HowToJoomla! Blog: HowToJoomla!

Today I came across an interesting website called ScratchBack. They offer a product called the ScratchBack TopSpot widget, which is basically a digital tip jar for your website. It seems like a fun way to add some interaction to your website while making a little bit of extra money. The basic concept is the visitor pays a small fee (like leaving a tip at a restaurant), and in return, the visitor leaves a link to his or her website with a brief message that displays when your mouse hovers over the link. The last person to leave a tip gets the number 1 spot in the top spots list, and the person before that gets bumped down to the next spot automatically. Right now, I only have 10 spots. Once 10 people have left a tip after you, your link gets bumped off of the list.

If you visit HowToJoomla often and find this site useful, now you have a fun, interactive way to give back. Plus, a link to your website will appear in a prominent position on every page of HowToJoomla.net. All for just $2.00 USD!

Click here to visit the ScratchBack website and get a TopSpots widget for your website.

When I wrote How to Create a Basic Template, I created a basic template and made it available for download from this site. To track the number of times it was downloaded (1241 at the time of writing this), I installed the DocMan component to use as a file reopsitory.

For almost a year (The first article was written on September 8, 2006.), I have done my best to bring you tips and tricks for working with Joomla! to make your website great. In that time, I have written over 36 articles with tips and tricks for Joomla! 1.0.x, and no articles specifically for Joomla! 1.5.

There are several reasons that I have avoided writing about Joomla! 1.5, but the main reason is that we have not yet seen a stable release of the code. With the recent release of Joomla! 1.5 RC 1, I figured that it was time for me to start writing about Joomla! 1.5. Before I can delve into Joomla! 1.5 tips and tricks, there are some housekeeping duties I need to do with HowToJoomla. Mainly, I need to go back over the 36 Joomla! 1.0.x articles I have written and label them as "This how-to written for Joomla! 1.0.x only." Because there are several differences between the two versions, I want to make sure that there is no confusion which version is covered by each article.

In the coming days, you will start to see new labels pop up on each of the older how-to articles. In the coming weeks, if time permits I plan to start adding how-to's specific for Joomla! 1.5.

Thank you for visiting HowToJoomla.net! I truly hope that you find the information in this site useful for building your Joomla!-powered websites.

I have recently received a request from one of my readers to provide a printable PDF of all of the articles on HowToJoomla. My first thought was, "Great idea!", but after I looked into what it would take to make this happen, I started to realize that it might be difficult to accomplish given the fact that my time is limited due to other obligations.

So, my question to you is, how many of you would be interested in a PDF file with all of the HowToJoomla articles? If so, how much would you be willing to pay for this service? $1? $5? More than that? My first idea is to use a service like Fundable to raise enough money from your donations so that I can create this PDF and then release it to the community for free.

What do you think? Please respond in the comments below.

I have decided to use a different component to manage the RSS feeds here at HowToJoomla. I was using the core syndication component, but that only allowed me to create one feed for the items published to the front page. Now, using Run Digital's RSS Feed Manager, I have more flexibility with how I can manage the feeds.

You now have the option to subscribe to a feed with all new posts including how-to's and blog posts, a feed with just new how-to posts, or a feed with just new blog posts. To see links to the feeds, click here or just click "Feeds" in the main menu.

For those of you who are already subscribed to the news feed, you will not need to change anything. You are already subscribed to the "All Posts" feed. I simply changed the settings at Feedburner.com, so you don't have to.