CMS: joomla

CMS: [Web] Content Management System (definition on Wikipedia)


Joomla! is an open-source software which is going to help you build your website to your image.

They advertise saying that Joomla! is "easy to use" and very "intuitive", but I must disagree with this. Easy to use, probably, but intuitive, not always... Being a computer nerd, I thought it was going to be easier. I was a bit lost the first week, didn't really know where to look and how it really works.

But the good news about Joomla! is that you can find a lot of templates ready to use if you are not a CSS/pHp expert, and the back-end seems difficult at first, but gets easy pretty quick, the first steps are big at first.

Another good news: Salyris Studios made a website of tutorial in Flash ! You see all the process by yourself, step by step !

Just another thing. If you are looking in the user manual, page 71, about the menu manager and the frontpage manager.
To decide what the home page really looks like, for example you want your three (or more) articles to be displayed, with no navbar, or no back button, you must go to Menu> Main Menu> Home.
The Home (frontpage) parameters can then be changed on the right side of your screen.

The # intro is the number of articles you want to see displayed at any time. And you can decide to hide or show pretty much everything :)

So, if you want to create a website by yourself, but are not a pHp/CSS freak (or you don't want to re-invent the wheel), joomla! is a good choice. Just check before that your FAI/Provider has a mysql database on his server and accept php.

For Canadians, joomlawebhosting.ca is doing a fine job (and proudly Canadian!) for not too expensive (75$ tax included a year for the space and the domain name .ca). They install joomla! if you say yes, the only thing is you are responsible for the backups (in case).