Posted On: March 15, 2010

Well the project has been wrapped up for a while and it’s about time I share my results. Upon Diving into Joomla! I was not very impressed with the general workflow for the back end administrator. Being someone accustomed to working with Wordpress, building themes, and blogging, the Joomla! CMS seemed like it just had a case of detail-itis. I can see in some circumstances where this could be effective, but for the particular project I had taken on it caused more confusion than anything.

As I built the custom theme for Joomla, there were some fun things I had to struggle with in order to achieve something that would be very simple in Wordpress. Case in point, Joomla’s Blocks. This in itself just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. These blocks basically give you the ability to point your different pieces of content or navigation to different ‘blocks’ on the joomla layout. The problem is, figuring out what block goes where and when it’s calling what, and when I don’t want or need that particular block what to do to fix that. Sound confusing? It was.

I’m accustomed to the methodology of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid), and I’m also accustomed to Wordpress, whose administrator area boasts a clean elegant design that can cater to anyone, whether they are just starting out, or building full blown websites.

From this first experience, I’m still much more in favor of Wordpress. In the end I found Joomla lacking in many areas, one more of which I’ll mention was their community.

In open source development this is pretty much the staple that will keep people happy and continue to develop a great product. I couldn’t find nearly the documentation or community development I have with Wordpress.

Thanks for reading, hopefully it wasn’t too much of a rant, just my personal findings.

Posted On: December 11, 2009

I’ve always liked and stood by Wordpress as the tried and true CMS framework to work by, probably because that’s what I was taught. However, we’ve just had a project roll through that will require to use the Joomla Framework. As this is a great opportunity to expand my comfort level and learn more about the great open source community on the net, I also wanted to take the time to analyze the different CMS Frameworks available to developers, designers, and people who just want to make a site.

Some of the articles that I thought were particularly useful were:

http://www.goodwebpractices.com/other/wordpress-vs-joomla-vs-drupal.html

http://www.playingwithwire.com/2009/03/open-source-and-usability-joomla-vs-wordpress/

http://spyrestudios.com/free-content-management-systems/

http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/discover-culture/choose-the-best-free-cms

When the project is completed I will make a second post on how it was and some personal comparisons and even preferences.

Chow!

Posted On: November 30, 2009

This was a website for a datacom manufacturer looking for a newimage. They wanted the site spruced up and even used the word sexy (believe me I was as shocked as you may have been to hear a technical manufacturer use that word, priceless). The redesign included a new logo design, site design, and catalog design, as well as product photography. We were very proud with the results we acheived and were glad to see a satisfied client. You can check out the website and its nifty features at: www.netspeedconnect.com

Posted On: October 20, 2009

We’ve taken on the task of creating a viral marketing campaign stemmed in the infamous Swine Flu. We have used simple, funny, and iconic ideas as well as an interactive approach to engage people who hear about our “Say no to Swine” contest. You can check it out at Say no to Swine. We hope for some great entries and creative ideas.  Of course the reward for the 2 greatest ideas is a fitting meal at Famous Dave’s.

Posted On: October 5, 2009

We are very excited to finally get www.best-interactive.com live. With the launch comes a load of new projects that we are very excited to begin. We will be re-designing Best Enterprises Site and Branding, Netspeeds website, and some more projects I’m not quite ready to spill the beans on yet.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the launch of this site and the numerous javascript and jquery hacks

Posted On: September 24, 2009

Well with great struggles come great victories.Although there are many more features to come on this site, we have found a comfortable starting point. This marks our first official completed project as Best Interactive, though it is far from our last, and will continue to shift and be reinvented. Excited for the future.

Posted On: September 10, 2009

Today marks the first day of the building of www.best-interactive.com I’m sure there will be some heavy lifting and lots of caffeine involved, but it will be well worth the outcome.