Advantages Of Using Joomla CMS As A Web Design Tool

There are currently countless benefits in choosing to use Joomla when compared to other types of web-design platforms. Here are some of the advantages to you can expect:

• Joomla is a complete Content Management System (CMS). The CMS is what enables a way to make sure that pages on your website are easy to update as well as maintain. One of these examples includes removing or adding pages as well as dividing content into the different categories. There is some significant advantages when compared to creating websites in Dreamweaver or standard HTML.

• One of the other stand out advantages of Joomla is that it is an open source and free product. What this means is you will never have to pay a fee when it comes to licensing which is standard practice for the commercial products associated with BIF companies. In addition, because Joomla is classified as an open source it also is associated with a large pool of different community sources that offer support and assistance at any time of the day or night. This community is available in every country and there are several groups that consist of the local users that support Joomla with additional add-ons and Forums. You can find a forum on the Joomla.org site which contains 200,000 members that all provide their own input along with support in regards to ensuring Joomla remains one of the very best CMS platforms around.

• Another great reason to choose Joomla is that it is a simple task to extend functionalities. It is very easy to create anything with the assistance of Joomla’s infrastructure. This could be a basic brochure website, a fully comprehensive shopping cart or a membership site that is interactive. This is possible due to the fact that Joomla offers over 5700 extensions, available for just about every use. Some of these include video plug-ins, shopping carts, image galleries, forums, and a variety of tools associated with project management and so much more.

• Another stand out advantage of Joomla is that ACL.Joomla offers access restriction systems. There happen to be various users levels along with different access control degrees. You can apply access restrictions for every module or content item. In the latest Joomla version (1.6), the system is even more powerful and this version is already well ahead when compared to a popular alternative such as WordPress.

• Joomla is also known as SEO friendly and is compatible with all the different search engines. However, if your website is highly complex, it is in some cases necessary to make use of SEO plugins such as SH404.

There are several web-application which are commonly used when it comes to developing a website. Joomla out of all the other applications is in the top 3 in demand when it comes to CMS platforms. Joomla can be used for basic sites, presentations, marketing portals, ecommerce sites, newspapers and a lot more.

You can also find extensive information about Joomla when you search on the various search engines. You can forget about thinking that a web-development company is going to cost you a lot of money when you let them know about your plans to achieve the a website that matches up to your needs. This is simply not true. Creating a desirable website when you make use of Joomla can translate into the very best way in which to save you on a lot of money.

The reason for this is that it facilitates Rapid Website Development. It also offers open-source as well as minimizing the “code maintenance” costs.

 

Things To Consider When Searching For Malaysian Web Design Company

In this day and age, your company, whether big or small, needs to have a solid online presence in the form of a website. Designing a website isn’t an easy task, though it’s a task that many Malaysian business owners undertake and often fail. If you want to secure the future of your business, hiring a Malaysia web design can make a big difference. Here are a couple of things to consider before you hire a design company:

Working relationship: What kind of a working attitude does the company have when dealing with you? Not only should they have proper communication skills, but good work ethics that you can admire. You’ll be working with the same design company for months or years, which is why you need to choose one that’ll be on the same page with you. Building a working relationship with a web design company is an integral part of running a successful business.

Check company’s reputation online: Google is a fantastic resource that’ll allow you to see the business practices of a web design company. Hopefully, by entering the name of the company, you’ll find reviews and customer comments that can shed some light on their business practices. It can be hard to gauge what it’s like to work with a new company, which is why research is an integral part of working with anyone.

Communicating with the developer: Oftentimes, when you decide to speak with a web design company, you’ll get in touch with a sales person. For smaller projects, this is more than sufficient for your needs. However, if you’re looking for a long-term working relationship with someone, it’s important to set up a meeting with the developer to see if you click. This person should be attentive to your needs and be able to work with you on a regular basis.

Talk about web hosting: Your web design company will want to work with a quality hosting company because it does make a difference in the quality of the end results. Choosing a cheap hosting company won’t just make your website hard to load, but it may hinder a designer’s ability to create a functional layout.

Inquire about free design support: How much support is the design company willing to offer after the initial development? It’s usually customary to offer support for up to three months, but this will usually vary from company to company. Knowing how much help you’ll get with your developed website does play an important role in your decision to hire a company. Don’t forget that updates may also need to be installed in order for your website to function properly, which you may need to do on your own or hire another company to do it if you don’t get any after support.

Consider the programming languages: What kind of programming languages does the web development company offer their services in? Follow the latest development trends and make sure that the company isn’t using outdated technology. If you have a pre-existing website that already has a design you like, you’ll need to find a company that can tweak the coding to fit modern standards and to make the website more user-friendly.

Your ultimate goal is to find a web design company that you can actively rely on and trust. In this modern world, a cookie cutter website with a thoughtless layout isn’t something that’s going to do your company any favors. Make sure you find a design company that offers support, good communication skills, and solid web designs. For more about this, you can always visit Adam.

How To Choose The Best CRM Solutions In Malaysia

Businesses are usually interested in CRM (customer relationship management) solutions when they want to do one or more of the following things:

Manage sales
Manage customer service
Manage technical support
Manage marketing sales efforts

When you are looking for CRM solution in Malaysia, there are probably several factors that you consider. One of the important factors you will need to consider before hiring any professionals or purchase any services is the cost. Of course, this is definitely something that you should focus on.

However, the price for this type of service can vary greatly from one provider to another. There are some CRM solutions that are very cheap, and there are other providers who charge hundreds or thousands of dollars.

CRM software can also vary in price. As a result, businesses may be tempted to try one of the free or low cost CRM solutions for their Malaysian business. Unfortunately, these free options offer limited features, and do not have as many features as their paid counterparts.

This means that if you want to get an idea of what the average cost is for this type of service and software, you will need to compare the different rate quotes from different providers. When considering the prices, also consider the features provided and which ones will best meet the needs of your company.

Keep in mind that most challenging part of getting pricing for CRM solutions is that there are no standards. Providers are not restricted from charging a certain amount, and this means you may notice significant price differences when comparing providers.

With that said, how can you choose the right CRM solutions for your business in Malaysia? This process can be straightforward or it can be complex. However, it can only move forward if there is continuous feedback between you and the provider.

Provider’s Review

You will want to check out reviews for any CRM solutions provider you are thinking about hiring. Previous clients can provide the best insight into the business, the provider and the quality of their services.

You can also go on to the provider’s website. This will provide you with a lot of information, and there may also be an online portfolio and/or references included on the site. On the website you will be able to see if the provider has worked with other businesses that are similar in size to yours and/or in the same industry. It is important to only choose a CRM solutions provider that is able to meet the needs of your company.

Years In Business

Although all CRM solutions providers were new companies at one time, you do not want to choose a new or inexperienced company to work with. There are many startups today that offer CRM solutions, but it is best to choose a company that has been working in the industry for a length of time.

This is important because you want a provider that can grow with your business as it grows. You definitely do not want to have to change providers after a few years simply because the provider you chose was not established and experienced in the industry.

Assisted Demo Or A Free Trial

A reputable provider will not have a problem with providing you with an assisted demo or a free trial so you can try out the services before committing to a subscription or membership plan. This will give you an idea of how their system works.

During an assisted demo, the salesperson will guide you while you use the software. They will show you how to navigate and use the system.

While using the assisted demo, pay attention to the details of the software. For example, is the system user-friendly? Are the buttons correctly labeled?

It is important to choose the best CRM solution in Malaysia for your business. With a little research, and using these tips, you will find a provider that will your company’s needs.

How to Enhance Home Operation Services using a Software

Home service operation refers to the services provided by the company to their customer even after the transaction had been made. Most customers are expecting further assistance especially if they deal with the product or services for the first time. Here’s how to enhance your home operation  such as aircon service company  with the help of software.

CRM enhance customer management

A service management software will help you to enhance further your services that can maintain a good relationship with your customer. All important information of your customer is secure in one place and its attachments as well. Using a software you can identify all areas that need to improve to impress them. Customer satisfaction is essential if you are going to offer services instead of products. Hence, a software field management is here in evaluating and improving the quality of services before it is delivered to your clients.

Maintain professionalism by proper scheduling

Aside from that, punctuality plays a big role in feeding your customer’s satisfaction. If your home operations had drastically expanded, there is a big possibility that your quality will decrease considering the fact that you don’t have enough time to deal with them. According to https://www.coolearth.com.sg, Commitments are sometimes forgotten with how busy the operations are. Now, a home operation service management software will help you to create flexible schedules that will ensure every minute of your day is used appropriately. Aside from that, location tracking allows you to assign work orders to your nearby agents. In that way, you won’t lose any regular customers in the process and ensure them that even with your increasing demands, the quality of your services wouldn’t falter.

Capability to customize the pricing

Now, the pricing of each client varies based on the following factors: requirements, quotes given, and budget range. Using software you don’t need to recall every time you speak with a different client the last price you’ve offered them. It’ll be easier to organize and keep in touch with them because the pricing that will be delivered to your clients is reflected in the quotes.

Updated work orders

On top of it all, you can monitor everything in the palm of your hand. Your day-to-day services may get busier as you go along the way but rest assured that you’ll be notified of every single notifications from the workloads you’ve assigned. Now, these notifications contain all the details that you need to know about the status of the work, subsequent visit required, or any other issues that need to be resolved as soon as possible to meet your client’s expectation.

Using a software to enhance your home operation services is imperical. Client’s satisfaction nowadays is getting harder and harder to sustain. Hence, make sure that you consider the aforementioned factors. These vital points can help you to ensure that you wouldn’t lose any of your clients in the process and drive them to recommend your company’s name to their friends and family. It also saves your time and money in the long run.

Management Software for an Enhanced Home Service Quality

Home services come in a wide variety of forms. It may be plumbing, a problem with your cooling or heating system, electrical system, and the like. Considering the fact that companies that offer home services try to reach the maximum customer satisfaction, allow us to introduce software that can help you improve the quality of your company’s home operation service.

ClickSoftware

The market changes constantly. As a business owner like Billy AC company, you need to be flexible and catch up with it otherwise your opponents will have the edge over you. Now, if your contractors are receiving more projects in a week, then you need the solutions offered by the ClickSoftware. This software will help you to increase the profit margin with your company while making sure that you live up to your reputation and serve your customers with your best.

Benefits

Here are the following benefits this software can offer:

  1.    Enhanced customer service

Through this software, customers are allowed to make a reservation or appointments to any of the contractors at their most convenient time. They can also provide their contact information for faster transactions if they want to know about the status or any progress of the repair work.

  1.    Provides great opportunities

Aside from that, the contractor can easily identify an up sell while they are onsite with the customer. This software simply provides a wide range of opportunities if used well.

  1.    Saves time

Contractors do not need to manually develop a scheduling process and keep on guessing who is most suitable for the job that their client requires. The software will automatically organize it all for you, making the scheduling process a whole lot easier than it should be. It saves time in the long run, which means the company is provided a great opportunity to generate large profits.

  1.    Decreases travel costs

Business owners don’t need to add expenses for traveling costs because the fleet maintenance is reduce with the help of this software. Contractors can use the accurate routing based on the actual travel times that can help save the fuel efficiently.

  1.    Enhance the services

You can also monitor the quality of your services using this software. With continuous monitoring, rest assured that you will be able to strive for highest quality performance that can sustain your customer’s satisfaction and hopefully earn their loyalty to your company.

  1.    Efficient for small business owners

Management software is imperical for a growing business that you have. The easy configuration will help to deal with the complexities of the market. Contractors are allowed to access the software anytime they want, making it more functional and useful in the long run.

Using management software to enhance the house operation services that you offer to your clients can help improve your business. A client’s attention span is too short, yet their satisfaction is too high. In order to have the edge over your opponents, you need to keep on striving to their standards and using software is a good start.

Top Retail Automation Solutions in Malaysia

Do you want your Malaysian retail store to be more efficient? If so one of the best options is automated solutions and here are some of the top Retail Automation Solutions in Malaysia from IRC retail automation solution:

  1. Responsive PoS

Another type of retail automaton is responsive point of sale (POS). In 2013, it accounted for over 90% of total retail volume in the US. More retailers are upgrading their current PoS systems due to factors like convenience and transparency. A solution that deals with both areas are mobile PoS. Small companies can use these apps cine it’s a cost-effective way to optimize their customers’ retail experience.

It’s even better when the PoS systems are mobile-friendly. Today customers are using their smartphones and tablets more than ever for shopping. That’s why this is one of the best options in terms of automating PoS systems.

  1. Customer Experience

When customers have a positive shopping experience it means they’ll be more likely to stay with your company. Automation can be an effective tool. There’s many examples of this phenomenon in the industry and sometimes just involved a small automation tool/system that helped to improve customer experience.

That in turn helps encourage customer to keep buying from your company, which is something you’ll definitely want. One of many examples is Starbucks’ mobile app that allows customers to pre-order items then get them at the nearest coffee shop. This prevents the need to wait in line, which is something want to avoid.

Automation provides various benefits for retailers. For example, it helps the company to learn about customers’ perception of the company’s brand image. It’s also a great option since you don’t have to automate all of the company’s processes. You can just automate the ones that provide the best results. It requires some testing to figure out which automation will help to produce the best results.

  1. Sales/Growth

According to IRC, a key benefit of Retail Automation Solutions in Malaysia is they can be effective in help to increase your company’s sales and growth. For example, you can improve quality and reduce costs, which can in turn help to boost your company’s sales, profits, and margins. These are some of the top goals of any company. When a company is able to operate more efficiently through methods like automation, it has a positive effect on various factors like sales.

  1. Engagement

Another type of automation your Malaysian retail company can consider is for engagement. This provides automated tools for getting feedback from your company. One option is to make shopping contest-driven. For example, you could offer customers products based on factors like location and weather. This is available from companies like 7-Eleven.

Another option is an email drip campaign. This automates email marketing. Some options include tracking open/response rates for email and suggestions and email headline. A drip campaign can handle these tasks and makes email content personalized.

Customer surveys are another way to automate engagement. This can provide insights from your customers and also help to boost engagement. If you’re trying to achieve both goals you should consider using automation for your retail company.

Penetration Testing Can Help to Reduce Vulnerability of Software

A penetration test of software is also called a pen test and is used to improve testing efficiency and to automate tasks. Such issues are often difficult to discover when analysis techniques are used manually.

Penetration testing can use either static analysis or dynamic analysis and these techniques allow to pinpoint security vulnerabilities, zero in on malicious code and discover poor functionality that often leads to security breaches. The testing software can determine the level of encryption and whether usernames or passwords allow for a backdoor entry to applications. Penetration testing can use binary scanning that gives accurate results for the test, and the methods used for the testing are being constantly refined and developed. The testing is effective if it produces fewer false positives so that software developers can concentrate on remedying the problems instead of looking for threats that may or may not be there.

According to Firmus,  penetration testing can also be carried out manually and this helps to add human expertise to the testing software. It allows for complete coverage of vulnerability and also helps to target risks that come from flaws in design, and business logic. Manual testing can ensure detection of all vulnerability and flaws in any software. Once vulnerabilities and threats have been detected and evaluated, the testing must address the risks that have been identified throughout all the code in the software.

It is essential that penetration testing be suitable to the size of an organization and its complexity. It is needed that the testing must include all key access points, network connections, key applications and sensitive data. The testing has to try and exploit weaknesses and vulnerability in the software that allows access to network level and applications. The aim of penetration testing is to determine the likelihood of unauthorized access to files and key systems. Once it is determined that such access is possible, the vulnerable points have to be secured and the testing must be continued till the test returns clean results that effectively excludes any malicious activity and any unauthorized access.

To start any penetration test, the goals and scope of the test must be defined and testing methods must be elucidated. It is necessary to have complete information about the mail server, domain, and network so that it becomes easier to understand its working and likely vulnerabilities. The software then needs to be scanned through static and dynamic analysis so that its working is understood, and its ability to withstand attempts at intrusion, assessed. The testing then uses backdoors, SQL injection and cross-site scripting to exploit vulnerabilities. The possibility of escalated privileges, stolen data, and traffic interception is gauged and the damage that can be caused is understood. At this stage, it is essential that the testing be able to determine the persistence of any exploitation of the system, as advanced threats can remain in a system for months and help to steal organizational data over time.

The penetration test results must then be analyzed so that the exploitation of specific vulnerabilities is understood, and identifying areas that allowed sensitive data to be accessed. The time that the tester is able to remain in the system without being detected gives an indication of its vulnerability and long-term security. Find out more at https://firmussec.com.

Should You Consider Outsourcing Work To A Software Company In Malaysia?

Even if your company makes most of its money from one core product or service, you likely know as an owner or corporate leader that it’s not wise to put all your eggs in one basket. You probably sell things through multiple stores and channels to have more than one income stream coming in, and you likely make sure that for every employee you have, there are one or two more that can step in as back-ups in case of vacation days, terminations, or illness.

This concept of redundancy is smart, because it gives your company more legs to stand on, creating stability and security. If something goes wrong in one area, others can chip in. Your software needs are no exception. While you likely have good programmers working for you inside your business already, it’s good to diversify your resources in this area, and for that looking outside the country is a smart thing to do.

Looking past the shores of your home nation for a software company to help out your business is wise for three particular reasons. For starters, depending on where you are, the domestic software situation might be volatile or even tapped out. The software sector of your nation could be shorthanded on talent and even seeing prices for labor rise due to demand. Conversely, economic turbulence could also be hampering your local economy. If you’re in America, national political instability can roil the markets anytime, and if you’re in the United Kingdom, the looming specter of Brexit is hanging over everyone’s heads.

Secondly, international software resources can bring things to the table your own staff might not. The particular skills, ideas, concepts, and coding might be very different than what you usually get, which means far stronger options will result for your business. Diversity and creativity are expanded upon.

Third, when you use an international software company, it might just be cheaper than hiring your own full-time talent! Outsourcing to a third-party vendor or contractor means you can pay by project or service without having to worry about benefits, payroll, human resources, and the like.

Using a software company in Malaysia can work out well for many reasons over many other international locations. If you are in North America or Europe, the fact that Malaysia is on the other side of the world means you can have people working on things for you in the middle of your night so projects are done and ready for you when you come in the next morning.

Furthermore, language barriers are not going to be much of an issue. While the official language is not English, it is a recognized language and widely spoken. This harkens back to the days the country was a part of the British Empire. English proficiency in Malaysia is consistently ranked as second-best in all of Asia, and usually places in the top 15 of all countries around the entire world!

Set Up Your Joomla Website from Scratch

If you’ve followed my tutorials on installing Joomla locally or on a web host, then you’re probably wondering, “What do I do now?” This tutorial will help you set up your Joomla website from scratch. I’ll walk you through 4 easy-to-follow steps:

Step 1: Create a website structure.
Step2: Add content and articles
Step 3: Create a main menu
Step 4: Add modules to your Joomla website.

A Joomla website only needs 4 main pieces to operate succesfully: Articles, Menus, Modules and Templates. There could be a 5th piece here, Extensons. But, extensions are by no means required to run a successful Joomla website. I’ll cover extensions in a future tutorial.

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll be looking at a completely vanilla Joomla installation. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to follow along just fine if you’ve already installed the sample data.

Step 1: Site Structure

If you haven’t yet planned out the organization of your site, then stop here, get a pen and paper, and sketch up a rough outline like the example below. Focus on the main menu for the top tier, with each box being a menu link representing different sections of the site. If you’ve already done that, then way to go! You just knocked out one of the 4 steps without even knowing it!

Now that you have a general idea of your site’s flow, let’s head back into the Joomla administration panel.

Step 2: Adding content via Articles

All of your site’s content will be stored in what Joomla calls “articles”. First, we need to create article categories. Go to Content > Category Manager. You should see a default category named “Uncategorized”. You can use that for static pages like About Us, Our Services etc.. Named categories are useful if you’re planning on having a lot of articles, like a blog site or news site would. Don’t worry about category descriptions, most Joomla sites don’t display them on the front-end. Let’s create a category called Latest News, which will be appear like a blog in the front-end.

Once you have a your categories in place, we can create articles. Press the Articles tab or go to Content > Article Manager & press the New button. All you need to do here is 1) add an article title, 2) select a category, then 3) add your article text. I usually create a “Welcome” article to serve as the home page, and an “About Us” article; both uncategorized. I’ll also create a few articles to place in the Latest News category. When you’re done, press Save and close the article. Congratulations, we’re half way through! Only 2 steps to go.

Step 3: Create a Main Menu

Now that our content is in place, we need to build a navigation menu. Go to Menus > Menu Manager. There should already be a Main Menu installed by default, containing a link to your Home page. This is called the “Default menu item.”

Select the Menu Items tab. If left alone, this Home menu item will display your featured articles in a blog layout. You can easily change that if you wish to display a single article as your home page. Simply click on Home then press Select next to the Menu Item Type field. In the popup window, select Articles > Single Article. Next, on the right under Required Settings, press the Select/Change button. In the popup window, choose the full article you wish to display as your home page.

Let’s create some more menu items. This is a good time to refer back to your organization chart from step 1. Let’s create a link to our “About Us” article. Select New and follow the same steps as we did for the Home page, choosing the Article layout and selecting an article. We’ll create one more item to house our Latest News category. For this we’ll choose the menu type under Article > Category Blog.

Step 4: Position the Menu on the site

The last step is to place the menu on the site. Joomla templates use modules to place content in various positions on the page. Go to Extensions > Module Manager. Press New and select Menu from the Module Type popup window. Give it a title like Main Menu, and press the Hide Title button.

Next, select a module position for the menu. It’s important to know that each Joomla template has a unique system for naming it’s module positions. Some templates make it obvious, like “top” while others can be more discreet in their naming conventions, like “position-1.” Refer to your template’s module positions guide for the exact name. If you don’t have a guide handy, use this little trick I included at the bottom of this article.

I’m using the “Beez2” template for this tutorial, which tends to be on the discreet side of module naming conventions. Let’s place the menu in the Top, named “position-1” . Set the Status to Published, and select the Main Menu name under the Basic Options. Then press Save & Close.

Let’s add one more module. Go back to the Module Manager main screen and press New. This time, select Latest News. This module will display the titles of the most recent articles from a category. Give it a name, and select a position. I want this module to appear on the right side of the home page: position-7 in the Beez2 template. Under Basic Options, I’ll choose my Latest News category. (FYI: hovering over the labels usually shows a tooltip about each item). Lastly, I only want this module to appear on the Home Page only. So, on the Menu Assignment section, select the option “Only on the pages selected”. Under the Main Menu tab, uncheck everything except the Home Page then press Save.

Congratulations, the basic setup is complete!

How to Use Article Images in Joomla

Now it’s easier than ever to use Joomla as a blog, news site, or photo gallery. If you’re familiar with WordPress, this is similar to the Featured Image that you can set for each post. It enables your site to have a clean & consistent look on your Category Blog pages, without having to bother with styling & aligning images inside the text editor. Of course, you can still use the text editor for images if you like.

Note, if you’re using a third-party template that was installed before Joomla 2.5 was released (January 2012): The Article Images feature may not work on your site. Contact your template provider to check if an update is available.

This new Article Images feature is yet another powerful tool that makes Joomla more user-friendly than ever.

How are you using Article images on your site? Let me know in the comments. And please share this video with your twitter or facebook followers, I’m sure they’d appreciate it too!

How to Transfer Joomla from Localhost to Live Server

If you’ve been building your Joomla site locally, then this video tutorial will help you transfer your site to your live web server. If you haven’t gotten that far yet, then check out my tutorial, How to install Joomla on localhost.

Transfering your Joomla site to your hosting account is a simple process that doesn’t require any extensions, coding knowledge or server experience. This tutorial goes over these four basic steps to get your site up & running on your live web host:

Zip the contents of your local joomla site
Export your Joomla database from phpMyAdmin
Upload the zip file to your live hosting account
Import your site’s database to your hosting account

I should mention that I’m using Hostgator’s Cpanel in the video above. If you’ve seen my other tutorials, then you know that highly recommend HostGator (yes, it’s an affiliate link because I use and trust them).

You won’t find a better Joomla hosting company out there. In fact, HostGator was awarded the Best Joomla hosting company two years in a row for their outstanding customer support (which I can personally attest to, having hosted dozens of sites with them).

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