrate it's first anniversary, we will be offering a special rate to all our paid users when they renew their subscription. It will be at a very awesome price but we're keeping it till a month before the anniversary to announce the actual price.

Wishing you all good in health and best of wealth this 2011!

You realized lately we've been releasing minor updates for EasyBlog. Yeah, this is also a minor but essential update before you embark on your year end holidays.

Only two fixes in this version and they are needed because while we are in the midst of getting the codes ready for Joomla! 1.6 compatibility, some codes slipped through our hands, in version 1.2.132.

To be exact, the error causes user profiles to be saved in an invalid Joomla! group ID when users save their profile in EasyBlog. After logout, the user cannot login again due to the wrong group ID.

We could not thank a particular customer enough for reporting this bug and we have already got it working smoothly back again.

However, there are 2 ways to solve this at your end - 1. Self or 2. Email support. Kindly refer to our FORUM for steps to fix it. Or, if this doesn't help, please email to support@stackideas.com so that we can assist you, soonest possible.

Head on to our Downloads page to get the fix, or click on the Download button below for instant access.

Yeah, we released version 1.2.130 last week and here's another version at 1.2.132.

It includes many template and layout fixes. Like we always do, improvements appear as they come and we are committed to give you the best with the latest, robust and useful Joomla! components.

If you haven't download the latest latest version, do head on to our Downloads page to do so. You have to be a paid customer to get the component.

In a business set up like us, making a profit is the ultimate goal at the end of the day. But in a business that revolves around Joomla!, we felt there is a sense of social responsibility in us. And because Joomla! is free to use, we believe anything free is useful to the budget conscious user.

A talented Joomla! user may not go far in his/her business if costs of running it is too high. Besides manpower, tools of the trade are the next most important asset to grow. Any great talents would go to waste if costs are a deterrent to a business with high growth potential. Any startup would agree with me here, wont you?

We at StackIdeas are aware of this and we got our minds together to release a Community version of EasyBlog! The EasyBlog Community component will differ slightly from the current version.

Click HERE to view the comparison between EasyBlog Pro and EasyBlog Community.

Besides this, the price has also been revised to reflect affordability. Don't worry, you still get the same amount of dedicated attention from us when you subscribe to our professional support.

Watch out for the announcement on this blog and our Twitter on January 15th, 2011!

The latest build for EasyBlog is now released with version 1.2.130

It's the start of the holiday seasons and we'd like to give a final push to wrap up 2010 with a feature-packed EasyBlog release. Besides the usual code tweaks, we are also proud to mention some major new features in this version of EasyBlog.

Blogging does not necessarily need to be at your Joomla! website now because the new build enables you to blog remotely with the new XML-RPC support. To accomplish this, a new plugin is available to download and you can start blogging, remotely.

Instead of sharing your blog posts in Twitter and Google Buzz, EasyBlog is now built with the popular pinging tool, Ping-o-Matic. Every blog that you post will be automatically pinged to search engines across the globe. We are more than convinced that the more exposure your blog has, the more traffic it brings to your blog!

For team blogging, EasyBlog is enhanced with better support for teamblog avatar and increased security settings -- better privacy controls for site administrators.

Head on to our Downloads page to get the latest build of EasyBlog.

In just short 7 months, EasyBlog has received numerous positive reviews about how easy and fast it is to start a blog in Joomla!. Many developers and users found out that EasyBlog offered the right kind of features for both advanced bloggers and the novice ones. We're not blowing our own horn, we invite you to read our reviews in the Joomla! Extensions Directory.

This Thanksgiving, we would like to give thanks to all the wonderful words that came in. We'd like to thank all of you who showed support in the things we do, the Joomla! extensions we create.

To show our appreciation, we are giving away $20 discount when you subscribe to our EasyBlog 12-months technical support. Instead of paying the full $59, you only need to pay $39 for a year's worth of professional support and software updates.

Please use this coupon code to redeem the $20 discount: easythanks

The discount is valid for one week only, starting today till Wednesday, December 1st, 2010.

Get EasyBlog now for only $39 at our online store.
Use coupon code: easythanks

Here's wishing you Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at StackIdeas!

Blogs are like the diary of the future. An electronic log of the important things you want to treasure and yet desire to show the world. It is a recollection of your personal history that is accessible anytime, anywhere you want.

A blog surpasses the benefits of having a new page for a business website. You engage people with blogs because it portrays the human side of online technologies.

Here are the 5 other main reasons to start a blog:

1. Passion - Blog about the things you enjoy doing that you could go on doing without getting bored. When you find excitement in the activities you do, blog about it. Start writing about your hobbies and with your blog, you can help others who may have the same hobby as you. Once you get the hang of it, your blog could turn your hobby into a money making machine!

2. Self expression - Everyone loves a little attention and to feel wanted. The blog is the right avenue toward expressions yourself to the world. However, do not be sad if no one is there to listen to you. Just blog away and pour your feelings out. Who knows, someone from the other side of the world with a kind heart has got the ears that listen.

3. Make more friends - Blogging itself naturally creates more friends and more and more visitors to your blog start to comment on it. You will make lots of friends whom have common interests are you, lives nearby and hence, have a meet up with these new people. However, to make friends, be a friend by responding to your visitors' comments in your blog.

4. Builds business - If you have a business website, starting a blog helps to promote your products and services. The sky is the limit when your business has a blog because you never know your next biggest customer may be reading is from the other side of the world, and potentially give you the sales that you have been looking for.

5. Skills - Blogging is similar to journalism. With journalism, the world is in your hands and with it, you can write about anything that interests you. The more blog you post, the better you are, hence, the more readers you will attract. Blogging regularly makes perfect and it brings in more traffic to your site too.

When you are ready to start a blog, why not get it from the experts?

Joomla! is a great Content Management System for building powerful websites for both business and personal use. With the many extensions, plugins and addons available in the Joomla! Extensions Directory (JED) we are spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting the RIGHT application to work the way we want it in our website. However, nothing is perfect and thanks to the world of Open Source, developers and experienced users of Joomla! can easily tweak the codes and it's done!

Customers today are tech-savvy and they rely on the World Wide Web to get information and what better way to engage them by giving the kind of information they want via a blog. A blog provides a platform for the informer to push information to the uninformed be it a new product launch, a new member in the family, a n resolved issue or even announcing a special promotion.

If you already have a Joomla! website and decided to take the plunge into the blogosphere, we highly recommend EasyBlog. Because setting up a blog sounds like rocket science but fret not because EasyBlog will make it all as simple as a few clicks of the mouse.

Requirements

Your website should be running on the latest Joomla! version, at least PHP 4.3.2 and the latest MySQL database version. Layout wise, please make sure your website supports at least 700 pixels of width for EasyBlog to look and function well in your website. Once you fulfill the above criterias, you are a step nearer to create your Joomla! blog.

Download EasyBlog

We can assure you of the latest features and constant bug fixes are done in EasyBlog. Professional technical service and direct access to our technical team are also available from as low as $4.99 per month. And for the money you invest, you are ensured of the latest software version and  24/7 e-mail assistance if you are stuck.

Click HERE to download EasyBlog. You will be downloading a zipped file - just leave it the way it is and don't unzip it.

Installation

Like installing any other Joomla! extensions, you have to login to your Adminstrator panel and click on Extentions > Install/Uninstall.

Once you are in, click on the Browse button to search for EasyBlog installer files. The files come zipped when you download from our website and should have the filename i.e. com_easyblog_versionX.X.XX.zip.

If you don't have this file, click HERE to download (subscription to our support is required) Click on Upload File & Install button to install the software.

You will receive a notification that EasyBlog is successfully installed.

That's not all, you will have to tweak some settings in the backend before posting your first blog.

Please stay tuned to this blog for another post on the kind of settings you need to do to start blogging in your Joomla! website.

Whether you are an individual who is passionate in a hobby or a business seeking to connect with your stakeholders, blogging is one of the ideal communications and online marketing tool around. With all that is said about blogs and if you haven’t already got one, why should you?

Halloween too soon? No way! We're sure you guys have starting wrecking your brains on what costume to get and where to shop for it. It's tough, we know, and to  make things easier, we thought of giving you an early Halloween treat!

EasyBlog for Joomla! has been loved by many since its release months ago and to spread the goodness, we are giving you a 40% discount for a limited time only.

We trick you not! It's really an out-of-this-world treat - a huge 40% off the $59 price for a copy of EasyBlog!

No way, José!.. What's the catch?!

Simple. If you haven't got a web hosting that runs on Linux, get it from Lunarpages now. Why Lunarpages? Because we love them and many of our customers recommended them of their excellent service. Their web hosting supports Joomla! CMS, MySQL databases and runs on the latest PHP 5 too - the perfect combo to run EasyBlog smoothly.

They are giving away $15-off of any of their hosting plans. Just head on to our promo page at Lunarpage and check out their range of packages.

Ok, I want it! Where do I start??

You will need to redeem a coupon from us AFTER purchasing a web hosting plan from Lunarpages.Once the purchase is confirmed, send us your username and order reference number from Lunarpages by emailing to andrew@stackideas.com. We will reply you with the coupon code for you to be entitled with the 40% discount for EasyBlog. Missing this final step could cost you $23.60 so don't forget to email us those details above.

Promo ends October 31st, 2010.

Go check out Lunarpages' hosting plans and claim your 40% discount for EasyBlog now!

The Joomla! Extensions Directory (JED) is conducting the long overdue housekeeping to the list of Joomla! extentions with a little exercise - call for nominations for the Editor's Pick in the JED. Anyone especially Joomla! users can nominate their favourite extensions and plugins by simply filling up a form.

The winners of the Editor's Pick will have to pass a list of criterias set by the people at JED. There are a total of 10 criterias to meet and we're hoping to score the  Perfect 10, of course, with the help of our customers and users.

As a very young company, we at StackIdeas.com could really use all the support we could get from our beloved customers. Our customers are our most valued assets and to surpass this, we would like to invite all of you to nominate our best-selling blog engine EasyBlog, and our popular SectionEx.

It's a no-brainer to nominate us. Just fill up the form HERE and make sure to enter these details in the fields provided:

Extension name: EasyBlog or SectionEx

Link to listing:
For Easy Blog, use this: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/news-production/blog/12630

For SectionEx, use this: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/news-display/articles-listing/4212?qh=YToxOntpOjA7czo5OiJzZWN0aW9uZXgiO30%3D

And dont forget to drop a line or two about why you think our extensions are cool :D

The chosen ones will be featured in the Editor's Pick for 6 months only worth of 'glamour'.

We want you to be hurry because this nomination lasts for 7 days only. Nominate us now HERE.

Thank you all in advance. We love you lots for this!

Here's a sneak preview of a feature in the next build of Easy Blog.

For those of you who must have pictures in their blog post, you will soon be able to do it within your own space. With this new feature, the pictures you uploaded can be viewed and used by you only. Each blogger gets their own space to upload and insert a picture into a blog post.

By default, Joomla! allows you and your users to upload photos into a 'repository', a common folder where all bloggers can view/use each others' pictures.

This feature is not outright for the purpose of enabling images privacy but for users to have an added convenience in managing their uploaded photos. A new tab called 'Images' will reside on the tabs row for easy access, as pictured below.

Here's what it will look like but we're still working on it:

Stay tuned for more Easy Blog goodies. :)

Yes, it's here! Fully RTL support! We have received so many request from our customers about this feature. Good news for you, EasyBlog now fully support RTL language.Take a look at the image.

This feature has been added in latest release, 1.0.108. You can download it from member's area.

Folks, we've been burning the midnight oil once again and this time, one of the upcoming features will include a like engine for our comment system. How does it work? Really simple, you just need to like a comment! That's it. It will handle the likes nicely and display below the comments.

After you have installed EasyBlog, you have to configure your blog to match your requirements and branding. Here we will show you to configure the basics settings for your blog.

Yeah, it's coming!! In the next version, we will be including integrations with 3rd party external commenting systems from Disqus and Intense Debate . Here's a screen shot with Disqus .