I just returned from vacation. I am thrilled to report that I did not turn my laptop on until the very end... but yet, I checked my email every day.

I have a Palm Treo 755P phone, and a nationwide Sprint "all you can eat" plan with unlimited calls, text messages, and data transfer. I decided to give it a workout while I was away.

The best part was that I always had a cell signal, wherever I was staying, and so I could always check my email for free.  Not true for a WiFi signal, which always seemed to cost something to access (unless I wanted to take a piece of vacation to go to a library or an internet cafe, which was not a high priority).

Bill and I have been working together for years now. We've pretty much figured out what each other loves doing and what ticks the other person off. We've also gotten pretty good at picking out work together. One of the things we're getting Sam up to speed with is Jen and Bill's Coding Theorem.

These days, clients call up Sam to chat, but in the old freelance days, generally the call would come in to me. They have an old site, and they'd like us to do a redesign.  Maybe there's a small database driven component to the site, or some script, or even some full-blown (but old and creaky) content management system involved.

First, I take a look at the HTML, and the CSS if there is any, on the website. I try to judge the code by the era in which it was written.  If it was a site from 2000, I don't expect to see any CSS at all.  But sites built in 2004 or later, I definitely expect to see CSS.  (Sites between 2000 and 2004 vary widely -- they should use CSS, but many still don't.)

We at 4Web are so thrilled with the way our business has gone. We've only been in business for 8 months, and all three of us are fully employed and getting regular paychecks. We even have a regular stable of freelance talent to help us as needed. That's the excellent news.

The bad news for our readers is that we're now in crunch time for a really great site we'll be rolling out in early September. We've been building this site since May and as usual, learning all kinds of amazing new things about Joomla along the way.

It's a big site, over 1000 pages, which we're porting from an old creaky custom CMS.  It was, as we say, one of those sites we could only improve, no matter what we did!

One of our favorite extensions is Wysiwyg Pro, which works great with Joomla 1.5.

TinyMCE, the default editor that comes with Joomla, is fine for editing if you're a geek and you know exactly what you're doing. But if you don't -- and that's most people out there who just want to get some simple editing done without a degree in IT -- TinyMCE is really hard to use. There are a number of big problems.

• There's no way to link to a page on your site within the editor by browsing. You have to know the exact URL for where you're linking, which means opening an alternate window and copy/paste the URL to the link window. (I've noticed that some users don't do so well with a pile of windows.)
• The image button works great if you know the URL of the image you want to link to. Again, no way to browse.
• The terminology throughout the TinyMCE interface is very geek oriented. It talks about URLs, ID's, classes, etc, rather than talking about a web address and orienting the image right or left.
• There is no simple way to copy from MS Word and paste to TinyMCE without either getting a page full of horrible MS "HTML" (I do use the term loosely) or else pasting to Notepad first, then copying/pasting to TinyMCE. That's one copy/paste too much for most users, and they're absolutely right on that point.
• TinyMCE has a nasty habit of putting in all kinds of extraneous code, but stripping out code you really want to keep.
• There's no straightforward way of linking to a document (think PDF, Powerpoint, or anything like that). You have to upload the PDF to the media manager, then remember the URL and enter it in the link dialog box.

When we moved to Joomla 1.5, our editor choices were very limited. Fortunately, the editors keep adapting, so there are more choices now than there were in February. But we have chosen Wysiwyg Pro for our clients, and we're very happy with our decision.

•  The link dialog box is totally awesome. You can link to another page on your site by browsing, an external site (preview of the page provided for you), or to a document -- and you can upload that document right when you need it, too.
• The image button has great alignment tools, either via float or by a given class for the image.  You can upload images right in the dialog box.
• The terminology is straightforward for the most part (though it could be improved, it's definitely better than TinyMCE.
• There's the awesome "paste from Word" button that allows a user to paste into a box first, then enter the content into their document. Hey, a actual direct control-V type paste would be better, but this is a great start and miles better than TinyMCE.
• The code WysiwygPro writes is actually halfway decent, surprisingly.

The only drawback for most is the $54/site license fee for the editor.  But consider what it saves us in tech support and training time for our clients! An intuitive editor is worth every penny. I encourage everyone to fold this editor into the cost of their web project and get it to your own clients.

I exaggerate perhaps only a little.

I'm typically the one at 4Web who gets stuck getting all of the content for the website into Joomla, if it's a new site that we're developing, or if we're porting content from a previously static site. (If it's an old database driven site of some type, then Bill gets the honors. :-)

 I feel like days of my life have  been spent creating a new section, a new category, a new article, lather rinse repeat.

Installing Joomla can be pretty intimidating if you've never done it before, and if you don't have experience with your web host's control panel, setting up a database, unzipping files, etc.

How you install Joomla goes something like this:

1. Get a domain name at a domain name registrar (GoDaddy, 000Domains, etc).
2. Get some web hosting. (MidPhase, BlueHost, eMarkHosting, there are many others)
3. Make the domain name point to the web hosting. Wait for propagation to happen (24-48 hrs usually, though shorter and longer times are common). When you can go to your domain name and get your site, you're ready to go to the next steps.
4. Log into your host's control panel.
5. Create a MySQL database and a database user, and make them talk to each other. (If you have CPanel installed as your control panel, there's a great wizard that walks you through the process.) Make note of your MySQL database username and password.
6. Download Joomla.You want the most recent 1.5 version. There's a link on the left side of the home page.
7. Upload the zipped copy of Joomla you just downloaded into your web hosting space.  Some control panels have a nice file manager that lets you do this pretty easily; otherwise, you'll need to use FTP.
8. Unzip the copy of Joomla.
9. Go to your website on the front end, i.e. www.mysite.com.  This will put you into the rest of the Joomla installation.
10. Follow the wizard. You'll pick your language, enter the database username and password, enter some FTP information, have the option of installing sample data, stuff like that.
11. Delete the installation directory from your website.
12. Now you're ready to configure Joomla.

Yes, I'm vague on a lot of details because so much depends on your individual web host.

Know your team and you will come to know what it means to produce a quality product in an efficient manner. Capitalize on strengths, minimize the focus on weaknesses and put your egos aside. Make room for others and you will find that creative juices will flow and that education will abound.

Capitalize on Strengths:

Let those who are good at what they do just do their job. They will do it faster and better than you can if that is not your strength. For example: I have no graphic design skills whatsoever. Sure, I know what I do and don't like when I see it, but as far as developing concepts- not so much. I am ok with that and quite frankly so is my team.

Bill came out from Colorado to visit with Sam and me (here in Vermont/New Hampshire) for a few days last week. We had a fabulous time working on a huge project.  (We're rolling out the first half in early September and the second half in early November.)

Because  of the rare occasion we were all together, we decided to go visit our great friend, Tom Raffelt over at New England Studio, and get a bunch of pictures done for our site. Tom knows we can limp our way around Photoshop, so he gives us all of the pictures he takes.

I must say, all of Tom's pictures are great, every time.  When we need a photographer, we always call on Tom.

Check out the Packt site to see how you can nominate your favorite CMS for a nice award.  Let's beat Drupal this year, shall we?

There's a new category, the CMS MVP, the person/people who have contributed tirelessly to their communities.  I nominated Barrie North for that -- good documentation of these systems is so hard to find.