So I did some research.  Joomanuals isn’t an add-on an sich, but it’s a web-based application.  It targets people like you and me who build websites for customers.  One of the parts of delivering a “complete solution” is providing your customer with  a proper manual on how to use Joomla.  I’ll admit that I’ve been lacking in this department.   And, from what I’ve heard / seen; many of you lack the time or skills to write a good manual*, too.  You’d be amazed how many excellent developers / site builders find it to be impossible to write down how Joomla works!

That’s where Joomanuals comes in.  Joomanuals is an online tool that can generate manuals for you!  To start using Joomanuals you’ve got to buy a 1-year subscription which costs $ 25.  This’ll allow you to use the service for a full year; for as many times as you want / need.

How it works

Once signed in, you’ll be taken to the control panel to start creating PDF manuals.  This is an amazingly simple process:  All you do is provide some information (name of the customers’ site, their username, password…), choose what sections you want in the manual (how to manage articles, menu’s, users…) and add additional information to the manual.  When you’re done providing the information; you can start generating the manual.

This went faster than I had expected.  After only a few minutes, your manual is ready to be downloaded.

The resulting manual

Of course,  I had to be critical when reading the manual.  But aside from a single typo, and a small error that was fixed five minutes after I reported it (In your face, Microsoft / other software company!)  the content of the manual was… great.  The instructions in the manual were clear and well-written.  Because it’s using your own data; the manual allows users to better understand what to do.  Hell, they could even use the manual to guide them step by step if they want to.  Because of the level of detail; even a complete beginner shouldn’t have a problem working with the Joomla website you built (unless you screwed up, of course).

Something I like about the manual, is that it offers just enough information.  It will allow users to manage their site, without overwhelming them with information they won’t need.  Or – I’m speaking for myself here – you don’t want them to have; like installing add-ons; messing with the configuration settings; making changes to the templates…

Conclusion

Joomanuals is a great tool for anyone building Joomla websites for others.  It’s easy to use, and the result is a clear step-by-step manual that’s customized for your customer and ready to be sent to them straight away.  The price tag of 25$ a year is almost trivial, if you consider how much time you save by not having to write a complete, professional manual.  I honestly believe everyone building Joomla websites should consider using this tool.

So today, I tried implementing a solution that was suggested by Joomla big shot Brian Teeman (who, might I add, has an awesome blog built on Joomla 1.5.  I’m jealous).  He suggested using Lazybackup.  Man, do I wish that I found out about this tool earlier!

Lazybackup 2; which can be found at lazybackup.net, is a small plug-in which makes backing up your Joomla Mysql database easy.  Once you install the plug-in, it takes you two minutes tops to configure the automated back-ups.  These back-ups can either be stored in a (sub)folder or e-mailed to your adress(es). 

This plug-in is going to be a huge timesaver for me.  I gladly recommend it to anyone who meets the following Joomla requirements:

-  you run one / more Joomla 1.5 websites

-  You’ve got 2 minutes to spare to set up the plug-in. 

Wether you have only one website to manage or multiple, this plug-in is a must-have for anyone. 

Road trip!

I had to get up at 4 AM.  Anyone smarter than me would’ve anticipated by going to bed early the day before.  I didn’t.  I figured I’d just sleep while carpooling to Hannover.  At 4.30 we picked up the last of our “crew” and finally started to head to Hannover. 

We made a stop at a gas station around 7am, for some fuel, a cup of coffee and a croissant.  It was as close to a breakfast as we’d come. 

At 8 am; I “woke” up, so I took some notes for this report.  Obviously, there weren’t much notes to make as I had been sleeping.  Or, at least trying to sleep.  Danny’s car is the WORST CAR EVER to sleep in.  You can’t put your head anywhere comfortably.  Should’ve brought a pillow. 

When we were only 15 kilometers from Hannover, fun started.  As in, slow traffic.  It took us one hour to get to the convention centre and park our car.  1 hour, for 15 kilometers.  4 hours for the previous 360 kilometers.  Go figure. 

Most… awesome… event… ever!

The sentence above wasn’t used by me.  Or by anyone of the “crew”.  I joined Danny and Ernest of Computertaal, and my bro (in every possible way) Kenny tagged along with me.  Should I’ve known how BORING it would be, I’d never had dragged him along.  And I could have known, because 4 years earlier, I swore to never visit Cebit again. 

Yes, I’m an IT guy.  So Cebit should be interesting, in theory.  But in reality, Cebit is all about “talking business”.  Vendors you’ve never heard of try to start talks with German resellers.  Okay, that’s not really true.  The companies who were at Cebit didn’t try to convince anyone of ANYTHING.  In a twisted, reverse world, business people had to approach the representatives to get at least SOME information. 

I can honestly say that I didn’t saw one single innovative or new product at Cebit. Unless CAT7 cables counts – woo freakin’ hoo – of course, which I should have heard of.  But I’m not much of a Cable Guy. 

Speaking about a lack of innovation.  At least 70% stands on Cebit are Asian.  Now, I don’t have a problem with Asian IT products.  But the IT products we saw there, are lame copies of already crappy products, by companies not worth remembering their name.  I guess that, at some point, the Chinese started to produce crap products no-one cares about, and they started to copy each other.  Just a guess. 

All the big brand seem to stay away from Cebit, as well.  Of the 100’s of vendors, I only knew four or five.  Dell was there, Acer was there, Intel had a whole hall for themselves, and ASUS was there, as well.  All other major software or hardware companies?  Not there. 

Highlight of the day?

Highlight of the day?  That must’ve been when I saw Fatal1ty give away some prizes at the Inter Extreme Masters by Electronic Sport League.  What a name.  The ESL was pretty interesting, too.  I saw how the European Champions in Counterstrike 1.6 suffered a narrow defeat by an Ukranian team.  That was the highlight of an otherwise EXTREMELY boring day.  Would not visit again. 

While Cebit really isn’t my thing – it’s more a “business” convention than a real IT convention, imho – it’ll be an interesting day.  Because of budget restrictions (some of us are cheapo’s) we’ll be driving to Hannover.  Which means that I’ll have to get up at 4 am; to make a 5 hour drive to Hannover, Germany.  Luckily I’ll be carpooling with those very same bloggers / journalists that invited me and managed to arrange a free ticket; so I’ll be able to get some sleep!

I’ve already “prepared” for the field trip.  Clothes are ready (at 4 am, my sense for what’s “decent clothes” is around zero); my iPod is charged, my photo camera is ready to go (although I doubt that Ill be taking many pictures) ; I’ve got a notebook and a few dozen of pens; a magazine to read and a book (“Empire”, by Scott Orson Card).   That SHOULD help me get through the boring drive to Hannover and back.

Expect a “report” on Hannover on Friday, as It’ll be too late to post anything on Cebit when I get back tomorrow night!

Every monday, a boring task awaits me.  A task that I’d gladly “forget about” if I hadn’t created a re-occurring task in Thunderbird.  Monday is when I make the manual back-ups of our client’s Joomla databases.  This means I’ve got to go to the PHPMyadmin panel of the website of my clients – spread out over 3 hosting providers and 5 servers – to export the database and store it somewhere safely.  Because our customers all have their “own” hosting package; I’ve got to do this for every individual website – all 30 of them.  Luckily our own two servers – one for development; one for production – allow me to use a mass back-up tool.  But that’s besides the point.

This made me think.  Shouldn’t Joomla have a built-in option to back-up your database?  The technology to quickly make back-ups of mysql databases already exists – one fine example is phpmybackuppro –, so how hard can it be for the Joomla developers to create a derivate of this technology and add it to the Joomla Core?  Now, before you start cursing at me:  I’m aware that it could be hard. I don’t know, I’m not a programmer myself.  But I know for a fact that this functionality would make my life easier. 

You might wonder why I’m only mentioning database back-ups.  That’s because, imho, the database is the heart of the Joomla CMS.  Any and all of the files can be replaced, but your database can’t simply be replaced by an other one.  Unlike all the files, every bit of data stored in your database could be crucial to your site.  And that’s why I think a built-in back-up option for your database would be an excellent idea.

edit in big red letters:

Brian Teeman  pointed out that I didn’t do my research well, because there ARE plug-ins that do just what I suggest – make a fast, simple back-up of your database. 

He’s absolutely right.  A quick search learns me that there are indeed many plug-ins to back-up your database.  My bad.  I don’t know, but for some reason, I never even thought about looking for such a plug-in…  Thank Joomla for people smarted than me    

Instructions.

1. Start by downloading Exchange 2007, Service Pack 2.  Take your time, it’s a 900mb download.  In case you’re wondering:  You need the 64-bit version. 
2. Download the Installer tool that’s provided by Microsoft. 
3. “Run” Service Pack 2; which will extract the files you’ll need.  Don’t click setup afterwards! 
4. Instead, install the Installer tool.  Once it’s installed it’ll run automatically.  In case you get distracted like me, you’ll find it under “Small Business Server Tools”.
5. Select the folder where the Service Pack is extracted. 
6. The Installer Tool will take care of the installation.  Don’t forget to tell everyone that the Exchange server won’t be reachable during the upgrade!

Hope this helps! 

It turned out that “a windows update” did “some things” to “some components” that made “some parts” of Exchange 2007 misbehave.  Forgive me for being vague; I skimmed over the exact problem. After all, I was looking for the fix.

Anyway, the solution for this problem was simple:  Installing Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2.

But wait!  Which version of Exchange 2007, Service Pack 2 are you supposed to install?  Of course, you’ll get an error when you’re trying to install the wrong one.  But are you willing to download 900mb twice; because you downloaded the wrong one?

Don’t ponder on this like I did.  Microsoft only officially sells and supports a 64-bit version of  Exchange 2007.  The 32-bit version can only be used by their partners, in test environments.  So if you’ve got a retail copy of Exchange 2007, you’ll need the second download. 

Added to recommended Hosters:

• Priorweb, Linux hosting plan (Belgium):  Very suitable for Joomla hosting.  Everything works as it should.  If I’m not mistaken, their hosting plan can be “shared” by more than one site.  link Price: Unknown
• Hostpapa, Shared Linux Hosting (U.K based): A very solid hosting provider.  Offer includes cPanel with tons of options.  Very generous with storage, bandwidth, databases… Offers the option to use an installer for the most popular web packages, including Joomla.  link +/- £65 a year

Added to Hosters to avoid: 

• Hostyou, Shared Linux: Offers what seems to be an attractive deal, (options to choose between mysql 4 or 5, php4 or php5) but isn’t suitable for Joomla.  Reason:  Critical files need their file permissions set to 777 to be writable.  The same applies to any file / folder you want to make changes to.  Their tech support acknowledges the problem, and couldn’t offer an alternative solution.  An alternative Hosting provider, maybe?

The full list is here: 

• Recommended in BELGIUM:
• Linux hosting Intro (Hostbasket N.V, location: Antwerp, Belgium):  While a bit more expensive than other “Shared” solutions, the packages offered by Hostbasket are suited for Joomla perfectly.  I’ve yet to experience a problem.  The sites are fast, you can use all Joomla options (including SEF URL’s) and the support is excellent.  link +/- €120 a year
• Linux hosting Advanced (Hostbasket N.V, location: Antwerp, Belgium):  See above, with the difference that you get “more” like more bandwidth, a bigger database, etc. etc.  Both packages can be expanded with more bandwidth, storage, databases, etc. etc. link  +/-  €210 a year
• Priorweb, Linux hosting plan (Belgium):  Very suitable for Joomla hosting.  Everything works as it should.  If I’m not mistaken, their hosting plan can be “shared” by more than one site.  link Price: Unknown
• Recommended in the U.K
• Hostpapa, Shared Linux Hosting (U.K based): A very solid hosting provider.  Offer includes cPanel with tons of options.  Very generous with storage, bandwidth, databases… Offers the option to use an installer for the most popular web packages, including Joomla.  link +/- £65 a year

NOT recommended in BELGIUM / ACROSS EUROPE

• One.com:  Yes, they’re cheap.  But their shared linux solutions are a Joomla disaster.  Forget about SEF, and forget about custom PHP pages just as well.  Their dramatic performance is widely discussed on difference internet forums.
• Hostyou, Shared Linux: Offers what seems to be an attractive deal, (options to choose between mysql 4 or 5, php4 or php5) but isn’t suitable for Joomla.  Reason:  Critical files need their file permissions set to 777 to be writable.  The same applies to any file / folder you want to make changes to.  Their tech support acknowledges the problem, and couldn’t offer an alternative solution.  An alternative Hosting provider, maybe?

Got an entry to submit? You can find my contact date here, or comment on this article. 

Since that user used my tutorial, I thought it’d be only fair to search for the solution myself.  I did find the solution, after some searching.

You can read the updated post here