This week I chat with the Phil Locke from Joostrap. Phil owns a template shop called Joostrap which is a lovely integration of Boostrap and Joomla.
Phil has also provided a nice little discount for the listeners of the podcast as well so please make sure you listen into the podcast to get the discount code.
News
The latest versions and updates have been released for Joomla! 3.3 and Joomla! 2.5.24. They are available for download from the Joomla website. So head on over there if you need to update your websites, these updates include a whole bunch of fixes and security updates. Keeping your Joomla websites updated is vital for site security and more!
If your site is hosted with a company such as SiteGround, you may find that it has an auto updater which takes out the stress of doing it yourself. So get on to updating your sites to take advantage of the fixes and new additions to the CMS.
For those of you out there who are fans of K2 (we are!), the content construction kit, you should be able to download a beta version of K2 version 3. Have a play around on it, you can check it out in all its glory.
Events
The Joomla events organisation team has released the call for speakers for the Joomla World Conference which is coming up in November, in Cancun! The dates are from Nov 7 - 9. Find out more at conference.joomla.org.
It is being held in Cancun, Mexico this year! If you would like to do a presentation at the JWC, you can also submit your submissions for presentations. The Joomla Events Traveller programme, is also accepting submissions at the moment, this is to help those who may not be able to afford to travel across the world to the JWC. Check out the criteria for that and you may be able to apply.
Big shout out to SiteGround - check out the awesome hosting deal offered to Joomla Beat listeners. Get 60% off your next hosting account by visiting joomlabe.at/siteground.
User Question
Chris from Greece: “I've recently discovered your show, and as a Joomla user, I love it! I have many sites that run on Joomla and have a problem with some of them once a year at almost the same time. They get infected by spam and malware. For security, I do regular backups with Akeeba and use strong passwords using KeePass, I also use Admin Tools for checking permissions and also locking down the .htaccess file. My sites vary from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 3 but usually the 2.5 sites have the problem. Is there anything I can do to protect my sites and are the any extensions for scanning my sites?”
Thanks for the user question there Chris. It may be a coincidence that all the sites being hacked are the 2.5 sites, but it really depends. What I can suggest here are a couple of things you can do to protect your sites a little bit more. If your sites are up to the latest versions of that family tree, e.g. if 1.5 is updated to its latest version, version 3 is updated to 3.3 etc. then you must check that all your extensions are up to date. Some extensions have known vulnerabilities but if you update then it will be protected.
If you are using regular backups, you can always restore to the latest version, and if you are using Admin Tools then it should be picking up the vulnerabilities in your site and blocking them. I use a scanning software that scans for malware and potential vulnerabilities and that is called MyJoomla - by blue flame. It is an online service and you will have to connect it up to your website using the plugin.
If any listeners have a question they would like answered, head on over and fill out this form.
Interview with Phil Locke
History
Phil got involved with Mambo in 2002, but prior to that he founded his web design company back in 1998 - Fastnet Web Design. He found mambo after using a proprietary CMS that was costing clients a large amount of money a year. Finding Mambo as an open source CMS, this worked well for him. He then moved across to Joomla in 2005.
More about Joostrap - Responsive web design template club
He wanted to use some sort of css and javascript that would work well with Joomla, he found Bootstrap and started using that. It was before it was responsive. It then became responsive a short time later. Luckily, a short time later, Joomla released version 3 which included Bootstrap with it.
What Joostrap is, is really a template club. It is changing slightly now as he has taken on a partner from Australia (Max Lynam) who is good at what Phil isn't, so he is hoping they can take it forward with both skill sets.
Joostrap releases a new template each month. and is a place for Joomla where you can go to get responsive templates and learn about Bootstrap and responsively. There is no heavy framework or plug ins weighing it down. It is a clean template file.
Bootstrap comes with a lot of parameters that you may not use or ever need, what Joostrap does, is allows you to turn things off that you don't need. What they are doing is splitting down the javascript and the css so being able to turn off certain parameters means that the certain part of javascript and css won't load. Keeping it clean and lean for mobile.
What this does is keeps the template file size down, so that when users go in and download plugins etc on their Joomla sites, the entire site size is smaller and helps with load times.
Joostrap is fairly new, it is only just over 12 months old. An interesting website that has been put together with it is RMG Networks. This is a huge responsive website. They came to Phil to bring their screen based company onto mobile devices.
Links
Thanks to Phil for 25% off with coupon code.
Thanks for the interview Phil!
Extra
If you are just getting into Bootstrap and want to learn more. Head on over to getbootstrap.com to find example code and documentation on how to use Bootstrap itself. Understand the classes and how to apply to different modules and layouts so that it will display differently on different devices.
This is a cool new gadget I just received in the mail. It allows you to take and accept credit card payments on the go! Very useful for Martina's tea business, I Am Infusion. This gives the customers more flexibility and security with payments at markets and out and about. If you are in Sydney and like tea, come and check out Sydney Tea Festival. Read more about the device.
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