The default Joomla installation includes a Front Page component that allows you to manage articles that appear on your home page. This is a nice feature, but if you want to divide your home-page content into categories, like an online magazine or newspaper, you will need a different plugin.

One of my clients has an online magazine and wanted the show introduction text, or a teaser, from 5 different categories on their site, and they wanted to display each secton in a different location. Furthermore, they wanted individual control of each category so they could show, for example, 1 article from one category, 2 articles from a second category, and 6 articles from another category. Finally, they wanted to articles to display automatically, so that as they published new articles, the latest articles would automatically show up on their home page as a teaser with the thumbnail of the aritcle image.

The MiniFrontPage module fulfilled their requirements perfectly. What’s more, you can use it multiple times on a page, making it a perfect choice for content rich sites that are continually updated.

The following is a list of configuration settings for the module:

• Specify the pages on which the module will display
• Specify the number columns in which to display the teasers
• Specify which sections and categories from which to display articles
• Specify to display article title, author, article date
• Specify intro text length
• Specify thumbnail inclusion and thumbnail site
• Specify the number of articles to display
• And more…

Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks to this module:

• Unless your Joomla template module already has locations you can use for this module, you will need to edit your Joomal template and adjust the design to accomodate the module.
• The module does not use Joomla’s Intro Text feature if you set the article parameter to NOT include intro text, plus, it will not use the image from the intro text.

Several recent clients needed a photo gallery for Joomla. Their requirements, as usual, were that it be easy to use. One would assume that a Joomla photo gallery would be easy to use, but my experience with Joomla photo galleries tells me that is not the case. They are often difficult to install and confusing for the client to use.

Lucky for me, I found RSGallery2, a free Photo Gallery component for Joomla. The price is right, but does it have the features you would expect in a photo gallery?

The following is a list of RSGallery2 features:

• VERY easy to install
• VERY easy to use
• Can bulk upload of a zip file of images (this feature is AWESOME and saves a great deal of time)
• Very easy to manage image galleries
• Easy to configure
• Automatic thumbnail creation and sizing (configurable)
• Automatic image resizing (configurable)
• User comments and voting
• Front-end users can create their own galleries and upload their own images (configurable)
• Automatic image branding and watermarking (configurable)
• Image search
• Image download link
• Ability to display random images
• Ability to display latest images
• And the list goes on

Most important, though, for ME and for my clients, is that RSGaller2 is easy to install, configure, and use. In addition, the default gallery display looks very nice.

I give this Joomla Photo Gallery Component 5 stars.

Collametics Skin Care’s exquisitely blended formulas are all natural and oil free, to provide the most effective anti-oxidant and restorative benefits.

The Collametics site uses Joomla to manage content and EcommerceTemplates shopping cart to manage the ecommerce, online shopping.

New Joomla update for Monarch Little League with latest Joomla software, new, easy-to-use site navigation, and a new look and feel. In addition, we added RSGallery2 photo gallery plugin so administrators and quickly and easily add and update photo galleries. In addition, we installed JCE Joomla Editor plugin so administrators and quickly and easlily paste scores and standings from MS Excel directly into Joomla articles without an formatting.

I have been using Yahoo mail since 1999. And it just keeps getting better. But the New Yahoo Mail is the best webmail tool I’ve seen.

When I started using Yahoo Mail in 1999, I wanted a webmail tool that I could access from ANY computer and that allowed me to import my Netscape mail address book. Yahoo mail did all that…and it was FREE! Even though I loved all of the nice features of Netscape, Mozilla, and Thunderbird mail, I was willing to sacrafice those nice, interactive features for a mail tool that allowed me to access my email from any computer.

But all webmail tools at the time were pretty cumbersome. They worked like web applications and were missing all the nice features of a dedicated, local mail client like Thunderbird or Outlook. For example, webmail tools don’t allow you to drag and drop messages into folders, and many webmail tools, like Gmail, don’t even have folders.

Most webmail tools don’t let you use keyboard commands to interact with the mail tool for common functions like new email, check email, delete email, and save email. Instead, you have to click a checkbox or a button. This is a very cumbersome way to deal with these repetitive tasks.

The new Yahoo mail is different. It acts more like a dedicated mail client. For example, to start a new email, just click the letter “n” on your keyboard and a new mail tab appears. To delete an email, select it and click your Delete key. To check mail, click the letter “m” on your keyboard. To check all email accounts, click Shift + m.

If you want to move a bunch of emails to a folder, you have several choices: Control click multiple emails and drag them to a folder, or click the select box on each mail and then select a folder from the Move menu. That’s all there is to it.

What’s more, you can have several tabs open at the same time; for example, you can have an inbox tab, multiple new email tabs, and a search results tab.

And finally, for around $20 a year, you can get Yahoo Mail Plus. With Yahoo Mail Plus, you don’t see ANY ads. That alone is worth $20. But you get more. You can add all your other email accounts. No big deal, you say; you can do that with other webmail tools. Maybe so, but other tools don’t let you send email from those accounts; when you send an email, the from address is from your webmail account, not the extra account. The nice thing about Yahoo Plus Mail is that I can use one mail tool to manage several email accounts and I can send mail as if it came from any of those other accounts. Try doing that in YOUR webmail tool.

Give Yahoo’s new mail tool a test drive. It’s free and I’m sure you’ll be impressed.