** Update Videos 1-7 have been lost due to the company where I had the videos hosted going out of business.  A new series will be coming soon for Joomla 1.7 which will be much much more in depth.

I've put the following Joomla tutorials for beginners together as a small contribution to the Joomla community.  Joomla is a content managment system (CMS) that is very extensible.  What does that mean?  You can make it a 1 page site or a 100,000 page site with tons of bells and whistles and it is still easy to use and very manageble.  To find out more about Joomla and the amazing open source project that develops it, please go to http://www.joomla.org.

To get started and assist you with building your own site, please enjoy the tutorials.

 

Joomla #8: Adding a new module for user login - RaceDirectory.com Project

This episode we will add a user login module so that account users to RaceDirectory can add content such as classifieds.  This module will come in more use later as we will explore user menus as well.

 

 

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Joomla #9: Adding user menu for registered users only - RaceDirectory.com

In this tutorial we will build a user menu that appears only when a registered user has signed on to the site.  In doing so we will show access to the Forums.

 

 

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Joomla #10 - Adding a Contact Us Page - RaceDirectory Project

In this episode we will building a contact us page using the Joomla 1.5 Contacts feature. The page will have a web form that will have full email capabilities that will take info from the user of the site and send it to the desired contact.

 

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RaceDirectory - Project Update

Ever here the term, "Just trust your gut."  Maybe, "Follow you heart."  Or perhaps the one from Bo Jackson for Nike, "Just Do It!"

I've decied to take a major tangent in the Race Directory project.  And I mean a complete direction change in the theme of the site.  Don't worry, all tutorials up to now are still relevant but I will be doing some changes (again) to the site's look and feel.  The site will soon no longer be about automobile racing and will soon be for only horse racing.  Yes....HORSE RACING!  oh yea!

This was a very difficult decision for me as I had already had some affiliate advertising set up for this site and now they will no longer be relevant.  Not to mention there might just be people out there that are watching the RaceDirectory tutorials who want more about how to set up a automobile style site.  If you are one of those people, I appologize but this project for you is now closed...unless you like horses.

Why the change.  The truth is, I'm not a auto racing enthusiest.  I like auto racing and I love cars.  But I just have no interest in doing a site about it.  When I started this project I thought I'd get on board because I am such a auto enthusiast and I used to love auto racing when I was younger.  But the truth is if NASCAR is on and a show about grub worms then... Did you know that grub worms are actually larvae of beetles.  The best remedy is to get robins or other birds to nest near your lawn (bird houses) and let nature take its course.

Anyway, my point is I just don't have the passion for an auto racing site, at least in the manner at which I first sought to build this site.  I DO however, have a passion for horse racing.  I was raised in Kentucky and I guess it just goes with the territory.  The difference here is there is a lot I don't know about horse racing but it truly excites me to get involved and come to know more about it.  I have a passion for it and thirst to know more and to share that with people. 

So the question is, does that make this project or business idea more risky?  Well, not really.  If my market research is correct it's not as saturated as auto racing and could very well lead to some good traffic if I play my cards right.  So what the heck, I'm going to give it a whirl.

All that said you may be wondering why production has almost ceased on it anyway.  Well to be honest, I've worked on this project a great deal.  I purchased some video editing software (Camtasia) to be able to produce better videos.  Then the only Windows machine I personally own, started bugging out on me.  I got fed up and finally just went full blown Ubuntu.  I'm loving it but now I'm learning Pitiviti to do video editing.  So things should start smoothing out and hopefully I can give you some better quality screencasts here soon.  The tools seem good, however, I still have a lot to learn.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the casts to come.  I want to get more into the content of the site and these new upcoming changes will allow me to really sink my teeth into this project again.

Thanks for your patience.

 

Michael D. Donahoe

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Joomla #11 - RaceDirectory Project - Template change

This week we are changing the template from auto racing to horse racing.  Unfortunately this two part series became half as long due to my video editing skills (the lack thereof).  I'm learning...  So with this video I explain some of the use of the open source software, The GIMP (GHU Image Manipulation Program).  On a scale of 1-10 of my favorite programs open or closed source, GIMP is an 11.  I can't honestly tell you it is better than photoshop but I can tell you I have Photoshop, Fireworks, and I have the GIMP and this is my program of choice for any image manipulation, especially for web.

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