Web Design News from OSTraining

Build Naked Websites

naked The best website is a naked website.

A naked website is a website with no add-ons.

A naked website has no plugins, no extensions, no modules and no large frameworks.

Most people start using WordPress, Joomla and Drupal and see the thousands of available add-ons as a huge selling point. They're wrong.

If you build a naked site, you'll have a website that's faster, cheaper, safer and easier.

Here are 7 reasons why you should consider building your WordPress, Joomla and Drupal with only the core features:

Should You Keep Using Unsupported Software?

should-I-update All software users have struggled with this question at some point:

"Should I go through the hassle of updating to the latest release, or should I take a risk and keep using an old version?"

We get this question frequently from our Joomla and Drupal users. To help them work out what to do, here's our guide to using unsupported software.

BleacherReport.com and Building a $175 Million Business on Open Source

This month BleacherReport.com became only the second blog to ever sell for over $100 million.

Bleacher Report's slogan is "The Open Source Sports Network". The site is a meritocracy. Anyone can publish an article on sport. The more popular the article, the more attention and prominence it gets on the site.

Bleacher Report doesn't just use an open business model, they've also relied on open source since they started. They're a great example of using open source to build your business.

Incapsula: CDN, Security and Monitoring for Your Site

Incapsula is one of those companies whose product is useful but also hard to explain.

The short version is that your site traffic goes through Incapsula's own servers, where it is highly optimized.

Here's the longer version: You make a simple DNS settings change on your site. Your site traffic is then routed through Incapsula’s global network of high-powered servers. Incoming traffic is analyzed and a security layer is added to block a wide-range of threats. Outgoing traffic is optimized for faster load times.

Here's a graphical explanation of what Incapsula does:

The Value of Attending J and Beyond

Last summer I didn’t feel ready to attend my first Joomla! Day, which was only a seven-hour drive. Nine months later I not only attended J and Beyond (seven time zones away and in Europe), but also gave one of the presentations. I have no regrets, and I’d like to share the value of attending an event like J and Beyond (JAB) 2012.

Any Joomla! event provides three opportunities to those attending: education, networking, and a chance to share from a platform. JAB 2012 marked the third such annual event and drew a solid mix of extension developers and site integrators from 37 countries. Each of its three days included a full schedule of presentations and open times for networking.

The Disappearance of Open Source?

A little while ago we made the decision here at OSTraining.com to alter how our name is shown to visitors.

We changed "Open Source Training" to "OSTraining" throughout our site. The main reason? In our user testing and customer interactions we constantly found that people were confused about the phrase "Open Source". We kept on hearing comments like these:

Win a Free Site Upgrade to Joomla 2.5 and More

joomla 25 upgrade contest One of our teachers, Gabe Wahhab, runs a Joomla development company called Savvy Panda. They're based up in Milwaukee in the USA and they do great work.

They also have a cool competition going on: they're giving away a free Joomla 2.5 Upgrade.

To help the winner make the most of their 2.5 site, they'll also get:

A set up of sh404SEF, the top SEO extenison for Joomla.
Their site mobilized by the excellent Mobile Joomla.
6 months of membership to OSTraining.

The Funniest Add-ons for WordPress, Joomla and Drupal

WordPress, Joomla and Drupal more or less rule the world of websites these days.

For developers writing freely-available add-ons, that means a lot of late nights, bug reports and newbie questions to deal with.

Sometimes, just sometimes, they just like to goof off a little and when they do, they code. Here are some of the funniest add-ons they've written for WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

What is Open Source?

This short article will give you a insight into how something "free" evolved in a capitalistic society. The two most popular operating systems for computers were developed under different models - Microsoft DOS and Unix. The history of each reflects the philosophy of two different development philosophies.