Nate Covington

From our first contact with Covington Creations to our final website launch, we found that Covington Creations provided outstanding service. Every question was answered quickly and they went above and beyond what we asked of them. The website they designed and launched for us is exactly what we want and their service made every step of the process easy. I would recommend Covington Creations to any company wishing to create or update their website.

If you're running a business, you probably use good ole' stamps and envelopes for a variety of purposes: checks, invoices, direct mail, letters, etc.  The last time I sent out a direct mail piece, it consisted of a personal letter, a small trifold brochure, and a business card.  I sent 1000 of them, which translated into two boxes of 500 envelopes from Staples.  The cost, just for envelopes?  About $70.

Article: If you're a sole-proprietor or small business and need to get your name out, and anything like me, you've spent a considerable amount of time building and pruning your personal and business contacts.  In marketing terms, this may be your most valuable asset: your customer base.  These people know you already, and are (probably) the most likely to refer others to your and your business.

Rather than writing an article that dissects each CMS platform, I've decided to discuss the similarities between Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, and ExpressionEngine.  Combined, these 4 platforms power more than 20% of all websites, so let's not choose sides just yet.

This is an administrator module (installed via normal Joomla 1.5 extension installer) that has been rearranged and customized for sites primarily running K2 for content management. [Based on: Admin Menu K2 on JED]

If you look at the screenshots, you'll see that I've moved a number of things in the control panel - users, modules, components, global configuration... I've moved these things based on my own personal experience building over 100 Joomla sites and training each client personally to make changes on their own.

To install:

1. Install via Joomla extension manager
2. Navigate to Extensions -> Modules -> Administrator
3. Edit the new K2 admin menu module, enable, assign to "menu" position
4. Disable the standard Joomla admin module

1. Claim your Google Listing (also, keep an eye out for feedback and reviews that others may have posted about you by creating a Google Alert!)
2. Update your site's footer (e.g. © 2003 Your Company, LLC)
3. Mobile Device Check: Check your site from an iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, etc...
4. Check for broken links, broken search boxes, etc... test everything!
5. Visitor Tracking: Check your Google Analytics reports - find out what's working and what's not. Also, schedule monthly report delivery via email if you haven't already!

Domain Registration -> Hosting & Email -> Framework, Content, Updates

As a business owner, the thought of not having control of your website is is most likely frightful.  I've experienced a handful of situations where a client hired a different web developer previously, hire me to re-engineer the site, then come to find out that their prior developer has more control of the site than they do...

Attached are a few files needed to create a "show-hide" action in Joomla's popular CCK extension, K2.

I've had some requests for me to put together some sort of a "guide" to show how I organize all of my "work stuff" on the computer - client files and folders, notes, leads, invoices, to-do's, bills, etc... this is one writing assignment that I put off for a while.  Luckily, clients are keeping us busy.  The other issue is the non-disclosure agreements I've signed, so I'm not able to include screenshots or provide helpful examples of my actual data.  Moving on...

I've run into a few clients who have told me that other developers forced them into upgrading their Joomla installation (e.g. from Joomla 1.0 to 1.5, or 1.5 to 1.6).  I am hoping that this article will provide clarification and possibly save a few folks from going through this unnecessarily.

[Edit May 4, 2012]

• You do not need to upgrade to Joomla 1.7
• You do not need to upgrade to Joomla 2.5
• You do not need to upgrade to Joomla 3.x 
• Note: Upgrading is still a good idea!