Update May 6th 2010: I have quite a lot of people asking for my code, but I need to point out it is not complete at all, but more like a half baked attempt to work out this API thing.. I would really like to spend more time on this and write a more definitive guide, but alas, time gets the better of me. Please see my long comment below for the email I send people. The file I refer to is here.
Update January 13th 2010: I had a little breakthrough this evening… It’s possible to use the XML API to call PHP functions in the subscribers.php file. So there is no need to modify the xml.php or subscribers.php files to do some updates like for Custom Fields. I hope to be able to write another blog on this to explain it more, but in the meantime you can contact me to obtain an email I sent to someone earlier that explains it in more detail.
Update December 15th 2009: As stated in the comments below, I believe the IEM API to be more powerful than the Interspire instructions suggest, and as such believe some of my coding and changes are not required, or could be improved. I therefore do not think I should be giving out the scripts anymore as I have been, but instead would like to investigate the subscribers.php API in more detail.
Interspire Email Marketer (IEM), in my opinion, is the best newsletter system on the market that can be downloaded and installed on your own server. At least, I cannot find any other that comes close to it’s features, and I have looked hard. It does have one drawback though, and that’s the system API does not support integrating it into third party applications so subscribers can update their newsletter preferences from within another system. Interspire stated they don’t provide support on technical aspects of the API, so I have had to create my own API functions until they realise the benefit of this and write one themselves. This blog gives you a quick overview of the files to edit.
Just after publishing my latest blog, Integrating Joomla and Zencart (Sort Of) Using CURL and Standalone Templates, I realised that this method can be used to show Joomla modules on just about any website that you can add code to. The blog is mainly about Zencart because that’s what I use it for, but I realised if you have any other website you can access the code for, then you can follow these instructions to add Joomla modules to your website.
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I’ve developed quite a few Joomla and Zencart sites, some clients taking both together for their website. Joomla being great for the website CMS, and Zencart great for the shopping cart. The problem is, no complete, working integration exists between them. None that I have found anyway. A couple have been written and are work in progress in my mind, but still lacking in fundamental functionality. So the website ends up clearly as two separate systems to the website visitor which is not ideal. So I have spent some time trying to think of a way to integrate the two together and have come up with what looks to be a good solution… CURL.
This blog explains how to set this up in order to show Zencart within your website design. You will need knowledge of PHP, CURL and creating and assigning templates in Joomla and Zencart. Note: this is not integrating the Admin but the front end, to give the impression to the visitor that they are on the same website!
Actually, you don’t even have to use Zencart. It can be any other separate system to your Joomla website that you can change the template for. So you can use this method to add any Joomla module onto any other non-Joomla website. Read more…
In a previous blog I mentioned that your page title (Browser Title or Title Tag) is one of the most important aspects to rank your website for keyword searches. For example, “About Amity Web Solutions, Web Design in Caerphilly” is better than “About Us” because it not only shows the search engine reader the company name but additional keywords which is important for ranking (see previous blog about 10 basic search optimisation techniques to improve your website rankings).
The problem with Joomla 1.5 is the form to set this title different to what the actual page is called is hidden away in the depths of the Menu Manager, and not in the page editor itself. This blog gives an overview of how to set the page title different to the page name in Joomla 1.5.
I’m always looking for great iPhone apps that can help with my interests such as work and social media. Today I found what may end up being one of my favourites, a WordPress app for the iPhone.
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There seems to be a craze in Twitter to have as many followers as you can. When I first joined and started to check some profiles out, I was amazed at how people with tens of thousands of followers could reach that number. Celebrities and famous CEOs sure, a lot of people have a celebrity fixation, but many of them did not seem to be famous, or a celebrity, or even have very intersting tweets. How did they do it? I thought it would be amazing to have this many followers so I started to read up on it.
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Well I’ve jumped on the twitter bandwaggon and have started Twittering on at http://twitter.com/AmityWeb. I actually think I am quite late. I’ve found many successful Twitterers (?) that have been doing it for a couple of years now and have built up quite a reputation and following. I wish I started a couple of years ago. But now I am here I am trying to embrace the Twitter community with open arms and just hope I can provide some useful information (you will be pleased to know I don’t have a cat so you wont be getting updates on that!).
This blog post is just to raise some questions at this time and hopefully to obtain some feedback from you readers, so please feel free to add comments.
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There are so many websites still not being developed with the fundamental and necessary techniques that can dramatically increase their search engine rankings. Most of them are easy to implement. So I thought I would write a brief article on what I consider the top 10 best and fundamental techniques to try to improve search engine rankings. It is by no means a complete solution, and may or not work for you, but can be considered the bare minimum necessary techniques you should implement.
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I am big fan of the Joomla Content Management System. I must have developed over 50 websites using Joomla over the past few years. With so many advantages over other systems it is my CMS of choice. That said, it’s still not widely known outside the tech world, with so many website owners not hearing of it.
This blog is to provide some information about the benefits of using Joomla.
One of the biggest issues I have with some web and graphic designers is that they still do not provide website content management systems (CMS) for clients and are still developing static websites in plain HTML. That means separate files for each webpage with the design and content embedded into each file <shivers run down spine>. Not at all good for updating design or maintaining content.
Not all website owners are at fault… very often when networking and meeting website owners I explain what a CMS is and the advantages of using one and some of them have either not heard of a CMS or don’t know the advantages of using one. So many of these website owners have static websites and complain “I can’t update my website“, “the developer charges a lot to do so“, or “I cant get hold of the developer“. I get so frustrated hearing their woes because I know it does not have to be like this.
In my opinion it is vital, maybe even necessary, for a successful website to have a content management system. Without it the website will be left outdated or costly to keep updated. There are also other reasons that content management should be considered a requirement.
It should not cost more for a web developer to provide a content manager compared to a static website. In fact, it should even cost less due to the nature of design being separated from content if the developer is familiar with their CMS of choice. Only a few files need to be created to provide the design for every page.
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