events – iJoomla Blog https://www.ijoomla.com/blog iJoomla Blog Fri, 14 Apr 2023 08:50:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4 My Adventures at Joomla Day West! https://www.ijoomla.com/blog/joomla-day-west/ https://www.ijoomla.com/blog/joomla-day-west/#comments Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:26:49 +0000 http://www.ijoomla.com/index.php?option=com_wordpress&p=455&Itemid=7070 Joomla Day West was a huge success! Almost all the Joomla team members came and it was great to meet some of them for the first time. I also had the chance to chat with some of iJoomla’s customers which is always fun.

The event started on Friday night with an Oktoberfest party, which included German music and German food. The band tried to make us all do the chicken dance, but that wasn’t going to happen. The sausages were great though!

Joomla Day West 2010

The Un-Conference

The next morning was the Un-conference, hosted by Gunner, who made us run to different sides of the room based on our opinions of various controversial topics. When he asked: “What’s more important, making Joomla core more powerful or more user-friendly” you knew which side of the room I was going to take, right?

Seeing the twitter stream #jdaywest2010 on a big screen was a great idea too. We were all able to see the participants’ comments live.

Twitter Stream

Twitter Stream

With all of a five-minute warning, I was asked to make a presentation about SEO. I had a bit of help from some friends, but I did it! We talked about metatags, SEF and the first five SEO steps you must take when you create a Joomla site.

SpeedGeeking

SpeedGeeking about iJoomla SEO

SpeedGeeking had me presenting iJoomla SEO to a small group at a time. I did it eight times! I had it down pretty well… by the sixth time.

The second day ended with some networking in the Jacuzzi — an easy place to make new friends.

The third day was more planned, and I gave a presentation and interactive workshop about Usability Testing. We tested a few of the participants’ sites and learned a lot. I have posted those tests on my usability testing blog, in case you’re interested.

Usability Testing Presentation

Usability Testing Presentation

We also made our special announcement about going GPL.

Throughout the day, I performed usability testing with volunteers for Joomla 1.6 as well as the Joomla.org website, turning up some very interesting issues that can easily be fixed to make both Joomla.org and Joomla 1.6 more user-friendly and effective.

Overall, the event was well organized (big thanks to Debi Clarkson and Ron Severdia) and I think participants got a lot from it. I hope to see you there next time!

Photos by Mike Canham Photography

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Highlights of the CMS Expo – iJoomla Wins and more… https://www.ijoomla.com/blog/joomla-wins-best-developer/ https://www.ijoomla.com/blog/joomla-wins-best-developer/#comments Sun, 09 May 2010 18:16:14 +0000 http://www.ijoomla.com/index.php?option=com_wordpress&p=257&Itemid=7070 Winning the Best App Developer

Winning the Best App Developer for Joomla!

The CMS Expo in Chicago was amazing. It’s always amazing but this year was really special: iJoomla won the award for “Best App Developer for Joomla”!

That’s a fantastic feeling and it really is great to be acknowledged. We owe a big thanks to everyone in the Joomla community and especially to our customers who keep sending us their ideas for improvements. Winning an award is inspiring but nothing pushes us harder than seeing what you’re doing with our products.

And it was also great to see our friends at JomSocial taking home the prize for “Best Joomla App.” Not unexpected but totally deserved!

How I almost won an iPad

Joomla hosting service, Rochen, created a major buzz at the Expo by giving away an iPad for the best picture of a penguin. They have a penguin on their logo and they’re quite keen on the little birds. Participants had to take a picture of the penguin somewhere at the CMS Expo. The results were very entertaining.

During a networking evening that included a lot of drinks, I was able to gather the nerve to ask Drupal founder Dries if he would allow me to take a picture of him holding a sign saying “Joomla Rocks” with the penguin in the picture. As I told someone, I’ve wanted an iPad all my life. The result is shown here, and it created its own buzz among the Joomla community.

Dries Buytaert - Joomla Rocks!

Dries Buytaert - Joomla Rocks!

My entry got the most votes but didn’t win. The final decision was made by Ryan Ozimek, President of OSM, who chose a photo of a penguin eating sushi. Like penguins know how to use chopsticks! But it was a cute picture, and a really fun competition.

Penguines can't use chopsticks!

The winning penguin

Usability Testing  can be fun!

On Monday, I gave a presentation about Usability Testing, which went pretty well except for a few technology hiccups. And the following day, I put on a Usability Testing workshop. We tested four different sites, with one of the participants acting as either the tester or the facilitator in each round. The sites tested belonged to the participants and were chosen randomly.

The workshop was very enjoyable and everybody participated. We learned, laughed, learned some more, had a great time — and made the sites better too, I hope.

Usability Testing Workshop

Usability Testing Workshop

You can see a video of the test we ran on JomSocial.com in the video below. There were some very surprising findings in this test, and the JomSocial team are already putting them straight.

A new template framework

I also had the pleasure of meeting Cory Webb, the author of “Beginthemeablesning Joomla! Web Site Development.” He’s working on a very cool template framework called motif, and he gave me a little demo that was very impressive. You can see it here: http://themeables.com/motif

RocketTheme RTL feature makes a difference to RTL devs

And I had a chance to talk to Andy Miller from RocketTheme.com. His Gantry framework has full RTL support and a ton of other neat features. It has been a very much needed feature for all the RTL developers out there.

JoomlaShack has a new king

JoomlaShacks‘ new owner Eddie Tabush, a business man to the core, brought the entire JoomlaShack team with him. It was great to see them contemplating new ways for world domination, keeping the legacy left by Barrie North alive.

A reservations system that works on any CMS?

Rob Lock from ResMania.com, is coming out with a new version of their reservation system. It looks really amazing, with drag and drop layouts and more. They’ve spent a lot of time creating a framework that allows this system to work on any CMS, not just Joomla. Currently it works on both Joomla and Drupal and more to come.

The anti-framework template club

The team from JoomlaPraise was there too. They’re committed to being the anti-framework template club with templates that are beautiful and simple. I salute them for not following trends and doing what they do best: creating simple and elegant templates.

The CMS Expo was a well organized by John and Linda Coonen, and I thank them for pulling off yet another successful event.

I hope to see you there next year!

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