EETemplates

Wow. It seems like it has been forever since I have wanted to be able to say this. Yesterday we quietly replaced the files for download for the Tudobem and Blog-ee templates with files that contain both the 1.6.9 and 2.1 versions of the templates. The demos are also now running on 2.1 vs 1.6.9.

Photostudio will be next on the conversion list. But I think it will be the only other template we had for 1.6 that will make the transition to 2.1. We have a replacement in store for HandsRaised called Ecclesia. From this point forward though we will only be developing templates for 2.x.

For a sneak peek click on the read more link

Like one of those announcers for the monster truck rallys. We would like to announce that if all goes as planned we will be releasing Blog-ee and Tudobem for EE2 on Monday. Blog-ee will continue to be free. Tudobem will see a slight increase in price to $50. Both are great templates that get you started on the right foot with ExpressionEngine. Along with it we will have video tutorials for installation, changing of colors and more. So stay tuned!

I have been getting hit hard by some comment spam on a client site for the past week. I was really confused as I even turned off comments and it was still posting them. It was not till I searched for the title of the entry on the edit page that I got a clue as to what had happened. The client had posted an event to their calendar with the same title as the title of a blog post. The intelligent spammer somehow figured out that he could post comments to the site by subsituting the entry titles for other channels into the url structure for the blog/comments. So in other words instead of sitename.com/blog/comments/blogentrytitlehere he typed in sitename.com/blog/comments/eventcalendarentrytitlehere and it allowed him to post comments to that channel.

So… when creating the channels for your sites make sure to shut off comments for all channels that don’t require them. It can be found in admin -> Channel (weblog) administration -> Channel (weblog) Management -> Edit Channel (weblog) Preferences. Find Comment Posting Preferences on the left hand navigation. The radio button at the top turns them off.

I am typing this on my iPad from while on the airplane back to Mobile from EECI. It was such a quick trip but pack full of goodness. There were lots of things that I learned on this trip. For instance, the next release of ExpressionEngine is going to be a non-beta-too-legit-to-quit version. That’s right. The next version is 2.1. Between that and the addition of many of the add-ons that the pro network community depends on I think it is high time we started releasing some more EE templates and building our custom sites on ExpressionEngine 2.1. This is something I have been waiting on for quite some time.

One of the other items learned was the addition of MojoMotor to the EllisLab family. It looks really slick. If you want you can check out the video at their site. Some of the highlights are that it will be $49.95. Will be extensible. Will be easy to edit for clients. Will allow for custom themes. This is in no way going to replace ExpressionEngine for us though. EE has a feature that many of the other CMSs do not which is custom fields and from what we learned MM will not have that same functionality. I could see using it for small sites that need a simple brochure-like site. But it is a far cry from what we have gotten used to with EE. And for those that say this is the reason why EllisLab dropped core… I seriously doubt it. There was a ton of functionality in 1.6s core version. There is no way you can compare the two.

This morning I was having a discussion with a fellow EE developer about website speed optimization. I was mentioning various methods for speeding up a website. One tool that I find useful is the Google Chrome Resources Graphing tool. With it you can tell where latency and download speeds are slower than could be. I find that the problem with most sites is not ExpressionEngine but more than likely excessive calls for JavaScript and CSS files and even more so for images.

Just a quick note (up to my eyeballs right now) to say that EECI2010 is in 2 weeks and I could not be more excited about it. So many EE devs descending on one place? It’s gonna be HUGE! So if you are on the fence… get off it now and go buy your tickets.

I am hoping to finish all of my current custom work by EECI. I have a new Church Template that I want to release in June for EE 2.0 now that Freeform 3.0 has been released. Stay Tuned!

Just a quick blog post as a public service announcement. Recently I have begun culling all of the bogus users from our member list as I hate being used for link bait. For those of you that have never experienced this it is quit a frustrating experience. It is the act of a human (no bots here) that registers on your website. They wait a few weeks and then they come back and put a bunch of links in their bio. Now I am all for allowing people to promote their legitimate businesses but when I see 5 links in a bio and they are all for something different. Or if there is even 1 that I know is ACAI or WEIGHTLOSS link then they are probably going in the trash as well.

Fortunately I have recently been informed of a Member Utilities which is a module that ties into the ExpressionEngine membership capabilities and notifies you of any changes your members make. So if bobfrodo1967 (names changed to protect the innocent) makes a change to his account it emails the specified people with all of the pertinent information like user number, user name, email address, IP Address (so you can tell if they are coming from a single person and ban repeat offenders) and their bio so you can see what they have added.

Member Utilities has allowed us to remove about 100 users from our site in the last week. Fabulous stuff. Especially for sites with large memberships. For $15 it is a steal. So thank you Greg from Purple Dogfish for an awesome addition to ExpressionEngine!

*Free Tip: disabling your membership list from being viewed will probably dissuade a few of the smarter spammers. To do this go to admin-> members and groups -> member groups. Select the edit group for the group in question (I would do everyone except Super Admins).

On the left hand navigation select Member Account Privileges. From here you will have to make some decisions based on the type of site that you run. But for my purposes I have no need for members to see or contact each other so I set most of these to no. But at least set Can view public profiles and Include Members in Site’s Member List to no. This concludes our public service announcement.

Oh. and I hate to do this but comments are being moderated as well…

Well it appears I have won another contest. This has got to be the luckiest season in my life for winning contests or give-a-ways (as my Bud Adam would say… If I fell into a barrel of thumbs…) So Brandon Kelly is the Owner of Pixel and Tonic. He makes the most famous FF Matrix and WYGWAM as well as other notable add-ons for ExpressionEngine. He used to do business under his name but recently relaunched as Pixel & Tonic. He was giving away a number of prizes and it appears I have won the Grand Prize! w00t!

The Grand Prize includes:

• EECI2010 SF Full Conference Ticket ($525 value)
• ExpressionEngine 2 Commercial license ($299.95 value)
• 12-month EngineHosting S-2 package ($240 value)
• Playa license ($75 value)
• Wygwam license ($35 value)
• FF Matrix license ($35 value)

So this means I will be at EECI 2010. Make sure to drop me a note if you are coming to EECI. I would love to meet you.

If you are not familiar with EECI it is one of the largest conferences of the year specifically for ExpressionEngine and CodeIgnitor (hence EECI… get it?).

Many thanks to Brandon for having the give-a-way. I love his products and am glad for the licenses as well.