Goodbye Tazzu

Today I saw on Facebook that Tazzu, Vancouver’s Business and Technology Community, closed it’s virtual doors. I was part of that wonderful community since it started in September 2006 as a phpBB Forum. Many great people joined Tazzu over the years and step by step it became a very important platform to exchange information. But Tazzu wasn’t just a Forum. Tazzu organized as well many network events, WordPress and Joomla Camps as well as the first Joomla day in Canada in 2008, the “Joomla Day Vancouver” where I won a book about Joomla Templates.

Joomla!® 1.6 Has Arrived!

As a big Joomla fan this is great news for me. I tested the Beta last year and was impressed. I think that Joomla 1.6 is more powerful and easier to handle. The content structure is so much better and with the more flexible way to enable or disable certain modules with parts of your site it became so much easier to build a great navigation structure.

INTERNeX World

I am working right now on a new exiting project for INTERNeX International Exchange. The new online presents for the company will be found at internexworld.com and will give you more information about the programs and services INTERNeX has to offer. The site will have more pictures and will be (hopefully) more fun, since the original content was a bit dry. But the service INTERNeX offers need a bit of an explanation, since it is not a car or computer they sell. INTERNeX main focus is to offer tailor made internships to students who want to get work experience in their field of study abroad.

I, as the head of the online presents, had a hard time to reflect the complex service on the web, but every update, in my opinion, became better and better. INTERNeX started in 1999 in Vancouver BC Canada and since 2009 offers their service in New Zealand as well.

The original main website internexcanada.com became more a kind of online magazine for the clients in Canada, so that we decided to move the explanation part of the services to another level, since we are planing to have another community in New Zealand as well.

This week I am finishing the first draft of the website and will be hopefully soon able to publish what we have so far. That will give you the opportunity to have a peak how the website will change over the next couple weeks until the official launch.

As I said it is an exiting project and I welcome everyone who want to be part of it

Just check it out at www.internexworld.com and if you want leave a comment here.

I want to become a web designer. What do I have to know?

I think to become a web designer you don’t need fancy tools such as Phontoshop, Illustrator, Dreamwaver or Flash. I saw very good websites made with open source tools.

I think the more important “tool” is your creativity. But you also need experience and should be able to see the project with the eyes of your client.

In my opinion you should consider doing an internship in a web designer company to learn their tricks. Maybe register a domain name and build your own site. You will learn most, if you start doing stuff. Meet people who are in the business. The Tazzu community in Vancouver BC Canada is one of the best ways, I would say, to connect to creative people. Maybe one of them can offer you to work as an intern and who knows maybe later as a designer for a project.

In the meantime you should as well consider working for different companies to see how they do things, to get an understanding why they may don’t know how powerful the internet can be for them.

I hope my little post was helpful.

CU soon

Joomla

In my post today I would like to talk a bit about Joomla, an open source content management system (CMS). Joomla is available in the version 1.0.x, 1.5.x and since a while in the 1.6.x Alpha version. I heard the first time about Joomla in 2006, so almost 3 years ago.

I created many websites since I started 1997 and used many different tools to made some great sites such as the online magazine for the Berlinale’99. I used to work with programs such as NetObjects Fusion, Dreamwaver, FrontPage from Microsoft and some others. But since I found Joomla I primarily create my web projects with that tool.

My first professional Joomla project started in December 2006 and was a site for an Energy Consultant in Germany. I created the entire site with Joomla 1.0.x and was impressed how easy and fast it was to get the results I wanted.

One big plus I discovered was that it was easy to change the face of the website by changing the template. Sure you had to make some adjustments, but it locked great. Another thing was that I wanted to integrate an event calendar, so I went to the Joomla website (http://www.joomla.org) and there you found tons of so called Components, Plugins and Modules for your site.

Many of this tools are for free and the ones you have to pay for are often more than worse the little money you spend.

Since I started making websites with Joomla I created some great web sites. One for example was for a non profit organization, a Kindergarden. Another for an internship and work experience placement agency in Vancouver BC. My latest projects are for a insurance company and a new online school. Both projects will go online probably in December 2009 / January 2010.

I will keep you posted.

Bottom line is that if you are a developer and have to realize a project with a small budget, Joomla is definitely an option.

If you are a business owner and want or even need to have a website that you can easily update yourself you should take a look at Joomla. Even if you have to hire a Joomla specialist you will be able to get a professional site even for a small budget.

A good developer will stay on your site and help you to let your site grow when you want and need to.

If you want to get more information please visit my website (www.kaebe.net) and sign up for my newsletter.

CU soon