There are a number of Content Management Systems (CMS) available, including some very good free ones. They range from blog-oriented ones like WordPress to the more comprehensive, customizable ones like Drupal and Blox. If you are going to use a common sense approach to setting up your CMS, however, Joomla is the way to go. It is not just popular, it's powerful, which is why it is one of the most widely implemented CMS tools available today. For both average and experience users, Joomla enables the creation and management of a fully functional Web site with no superhuman (or "supergeeky") effort required. One needs only the most basic, easy to follow instructions. Setting up and installing Joomla has been reduced to a series of simple, direct, common sense steps. This article will provide a simple guide, leaving all the customizing to you, for the basic installation and initial setup of Joomla. Some definitions first CMS software has the job of creating and using an interface, or "controlling connection," between the Web site maker and the commands that construct and control the site. Site pages are considered "articles" that can be organized in categories, with categories then combined into "sections." Since it is a CMS, Joomla uses terminology that reflects the "publishing paradigm," rather than the "programmer paradigm" of other technologies. With a hierarchy in place, the online "administrative interface controls" enable the Web site owner to manage content with ease. Articles in certain categories can be restricted to registered users by making the categories available after logging in and not before. Absent a CMS, site owners would have to know much more Web programming to institute such management control. (Now you know why the "M" in "CMS" stands for what it does.) The common sense of Joomla The first consideration for any Web site owner setting up a CMS is the quality and trustworthiness of the software being used. It is also important to have extensive documentation, interactive forums, good support from a knowledgeable community of users and a CMS that is being refined continuously. In the virtual world, the more popular a CMS is, the more information there is on it, and the more likely good support will be easy to find. Joomla's growing popularity, therefore, is a good measure of continuing security. Joomla can be obtained from many online sources, including the Joomla site. The simplest way to do it is to download the .zip file and save it to your desktop. For beginners, it is probably a good idea to "demo" Joomla at home on a personal computer before "launching publicly." Therefore, you would download Joomla as well as XAMPP, a free application that will run MySQL and PHP on your PC and create a "virtual server." This method is recommended for learning how to use Joomla, and will save a lot of frustration experienced by "premature launchers." From hosting to boasting When you get ready to host your Joomla CMS site with a third-party hosting firm, you need to make sure that PHP is part of your hosting plan. Joomla requires PHP, a programming language, to get data from the service to do various things such as check passwords, corroborate login names or even add items to shopping carts. If you will be running your own server, use the Apache server software that includes PHP and the MySQL database infrastructure. After you upload the required files to the host, or set them up on your local network to "serve" them to the Web yourself, you can go to your site or your "localhost" and start the launch process. The first time you access the site you will follow a few simple steps that have default settings. If you don't know how or why to change these settings, just leave them alone until you reach the important step of entering a username/password combination. Since this is the "admin" account, which will be empowered to do everything including delete ever last file, make sure to make a note of the information, keep it secure and don't let anyone you don't completely trust near it. Now, the fun (and hard) parts The final step in the initial setup is to name the site. At this point, you are now ready to play a bit, explore the possibilities and determine how you want to customize and personalize your site. You decided to use a CMS tool like Joomla, about the best around, because you are going to be managing a lot of content, meaning articles, for the most part. Joomla is made for writers, publishers, tech firms, and other companies and individuals that will be placing new information online on a regular basis, and archiving or revising previously uploaded material. If you followed the foregoing steps, you will created, in a common sense and step-by-step manner, a CMS-powered site that will give you all the power you need to publish, update and distribute whatever information you are in the business of creating. You can modify content, change formats, add functionality with various extensions and continue to evolve your new, Joomla-powered site. You can also count on Joomla being continuously updated, as well, so you will never get left behind as Web technologies keep surging forward. Welcome to the ride!
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There are a number of Content Management Systems (CMS) available, including some very good free ones. They range from blog-oriented ones like WordPress to the more.....
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