Due to the very high demand for Joomla trainning in North American and European cities we are now in the process of implementing a full Joomla trainning course for small business to large enterprises and corporations. The Joomla trainning will be available to every major Canadian cities at first including but not limited to Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Calagary, Edmondon, Saskatoon and Montreal in Canada and New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami in the USA.
Here are the six basic skills you will need to lear to run your Joomla web site:
1.Inputing Content
2.Creating Hierarchy
3.Installing Add-ons
4.Import Export Database/PhpMyadmin
5.Media Manager
6.Running Standalone Server
So you now have a Joomla web site or you are planning on getting one? But the problem is, how will you run your own web site? You or your staff will probably need Joomla training. In order to manage and run a Joomla site six tasks need to be learned. Inputting content, creating hierarchy, database, installing and managing plug ins, add-ons, components and modules, database management via PHPmyadmin, understanding media manager, successfully running a stand alone server.
Training to get these steps done can be offered in person in various Canadian cities or virtually with chat, Voip and web cam anywhere across Canada or the world. Remote assistance can also be used and all you need to do is watch the training as the remote tutor moves your mouse and controls your machinge via remote assistance. He can repeat the steps as needed in real time until you fully grasp what needs to be done. Additionally, you can record the screen for future reference so that you can review your Joomla training at your own pace and on your own time. Joomla video training tutorials can also be be created on a case by case basis to give you a complete custom Joomla training solution.
Another great way to do Joomla training remotely is to combine communication technologies. Using live chat, phone and web cam simultaneously usually works best.Joomla Tanning can be provided privately as a one on one lesson or even for group lessons. Languages available for training are English, French and Japanese, additional languages will be available in the future. Recommended lesson duration is 50 minutes per Joomla training session, time slots are available 24/7 to fit your schedule.
Although Joomla is an online web based application and can be run tricky in that fashion, the best way to learn Joomla is offline because it is both faster and outside the eyes of the public. Making mistakes offline is forgiving, making mistakes online on a production site can be problematic...so how do you run a Joomla web site offline? Well, the first thing you will need are tools, they are called stand alone servers although they are not an actual physical "server", they are software applications than can run offline on your desktop. While many are available on the market for free or at a nominal cost, the best option out there is movamp. The file is available in our download section.
So the first step is to download and unzip the file. Once this is done all one has to do is click on the orange server2go icon. After clicking on the icon please wait for the virtual server to start, this takes about 1-2 minutes. By default the server will start with Internet Explorer, once running enter http://127.0.0.1:81/administrator (or whatever URL is automatically created when the virtual server starts) in the address bar. The username to login is Admin and the username is Demo. Congratulations, you are now in the back end of your testing Joomla offline web site!
One your site is running you will need to plan the hierarchy if you haven't already done so. A joomla site needs this to be organized this way unless you want content that is not categorized. While this option might be ok for a very small site it is usually better to organize your Joomla site with sections and categories. First create the sections and then create categories that will fit inside sections later. This can be a little confusing and some basic Joomla training should get you going in no time. You can add content and images to your categories and sections the same way you add content items.
To add content to your web site you need to create content items and assign them to categories and sections unless your content is uncategorized. To do this you will need to use and editor or even use plain HTML if you are comfortable with that method. However please keep in mind that Joomla will strip HTML code that is not compatible. So it is usually advisable to use the default WYSIWYG editor. It is advisable to use JCE as it is superior than the default Tiny MCE editor that comes default with Joomla. Part of the training will allow you to understand how to use JCE to add content to your Joomla website. For advanced HTML input you might need the sorcerer plug in or the Jumi component, this expert content input will require extensive training and tutoring but once you understand it can be relatively painless as long as one stays within the parameters of the template limitations.
How do you add images to your Joomla content? The first step is to place the images "into" the website. Where can you put them and how? There are three ways to get this done, cut and paste if using a stand alone server, FTP if the site is online and using a component like Joomla Explorer, another solution is also to use the native "upload" images from the media manager, the only problem with that is that image can only be loaded one by one. The best method by far is FTP or cut and paste into the desired directory if working with the stand alone server. Most images should be put into the images/stories directory, this way images can later be simply inputted with the image button right from the JCE editor. It is better to put the images in the folder first and then add them to the content. FTP is great because it can allow you to upload batches of images in one operation.
This used to be a little more complex with Joomla 1.0 but now with Joomla 1.5 things are more automatic. You simply need to click on "install" and Joomla 1.5 will automatically know if you are installing a plugin, module or component. Add-ons, modules and components need to be installed in their zipped form, no need to extract files before installing. Most good plug ins install with no problem but sometimes it can be problematic and require additional training. The best way to avoid any problems is to stick with common and most used add-ons, a great way to gauge an add-ons reputation is to see how many users have downloaded the files from the Joomla extension directory and how long ago. The most recent and popular downloads are a good indication and so it the user's ratings.
A Joomla web site is made of files and data. The files can be moved physically but the database can't simply be cut and pasted. It must be imported and exported. This requires training because choosing the wrong settings will render the Joomla site unusable. This needs to be done via PHPmyadmin. The database needs to be exported as an SQL file and then imported back on the Joomla destination server. The procedure for this is identical offline and online expert of course for the relative URL.