Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I do know that Joomla is a database driven CMS system.  Never heard of VirtueMart, but will check into it.

Yes I am a Joomla developer. and VA Tony, yes it`s a CMS system. Many on the forum get bloggers and CMS systems mixed up. Virtuemart is and awesome feature... but Jcafe is much easier to use... By the way, Why do you ask


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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

VirtueMart is a little awkward, although feature rich. It takes a little CSS work to make it look nice "out of the box." 
I really like Joomla, but it does have a learning curve. Go to Joomla.org and check it out in detail.

I like Joomla! But I agree that "V-Mart" is a bit buggy. Joomla it self is robust but V-Mart with it can be hair pulling. The learning curve on both is steep and you have to know a bit of CSS and HTML to get it to look customize otherwise it will look like a Joomla site. You can check out
my site that I built using both wahomejewelry.com .( still working on it) Well submit sometime in the near future for extensive review on this site.
This took me about 1 1/2 moths to built. Started  knowing nothing about CSS and HTML and a lot of days pulling my hair out.  Almost thew my lap top out the window.

 I looked at Drupal vs. Joomla and what won me over is the forum and "support". Drupal just lacked an active forum and their e-commerce  is fairly new. If you are starting out like I did knowing nothing about site building and doing everything on your own be ready for a lot of What the @#@*&*&uck and a lot of ooooooh I get it.

Good Luck. 

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Window and Home Jewelry LLC.
Artist designed window ornaments.
www.wahomejewelry.com

Cadesteve,
Joomla is the successor of Mambo (which is another CMS system) Joomla is fairly new but there seems to be a growing trend in developers and contributors creating modules and plugins for Joomla.
In my opinion Joomla is not going anywhere, it is here to stay and it just gets richer and richer and more easy to use.
My advise is that if you`re going to build your web site using joomla, that you use someone that has Joomla experience. Joomla can be very easy to modify and the template theme creation has to be done correct using the Joomla CMS stylesheet defaults. (you don`t need to use that).

As for virtuemart, I would suggest Jcafe! or Magento these are all Open Source software you just need someone to create the templates for you.

Magento, is an Open Source e-commerce that is becoming very popular and has lots of neat features. The only down fall is that you need php5 and mysql5 to get it working. other than that its very easy to set up and publish.

Now back to the Joomla, I am currently over modfifying a theme for a friend, just so you can see the power of Joomla. It is very simple but easy to use...



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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

There are also lots of really nice Joomla templates for sale out there, too.  Check out Rocket Theme (no affiliation).  They can get you looking decent in just a few clicks and have a quality product.  (You can also send me Joomla questions - that is the bulk of what I do these days - Joomla admin and online marketing.)
One important thing when working with such services:  keep the Joomla code updated and secure, and keep the components/extensions updated, too!
@nuevoution - I am surprised you are so quiet...busy?  I haven`t worked with Jcafe yet...at least I don`t think so...I am going to check it out.

YES,
That`s how it is, if you don`t know anything about CSS or HTML it can be a costly experience, if you hire someone that understands the code they can probably do it in an 8 hour work period. I`ve designed sites in Joomla, where it took me a little under 4 hours to slice the PNG`s, Create the themeDetail.xml, and everything that goes into a joomla template. the style.css can be tedious to create,  I don`t know if you guys are aware there`s a Joomla Extension for Dreamweaver.  that can kill 80% of the development time.
Again you just have to know how to use it.. so yes there`s a learning curve but they also have Joomla Books that can help you cope with the learning. Barnes & Nobles has about 20 different Joomla developer books that you guys might want to check out "I DID" and it`s made my joomla experience and learning curve fun.



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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net