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Billing itself as "...two high-energy days of training on top CMS solutions Joomla, Drupal and Alfresco.", the 2009 CMS Expo, April 30th - May 1st, 2009 in Evanston, Illinois, will feature over forty CMS learning sessions in six training tracks.

Get up to speed on the latest content management trends and learn basic-to-advanced level tips, tricks & techniques from Joomla! experts such as Joomla! co-founder Mitch Pirtle, ijoomla's Merav Knafo, Expression in Design's Rick Blalock  and corePHP's Steven Pignataro.

CMS Expo is for all members of your Web Content Team. CMS Expo provides highly valuable, cutting edge learning and business networking sessions to help you achieve your goals, whether you're coming from the Admin, Business, Content or Developer-side.

For more information, please visit the CMS Expo website at: http://www.cmsexpo.net/

The folks at Templateplazza.com have released an update to their popular CB template, Comuna.

 Comuna3 is a community/social networking template that is now optimized for both CB and JomSocial.

Here are just a few more details about Comuna3 features (from their website):

TPajaxtabs Module . With this module, you can load any modules inside a module. This action will optimize space on your website and also with the ajax ability, TPajaxtabs will only loads contents from a module when visitor click on the tab of the desirable module. To have this module run well, you have to install the component first.
1. TP autovatar plugin . This plugin will display a picture of the writer on the head of the article. The avatar itself can be choosen, whether is it from Jomsocial avatar or Community Builder. If there's no avatar available, then it will be replaced by a default image.
2. Latest member module for Jomsocial . Because when this template was made there's no module with function that similar to Jomsocial.com, we decided to make this module on our own. This module will display the avatar of the latest members who sign in on the website, which can be set on several options that are available on the backend of this module.  
3. Special template for Jomsocial and CB. We have edited templates from Jomsocial and CB a bit, to make it blend well in comuna 3.
4. Inset position that only appears on common visitor. If your user has logged-in, this position will disappear. You can use this position to publish a banner, or promotion that is aimed only for common visitor. For example, a banner with suggestion to join the website. To use it, simply assigned your module on inset position.
5. Template overriding for frontpage, that will change the appearance of your Joomla frontpage into a more professional and attractive look.
6. 4 design variations, 9 font styles, 3 font sizes, and 2 template orientations, that will give you power and flexibility to decide which layout that is suitable with what you want.

In December, JoomlaPraise released their own JomSocial template/theme called, CommunityPraise. I am in contact with all the major template clubs, and speak to their designers almost weekly, and I can promise you that more JomSocial templates/themes are being designed now and will be released shortly.  :)

For more information about Comuna3, visit the comuna3 info page HERE.

We’ve been noticing that our old site, dev.jomsocial.com, has been getting stretched beyond its intention lately. Originally, it was there for us to test the system with our partners, but it now looks like a static old demo site instead.

So, this week, we have decided to open up our very own JomSocial-powered user community--right here in JomSocial.com. Makes sense, huh?

We hope that it not only shows JomSocial in action to new partners and customers, but it will also provide our existing customers with an interactive resource for JS news, updates & fellowship.

So, check it out, JomSocial Community 

Oh, you can also add me as your friend here, http://www.jomsocial.com/community/azrul/ 

Previous entry,  seems to cause a bit of confusion. Some people seem to think that we are running away with your data and you are now completely at our mercy. Nonsense. 

First, cron job is a fancy word for "scheduled task", a process that are running in a predefined period of time, over and over again.  In JomSocial, why we need it and how to set it up yourself is clearly described in our documentation page, http://www.jomsocial.com/docs/Cron_Setup. Setting up this scheduled process is easy and would take less than a minute. All you have to do is visit http://yoursite.com?option=com_community&task=cron . No data is being exposed, no call-back to our server, and we don't even know you're running it. 

The scheduled task, simply open this url, without you having to keep on loading it in your browser.

However, some of our non-technical administrator, particularly those who are new to setting up websites, might not be very familiar with this 'cron' concept.

So, what we do is simple. We can call this url for you, at no cost, IF you want us to. It cost almost nothing to run, but it save some of you the trouble of setting it up. No data of any sort is transferred to our site. Of course, we encourage you to set it up yourself, but if you want, we can call the url for you. It is a free, completely optional service.

Hey Everybody...

 It's been awhile since I posted about progress with 3rd party app/template providers.

A few of you posted comments in my last entry that it "wasn't appropriate" for me to discuss 3rd party app/template development when your "most requested features" still hadn't made their way into JomSocial.

I respectfully disagree.

Well, I understand those points...but I'm the Marketing & Sales guy, and so, it's my job to get JomSocial into the hands of many--and that means working with 3rd party app/theme/template developers to make YOUR members' JomSocial experience even richer. Our goal is get hundreds of potential JomSocial app developers onboard--like iPhone & Facebook. This is a good thing because, in addition to our own core improvements & new features, 3rd party apps will also help to keep your members on your community site longer. They'll be happy..and they'll tell their friends who will tell their friends.

 So, Mark, Azrul and the team will still keep you regularly posted on our core JomSocial improvements/features/bug fixes, and I will post regularly about all the Marketing happenings--and that includes 3rd party development news. So please, keep this in mind before you post comments about feature requests.  :)

Okay, now that's out of the way and I want to give you an update on some developments...

1. Highwood Video have  just released their hwdVideoShare plugin for JomSocial. If you have the hwdVideoShare component, your users will be be able to upload videos (and embed them froma variety of sources like Youtube and Vimeo), and share these videos directly from their JS profile pages (via a nifty scroller). Your users video activity will be displayed in the activity stream as well. There are a bunch of other features, too, so please do check it out.
2.  Most of the larger template clubs have expressed an interest in designing new JS themes & templates. Some are expected within the next month or so. I'll keep you posted.
3. I have been in contact with A LOT of component developers/CB plugin developers over the past 3-4 months. Julien from Eventlist is putting some final touches on their JS plugin (can't wait for this one!) and Nick Texidor has begun working on JS plugins based on his popular "Stalker" module and "JoomPing" module.  Great progress is also being made right now from at least 10-12 other developers I've spoken with..and I expect quite a few new offerings to show up in our Apps Directory very soon.

 And here's where I need your help....

I'd like to know: which components /modules /CB plugins do YOU think would make awesome JomSocial plugins?

Remember--plugins (from 3rd party developers), not core features.

Please do let us know, and if I haven't already spoken to these developers (or they haven't already begun working on JS plugins), I will reach out to them right away.

If a number of you suggest the same ones, then perhaps we can all start a mini campaign, of sorts, to get these developers onboard. We'll flood their inboxes with JS apps requests    j/k  :)

So, please let us know which components/CB plugins should be ported to JomSocial. We want to hear your suggestions.

--Shawn

After listening to numerous users, we have decided to actually run the scheduled tasks / cronjobs on our end instead of having these run / loaded by the customers as some of the customers are really facing a hard time configuring these scheduled tasks / cron jobs and even some hosting providers that does not even provide this service.

Here's the catch, we will run these cronjobs at the price of $0. Yeah,  you did not see it wrongly, it is $0 which is absolutely FREE as long as your support contract is not expired and you have a valid license with us. This will also take care of some of the piracy issues as well, so let's get legitimate ;)

How will the cronjob work? During the purchase, you are actually requested to enter your site details and based on these sites, we will then perform the necessary cronjob / scheduled task to be executed on our end.

Let me know what do you guys think about this and as always, your feedbacks are always appreciated and listened as this will be our first step in handling / solving these major issues.

Cheers! more to come ^_^

P/S:

NO encoding / locking or whatsoever will be done on the codes to achieve this as we do believe that having most of the codes opened, will allow users to be able to customize JomSocial as much as possible.

 The cronjob IS optional and only if you are having problems with setting up cronjobs, we will run it on behalf of you.