Acqal Experts Blog About TYPO3 and Other Hot Topics

US Political Campaign Websites - The Basics

By: Virgil Huston

We do a number of political campaign sites every election cycle and have been doing so for years, from Congressional down to local races in a variety of states. I've learned a thing or two about effective campaign sites over the years.There are a few characteristics that distinguish a campaign web site from most other sites:

They are always temporary, the longest time a campaign site is live is usually less than a year and that only if the site gets set up early and the candidate makes it past the primary. Even if the candidate is using his usual web site (assuming he has one), campaign...

Configure TYPO3 for Localized Websites

By: Michael Cannon

A bit older of a multi-lingual setup guide, but the principals are the same.

Prepare cPanel/WHM and Ruby for Redmine: A Walk-Through

By: Michael Cannon

Despite our abysmal first attempt with installing the Redmine project management software back in September, we've been loving Redmine for helping keep our projects on track. As we get closer to a mid-February launch of high-availability, failover TYPO3 hosting, we wanted to migrate our non-TYPO3 websites and special server configurations to new environments.

As Redmine is a Ruby-based project management system, this meant spinning up a new CentOS 5 server with cPanel/WHM and Ruby. This time around though, our week-long headache only lasted 4 hours. Out of it, comes the following...

Add META Abstract & Author to seo_basics

By: Michael Cannon

Seo_basics is an excellent starter for rapidly implementing basic search engine optimization capabilities in TYPO3. For most, seo_basics when used with realurl for search engine friendly URLs is enough. However, for content publishers that require passing along more information about articles or publication contexts being included directly in a page, a meta abstract and author tag is needed.

After you've included seo_basics in your TYPO3 template, add the following TypoScript to the Setup box to enable meta abstract and author tags.

plugin.tx_seobasics { # Building the Abstract tag 70 =...

Quick Tips for TYPO3 Security

By: Michael Cannon

How do you check your website's TYPO3 security?

Ultimate TYPO3 Resource List - More Great Stuff

By: Virgil Huston

Before T3CON09, I started a TYPO3 "Ultimate" Resource List with a blog post. I now have created a permanent web page for all the resources we discover. This is a work in progress and eventually it will become quite comprehensive.

One thing I am doing that most English sites don't do is include sites in other languages. There are an amazing amount of great resources in German, for example. If you have sites to suggest, please email me. The one thing I look at besides good TYPO3 information is how up-to-date the posts are. There are many blogs I've found that haven't had a new post...

TYPO3 Workbench and Clickity, clack, click

By: Michael Cannon

TYPO3 Workbench

Have you ever wondered if you can more easily access and search TYPO3 manuals from within Firefox? If so, you need to check out TYPO3 Workbench, a Firefox add-on.

You can use TYPO3 Workbench for quicker access to TYPO3 backends, bookmarked TYPO3 projects, TSREF and TSConfig document quick links, and searching of the TYPO3 Extension Repository and search forums on TYPO3.org.

Internet Poetry

Now for a little fun. Just after the T3CON09 Frankfurt keynote by Kasper, I was inspired to write.

clickity, clack, click there's coding afoot architecture to tackle web visitors...

First Whack... Getting Redmine Running on CentOS 5

By: Michael Cannon

We're attempting to try out the Redmine project management software. It's gotten a good following among TYPO3 agencies for those not using dotProject. However, I've spent a good two days trying to get our TYPO3 PHP and MySQL oriented development environment ready to run Redmine.

It's not running yet

Getting this Ruby web program has been filled with nothing but one error after another that has sent me back to Google more times than I can count. I've read the Ruby book a while back, but never seriously programmed a web script. Hence, the frustration I feel for not getting far.

At this...

37% Off Annual TYPO3 Hosting Plans at Acqal During September

By: Michael Cannon

There's a birthday at Acqal.

CEO Michael is getting older and moving ever closer to retirement. Help fund his sailboat account and get yourself 37% off annual TYPO3 hosting plans.

Use code MLCBDAY37.

Hurry, there's only 37 coupons available and the offer ends at midnight Eastern on September 30, 2009.

Look here for available plans. Let us know if you don't see what you need.

FLOW3 1.0 Alpha 3 Released with Getting Started Guide

By: Michael Cannon

We're one major step closer to TYPO3 5.0 now. Robert Lemke has just announced on the TYPO3-announce mailing list that FLOW3 1.0.0 Alpha 3 is released. As a bonus, there's a well documented getting started guide available as well.

Please read Robert's message below for more details.--Dear TYPO3 community,

The FLOW3 Core Team is proud to announce the third alpha release of FLOW3 and a brand new tutorial!

With a two weeks delay we are nonetheless delighted to release FLOW3 1.0.0 alpha 3 along with the first version of our Getting Started Tutorial.

FLOW3 1.0.0 alpha 3 can be downloaded via...