Joomla is one of the most commonly used content managements systems (CMS). One of the main reasons why this script is so widely used is because of its ability to create web sites and online applications with greatly varied functionality. Virtually any type of site with any purpose can be developed with Joomla. We offer an automated application installer called Installatron which allows for automated installs requiring just a few clicks, this downloads all the files, creates the database and admin user all for you which can get your site up and running in just a few minutes. There are many extensions that can be added that make the possibilities with this software unlimited.

Whatever your site’s needs may be, it is likely that the time will come when you are ready to monetise your Joomla site. This may seem daunting to you, but not to worry. There are many helpful extensions that will help you accomplish your goals. (more…)

What is the best CMS? This is a difficult question, and depends on what kind of site you are building. Content Management Systems (or CMS as they’re also known) are an essential tool for any webmaster who’s moved beyond basic blogging platforms such as Blogger. CMS’s offer a number of advantages which allow the user to modify and manage virtually every aspect of a website. They create a platform for dynamic management of web pages and can serve as an interface for both blogs as well as more advanced sites requiring a login system. Here we review some of the top free CMS’s and show which you should use for your site, depending on your needs.

1. WordPress
Primarily known as a blogging platform, WordPress offers enough customisations and plugins to be called a CMS. An excellent choice for a beginner, WP can be up and running in less than five minutes. A basic knowledge of HTML is not required to be able to work with WP as it comes with an in-built WYSIWYG editor allowing you to edit elements as you create your posts. The admin section is clean and self-explanatory, it requires no special knowledge and should be easy to use even for someone new to blogging. Updating WP is also efficient and painless with all back end code updated automatically with subsequent versions, along with the plugins as well. WordPress offers some of the most versatile plugins to address almost every need you may have, from SEO to controlling spam comments. WP comes with a vibrant developer community which offers thousands of free and paid templates suited to whatever kind of site you want. (more…)

The smaller images are on your webpages, the faster your site will load which will provide your users with a much better experience, especially those on slower connections and even dial-up access. This will also benefit you as you will be using less disk space to store the images, as well as less bandwidth to transmit them each time a user requests them, so it is beneficial all round!

If you have not optimised your images before or are not sure about this, I’ll give a quick example to show the benefits.

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These days many sites are secured by an SSL Certificate, I’m going to explain the reasons for this, when you need an SSL Certificate and when you do not, and also explain how to get one.

Online security is vitally important, in a world of credit card fraud and identity theft people need to be more and more vigilant when divulging their private details. Having the padlock symbol at the bottom of a page gives people a feeling of some security at least, this means the site is using an SSL Certificate so communication between the user and the website should not be able to be viewed by anyone else. (more…)

These days almost any business you can think of has a website, be it the local pub or a multinational corporation, and the reason is that this can be a great source of advertisement and raise awareness of your business. For business that sell products or services to consumers, having a website is even more vital, and can enable you to extend your customer base much wider than for instance a single retail shop. A website costs a tiny fraction compared to the rent and other factors that would be necessary for a physical presence also, another clear advantage. (more…)

If you are building a new website from scratch, you may want to consider using a Content Management System (CMS) as the base for this. A CMS is a web application that is used for managing various types of content including images, videos, audio files, electronic documents and other forms of web content and digital media. These are often used for publishing web content on new websites as they allow for rapid website development and maintenance, generally offering powerful back-ends for administration, some even allowing drag and drop site creation. Most of the popular web CMS are open source, meaning that it won’t cost you a penny to use these, and they are very actively developed often with more collaborators working on a CMS than a commercial web app. Many of these have active communities offering helpful support around the clock for free also, and due to these points some very prolific sites make use of these CMS’s. Some examples of this are Ford (WordPress), The United Nations (Joomla) and MTV (Drupal) to name but a few. (more…)

Fantastico is the leading application autoinstaller for cPanel hosting accounts, and we provide this at NetHosted for our shared hosting and
reseller hosting clients free of charge. It allows you to simply install many popular content management systems such as Joomla, Drupal, PHP-Nuke, etc. as well as forums, blogs, e-commerce, support systems, site builders, galleries and more! There are over 40 applications that Fantastico can install for you through its simple, easy to use interface. (more…)