JoomCoder.net: Adventures in Plagiarism

I thought I would contact JoomCoder.net and politely and respectfully request that my post be taken down from their site. Unfortunately, no contact information is available.

So…

I thought I would do a WhoIs search and contact them that way. Unfortunately, all of their information is listed as unknown.

So…

I decided to write about it.

So…

To the good person or people at JoomCoder.net, I am humbled and honored that you enjoyed my article and found it worthy enough to alter from my original version (and poorly at that…no offense whoever you are) and post it on your site. Now, I must politely and respectfully request that my post be taken down from your site. And in the future, if you find any of my work worthy of altering and posting on your site, please just leave a complimentary comment. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best – M.T.

And to those who would like to see the plagiarism in it’s entirety and do a bit of comparative analysis:

The original at 1300WillowStudio.com: Democratizing the Web: Adventures in Joomla
The original at Hubpages.com: Democratizing the Web: Adventures in Joomla
The original at Squidoo.com: Democratizing the Web: Adventures in Joomla
The original at EzineArticles.com: Democratizing the Web: Adventures in Joomla

And the JoomCoder.net version: Democratization of the Web – Adventures in Joomla

And just in case it is actually taken down:

Democratization of the Web – Adventures in Joomla by JoomCoder.net

As open source software is democratizing the Web: My adventure with Joomla.

Read on if you want to learn how a web designer had no knowledge of programming in a position to create the RSS news Powered supersite ANewRelevance.com.

Whilst in the shower, lightning, and you have a great idea for a website (my best inspiration always seems to show himself in the shower). The problem is: 1) You do not have the skills or know-how to create it and / or 2) You do not have theBudgets have built them. What is familiar to a mystery that is your site brilliant idea, all dressed up with nowhere to go. This summer I ran into the same situation.

First a little background information.

I am a self-confessed news, information and knowledge junkie. I always want to know what in the world, and I want to learn more. In the past, a lot of time hammering on my keyboard with the TV meant in the background. These were essentially toggle hours to the hour-thonsOlberman, Maddow, Matthews, O’Reily, Hannity, Colbert, Stewart, Sports Center … you get the picture.

I got married. That is what started this whole adventure. Once I was a bachelor with a lot of time available for my husband channel surfing. When I got married, I had to leave these friends, not to mention most of my stuff that does not make the cut back from my old apartment. Interesting thing is, my wife is more of a TV watchers than I am. The problem is, it’s a completely different line-upProgramming: Bones, House, CSI, and what many reality shows. That is, when presented with the challenge: How do I know what in the world if I can not see my shows? Below me, my programming is to ask how Derek Jeter, hit to win a game with a home run no thumbs. There were dark times.

To the Internet I am.

I thought all the information I have is out there, it just will not be packed in the pretty little package that I know all my singleYears. Each day would start the same way: Start pute the “log in, restart Firefox, and start the search. I want to go all the campsites that are trying everything I could about what’s happening in the world around me : Drudge, ESPN, TMZ, Fark, collect TechCrunch, etc.

Then came the idea:

What happens if I could, all the top headlines from my favorite sites and share on a page? Or better yet, all of the news I could ever want on a Web site?

Then came the problem:

I am a web designer, butI’m not a programmer. This is serious functionality.

Then came the reality:

I can connect a great looking site, but I still fear the day when I need to learn how you would get on the back end and make things happen. Static websites, sure. Dynamic web site, well … serious times require serious measures.

The research began.

And the focus has been primarily two-fold: 1) How will delivered the message over the Internet? and 2) What are the best platforms deliver to you? I had tofind a way to create a dynamic website that would not only gather the news, but engaging them in a way that easy to use, easy to navigate and I would give direct access to the sites that I added. Of course I had no idea how this was done, but after a considerable search, I found that a number of options, including open source software that would suit my needs.

Some information about open source.

Open-source software, in short, is a softwareprovides out-of-the-box usability, which is almost completely customizable, and best of all, free. You may already have heard from some: Ruby on Rails, Drupal, WordPress, Joomla. They provide extensive capabilities for things such as website, content management and online publishing. If you have about the aesthetic concerns are thousands of themes (the look of the website) for free download or purchase. When it comes to functionality, there are hundreds of plug-ins alsoavailble. If you can think it, there’s probably a plug-in module, or for them. These downloads are also available without cost. Basically, you can build locally on your own, that would cost thousands if you set a developer.

With so many possibilities, how can I choose?

It all depends on what is the purpose of your website. What do you want to do your site? Who is your audience? If you want to create a community, you’d probably want to go the Drupal or Joomla route. With a view tosome e-commerce? Both offer solid options for e-commerce integration. Do you want to publish your work online, WordPress is a great solution. The bottom line is that you take the time to search, find reference, and determine which options are best suited for your requirements. For my needs, I decided on Joomla.

Joomla

Currenlty, there are fierce debates about which software is better, Joomla or Drupal. Frankly, I say “six of one half dozen of the other”. Both”can the skin of the cat,” they just do it a little differently. Following my experience, Joomla is a good solution for me for many reasons:

– Even with no experience coming in, the learning curve was not so bad.

– The installation (remote server) is relatively painless.

– The admin / user interface is accessible and easy to use.

– Community support is solid.

– The available plug-ins are abundant and well documented.

If you are using Joomla, you canRest assured, you will not be left in the cold. The community of users and developers is large and growing. It is one of the relevant software, and all that what I’ve read, it should be for some time.

The next step.

So I had decided on the software. I installed it, chose a topic that configures the database and back end, and chose some of the modules and plug-ins, provided the functionality I needed … except for the news. This was the next big step. The reason why I am in this messthe first place. I needed to deliver news, updates and publishes real-time. With a few more searches I found my answer.

RSS Feeds

RSS, most commonly as “Really Simple Syndication translated” or “Rich Site Summary, web feeds can be used to publish frequently updated works such as blogs, news, audio and video. Sites that offer RSS feeds so that, instead of often when checking in on the ground, you can be automatically sent to the updates. Basically, they “holdIn The Loop. “Many applications available that will provide them will find RSS feeds on your desktop. In my case I needed a way to deliver it through my website. That was a challenge, because the majority of the options that I found only supported a small number of feeds (1-3). past that they are not open source, which meant even though I walk through my site RSS feeds, I was not able to configure them . Uhmpf! More searches led me to …

Google AJAX Feed API

At first, itlooked intimidating. The name alone made me kind of go, “Hun?”. Basically, AJAX (short for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to create interactive Web applications. This service provided by Google, allows the user to easily create a series of custom RSS feeds to create and integrate them into their web site simply by copying and pasting the Google generated code. This was the perfect solution. And again it was free. After some further searching I found that a module for Joomla was available thatwould be easy to translate this service into my site pages. So I installed the module, it noodled (remember, you can do that with open source), and achieved my desired results. My site has been fed the message that I wanted, but instead of the normal 3-feeds per page, I get 12 was. My simple news site has a news Supersite. Aahhhh success … finite.

Now you can see from the Mountain Top …

I must say it feels good. It would not be missed by me fair warning ifReminder is due. This project was a great challenge and took extreme patience, hard work and long hours. But in the end, a small town child without programming experience could create the site that he dreamed one morning in the shower. There is a revolution going on now on the World Wide Web: If you can dream make it happen. All tools are available and there are all the costs of your time. Open source software is definitely democratization of the Internet. Be bold and wellHappiness.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 12th, 2009 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Joomla Code Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.