The JUGT is promoting two events this month.

Our usual Pub Night will again take place at the Duke of York pub on August 11 2010. Please see the registration page for more details.

We are also having another workshop on August 21 at Ein-Stein. Registration and details at the event's page.

While the Pub Nights have a more social/network nature to it, the workshops are designed so users share expertise in the many facets of Joomla! design and development. This is the perfect opportunity to ask questions about Joomla administration, security and templating. Bring your laptop and your questions.

The June 20th Joomla Workshop – our first – was attended by just a few, but still a resounding success. Traffic woes caused a drop in our numbers and a delay to the start, not to mention fantastic summer weather serving as quite the temptation to stay outdoors. Despite these impediments, the wireless connection at Ein-stein was nearly flawless, the beer was cold (and inexpensive) and service was great!

We covered a broad range of topics, both directly and tangentially related to Joomla. The discussion included:

Templates

• Template development and customization, including tips on how to read the main template index.php file and how to add module positions.
• The ever-popular ?tp=1 URL parameter (which displays template positions).
• Running a local Apache server, XAMPP and some issues with Vista.
• Customizing Artisteer templates to add an animated GIF header image, and how to avoid massive animated GIF files.
• Differences between the templates in the Joomla distribution (Milkyway, Purity, and Beez) and the advantages/disadvantages of using each of them as a base for a new template.

Content

• The advantages, disadvantages, and alternatives to Flash content.
• AllVideos Reloaded as a method for embedding video and audio content.

Extensions

• Someone mentioned Abivia's SocBook extension as a useful too, thanks!
• The state of e-commerce extensions in their open source, proprietary, and SaaS variations.
• How the Joomla Extensions Directory works, including the importance and value of reading reviews and ratings, the GPL license, and how commercial extensions work.

Backups

• Backup and restore with AkeebaBackup (formerly JoomlaPack), including how to move a site from server to server.
• The importance of regular backups... if you don't trust your host, make frequent backups. If you do, make less frequent backups.
• Backup solutions in Windows (backing up your original work).

Security and Upgrades

• Why applying security updates is essential.
• How to upgrade from much older 1.5 releases.
• The nature of security vulnerabilities.
• The Vulnerable Extensions List.
• The importance of a secure hosting environment.

Miscellaneous

• The Joomla documentation wiki as a reference resource.
• Installing Ubuntu / Kubuntu in dual boot mode.
• The basics of using Eclipse.
• The incredible Firebug extension for Firefox.
• Audio editing tools: Audacity (open source) for Linux and Windows.
• Using Twitter in touch with the Joomla / JUGT community.

There may be a few other items missing. Considering the meeting ran just over two hours, we managed to cover quite a bit!

The May Pub Night took place at the Duke of York pub on May 21st.

We had a good gathering with eight JUGT members and lots of great conversation around the tables. Some of the discussions included SEO for Joomla!, templates, extension development, Bug Squad and much more.

We are happy to see such diverse group of members getting together to talk about Joomla! and the business of providing solutions for and with it. This month's attendees were: Bob Bloom, Vic Garbutt, Alan Langford, Paul McLellan, Faisal Qureshi, Stephen Sillett, Flavia Silveira and Boris Ulcar.

We will be gathering again in June so stay tuned for more details on the next meeting.

The JUGT's April Pub Night was one of our best attended social events! Lots of familiar faces graced us with their presence as well as brand new faces too.

We are always happy to welcome new users, developers, and designers who join our events. The more the merrier and due to the high number of attendees the conversation was diverse and covered many Joomla! Topics as well as some business related topics since a great number of our users are self-employed consultants/developers/designers.

Some of these topics were: the Tienda release, templating for Joomla!, backing up sites, SEO, which template suppliers are best, a variety of extensions, what's in 1.6, differences between Wordpress / Joomla! / Drupal, and more.

We were so busy chatting away that we forgot to have a picture taken with all the participants but they were: Bob Bloom, Bilal Dar, Monica Cho, Gary Cookson, Suresh Doss, Gilles Gagnon, Vic Garbutt, Alan Langford, Stephen Sillett, Flavia Silveira, Tiago Roffé de Vasconcelos (and wife Maria Carolina).

We had a blast as usual and hope that you will join us next month for another instance of our Pub Nights.