As you might have noticed, the forum is currently not available. It seems as if we're experiencing hardware problems, but we are working on resolving them as soon as possible. Please accept my apologies for the inconveniences this might cause and be patient...
UPDATE: It turned out that a hard disk had been crashed. Luckily the data was safe due to the RAID system used. The HDD has been replaced, so the server is back to normal operation.
I just wanted to note that the Presentation about "Upgrading Joomla! 1.0 with VirtueMart to Joomla! 1.5" has been updated recently, right after I discovered mtwMigrator. This is a Joomla! 1.5 component, which can directly retrieve all the entries from your "old" Joomla! 1.0 database (including all VirtueMart Tables!) - so it's the other way 'round compared to Sam Moffatt's Migrator (where you have to create a database dump and upload it during the J! 1.5 installation).mtwMigrator makes migration easier, because VirtueMart Tables don't have to be converted by hand now anymore.
Make sure to check out the updated presentation: Migrating from
Joomla! 1.0 to Joomla! 1.5.
You may have noticed the server outage of the main site earlier this week (on Thursday). The server administrator had to take the whole domain down, because there was a huge load coming from that site. Each time Apache was restarted, it was instantly fed up with requests that couldn't be satisfied quickly enough.
We now think we have found out what caused this high load: the ad agency software we are using to manage and track advertising on 3 sites had collected more than 4.8 million records of impressions for statistical purposes. Obviously the MySQL server got slower and slower, because all those entries or the queries are not optimized. In the end the MySQL server was overloaded and not able to respond anymore. Currently the ad agency software is not used, we have created a new website to manage advertising: JAdCenter.com. The Software running there (from Pakistan!) will soon be replaced by another fresh software, because no money can be transferred due to a bug (and all the important PHP files are encoded, *sigh*).
I just want to offer you an alternative for Google Adwords, do you think it's worth it?
Yesterday I returned from Zurich after I had been visiting the first-ever Swiss Joomla!Day in Lucerne on saturday.
I think the event was a great success for both - speakers and visitors. The organization was excellent and the location was also very nice (directly above the train station where the trains arrive).
I had the chance to meet Wilco Jansen (Development Team Coordinator of Joomla!), Beat (head of the Community Builder team), Yannick Goultier (Developer of sh404SEF), Ivo of the Joom!Fish team, Angie Radtke (accessible web sites - http://der-auftritt.de ) and Johan Janssens (of JoomlaTools , who quickly disappeared before lunch and didn't join the final discussion!).
I talked with all of them - especially with Beat, Yannick and Ivo - because it's important that their extensions work nicely together with VirtueMart. Beat told me about a CB plugin for VirtueMart integration and I think I should talk to Bob (maybe I can help?). Ivo is going to send me small changes to make Joom!Fish work with VM 1.1.
A big "Thank you!" goes out to Pete Coutts, head of the Joomla! association in Switzerland and his team for organizing this event! See you next year. I also hope that the German Community will come up with a Joomla!Day next year (there was none in 2007 + 2008).
Since VirtueMart 1.1 had been released, we were already working on the next version, which will be VirtueMart 1.2. This version will probably work with the same architecture than VirtueMart 1.1 and it will be compatible to Joomla! 1.0 and 1.5.
One of the bigger changes is a Plugin System, similar to the one in Joomla!. It will be possible to register plugins and use their functionality whenever certain events are triggered.
All payment and shipping modules have been rewritten and turned into VirtueMart Plugins. The API for the shipping modules has been changed, the structure of payment and shipping modules too. As soon as I find the time, I will create an end-user version of the developer manual for VirtueMart 1.2, so you can read what you need to change for your module to make it compatible for VirtueMart 1.2.
VirtueMart 1.2 will ship with an extension installer similar to the one used in Joomla! 1.5. It will be possible to install/uninstall extensions like payment or shipping plugins with one mouse click.
You can already test-drive a developer version of VirtueMart 1.2 (nightly build), which can be found on dev.virtuemart.net.