Error loading feed data Message in Joomla Adminstrator

Once in a blue moon, if you login to the administrator area of your Joomla 1.5 site, you'll see a message saying "Error loading feed data."

The problem is caused by a brief outage in the security news coming from Joomla.

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5 Things Web Designers Can Do To Land More Clients and Build a Successful Web Design Business

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Before I joined Joomlashack I had my own web design business like many of you. My clients were a diverse bunch that kept me pretty busy—small businesses, restaurants, Fortune 500 brands, hip hop producers and multi-platinum rock bands. I grew my portfolio from 2 local clients in 1996 to over 50 billable, monthly clients from all over the world just a few years later.

Web designer friends of mine in big cities, like New York and Chicago, struggled mightily to land clients like mine, and whenever we would talk, they'd always ask me, "dude, no offense, but how are YOU getting these clients?"

I wasn't offended. I understood their frustration. After all, these guys were all in big cities where there were supposed be big opportunities for them, and here I was, a 'one-man operation' in small-town Ohio landing the types of big clients they could only dream about.

These guys were über talented (definitely more talented than me), and I assumed they were doing all the things I was doing to get clients. But I was surprised to find out they weren't.

While they stayed in their studios and focused solely on designing, I was out there promoting my business and getting new clients.

Here are 5 things you can do, that my friends didn't do, to get new clients, too:

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Announcement: Joomla 1.7.0 Released

Joomla 1.7.0 was released today. Joomla 1.7.0 is a direct upgrade of 1.6.5. All users of 1.6 are recommend to upgrade, since 1.7.0 fixes several security vulnerabilities in all previous versions of 1.6.

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Multi-language Sites in Joomla

UPDATES:

Joomla includes a basic way to implement a multi-language site. This doesn't replace other multi-language content management like, Joomfish, for example. You can find a complete list of these in the JED.

What you can do is activate the language switcher module, and let visitors switch the joomla core labels and headings to their preferred language. You will need to download and install specific language packs for each language you want to use. You can find the language packs in the JED.

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How to Install Joomla 1.7

Here's how to install Joomla 1.7 manually on your hosting environment.

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Migrating from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 1.7

JUpgradeJoomla 1.5 is solid, high-quality software and it will be supported until April 2012. So with many 1.5 sites working flawlessly, not everyone will rush to migrate. I say migrate because the structure of 1.5 is so different from 1.7 that you can't simply upgrade. Now is the time to consider a plan for the migration process.

With Joomla 1.6, the upgrade process will be built in to the Joomla framework, making incremental upgrades a possibility and streamlining the entire process. However, to move from 1.5 to 1.7 will be more difficult.

This tutorial uses the free jUpgrade extension. We have also reviewed the commercial SP Upgrade extension which is a viable alternative.

Read more: Migrating from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 1.7

How to Update Joomla 1.6 to 1.7

Updating has become an easy process since the release of Joomla 1.6. The developers have built in a handy updater that is extremely easy to use. This new utility should make upgrading to all new Joomla versions a quick and painless process. Before you upgrade from 1.6 to 1.7, there are a just a couple of things you'll need to do.

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Introducing Breeze: A Light, Airy & Cool Joomla 1.7 Template

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We've just released a brand new Joomla 1.5 / 1.7  template called Breeze that's as light & cool as its name suggests.

Breeze is colorful, versatile and makes building web sites a breeze with its 15 customizable parameters that make your site truly unique.

Read more: Introducing Breeze: A Light, Airy & Cool Joomla 1.7 Template

Must Have Web Tools

toolboxI've been designing Joomla websites and templates for over 5 years now and a lot has changed in my productivity and production cycle throughout the years. I've found some great tools in my career as a web designer and just wanted to share some of the web developer tools that I think are a must.

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How to Enable Downloadable Products in Virtuemart

Virtuemart can be a bit hard to navigate at times and one of our students was having difficulty adding a downloadable product so we created this tutorial for him:

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