CloudAccess.net Blog

Featured as a “Best of the Midwest” Growth Company at the Midwest’s Premier Venture Capital Conference

Ann Arbor, Mich. – May 13, 2013 – CloudAccess.net today announced that it has been selected to present at the 2013 Michigan Growth Capital Symposium. The company, an industry-leading Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering hosting and support for the Joomla! Content Management System, is among a roster of 36 promising, high-growth companies from the Midwest and beyond seeking funding in the next 12 months. CloudAccess.net will deliver its 10-minute presentation to attending investors, which include nearly 100 regional and top national venture capital firms, on Wednesday, May 22 at 10:30 a.m.

The Michigan Growth Capital Symposium is the oldest university-based venture capital fair and the premier Midwest networking event for leaders in venture capital investment to connect with emerging growth companies actively searching for partners and funding. Since 2001, the Symposium has provided nearly 400 companies with the opportunity to present to investors. Roughly 70 percent of these have raised capital totaling $1.7 billion in investments and nearly 20 percent have realized successful exits. More than 70 companies applied to present at the 2013 event and CloudAccess.net was selected following a rigorous review process.

CloudAccess.net has helped over 8,500 clients create a sustainable online business presence. The company offers a cloud hosting infrastructure, web development software and an industry-leading level of support for their clients. In April of 2010, CloudAccess.net partnered with Joomla.org and became the official and exclusive host of demo.joomla.org. Up to 15,000 users launch free trials of Joomla through the company’s platform every month. CloudAccess.net hosts the demo sites free, in the cloud, for 30 days and has integrated support and free training to help their clients create their online home. Insane Support™ is the #1 value add feature of the CloudAccess.net platform and the thing that separates the company from its competitors. CloudAccess.net has enterprise clients including Barnes & Noble, K2 Sports, The University of Notre Dame, The Boston Children’s Hospital and more.

“We’re extremely excited to have been one of the 36 companies selected for the MGCS,” said Gary Brooks, CloudAccess.net CEO. “What a great opportunity.” Ryan Bernstein, Chief Operating Officer, will deliver the company’s 10 minute pitch and both Bernstein and Brooks will be at the event to speak with those in attendance.

More than 400 entrepreneurs, researchers, investment professionals and business executives are expected to the Symposium, taking place May 21-22, 2013 at the Marriott Resort in Ypsilanti, Mich. In addition to company presentations to investors, the two-day event program will feature a keynote address from Credit Suisse’s Kelly Williams and five panel discussions on topics including venture capital fund investment strategies, investing in healthcare IT, and transforming Michigan's entrepreneurial landscape.

“One of the secrets to Michigan’s success is the cadre of good, smart entrepreneurs and the promising companies they are establishing and growing, including CloudAccess.net” said David J. Brophy, MGCS founder and director and professor of finance at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. “We've got a heck of a lot going on in Michigan, and it's catching the attention of people around the country and around the world.”

To learn more, see the full list of presenting companies or register, visit www.MichiganGCS.com and follow conversations about the Symposium by tracking #MGCS on Twitter.

About CloudAccess.net
CloudAccess.net is headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan, and satellite offices in Cheboygan, Michigan; Ahmadabad, India; and Szczecin, Poland. CloudAccess.net has become the world’s flagship hosting company for the Joomla! CMS and has been featured in Computer World, CIO Magazine, Network World and IBM.com.

About the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium (MGCS)
MGCS is presented by the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan with support from the Michigan Venture Capital Association and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. The Symposium offers the opportunity to build relationships with an unparalleled business network of distinguished private equity industry leaders, leading university research faculty, and entrepreneurial business professionals.

A new CloudAccess.net platform security feature giving clients the ability manage and secure any version of Joomla

It’s an age old tale of good versus evil: you build an awesome Joomla site in the current version, time goes by, the version becomes outdated, you don’t upgrade and at some point a smart hacker finds a way to break into your older Joomla site. You’ve heard the story a hundred times.

The initial knee jerk reaction is to panic, curse the heavens and ask “how could this have happened?” And the answer, from our perspective, is all too common. What we see is that 99% of the time, a hacker takes over a site by injecting something into your database like a spam attack or some other unwanted content. They are able to do this because your code has a flaw because you have a version of Joomla that has reached the end of life.

Another possibility is that someone has stolen the FTP details or login information for your Joomla application and they have manually uploaded your hosting directory overwriting files that render the site. Or, if they log into your Joomla Administration area, they can do all types of things with the editor or with the automated scripting.

The second reaction is to blame someone and, unfortunately, a lot of people blame Joomla right off the bat. In all actuality, however, it’s not Joomla’s fault. In our experience, one of two things probably occurred: 1) The person who built the site installed a 3rd party extension, the extension was never updated as time passed, a hacker found a hole, and jacked up the site. This is just like a local Windows computer - if you don’t update the software, people can put a virus on your computer. 2) Someone got a hold of your login credentials and jacked up the site via FTP or through the Joomla Admin. This is just like a local Windows computer - if you don’t update the software, you’re vulnerable to viruses.

Our network is 99% self managed which means that the customer maintains any extra software they install in Joomla. Our clients are responsible for updating any 3rd party extension they’ve installed. Many times, they or their developer installed something and they’re not even aware they have to update it. Before they know it, someone from the hacker nation found and exploited the old code and -- wham, bam, boom -- you’ve got shady messages and Viagra advertisements all over your once pristine web property.

This complicated world of hacking and dealing with updating your site is enough to give anyone a headache. At Cloudaccess.net we’re very good with cleaning up and finding issues with hacked sites - we host tens of thousands of Joomla applications on our network, many of them using older versions of Joomla. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a rise in hacked sites. We clean them up individually and help our clients get their property back, but we’ve also created a solution to help prevent hacks from occurring.

To curve this battle, we’ve added a powerful new feature. In short, you can now “lock” your database tables and put them in a “read only” mode. We allow you select which tables you’d like “locked” and in “read only” mode and which tables you’d like open so your application can write to them. We’ve also given you the ability to lock down the Joomla site files. If locked, no one will be able to upload anything to your server using FTP. You can manage all of this through the new “Security” tab found in your Cloud Control Panel.

Learn How to Manage Security

Tour the Cloud Control Panel

Why Managing Security might be for you

Because you can secure old Joomla sites in seconds instead of upgrading to a newer version. Imagine using a Joomla 1.5 for years and years without worry. Many website owners never update their version of Joomla and they use the site for marketing purposes only. With the Managing Security solution you can lock down the site, never update the extensions or core software and continue to do business as you always have eliminating the risk of being hacked.

Why our new Security Tab will help you?

• It will stop hackers from uploading and writing to your files
• It will stop hackers from doing MySQL injections into specific database tables or all tables
• It will stop FTP/SFTP style hacks (hackers whole steal FTP/SFTP Details)
• You can take a step towards achieving PCI/ HIPAA compliance
• You can lock an older version of Joomla

How does it work?

We are using the extended 4 (Ext4) filesystem. We use the immutable (i) flag to set a “read only” mode on files and directories. A file with the ‘i’ attribute cannot be modified -- it cannot be deleted or renamed, no link can be created to the file and no data can be written to the file. Only the site’s Super User or a process using the the CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE capability can set or clear this attribute.

What happens when it’s turned on?

• No one can modify existing files
• No one can add or delete anything from the directory
• No one can write to site files using FTP or SFTP
• SSH and FTP is turned off automatically
• No one can edit any files using the Joomla Editor or Joomla User Interface

This will stop hackers in their tracks. Only the site’s Super User or one of our Server Administrators will be able unlock the site. Be careful when you use this feature. If you have any extensions that are critical to your site’s functionality, you may cause a portion of the site to become unresponsive or the entire site may go down. You can always submit a support ticket and call us to see if this new security feature is right for you.

Helping educators put Joomla in the hands of thousands of students worldwide

We started our company with a set of core values, and the first value on that list is “Refer to yourself as a teacher. We are all teachers at heart.” We believe wholeheartedly in education. We understand that education can be critical in unlocking potential and opening personal and professional doors. That’s why we developed Joomla! in the Classroom, a program that assists teachers and administrators to implement Joomla into their school curriculum. Through the program we provide hosting, site provisioning and access to our training materials and support team free of charge to any qualified educator or educational institution. The following testimonials are from educators who found success with the program.

Becky Coleman, the yearbook advisor at the Calvary Christian Academy in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, has just started using the Joomla! in the Classroom program and her class size doubled from its original enrollment because students were excited and spread the word throughout the school. Mrs. Coleman commented that, “for a teacher, CloudAccess.net is amazing. I can give my students their own site and watch them go with it instead of spending my time sorting out network and web hosting issues. They also have the freedom to spend more time on their site from home or other locations outside of my classroom.” Becky is a longtime Joomla supporter and found our program after convincing others of Joomla’s viability as a CMS. She’s using the program as a unit of instruction for a business and technology class for high school juniors and seniors.

Amy Baird, an Information Science Professor at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, has incorporated Joomla! in the Classroom into an e-commerce course where students are learning to use shopping carts, payment gateways and other payment systems. They’ve been using the program for a little over a year and, according to Professor Baird, “the students are becoming Joomla experts.”

Ian Byrne is an Instructor at Scoil Mhuire Clane, an adult education college in Clane County, Kildare, Ireland. The school offers face-to-face instruction and online courses in a variety of academic areas. Ian has been teaching students Joomla since 2011. Ian said that the program has been successful and that “students have been really happy with the usability of the CMS. They love the power given to them by the free extensions including those that provide social networking links, lightboxes and banners.” Ian elaborated that “once they had mastered the process of locating, downloading and installing the extensions, they felt in control and were excited about what they could achieve. The ease at which templates could be changed and how professional the site looked got students excited.”

Richard Pearce, owner of Build a Joomla Website, uses Joomla! in the Classroom for his live training classes. He says it’s an ideal solution because students get to continue working on their site long after the formal part of the training is complete. Richard said “the steepest part of the Joomla learning curve is at the start. I find that teaching a beginner the Joomla installation steps reinforces their fears that they can’t build a website themselves. It’s time consuming, technical and therefore intimidating. However Joomla! in the Classroom overcomes this by providing a pre-installed instance of Joomla for each student so I can start introducing the important concepts right away. Better still, each student can continue to work on their site after the class has finished to help reinforce what they have learned. It’s a great solution for both the instructor and the student”.

Dr. Michael Lane and Dr. Mustafa Ally, Lecturers in the School of Informations Systems at the University of Southern Queensland based in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, have incorporated Joomla in their Digital Enterprise course over the last two semesters. The major focus of the course is the strategic integration and management of an e-commerce solution in an online business venture.

USQ is one of the leading distance education universities in Australia and over 75 percent USQ students attend courses online. To make course concepts and curriculum relevant to local and international students who are studying through their distance learning programs, Michael and Mustafa chose to incorporate an open source CMS. More specifically, Dr. Ally commented that the aim of the course was “to expose students, working in teams, to the entire website developmental process from the management of the project through to the building and implementation of the site so that some of the practical components could be aligned to the theoretical aspects of the course.”

There are two assessments for the Digital Enterprise course: a written e-commerce strategy and business model, and a prototype website built using core Joomla features. Dr. Lane and Dr. Ally chose Joomla! in the Classroom because, “while it is accepted that using a CMS like Joomla requires minimal special technical skills, the time and knowledge required in downloading, installing, configuring and managing the software and its components had the potential of discouraging and detracting students from the ultimate goal of the course and the assessment. The CloudAccess.net Platform-as-a-Service proved invaluable in enabling us to overcome these problems by providing a ‘ready-to-use’ Joomla development environment.”

Both Lecturers also frequently advised their students to attend CloudAccess.net free & live daily webinars and to browse through our knowledgebase full of how-to tutorials and videos. Dr. Lane commented that “we have made extensive use of Cloudaccess.net's Joomla Knowledgebase, free templates and webinars - these are great resources for introducing students to the basics of developing a Joomla website.” Using these resources, they found that students had “surprisingly fewer queries” about the development of the website, but if questions did arise, they knew they could count on the CloudAccess.net support team to be “exceptionaly efficient and very prompt and helpful.”

The goal of any educational institution is to equip students with the skills and experiences necessary to compete for jobs in a global society. Dr. Lane has confidence in the the Digital Enterprise course because, using Joomla, students get to develop in demand and highly relevant skills in a developing industry. Dr. Lane commented that “if students build a great e-commerce website, it gives them something to show a potential employer, it looks great on their CV and makes them more competitive in the job market." Their students routinely praised Joomla for its ease-of-use and extensibility and regularly reported a high degree of satisfaction with the Digital Enterprise course.

There are several other high schools, colleges, universities and private educational programs using the Joomla! in the Classroom program, and we’re extremely proud to be associated with them and to have helped them in their mission. Simply email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  if you’re interested or want learn more. We’ll provision and host as many Joomla sites as your students need, we’ll walk you through our training and support systems and we’ll do it all absolutely free of charge. We have certified and accomplished educators on the CloudAccess.net staff and we’re teachers at heart. We’re ready to help you devise a plan for implementing Joomla as part of your curriculum. The only thing we ask in exchange is for you to help us share your story about how you found success with the program.

This article was originally published in the March 2013 edition of the Michigan Cyber Initiative Newsletter. The actual newsletter is embedded at the bottom of this blog. The Michigan Cyber Initiative is the state of Michigan's official "action plan that offers clear approaches for safeguarding our families, protecting Michigan's infrastructure and shielding our economy." Because of our work with PCI cloud hosting environments, we were chosen to write the feature article in this newsletter. DevOps team members Christopher Ecklesdafer and Pawel Panek played a big role in the content of this article as did Jonathan Gafill, CloudAccess.net Project Manager.

To protect highly sensitive cardholder data, the Payment Card Industry Security Standard Council (PCI SSC) released 12 Top Level Data Security Standards (DSS). Financial organizations are required to validate their adherence to certain DSS requirements. Below is an overview of the 12 PCI DSS requirements.

There are over 130 Approved Scanning Vendors (ASVs) that can be used to detect vulnerabilities found in a public cloud. CloudAccess.net, a Michigan-based Platform as a Service (PaaS), used McAfee and Comodo to perform security scans on targeted hosting environments. Using the results, the company adjusted server specifications to pass subsequent scans, ultimately helping several clients validate the security of their content including Reliance Bank, a full service bank with twenty branches in the St. Louis metropolitan region, and CIMA (the Center for Information Management and Assurance), an organization that aims to elevate the information security community. CloudAccess.net is helping clients pass ASV scans on an individual basis, but the company is developing an automated PCI-DSS hosting layer that can be applied to any environment with a click of a mouse.

Passing an ASV scan is a critical part of the PCI testing system, but it is very important to note that passing such scans doesn't necessarily mean that the hosting environment reaches the highest levels of PCI-DSS standards. To learn more, visit pcisecuritystandards.org and read about Navigating PCI DSS.

Last week the 400,000th demo trial of Joomla was launched through the CloudAccess.net platform, less than three years after we became the official host of demo.joomla.org. Open Source Matters awarded us the contract to host demo.joomla.org in April of 2010, and we're very grateful to be able to provide such a valuable service to the entire Joomla community. We're also fortunate to have been able to put Joomla at the heart of our company and build around it. Read more about the history of CloudAccess.net.

Our platform wasn't perfect at first. There were some bumps in the road, but over time we've dramatically improved the automated provisioning process, scaling our servers for faster Joomla sites all while keeping up with each new version of the CMS as it was released. We've also developed an industry-leading Joomla support system in the process - clients can submit a support ticket, use our live chat feature or call us directly to get answers to core Joomla questions.

We currently have over 7,000 active demo sites and more than 7,500 active paying clients who have either converted their demo trials or migrated their Joomla sites to the CloudAccess.net network. At first, over 90% of all demo users were coming from demo.joomla.org, but as our company gained traction and popularity in the Joomla hosting & support industry, more and more clients found us organically. We're happy with the progression of our platform and that we've gotten Joomla in the hands of so many users around the world, but we're always looking for ways to improve and refine our systems.

We have something really exciting in the works, something we think will be well-received by the community. Our team has been working on a point-and-click API for extension and template developers that will give them and their clients the power of launching Joomla instances, complete with their 3rd party template or applications, directly from their web property. We're going to publish another blog soon with a few more details and a way to sign up to learn more.

In the meantime, we're going to celebrate the 400,000 milestone for a minute or two and thank the entire community that made it possible. Thanks!

We’ve all been told that “you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.” 2012 was a wild year for us, and before we get too far into 2013, we wanted to reflect on everything we did in the last year.

January: Goodbye Joomla 1.7, Hello Cloudy

In January we updated our own site to Joomla 2.5 and started offering 2.5 demo trial sites to all of our clients. All of our knowledgebase content and webinars also started focusing on 2.5 material. Pawel Borowicz, our graphic artist, also came up with several variations of Cloudy, our mascot. 

February: More Team Members & Our Own IP Addresses

We were allocated our own set of IP Addresses from ARIN, the American Registry of Internet Numbers, and “the two Jens”, Jen Berigan and Jenny Marriott, joined our team in February.

March: New Server Racks & a Platform Programmer

We purchased a second server rack built with Texas Memory Systems SANS Storage for virtual private server environments. Julio Pontes, a Platform Programmer, also joined our team in March.

April: CloudAccess.net Poland

Although our Polish team was strong in numbers, they had a teeny tiny office. The new CloudAccess.net Poland office is located in Szczecin, in a promenade called Deptak Bogusława. The newly-remodeled and modern office is almost 2,000 square feet and it was the second CloudAccess.net office established, following only the Traverse City headquarters. This office houses nine team members and still has plenty of room for adding more. We selected this office purposefully with the objective of adding additional team members in the future. Employees from almost every team work from the Polish location - Joomla! Support Engineers, a Graphic Designer, Server Administrators, Front-End Developers and Platform Team Specialists.

May: We are Winners!

At the J! and Beyond event in Bad Nauheim, Germany, we were awarded the 2012 J!OSCAR Award for Best Joomla! Services. Our own Saurabh Shah was at the event to accept the award for the company.

June: Product & Platform Development, CloudAccess.net India, and More New Faces

Having already purchased the new server rack in March, our Platform was expanded we launched two new products - the Joomla! VPMC and the Compliant Cloud Backup. We also officially announced our Bolt DNS worldwide network and our Managed SSL Certificates. June also saw the addition of our CloudAccess.net India located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on the 7th Floor of the Pratiksha Complex. CloudAccess.net India is in a popular commercial area located in south west Ahmedabad, India. The office is near many other corporate offices for national and international companies. With two current team members at this location, and three remote Indian team members, this office has the potential of adding up to four additional employees. Summer Hency, our Billing Account Manager, also joined CloudAccess.net Traverse City and Michelle Borowicz, a Cloud Support Engineer, joined our Cheboygan team.

July: Still Winning

During July we won Joomla Hosting Review’s award for Best Joomla as a Service Company. In July we also finalized the purchase of CloudAccess.net Cheboygan located at 504 Division Street in a 50,000 square foot facility that was formerly Cheboygan Middle School. Members of our Support and Business Development Teams operate an office within the building and we lease much of the space to North Central Michigan College (NCMC). We worked closely with NCMC to refurbish 8 state-of-the-art classrooms, and NCMC is currently using much of the facility for The Straits Area Education Center, bringing valuable secondary educational opportunities to Cheboygan. There is a computer lab and each classroom comes equipped with an interactive iPad and LCD monitor that can be incorporated into instruction. Read more about CloudAccess.net Cheboygan!

August: Joomla.org, Data Centers & Speaking Engagements

In August we renewed the contract with Joomla.org to be the official and exclusive host of the demo.joomla.org, and we got our own data center in Detroit, Michigan. This was a big deal because we finally stopped leasing server space and got our own facility. We even gave new meaning to Cloud Computing. Jonathan Gafill, our Project Manager, also spoke at the Joomla! Day Chicago event about the award-winning SPARC social intranet that we created for the Boston Children’s Hospital. Larisa Patel, a Cloud Support Specialist, also joined our CloudAccess.net India team.

September: PageRank & More Speaking Engagements to Joomla!

September was a big month because we reached the Google PageRank of 8, a major accomplishment proving the popularity of our service. Dominik Kucharski, a CloudAccess.net founder and Front End Developer spoke about Front End Optimization to a full house at Joomla! Day Poland. Julio Pontes spoke about JPlatform at Joomla! Day Brazil and Saurabh Shah also spoke about creating and modifying Joomla! templates at Joomla! Day Spain. Joomla also released its 3.0 version in September and we started modifying our entire platform to accommodate 3.0 sites.

October: Joomla! 3.0

We launched the new demo.joomla.org site and started offering automated 3.0 demo sites through our platform in October.

November: Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition & Joomla! World Conference

In November we were selected as a finalist in the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, the largest business plan competition in North America. We were invited to present a company pitch in Detroit, Michigan for a chance at winning $500,000. Ryan Bernstein, "The Professor", and Charlie Hague, our Chief Financial Officer, put up a good showing for our company in Detroit. Several of our team members also traveled to San Jose, California to attend the Joomla! World Conference. Jonathan Gafill presented the case study SobrietyMonitor.com, a company incubated by CloudAccess.net that integrates a hardware with a custom Joomla! application. November was also a big month for our Platform Development Team because we brought our Cloud Control Panel into the CloudAccess.net Client Area.

December: Partners & Clients

In December we expanded our Partner Program to include separate Developer, Affiliate and Reseller Programs and we reached 7,500 active clients. We’re very proud of the all the relationships we’ve built with our partners and our clients. December also saw the release of the second edition of The Official Joomla! Book authored by our own Jennifer Marriott. Autographed copies are now available. We also contributed a ton of time and resources to the Joomla! project in 2012. We offered free domains and hosting for the J!Day event site, we hosted community wide webinars including a Multilingual Webinar and a JUX Webinar featured on the Joomla YouTube Channel. We contriuted a new Joomla!Day logo in addition to several other logos and images on Joomla.org and we even published an article in the Joomla Community Magazine.

Whew! (Exasperated sigh). As you can see, we were quite busy in 2012. There is probably a bunch of stuff that we are forgetting, but who can blame us with everything that we accomplished? There were also a few items intentionally left off this list as we develop those pieces to be announced early in 2013. We’re looking forward to a promising new year and we wish you the same!

JoomlArt has a dream to raise $1,000,000 for the Joomla! Project and CloudAccess.net is joining them by offering a Humble Bundle of services. This is a limited time offer of incredible savings from two different service providers. 

Learn More!

Purchase this Bundle!

What is the Humble Bundle?

A Humble Bundle allows users to choose their own price for a combination of services. JoomlArt is offering a 1 year Developer Membership valued at $499 and CloudAccess.net is offering a 1 year Business Hosting & Support plan valued at $599. Those who take advantage of the Humble Bundle will have unlimited access to hundreds of JoomlArt templates and themes and will have hosting and support for 365 days. CloudAccess.net will even help install any JoomlArt template as part of the hosting and support package.

1 Year Developer Membership	1 Year Business Hosting & Support Plan
Access to Hundreds of Joomla Templates & Themes	Premium Joomla Hosting and Phone Support
Valued at $499*	Valued at $599*

*Available for a fraction of the the price through this exclusive offer

Pick your own Price!

The best part is that you can pick your own price! For a minimum purchase price of $250, you can have both memberships and you choose where your money goes. 100% of your purchase can go to Joomla.org, or you can divide your purchase between Joomla.org, JoomlArt and CloudAccess.net.

Act Now - Limited Time Offer

Yes! This offer is good for one week only! Purchase your Humble Bundle between Wednesday, January 2nd and Wednesday, January 9th to take advantage of these incredible savings.

Buy Now!

What is the Joomla! Project?

Joomla! is an Open Source CMS that powers millions of websites around the world. The Joomla! Project is network of volunteers that combine to bring you this amazing CMS and keep the it up-to-date. Open Source Matters (OSM) is the nonprofit organization that guides the Joomla! Project, and money raised through our Humble Bundle offer would go to OSM to use as they see fit to support the project. We owe a lot of our success to the Joomla! Project. We have been the official and exclusive host of the demo trial of Joomla at demo.joomla.org for a number of years, and a large part of our company’s success can be directly attributed to Joomla. We have always been active members of the Joomla community and many CloudAccess.net team members also fulill roles on Community Leadership Teams. We’re insanely passionate about the Joomla CMS and want to contribute as much as we can to its continued success.

Learn More!

Earlier this year, CloudAccess.net acquired a 50,000 square foot structure in Cheboygan, Michigan. The structure was formerly Cheboygan Middle School. Easily one of the company's 2012 highlights, CloudAccess.net worked closely with the Cheboygan Economic Development Group (CEDG), local business leaders and Cheboygan Area Schools to purchase the structure at 504 Division Street in the heart of the beautiful downtown area.

CloudAccess.net was chosen to purchase the building from a number of potential candidates because we’re a growing Northern Michigan company with the potential to expand even more and to offer additional employment opportunities in Cheboygan. We were also chosen because we are good stewards of the community. We pledged to use the structure to promote education and various other community-based endeavors in the Cheboygan area.

We worked closely with North Central Michigan College (NCMC) to refurbish 8 state-of-the-art classrooms, and NCMC is currently using much of the facility for The Straits Area Education Center, bringing valuable secondary educational opportunities to Cheboygan. There is a computer lab and each classroom comes equipped with an interactive iPad and LCD monitor that can be incorporated into instruction. A third level crisis center and an after-school youth center also operate within the building. There have even been talks of adding a walking track in the gymnasium for senior citizens, something that would turn the building into a true community center. We were able to create a CloudAccess.net Cheboygan office, filling several full time positions and adding a Joomla Support Call Center. The facility was opened to the public during a ribbon-cutting ceremony in October.

Members of the (CEDG) including Chris Sangster, James “Bud” Darnell, Lydia Murray, Richard Sanford and Jan Kellogg from the Northern Lakes Economic Alliance (NLEA) were all instrumental in acquiring the building. Charlie Hague, CloudAccess.net CFO, commented that Bud Darnell, a retired General Motors Executive, was really the nucleus of the entire project. Mike Witulski, CloudAccess.net CBDO, said that Bud is like an “Energizer Bunny” continually donating time, energy and resources to the greater good of the Cheboygan community. It’s only fitting to also acknowledge Mike and the considerable amount of time he spent on the project. The scope of his work stretched from building business relationships and hiring new employees to many hours spent painting and remodeling classrooms. Mike is pictured below at the ribbon-cutting ceremony next to Bud Darnell. Also pictured is Dr. Christine M. Hammond, NCMC Dean of Instruction, and members of the Cheboygan Area Chamber of Commerce.

Don Lewis from Northern Lights Creative Marketing played a huge role in helping CloudAccess.net develop the relationship with NCMC. Don has had a long standing relationship with the college and was the person who initially started to explore the possibility of having NCMC offer courses in one centralized Cheboygan location. A special thanks also goes to Randy Neumann from Cheboygan Michigan Works who provided a tremendous amount of help in starting the CloudAccess.net Cheboygan team.

CloudAccess.net CEO Gary Brooks lived in Cheboygan for a time as a youngster and is very fond of the city. Gary was a pivitol part of the entire project, and he is excited about growing his company in Cheboygan. His focus for the building is to create even more jobs and to promote positive influences in the Cheboygan area. Gary is pictured below shaking hands with Dr. Hammond. Bud Darnell and several CloudAccess.net and NCMC staff members are also pictured. We’re all extremely proud of our presence in Cheboygan and we look forward to a long lasting relationship with NCMC and the entire Cheboygan community.

Using Smarter Methods and a Joomla Foundation for Success on the Web

Designing on the web is an art; there is no doubt about that. So much creativity is needed, from color selection and logo design to laying out the user interface; the process demands an artist’s mind. We are occasionally fooled into thinking that since we act as artists, we should be spontaneous and free in our process. While this is true to an extent, failing to plan well from the beginning can kill any project.

Planning a web project successfully means taking into consideration everything that can and will come up. For some, the only planning is selecting a good template. If you don’t prepare a proper blueprint from the outset, your project will at best take longer, or at worst completely fail to reach your objectives.

In this article, I share some effective methods of planning a small business website so your project is within budget and exceeds expectations.

SET GOALS

At the beginning of your planning strategy, examine what you're trying to accomplish with this website, and set some goals. You can think of these goals as conversions if you like, but the important thing is to begin thinking about funneling your visitors to the section of your site that suits them the most. By starting with these goals, you’ll have a better understanding of where you need to send visitors and what pages and sections you’ll need to create.

The goal of the home page is usually to push people to the most relevant page. For example, if your audience includes both developers and consumers, include an obvious link to both of those pages. If your site will have specific sections for men and women, plan how you will catch the attention of each group and encourage them to click the appropriate link.

Also think about where you want your visitors to end up. This is the end of the conversion process. Is it at a "Thank You" page after a purchase, or is it on a contact us form that emails you some specific information? Not all transactions end with an exchange of money. Figure out at the very start what makes a successful visit.
Other examples include having your visitor complete a feedback form, receiving a phone call or directing the user to a self-help section.

RESEARCH YOUR MARKET

Finding out what your competitors are doing is key, both for good and for bad. Knowing what is working for others in your market can help you make decisions on what content to include and what design works best. Copying is not a great idea, but borrowing successful elements means that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just make a better performing wheel than your competitors.

You should also know what your competitors are doing poorly. This will help you to avoid the same mistakes. Visit their sites as a customer. Think about the experience as though you were “shopping their store.” This applies whether they’re running an ecommerce site or not.

You also need to know your customers as intimately as possible. You should research their backgrounds and habits, and you should know what appeals to them and makes them hang around a website instead of bouncing elsewhere after two seconds. If you’re entering a specific market, it’s a good idea to thoroughly experience that market and to be a part of it in some way.

BRAINSTORM

Any good content developer, whether they are a website creator or a novelist, will no doubt explain the importance of brainstorming. This step can make or break a project. Good brainstorming overcomes most of the problems with writer's block, or developer's block in our case, and it can also uncover ideas that you weren't aware you had.

When you let down your filter of self-consciousness or embarrassment, worrying that one idea or another is just ridiculous, and you allow everything to come out onto paper, your computer screen or whatever medium you use, the amount of material you will have to draw from is incredible. The important part is to NOT over-think this step. Sit down and start letting it flow. Filter the good ideas from the bad ones in the next step.

FILTER IDEAS / CREATE A SITEMAP

The process of filtering all of that material produced from your brainstorm may be a little overwhelming. But by following a couple of simple guidelines, you can rule out some unnecessary items early on and make those tough decisions about what to cut a little bit easier.

The first rule I suggest for a small business website is to have no more than 8 top level menu items or links. More than that and you stand a pretty good chance of losing your visitor in a mass of decisions. Let them make some quick decisions right away, and then keep them on the site with great content. It’s thought that the attention span of the average internet user is somewhere near 4 seconds. The more decisions they have to make, the better their chances of leaving.

The next rule of thumb is to go no more than 3 levels deep from the top menu. Now, this rule isn't set in stone, but it's good to keep in mind when planning how to lay out your navigation.

This part of the process dovetails perfectly with how Joomla works as a CMS. When you have your sitemap built, you can start to create your Categories and be ready to go when your content is developed. You can also use it to check whether or not your navigation makes sense, and refer back to it when adding new content in the future.

CREATE A WIREFRAME

When you're wireframing your small business website, or creating the visual outline of what the finished product will resemble, I recommend that you break your content into primary and secondary content. Primary content is the most important information on the page. It's what you want your visitor to spend most of their time focusing on. This content must be excellent. It is usually the main Article on a Single Article Joomla page.

Secondary content makes up the remainder of the content on the page. For example, in a fully fleshed out website there are normally headers, menus, sidebars and footers in addition to the primary content. Within those sections you might find Modules featuring a staff member of the month or testimonials from happy customers.

Starting with a very basic pre-made Joomla template is a great way to wireframe a website. You can quickly place Modules and articles where you think they should go, and move them until you’re happy. You can also work in Photoshop or some other tool and bring that design into Joomla relatively easily.

The point is that this information must be planned well. Is the primary content in a location where the user's eye will naturally be drawn? Are the sizes of the modules on your site in proportion to their importance?

Every detail is important when planning your web elements. One way to illustrate this is with an ecommerce site. Clearly the descriptions are important, but if you want your visitors to become customers as well, then you must make sure your ordering system is simple and clear. To get people to buy your products, the Add to Cart button must be obvious on the page. The more you make potential customers guess and hunt, the less likely you are to make a sale. Planning this out and wireframing it at the beginning makes you much more likely to succeed.

DEVELOP YOUR CONTENT

After all of the previous steps have been taken and your plan is ready to go, the implementation of your site has a much better chance for success.

Once you decide what content really needs to be included, and just as importantly what doesn't, you can start bringing things together. If you're working with a team, now is the time to delegate. Decide who on your team is responsible for each specific piece, and give them clear deadlines.

Using Smarter Methods and a Joomla Foundation for Success on the Web

While developing content online, focus on getting the biggest bang for your buck. For example, some small business sites don't include enough images. And almost everyone seems to forget how important images are to a website. Images are so important online that you should consider using a professional photographer whenever possible. The quality you will get from a professional photo shoot makes a big difference and can make a dramatic difference on whether or not you achieve your website goals. Which of these salads would you rather eat?

Professionally shot photo:

Amateur photo:

There are many other things to consider when you get into the details of building a website. When you plan well from the beginning, the rest of the process goes much more smoothly and becomes a lot more enjoyable.

There will always be something new to work in to your project. Some new technology or method is always around the corner. Don't get bogged down in all of the "latest and greatest" out there. Find what really does make a difference and implement it carefully. Mobile considerations are definitely in this category. Don't underestimate the value of mobile compatibility. These days websites must be mobile ready. Being able to separate the fads from the best new advances is an important skill when it comes to web development.

Joomla is embracing this wholeheartedly. Version 3.0 is based on the Twitter Bootstrap framework and is mobile ready out of the box. These types of advancements are exactly what you need to be paying attention to for your small business website.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, get it done and “ship” it. There is a direct correlation between how long it takes to complete a project and the likelihood that it will get done at all. The longer it takes, the less likely it is to get done. If something isn't ready, don't publish it, but don't fail to finish a project by being a perfectionist.

It's important to keep moving. Getting work done is what this article is trying to help you do. Jump into your project with enthusiasm, but don’t let a lack of planning derail you from the outset. Keep in mind the old saying, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

CloudAccess.net recently competed in the 2012 Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, “an international business plan competition designed to highlight Michigan as a robust and vibrant venue for innovation and business opportunity.” The competition was managed by Ann Arbor Spark and sponsored by Automation Alley, TechTown and Macomb-OU INCubator. With $1 million in prizes, the Detroit Free Press has called the competition “the biggest business plan competition of its kind.”

Charlie Hague, CFO, and Ryan "The Professor" Bernstein made the trip to Detroit to represent the company and deliver the pitch. They practiced for weeks leading up to the event and felt really good about making the final round of the competition after the initial 10 minute presentation. Ryan gave the pitch and both Ryan and Charlie answered questions for the judges for 15 minutes following the presentation. 

53 Michigan-based companies were invited to take part in the competition held on November 13th, 14th and 15th at the historic Westin Book Cadillac hotel in downtown Detroit, and making the competition is an accomplishment in itself. CloudAccess.net was chosen from over 300 applicants to be one of the companies to present a 10 minute investment pitch to a panel of judges and anyone else interested in learning more about the company. We were lucky to have several Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center consultants including John Balbach, Jason Pliml, Sandra Cochrane, Joe Battinger and Mary Rogers give us continual feedback as we prepared and we also presented to a group of local business people in the Traverse City area.

Traverse City was represented strongly with two companies in the semi-final round, CloudAccess.net and HireStarts, a social networking company for college students and potential employers. Two Traverse City student companies, 45th Parallel Lighting and The All Out Gaming Center, also made the semi-final round of the student competition.

Although CloudAccess.net wasn't selected to be a finalist, we had a great time at the event, made dozens of great connections, learned about some other great Michigan-based companies and had some fun in the process. The timing of this competition could not have been any more perfect for CloudAccess.net because we have recently transitioned out of start-up phase and into a rapid growth phase. We were already in the process of refining our business plan and company documentation to take advantage of the JOBS Act with a 506 Regulation D preferred share offering. We’d like to thank everyone involved with the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, and we look forward to competing again in 2013!

J!Day España (Spain) 2012 took place recently in the ancient Roman city of Mérida, and our own Saurabh Shah, a CloudAccess.net front end developer, lead a presentation & workshop at the event. Saurabh’s session was titled “Create & Modify Joomla! Templates” and his goal was to teach people how to create their own Joomla! templates through one of the following ways:

• by copying and modifying an existing template
• by installing and modifying an existing theme
• by creating a template from scratch using the Gantry Framework

View Saurabh’s Presentation Here

Saurabh reported that a good crowd showed up for his presentation and that they benefited from the useful tools used to speed up the development process as well as the tips and tricks he had for working with the Gantry Framework. He received a lot of great feedback about his presentation.

Saurabh said that there were many other interesting presentations and workshops including “Blogging with Joomla!” by Kristoffer, “E-commerce with VirtueMart” by Max, “Introduction to the SobiPro Component and The Future of Joomla!”, “Joomla! 3.0”  by Isidro , and a Joomla Template Responsive Design workshop by Alberto.

   
Congratulations to the J!Day Spain organizers on the successful event. Saurabh would specifically like to thank Pedro Vidal, Jose Ferrero, Irene López, Albert Bosom, Alberto Gómez-Chacón and Javier Mendoza for inviting him and letting him take part of the event. He’d also like to give a special shout out to Kristoffer Sandven (a.k.a @joomlablogger) for being his English-speaking companion for the entire event and for accompanying him around the city of Mérida. Saurabh is also thankful to Albert, Alberto and Angel Garcia Zinsel for giving him a tour of Madrid.

Saurabh had a great time at the event in Merida especially because professional translators were provided by local government specifically for the J!Day event. They provided the real time translations for Spanish, Portuguese and English to assist non-Spanish speaking attendees a chance to understand presentations. Every J!Day event could benefit from this type of service.

In fact, everywhere Saurabh went he felt welcomed. Even though he knew little Spanish going in, local people approached him and tried to make him feel more comfortable by speaking English with him. While in Mérida, Saurabh was also lucky to see the Roman Legion at a yearly event called the “White Night”.

Well, we sure hope so..

When we started planning the new CloudAccess.net Chrome Extension, we had a wide array of requirements. Like proud virtual parents, we wanted our humble extension to perform the following functions:

• Instantly launch Joomla websites
• Comprehend intermediate calculus
• Make and distribute fresh cups of coffee
• Predict what the weather is actually going to do

While our initial plans may have been a bit unrealistic, we are still very happy with the results. Our new extension is designed to act as a shortcut tool for our clients. It provides them direct access to our knowledgebase, webinar registration page and many more useful areas.

Go to the Chrome Store and download our extension for free. We will continue to improve our extension so check back frequently for updates.

CloudAccess.net recently gave new meaning to the phrase cloud computing as we literally took to the sky with 4 CloudAccess.net servers. We moved the servers from our Traverse City data center to a new & improved facility that offers increased Internet connectivity in addition to an ultra-secure physical structure.

Two CloudAccess.net server administrators, Chris Ecklesdafer and Motaz, made the flight from Traverse City to the Metro Detroit area. We chartered a private plane to fly the servers to the new facility instead of driving them there because it decreased the overall downtime that our clients experienced. Below is a timeline of events:

5:30 am: servers disconnected from the Traverse City data center
6:15 am: arrival at the Traverse City Cherry Capital Airport
6:45 am: flight departure
8:45 am: the flight lands in the Metro Detroit area
9:20 am: arrival at the new data center
9:50 am: the server rack turned back on
2:00 pm: Chris & Motaz arrive back at the CloudAccess.net TC office

Our new co-located and hardened data centers located in the Metro Detroit area offer over 40,000 sq. ft. of power-protected space, dual fiber entrances, a climate-controlled environment, gated entrances, 24x7 security card access, video surveillance, 1200 AMP-48 DC power plant, 500kVA UPS uninterrupted power, and 750kVA diesel generators.

The backup component to the data center offers customers virtually 100% up-time. Our strategically located facilities are an engineered stronghold. Buildings are unmarked and feature vehicle blockades, key-card protocols, and round-the-clock interior and exterior surveillance monitors. Only authorized data center personnel are granted access and no one else can enter without prior clearance and an appropriate escort.

Our climate control systems ensure the most comfortable and consistent environment for the technology. Humidity and temperature are routinely regulated to meet ASHRAE guidelines and maintain optimal equipment performance and reliability. Our uninterrupted power systems feature extensive fault tolerance and resilience at every layer, and our data center is configured to be redundant, allowing us to provide you with consistent power performance. Should a total extended utility power outage occur, our routinely tested on-site diesel generators can run indefinitely.

Speaking about the entire experience, Chris commented, “I felt like I was in a Mission Impossible movie on a Secret Ops team performing a critical military stratagem vital the survival of my race”. Motaz said, “it was a totally new experience that I hadn't had before. It was a little bit scary at first but turned out to be a lot of fun.” The video below was taken as the plane landed in Detroit.

Dominik Kucharski, a CloudAccess.ent Founder and Front-end Developer, recently presented at a J!Day conference in Poznan, Poland. His presentation was titled Front End Optimization (FEO): How to Speed Up a Joomla! Website. Approximately 100 attendees watched as Dominik demonstrated a variety of ways to speed up a Joomla! website.

Dom spoke about the following ten topics:

• Image compression
• Turning on GZIP compression for all files (except images)
• JavaSCript and CSS file compression
• Combining JavaScript and CSS files
• Using CSS Sprites
• Setting up the Expires Header and the ETAg to Improve Caching
• Moving Scripts to the Bottom of the Page
• Removing Unnecessary and Duplicated Files
• Using a Content Delivery Network
• Dividing Website Files Between 2 Servers or Subdomains

Read more about the 10 Steps you can take to improve your FEO.

Look at Dom’s Presentation Slides.

Also in attendance were several CloudAccess.net Poland team members including Paweł Borowicz, Darek Śnieg, Igor Kaczor, Krzysztof Sibiński and Łukasz Ciesielski. Paweł Borowicz, our Graphic Artist, said that Dom’s presentation was “one of the most professional presentations I have been at for a long time. Very useful, I learned a great deal from it.”

Dom said that there were several other interesting presentations including Tomasz Dziuda’s presentation titled “Joomla!: A Responsive Web Design” and Aleksander Kuczek’s presentation about best practices to use when signing contracts with clients.

Even though Dom acknowledged that he was a little nervous about speaking in front of a large audience, he got a lot of positive feedback about the information he provided. He wanted to offer a special thank you to Paweł Borowicz for help with presentation graphics and Radek Suski who lent him a wireless pilot.

Overall, Dom was very pleased with the highly organized J!Day event in Poland.

What are the major differences between Joomla 2.5 and 3.0?

The most noticeable difference is the totally revamped administrator, which is updated to a modern design with many simpler and more friendly user-interfaces. Also, Joomla 3.0 is now mobile friendly and can be used with any modern device.

In addition, there are dozens of improvements to the details of all of Joomla, such as a new installer which you will notice when creating a new Joomla 3.0 install. Finally, Joomla 3.0 is packed with goodies for extension developers, such as Bootstrap support and jQuery support.

How long is each version supported?

Each major release of Joomla is supported for about 3 years and includes one-click upgrades. For example, the 2.x series (which included 1.6 and 1.7 due to naming conflicts) has a support life of about 3 years (January 2011 until spring 2014). 1.6 to 1.7 was a one-click upgrade. 1.7 to 2.5 was a one click upgrade. 2.5 will be supported until spring of 2014. So the 2.x series has a little over three years of support and, overall, it was a smooth experience for users and extension developers.

The 3.x series will have about 3 years of support as well. 3.0 to 3.1 to 3.5 will be one-click upgrades and should, overall, be smooth transitions for users and developers as the 2.x series was.

Because Joomla's new timed-release cycle makes moving from major version to major version (e.g. 2.x to 3.x) relatively simple (see the below FAQ's for more information), users get the added benefit of compounded support, where they can move from major version to major version to get continued and uninterrupted support.

I'm building a brand new site. Should I launch a Joomla 2.5 site or a 3.0 site?

Launch a 2.5 site if you want the most stable that Joomla has to offer and/or possibly if you plan on using many extensions. Launch a 3.0 site if all the extensions that you plan to use are Joomla 3.0 compatible. Only some template providers or the extension vendors will be ready for Joomla 3.0 at launching, however most will not be ready until days, weeks or months after. (See the “How do I find Joomla 3.0 compatible extensions?” FAQ for more information)

If I launch a Joomla 3.0 site, will I be able to install extensions?

Yes, you will be able to install extensions compatible with Joomla 3.0. The Joomla Extension Directory (JED) will have Joomla 3.0 compatible icons to know which extensions are Joomla 3.0 compatible; however, the best place to check is the developer’s site.

How do I get a Joomla 3.0 template?

Some template companies will be offering Joomla 3 templates either right away or shortly after release, but you will need to ask each one. Some have already announced that their templates will be ready for Joomla 3 when it is released, but others have not. Also, please note that some Joomla 2.5 templates will work in Joomla 3 without any issues or any changes needed. It's best to consult with the developers on this.

How do I find Joomla 3.0 compatible extensions?

Visit Joomla Extension Directory (JED), which will have Joomla 3.0 compatible icons to let you know which extensions are Joomla 3.0 compatible; however, the best place to check is your extension developer’s site.

Will my Joomla 2.5 extensions work with Joomla 3.0?

Extensions that are native to Joomla 2.5 should work on Joomla 3.0 with very little change, if any. Components and templates will need the most work, while modules and plugins should work without issue (assuming they do not use deprecated methods). Extensions that support Joomla 2.5 and 1.5 in the same package will likely not work right away, until the developers update them for Joomla 3 compatibility.

In short, it depends on the extension. The Joomla Project has made the process relatively easy for most extensions, however for some extensions it’s going to take some work. To be certain, let the developers of the extensions know that you want to use their extension on Joomla 3 and consult with their documentation.

What happens if I launch a Joomla 3.0 site, but the extension I want is for a 2.5 site?

You need to speak with the extension developer to see if they have plans to release for Joomla 3 in the immediate future. Developers do have to make some changes but how extensive they are depends on the extension.

Should I update from 2.5?

In most cases, probably not. Joomla 2.5 will continue be supported until spring of 2014 and you can update directly to Joomla 3 once it’s tried-and-tested thoroughly by other users. You can even wait until Joomla 3.5 which will be released in a year from now and still get a direct upgrade. The only reason you should update is if you need Joomla 3’s features or want to be on the leading edge.

I have a 2.5 site and I see a that the Joomla update manager lets me upgrade to 3.0; should I do it since it’s letting me?
Not unless you’re 1000% sure. By default, Joomla will not let you update to 3.0 unless you activate the option within the Joomla! Update component (administrator >> Component >> Joomla! Update >> Options >> Update server >> Short Term Support). If for some reason you’ve changed this, and you’d like the updater to stop letting you upgrade, change the setting to Long Term Support. After making this change, you’ll only receive updates for Joomla 2.5.

What’s next after Joomla 3.0?

In 6 months, Joomla 3.1 will be released. If you’re on Joomla 3.0, you will need to upgrade to 3.1 at that time using the one-click upgrader. If you’re still on Joomla 2.5, you can continue to wait until Joomla 3.5 and still get a direct upgrade.

Okay, I’m ready and want to upgrade. How do I do the upgrade?
First, review the system requirements for Joomla 3.0 and make sure that your server environment meets those requirements.
Second, make sure that all your extensions (especially, your templates) are Joomla 3.0 compatible.
Third, create a test site and test the upgrade on the test site first.
Fourth, consult a trusted developer if you’re not 100% certain about anything.
Fifth, make a full backup of your site (files and database).

Once ready, go to the Joomla! Update component. Click on options and change the setting to Short Term Support. Save. You should be notified of the availability of Joomla 3.0. Click the button to install. Clear your browser’s cache to make sure you see the latest changes. That’s it!

Finally, double check and make sure that everything is working properly.

Note: On some hosts you may need to use alternative update methods such as using the extensions installer.

But what if I’m on Joomla 1.5. Will my site break? Do I migrate to 2.5 or 3.0?

Support for Joomla 1.5 is officially about to end. Does that mean your 1.5 site will stop working? No, your site will continue to work as it always has. However, Joomla’s developers will not be releasing new versions for Joomla 1.5, so you won’t be getting bug fixes or security fixes. For this reason, it’s recommended to migrate from 1.5.

Moving from 2.5 to any Joomla 3 version is relatively simple, since Joomla has made the process easy for newer versions. Unfortunately, moving from 1.5 is not a trivial task. Fortunately, there are two good extensions that make the process easier: jUpgrade and SP Upgrade.

You have a choice of going straight to Joomla 3.0 or going to 2.5 first. Both SP Upgrade and jUpgrade have versions ready for both versions. Please consult with their documentation on how to migrate from Joomla 1.5 to 3.0/2.5.

Migrate to Joomla 3.0 if all the extensions that you plan to use are Joomla 3.0 compatible. Only some template providers or the extension vendors will be ready for Joomla 3.0 at launch, however most will not be ready until days, weeks or months after. (See the “How do I find Joomla 3.0 compatible extensions?” FAQ for more information)

Migrate to Joomla 2.5 if you want the most stable that Joomla has to offer and/or if you plan on using many extensions.

OK, final question. Where can I get more information about Joomla 3?

You can get more information at www.joomla.org/3 . We hope you enjoy Joomla 3 as much as we do! Thanks for reading this FAQ.

Warning to all readers: this is not a blog post. It is a shameless brag post!

Now that you have had fair warning, and you've chosen to continue reading, we would like to unveil the latest CloudAccess.net news tid-bit. Earlier today, during some routine Google PageRank checking, we found that the CloudAccess.net PageRank has risen to the astronomical value of 8!

The History of PageRank

Developed way back in 1996 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page (that’s where the “Page” comes in), the system was set to use algorithms that ranked sites on a 1-10 scale based on link popularity. Soon after this system was designed, it was put into use when the same two gentlemen founded a company you may have heard of, Google. Essentially, PageRank is one of many indicators to a sites link popularity. 

What does this mean?

We’re glad you asked! It means that we are very popular in the world of hyperlinks. It confirms our suspicion that we are growing into a popular and powerful company. Apparently the rest of the web thinks so too. Companies that we once looked up to, now seem to be more like peers. It’s a great feeling. We are glad that our loyal clients are along for the ride, and we thank you for helping us reach this milestone!

Be on the lookout for more great things coming from CloudAccess.net!

When GoDaddy's down, who ya gonna call? CloudAccess! 

Godaddy’s DNS network went down today, and it's not a surprise. This was caused by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack causing extended downtime for millions of websites world-wide. At CloudAccess.net, we've built a very special DNS network aptly named “Bolt-DNS”. Bolt-DNS is a distributed DNS network that allows us to handle very large volumes of traffic even during a DDOS attacks. Our Bolt-DNS network will distribute the traffic evenly during these attacks, and it quickly reacts by working with our DNS data centers to stop or block any denial of service attacks.

The Godaddy DNS outage has also affected the sending and receiving of email messages for thousands of people. CloudAccess.net partners with Google for email services for a more reliable email hosting service. In the case where Godaddy email is down, our system stays up. In fact, taking down both Google and CloudAccess.net would be nearly impossible. You cannot take down two of the biggest players in DNS world down at the same exact time. Both providers have cached networks that would continue to route mail even on the largest of network attacks. Since your Godaddy email is directly connected to a non-distributed DNS network rather than on a massive network like Google and CloudAccess.net, you're subject to failures.

The bottom line is, if you’re looking for more reliable hosting, email and DNS services, look no further than CloudAccess.net.

CloudAccess.net Name servers:

ns1.gridfast.net
ns2.gridfast.net

Learn More About BOLT-DNS
How to Transfer a Site from Godaddy To CloudAccess.net

Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you'd like to have a CloudAccess.net employee help move to one of the world's fastest and most powerful DNS networks.

I’ve been wanting to see the new looks of Joomla! 3.0 for a while, so after I did some exploring, I decided to write this blog to share what I found. Here we go. I recently had some time to play with Joomla 3.0 alpha2 and I was very happy to see the JUX Team, the Platform Team and all other teams working really hard to make the Joomla! 3.0 release extremely functional and on time.

Below are a couple of screenshots that I created to illustrate how easy it is to install a Joomla! instance with the new interface. All you need to do is create a database before you start the installation. The process is the same as an installation for a 2.5 download: unzip the folder and put it on your server. Or, you can unzip using a script on your server. That part is up to you.

I used a Mac with MAMP to install and test Joomla 3.0 locally.

SCREENSHOTS:

The back end view & the front end view have a new template, called Iris & Protostar respectively, which is Bootstrap-based.

Click here to download the Joomla! 3.0 Alpha2 version.

NOTE: This is not the final version of Joomla! 3.0 and you should not use this for a production site. So far, the main features that have been committed to version 3.0 relate to the new user interface based on the Bootstrap framework and version 12 of the platform. There are still many more things to be integrated before the beta version is released.

Related Joomla! Resources:

Joomla! 3.0 Alpha 2 Released
Joomla! 3.0 Alpha 2 Notes

We don’t like being too presumptuous here at CloudAccess.net. Our company is comprised of many smart, hard working folks and we know a thing or two about the hosting and storage industry, but we don’t like to boast about it. As we constructed the Joomla! VPMC, as we do with all our products, we chose the best technology so we could, in turn, offer the best product available. That’s why we went with Texas Memory System and their RamSan® SSD solution - a flash-based Storage Area Network (SAN), which is coveted as being “The World's Fastest Storage®”.

Great minds must think alike, because IBM also thought that TMS had created something quite unique. IT was announced today that they have “entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire TMS”. Good idea, IBM. We like the way you think, but, we bought into TMS first (na na na boo boo).

All joking aside, this is an excellent move from IBM. In the IBM press release, Brian Truskowski, General Manager of IBM System Storage & Networking, said that, “solid state technology, in particular, is a critical component of our new Smarter Storage approach to the design and deployment of storage infrastructures.” It’s part of our new approach too, Brian.

The RamSan® products use solid state drives (SSDs), or memory chips, for data storage instead of the antiquated practice of mechanically writing data to spinning disks within a hard drive. This is extremely appealing to enterprise clients because it improves data storage and access speed, increases the performance of applications, lowers power consumption, lowers costs, and improves the experience for the end user.

That’s exactly why we used RamSan® when we constructed the Joomla! Virtual Private Memory Cloud (VPMC). The Joomla! VPMC comes locked and loaded with RamSan® connected through a fibre network. We also use the world's fastest Intel Xeon E7 Processors and tune the Joomla! application perfectly to take advantage of all server resources. The Joomla! VPMC is built in a secure cloud environment and used by large enterprises, governments, medical and financial institutions, and Fortune 500 companies.

Can you tell that we’re proud of the product? We have just launched the Joomla! VPMC and we've had a great amount of interest in it already. We’re confident moving forward with it because of the great work that TMS has done. It’s been a pleasure working with them and we’re looking forward to continuing the relationship with IBM.

The Joomla Content Management System is coming to the heart of America, CHICAGO! Come to the windy city and hang out with a whole bunch of Joomla users and experts. Learn the business of Joomla and more about what the world’s most amazing CMS has to offer.

Register Today! 

Register Today!

What is the event about?

Joomla! Day Chicago 2012 Business Expo and Learning Conference is two full days of Joomla Content Management System fun and excitement.  Connect with others and learn from Joomla Content Management System users from around the world. This event is the largest Joomla Day conference in the United States this year. This is THE Joomla CMS event to attend in 2012! Connect with entrepreneurs, business leaders, industry experts and visionaries to learn new sales, growth, and marketing techniques

Who should attend? 

Business owners, independent Joomla users, sales teams, webmasters, web programmers, website administrators, content management professionals, non-profit organizations, marketing agencies, government agencies, educational institutions, Joomla extension developers, and anyone else who has a vision of using Joomla.

When is it?

Friday, August 10th, 2012 - 10 a.m. to 6:15 p.m.

Saturday, August 11th, 2012 -  9 a.m. to 6:15 p.m.

Where is it?

Chicago Marriott Midway

6520 South Cicero Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60638 USA

Where can I register or learn more about this event? 

http://joomladaychicago.com/ 

Register Today!

We don't only work with Joomla, we also use it. A lot of us help clients on a daily basis, but we also create our own personal sites.

My father is a (retired) military man, and I am very proud of him and his service. The unit that he was stationed with the longest - the 7th Radio-Technical Battalion of Łask, Poland, where he served as Chief of Arms, had a fairly poor website and I decided to build them a new one using Joomla.

The old site had a lot of  features when I took over, but it was still in the raw HTML form, and, speaking frankly, it would have made a 1990's web developer cry blood. I decided to remake it in Joomla! The military unit (Siódmy Łaski Batalion Radiotechniczny in Polish) no longer exists, as the splash page states. The site was initially just a single page where the unit's “sympathizers” could learn about future reunions. Later, as old service men and other staff found each other, they started exchanging photos, and a gallery was born. The history of the battalion was developed in much the same way. Subsequent reunions produced even more photographs and the gallery currently features 13 years of reunion photographs from 1998 to 2011. Older photographs of equipment the men when they were soldiers were also added. Images of Polish-made and USSR-made weapons, radio turrets, guidance systems and much more were also added.

The first alpha version of Joomla 3.0 is currently being tested by developers, and a few weeks ago Joomla blogged that “the [newest] version will bring Joomla up-to-speed with the mobile revolution that is taking over the web.” We thought we’d take an opportunity to reflect on fixed-width grid systems, newer responsive web templates, and the benefits of both.

The traditional fixed-width grid systems feature a set width and column size creating a pre-defined space for content - content is kept in consistent container sizes and is viewed virtually the same on all devices. There are multiple grid systems built for different size monitors: a 960 grid system like the Gantry Framework and the 1140 pixel grid system to name a few. View an example of the 1140 px grid system here.

Many of the grid layouts can be made to mimic responsive sites by using media queries. Media queries are basically CSS styles that change the look and layout of a page based on a screen resolution. If you are looking at a fixed-width design, but you want it to look great on a mobile device, check that they have the media queries built in so that it will fit on smaller screens. View a sample of a responsive template based on media queries. The downfall with a fixed-width template is that, without the media queries, you’re you’re stuck within the parameters of the template so it doesn't adjust to a mobile device.

Props to Pawel Borowicz, our lead graphic artist, for designing this incredible infographic now featured at joomla.org. The infographic displays a variety of information about the six year history of Joomla (2006-2012). Included in the infographic are statistics about the rise in monthly traffic at Joomla.org, the growing JED, the expanding Joomla multilingual capabilities, JCM submissions, Joomla Forum visitors and posts, and worldwide Joomla! Day events.

Joomla! contacted Pawel about creating the infographic around the most central statistic: the 30 millionth download. The numbers speak for themselves, but the infographic combines the stats to capture just how popular Joomla! has become. Pawel worked closely with the Joomla! Marketing Team to develop this and when I spoke with him about it he said “they [the marketing team] sent me the statistics and I made them pretty.”

Many community members are currently using the infographic, and all are welcome to use it. Great job, Pawel!

Whew! Work on our new CloudAccess.net site is wrapping up and we’re just about ready to flip it on. We had many goals in mind as we developed the new site, and bolting it all together was an entire team process. There is a common expression that there can be too many cooks in the kitchen, but we prefer to work as a team. We feel that we make better decisions collectively than what we can do on our own, and our new site is a reflection of that philosophy.

We wanted to improve the design and usability, and Dom and Pawel B. from CloudAccess.net Poland did an excellent job drawing and coding our new template. The new design is beautiful, guys. The proof is in the details, and there are little touches all over the site that make it truly a work of art.

Saurabh, Iwona, Jen, Jenny, Pam and Irfan also played a huge role with development, styling, and importing data. Jonathan added a complete Services area to the site that features a new Themes Directory for our Templates, and our growing knowledgebase content has been reorganized and placed directly into the main site.

The new site also features new products like the Joomla! VPMC and the Compliant Cloud Backup. We can’t forget to thank those involved in bringing the products to market. Igor, Push, Chris, and Pawel P. were all instrumental in getting everything configured so clients can seamlessly launch each of our products from our new site. We’ve also improved our Partnership Program, the Support System, and we added the Easy Blog component to the new site.

The new site is proof of what can happen when you work as a team, and we couldn’t be more proud of the team that is CloudAccess.net. Even Whitney helped out. None of it would be possible without our dedicated customers. We thank you for letting us serve you and we hope you enjoy learning the new site.

Hi folks!
Congratulations to the Joomla! Day Malaysia organizers on a big success. I would like to thank  the organizers for inviting me to the tallest Joomla! Day event ever, held on the 29th floor in the Microsoft office in the world's tallest twin towers, Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I would also like to thank Meriza, Azrul, Irwan, Firdauss and the whole JomSocial team for keeping the event alive.