"Your own website ... you control it yourself"

A website is fast to set up. Maintenance is much more difficult! Companies and organizations should be able to change their own data. They should not subject to external parties or special software.

Joomla websites, now you have control!

Imagine: your want to communicate your own information via your website. Do you need to contact an advertising agency for any changes? Are you dependend on their availability? And what financial compensation do they charge you for their services?

Or (choose) to your own website which enables you to communicate your own information at any time you want? Simply with the same software (Web browser) that you use to view websites. Text and images are easy to publish, and if you wish, with a publication date ( "this" article should be visible at that "date").

Manage information at the source

Information management should be a task for those directly involved. A person responsible for some information should be able to change that information without intervention of an IT department or a graphic designer. The longer the chain people who process the information, the less manageble it is. With Joomla CMS you manage your own information.

Static HTML websites

In the past, websites built with HTML needs special software (eg Adobe GoLive, Dreamweaver or MS FrontPage). After the website was ready for publication, all HTML files had to be uploaded to a webserver using FTP software. Only then were the pages accessible to visitors. This had some major disadvantages:

• Webmasters were tied to a computer where the software was installed;
• only one concurrent webmaster could work on the site;
• the pages would only be available to users after they have been uploaded to the server;
• the editors should have a certain knowledge of the HTML markup language;
• there was no separation between content and design. Small changes in design let often to huge maintenance efforts;
• the pages of the website were static and not changeable. The webmaster determined the sequence of all information on the site. A visitor had no influence on that.

Dynamic CMS Websites

With the advent of Content Management Systems (CMS) Web site management was relatively made simple: website software (eg Joomla) will be installed on a web server and any content (articles) is stored separately in a database.

Some main advantages of a CMS:

• Web pages are created via a standard web browser (eg MS Internet Explorer or FireFox) and directly on the Web. Multimedia (images, sound and video) can easily be added and used in articles;
• You are not tied to a location. A regular PC + Internet connection + common browser is all it takes to manage your entire website;
• People can work simultaneously on the work site. A good CMS has some safe guards to prevent webmasters to not to edit simultaneously in the same article;
• No HTML knowledge is required. A so called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor resembles a bit to a word processor like MS Word;
• The separation between content and design makes maintenance easier. If in the future another design will be chosen then a new template will be developed and the new layout is forced on all articles in the entire website;
• The websites contents can be displayed in different ways. A visitor can often sort information in any desired order;
• A Web page is immediately available after saving the article. Or in the near future, if a publication date is set. This allows you to write new articles, and publish them "under control" on the website. They will automatically appear on the website at the set time;
• Articles can be assigned to certain groups with certain authorization levels. This enables you to diffuse information only to registered visitors. With this functionality you can set up an Intranet / Extranet environments.

A good CMS gives you the opportunity to manage everything yourself. That way you are less dependent on third parties! And if you choose an Open Source CMS like Joomla, then you are not dependent on one supplier...