Posts Tagged ‘Joomla’

Creating a Joomla! staging site

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Wendy RobinsonIf you’re a Rochen customer or regular reader of this blog, then you’re well aware of the exclusive to Rochen cPanel plugin, Joomla Utilities,  which makes installing and managing Joomla an absolute breeze.  In the last 12 months we’ve brought you features such as one-click installations, security tweaks, file and directory permission fixes, super administrator password resets and even mass management of multiple installations for Rochen resellers.  The features work for all Joomla 1.5, 1.7, and future releases. We work continually on these features to make Joomla management through your Joomla hosting as easy as possible for you.

Creating your staging site with our new Clone tool

Our newest addition to the Rochen-exclusive tools set is the ability to create your own Joomla staging site within a separate directory or subdomain of your hosting account. This feature is possible with our brand new Joomla Utilities Clone tool.

Designers and developers of Joomla websites know that sometimes it’s necessary to be able to test out a new extension or template, or do some custom development and/or trouble shooting, without causing interruption or possible error to a live installation. It can be tedious to copy a site over to new directory manually, as you have to edit your configuration files all over again, import a copy of your database, and possibly adjust various links on your staging site.

With the clone tool you no longer have to worry about using your valuable time to do all of that. We’ve created this new feature so that all you need to do is go in to your Joomla Utilities option in cPanel’s CMS Utilities and just select the installation that you wish to clone, and then enter the directory or sub domain where you want to clone it to. It takes your entire installation including all data, extensions and template files, as well as the database, and duplicates it all in to your chosen directory, leaving your live site untouched and open for business. So easy!

From there, you can begin working on your staging site. Add any new extensions or templates you’ve been wanting to try, fix up any old or nagging issues in the code, and run as many tests as you need to. All without interrupting your live Joomla website in any way!

For a preview, we’ve prepared one of our quick demo videos below:

In other Joomla Utilities news, you’ll now notice that the handy cPanel plugin has a new look!

Our own in-house developer, Thomas, has taken some of the excess information and layout out and trimmed the Joomla Utilities interface to blend it in better with the standard cPanel look and feel.  As well, he has created a more efficient user experience as you can now quickly select your desired function from a list, as well as hide the instructional information if you don’t need to read it every time.  Check out the new look below:

A New Look For Joomla Utilities

A New Look For Joomla Utilities

Thanks for your time! To learn about the other Joomla Utilities features and watch more demo videos, head over to our Joomla Utilities page.

-Wendy

Wendy Robinson joined the Rochen team in June 2010 as a sales support staff member. She is also currently involved with the Joomla! project as a member of the Community Leadership Team.

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Posted in Hosting Backups, Joomla, Joomla Updates, Joomla Utilities, Reseller Web Hosting, Web Hosting | 4 Comments »

Easy Joomla! 1.6 Installation and Joomla! Site Migration

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Wendy RobinsonBack in November we introduced our new Joomla! Utilities cPanel plugin, a set of tools exclusive to Rochen hosting customers that allows the Joomla! user to easily install, upgrade, maintain and enhance the security of their Joomla websites.

Today we have two brand new features for Joomla Utilities which we are very excited to tell you about. Now when you access Joomla Utilities in your Rochen hosting control panel you will have the following additional options:

Install Joomla 1.6:

When you go to the Joomla installation section of  Joomla Utilities you will now be able to opt whether you’d like to install the most current version of Joomla 1.5 or Joomla 1.6 with a single click of your mouse. Rochen’s hosting platform is fully performance tuned and secured for both versions.

Migrate Joomla to Rochen from Another Host:

This feature is very exciting and is going make life a lot easier when it comes to moving your Joomla site from your old/current host to your Rochen hosting account. All you need is your FTP information from your current host and you will be able to migrate your entire site over to Rochen with just one click.  The migration feature supports both Joomla 1.5 and 1.6 websites.

We’ve prepared another demonstration video below so that you can check out the new features right away:

The above new features are available in addition to all of the current Joomla Utilities  features listed below:

  • Simple Joomla installation tool that unlike other “auto installers” always installs the latest stable version of Joomla
  • Ability to install multiple Joomla installations to your secondary domains,  sub domains and sub directories
  • Automatic security hardening for new Joomla installs
  • Reset the password for any Super Administrator account under a Joomla site
  • Update the Joomla Core in a single easy step
  • Security tweaks that prevent arbitrary scripts from running
  • File and Directory Permission optimization / repair tool – useful if moving a Joomla site to Rochen from another host
  • Easily password protect your Joomla Administrator panel
  • Joomla sites that were not initially installed using the “Joomla Utilities” feature can still be managed and updated
  • The “Joomla Utilities” are built directly into your Rochen account’s cPanel so there is no third-party extension to install or maintain under Joomla meaning zero hassle
  • White labeled so that resellers can offer Joomla Utilities to their own clients without Rochen being visible

The “Joomla Utilities” option is available on all Rochen’s shared servers, ready for immediate use by Business Hosting and Reseller Hosting customers. Managed Virtual Server (MVS) and full Managed Server customers, who have not already done so, can request this be installed on your server at no extra charge by opening a technical support ticket via the My Rochen customer portal.

Thanks for taking the time to check out our new Joomla Utilities features! If you have any comments or questions, please post them here as we’d love know what you think.

-Wendy

Wendy Robinson joined the Rochen team in June 2010 as a sales support staff member. She is also currently involved with the Joomla! project as a member of the Community Leadership Team.

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Posted in Joomla, Joomla Utilities, Security, Web Hosting | 6 Comments »

Introducing Rochen Alert

Monday, January 17th, 2011

Wendy RobinsonWith Rochen’s leading edge hosting infrastructure we provide the most secure and production ready environment for your Joomla!, Drupal and WordPress based websites, and our technical support team is there to assist 24/7 with any server related issues you might experience.

However, the responsibility of maintaining and securing websites lies with the site owner (you). This includes core upgrades, extension upgrades, file permissions and settings. That can be a daunting task if you have multiple websites to manage, each functioning with a unique combination of addons and possibly using different content management systems.

Rochen has recently introduced a unique service that can help you keep your websites secure and avoid spending money and/or lengthy periods of time fixing your site in the event of a compromise. This new service is Rochen Alert.

What is the best way to prevent an attack or compromise and be sure that your site is as secure as possible? By keeping yourself informed about the software you use and making sure you are receiving every bit of critical security news that gets released. The reality is that it can be rather tedious to comb through all the news you receive and it’s possible that the amount of spam and irrelevant information that lands in your inbox can keep you from getting the critical news when you need it.

The advantage of Rochen Alert is that it allows you to subscribe to a security notification service that will send you automatic emails any time a critical security vulnerability or upgrade is reported. This covers not only core but also extensions, modules and plugins that pertain to Joomla!, Drupal, and WordPress. The spam, junk and irrelevant news is filtered out ensuring that only the important information gets sent to you.

How does it work?

The system is powered by a proprietary engine built to discover, categorize and deliver security related information. It combs the internet continuously ingesting security related topics and rejecting everything else.

  • Security notifications for scripts you choose. E.g. Joomla, Drupal, WordPress etc.
  • Security notifications for plug-ins or extensions. E.g. Joomla Extensions, WordPress plug-ins etc.
  • Clear instructions on resolving the issue contained within the security notification.
  • Alerts about threats provided within hours of release.

With Rochen Alert you can carry on with your day, manage your business, and be sure that any critical security notifications will find their way to you before most people even know about them. As the alerts arrive within a timely manner you can take necessary steps to prepare your sites ahead of time, keeping your own site safe and allowing your clients to have full confidence that their websites are in good hands with you.

Our security optimized hosting infrastructure combined with the convenience and quality of Rochen Alert notifications will always keep you one step ahead of everyone else, including the hackers.

Where Can I Sign Up?

Rochen Alert is available here for a annual subscription fee. Upon sign up you can choose your own combination of alerts pertaining to each of the three big content management systems, Joomla!, Drupal and WordPress. As soon as your order is processed you will be on the list to start receiving your critical alert notifications.

Can I get a discount?

Sure! For a limited time you can use the promotional code “alertpromo” and receive $10 off the annual subscription fee for the first year of your Rochen Alert service. The promotional code will expire January 31, 2011, so sign up soon in order to save!
-Wendy

Wendy Robinson joined the Rochen team in June 2010 as a sales support staff member. She is also currently involved with the Joomla! project as a member of the Community Leadership Team.

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Posted in Joomla, Joomla Updates, Reseller Web Hosting, Security, Web Hosting | No Comments »

WordPress 3 and Rochen Hosting

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Rochen is a specialist hosting company with extensive experience hosting a number of todays most popular open source scripts like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, among others. With this blog post we’re highlighting one of these excellent projects, namely WordPress.

WordPress, the world’s most popular blogging platform, and the same one we use here on our own Rochen blog has recently released their newest version, WordPress 3.

Some of the new features added are:

  • WordPress and WordPress MU have merged, allowing the management of multiple sites (called Multisite) from one WordPress installation.
  • New Custom Menu Management feature, allows creation of custom menus combining posts, pages, categories, tags, and links for use in theme menus or widgets.
  • Support for Shortlinks.
  • Ability to set the admin username and password during installation.

A full list of the changes can be found here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.0

Many of these cosmetic changes  help provide a smoother user experience, as well as that, additional developer tools and changes have added even more power to WordPress.

If you currently run a WordPress Blog on Rochen, be sure to login to your admin panel and follow the links/steps to upgrade to WordPress 3.

We’ve included a Video highlighting some of the new features and changes in WordPress 3 for our readers below:

In my next blog post, I’ll focus on Joomla and the upcoming Joomla 1.6 release which is now already in Beta. Look out for that!

- Brad

Brad Baker has been a member of the Rochen team since early 2003 and is a founding member of the Joomla! Open Source Project. He currently is part of the Joomla LeadershipTeam, and also blogs here.

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Posted in Web Hosting | No Comments »

Rochen @ CMS Expo: Submit your questions, $550 free tickets giveaway and more.

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Next month is going to be extremely exciting. Members of the Rochen team (including myself) are going to be attending CMS Expo in Chicago, IL on May 3rd, 4th and 5th. This will be my first time attending CMS Expo but my fourth visit to the beautiful Windy City. Chicago is my second favourite city in the United States after San Francisco.

CMS Expo is the leading business and learning conference in North America for content management systems including (but not limited to) Joomla, Drupal and WordPress. As you may already know Rochen is huge within the Joomla community. We host tens of thousands of Joomla powered websites including the official Joomla sites at www.joomla.org. Rochen is also a Platinum Development Sponsor of the project too, helping to support the ongoing development of Joomla version 1.6. We provide support to popular third-party extensions like Akeeba Backup and VirtueMart as well.

While we remain absolutely and totally committed to the Joomla project, we are hoping at CMS Expo this year we can spread our wings and push our hosting services to users of Drupal and WordPress more than we have previously.  Rochen already hosts thousands of Drupal and WordPress sites, but we are not nearly as big or well known within these communities as we are within Joomla.

Chris speaking at previous event.

WordPress and Joomla sessions presented by Rochen experts
Adam Boswell, from our support team, and I will be presenting two sessions at CMS Expo. “WordPress Hosting and Security” at 8.30AM on Tuesday, May 4th and “Joomla Hosting and Security” at 2.30PM also on Tuesday, May 4th. We still need to request an update to the CMS Expo website to correctly reflect our sessions and also reflect that I am going to be offloading some of the heavy lifting to Adam and not doing these sessions solo!

We have base presentations made up for both sessions, but we would very much like to tailor these to fit attendees needs. If there is any pressing hosting or security issue you would like us to address during these sessions then please post a comment at the end of this blog or Twitter us @rochenhost and we can try to work your request into the sessions.

Adam and I look forward to any feedback you can provide!

FREE CMS Expo tickets. $550 giveaway.
Rochen is one of the two main Diamond Sponsors for CMS Expo this year (along with Arc Technology Group). We are going to have a fantastic 20 x 10 ft booth at the conference, so please stop by to talk about any kind of hosting related issue or just to say “hello!” Whether you’re looking for a small shared hosting plan, a multi-server redundant cluster to handle 100 million page views or something in between then we will be happy to talk things over with you. We will have Rochen swag to giveaway at the booth too!

Furthermore, we have two free tickets to giveaway to any current Rochen customer. Each ticket is for one day conference access and would normally cost $279. If you are a current customer and would like a free ticket then please open a support ticket through the My Rochen Portal with the subject: “Free CMS Expo Ticket” and we will get that taken care of for you. This is on a first come, first serve basis and we must receive your request before the end of the day tomorrow, Tuesday April 13th 2010.

For anyone who misses out on a free ticket you can also use the promotional code: ROCHEN via the CMS Expo website to receive a 10% discount on any CMS Expo ticket. The free ticket offer is for current Rochen customers only, but this promo code can be used by anyone.

Teaser of Rochen's green campaign.

Green Hosting Campaign @ CMS Expo
Rochen are looking to highlight many issues at CMS Expo (shameless plug: including our redundant clusters to attendees needing to host larger or enterprise sites, our rock solid shared hosting, Rochen Vault twice-daily managed backups, our ‘out of the box’ compatibility for the most popular CMS scripts) but one in particular we have decided to draw attention to is our green hosting initiatives.

We will be running a green hosting campaign at CMS Expo, which we think will draw attention to our green hosting in a subtle but clever way. I think when it comes to being green it is something most hosts handle badly or in a scammy and dishonest way, so we hope to be able to promote this as one of our strengths at CMS Expo. While our green hosting is clearly a marketing tool Rochen uses, I think it is more than that due to the way we have implemented it through partnerships with Green Mountain Energry and our continual technology improvement process. E.g. data center cooling. Learn more here.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at CMS Expo next month and hopefully being able to help with your CMS hosting questions!

- Chris

P.S. Rochen will also be launching a new website prior to CMS Expo. So keep an eye out for that too.

Chris Adams is the Founder and CEO of Rochen Ltd.

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Posted in Joomla, Web Hosting | 1 Comment »