Rastin Mehr

In the last few weeks I got a few phone calls from people who had their sites build using some content management system (open source or secret source!) and they were asking me if they could gain access to the back-end of their own site and update some of the content. After some poking around and asking some questions we learned that their web designers are not providing their clients the administrative access and still continuing to charge for every little website update which could easily be done by the clients themselves.

Hey guys … that’s not a fair to your clients!

And to the smart website owners: if any web designer is doing that to you, I think you should honestly give them the boot and seek professional service somewhere else!

Continue reading Clients who don’t get to update their own CMS powered websites!

It is finally here, and it took us 2 years to build it. After 2 exciting BugCamp and DocCamp events we finally managed to have a stable version of the lovely Joomla! CMS 1.5 released. Now we need time to upgrade all of our websites from the version 1.0 to the 1.5.

Joomla! 1.5 has been re-written from ground up using a new API and Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. It is not only a superb CMS, but also a great framework for building other variations of content managements such as Intranets, and Social Networking Management Systems (SMS).

Congratulations Joomla! team, and Joomla! Community. Today we have every right to feel proud!

[tags]Joomla, cms, content management, j1.5, joomla1.5, rmdstudio, open source[/tags]

The Vancouver Adobe AIR Workshop actually happened on last Wednesday, but I didn’t get the chance to write about it, because I was too busy organizing the Vancouver Joomla DocCamp event. I know this is bad journalism practice, but better late than never. Adobe AIR workshop was in fact organized by our associate Ash Sanieyan from the PeerGlobe Technology and rmd Studio and Tazzu were two of the sponsors in this event. This event was held at the Network Hub and about 20 developers had shown up.

Continue reading The flexible UI – What happenend at the Vancouver Adobe AIR workshop?

In my previous post I promised to write a little more about the people who participated in this weekend’s Joomla DocCamp in Vancouver. A lot of these people are quite active in the Vancouver’s technology community and having the opportunity to work with them side by side is an energizing experience.

Jeannette Duguay – JenTekk Web Solutions

My business Partner and Associate, Jen is the founder of JenTekk Web Solutions and also the co-founder of Tazzu Networking Ltd. a business and technology networking community in Vancouver.

Jeannette is a web designer who has developed several projects in Joomla! CMS such as ClassicBindery.com and North49.com websites. JenTekk Web Solutions was one of the Vancouver Joomla DocCamp sponsors.

Jen was interested in the Joomla Article and Menu manager, and how they are used to achieve a proper information architecture in a Joomla powered website. You can read her blog post here: Joomla DocCamp – Fun to the finish!

Ash Sanieyan & Kim – PeerGlobe Technology

This charming couple are the founders of PeerGlobe Technology solutions and their specialty is developing custom Content Management Systems (CMS), Facebook, Open Social, and Mobile applications. Kim is the creative force behind the Marketing, Communication, and Design solutions in the PeerGlobe team. Ash is a Ruby On Rails (ROR) expert who has recently started using Joomla 1.5 framework for their project. Joomla 1.5 framework follows the Model View Controller (MVC) software architecture which is very similar to the ROR framework.

Ash is also very interested to use Adobe AIR and Flex technologies in combination with the ROR and Joomla! frameworks. On January 16th, 2008 Ash hosted an Adobe AIR and Flex workshop session at the same location, The Network Hub, which had a very good turn out. (See the pictures here)

The new PeerGlobe.com website is now powered using the Joomla 1.5 framework. PeerGlobe is an rmd Studio associate and one of the sponsors of the Vancouver Joomla DocCamp event.

Continue reading Who were the people at the Vancouver Joomla DocCamp?

We had a wonderful time! Up to 17 people showed up and we were writing and exchanging a lot of information with each other. By the end of the day we were really exhausted. For some of us there was simply too much information to digest, and I tried my best to circulate and answer all the questions to the point that I didn’t get the chance to blog the event as we were working.

Our good friend Mr. Bruce Byfield showed up at the door and conducted an interview with us. It is always great to see Bruce, he is such a great company with so much knowledge about Technology and Open Source to contribute.

A lot of us suggested that we better plan some Joomla DemoCamp events to learn concepts such as Information Architecture, website development, and Software Development techniques in the Joomla 1.5 framework.

You can see the rest of the pictures on my flickr account. I have also done some Video interviews with some of the participants using the iSight camera on my laptop, therefore tomorrow I am going to spend some time and write about the people who donated their valuable time during the weekend and participated in this community activity. So stay tune! there will be more on the Vancouver Joomla DocCamp event on this blog tomorrow.

I would like to thank all the people who have participated in this event today. You were wonderful! You rocked!

• Jeannette Duguay
• Ash Sanieyan & Kim
• Monica Hamburg
• Robert Park
• Minna
• Alicia
• Mike Toscano
• David Westrom
• Erica Lam
• Gwyn Pritchett
• Jacob Atchison
• Lee Down
• Steven Paul
• Steven Stark & Annette

[tags]vancouver, doccamp, joomla, rmdstudio, community, open source, documentation, collaboration[/tags]