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Joomla is an absolutely fantastic content management system right out of the box.

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As you've seen, it has all kinds of functionality, and capability behind

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the scenes, and it's great for putting together a Web site like the one we

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have looked at here.

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But as soon as you say that, somebody immediately wants to say, well, what

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about e-commerce? What about a calendar? What about changing out the editor?

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What about backing things up? And so on, and so forth.

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There are just tons of things that people might want to add to their Joomla

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Web site that don't come with Joomla's core. Joomla,

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however, was built to have additional functionality added to it via its extensions.

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And we've already worked with extensions at some level.

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There are three main kinds of extensions.

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Those are components, modules, and plug-ins, and we've worked with all three of

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these at this point.

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Remember that components are the ones that occupy the main part of the Web page,

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modules are the supporting elements that go around the edges of the Web page, and

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plug-ins are little behind the scenes functionality that we can turn on or off.

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Here is the Joomla!

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Extensions Directory.

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This is at extensions.joomla.org,

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and this is the official repository for Joomla

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extensions, where you can go and do research, and find additional extensions to

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help supplement your Web site, and make it do whatever it is that you want it to do.

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As you can see here in the corner, as of today, there are 10,017 extensions

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available for you to work with.

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I was just commenting that

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two years ago when I recorded this course for Joomla! 1.6,

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we were only at 5,400, so Joomla

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is growing exponentially, and we're adding new extensions to the directory here all the time.

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So, I wanted to give you a few tips for how you can go about picking out a great extension.

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To do this, I'm going to start by looking at one of my favorite extensions of

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all time, which is called Akeeba Backup.

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We can find that just by searching up here in the top corner.

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I'm going to type in the name akeeba backup.

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If you need to find an extension, of course, you can browse through the

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Categories, here on the side or type keywords in the Search box to see what you

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can find for matches for certain kinds of Joomla extensions,

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but Akeeba Backup is very well known in the community, and extremely well respected.

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So these are my search results;

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Akeeba Backup comes right up.

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I'm going to go ahead and click on the title here, and this will go to the full

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listing here for Akeeba Backup.

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So this, I think, is one of the finest extensions that's available for Joomla.

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It's universally admired by the Joomla community.

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The developer, Nicholas, is admired as a developer, and well respected for his

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coding abilities, and for his contributions to the community.

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And without a doubt, more or less, every Joomla

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developer I've ever talked with who has had any level of seriousness about Joomla

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recommends using Akeeba Backup as an important addition to your Joomla Web site.

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So, if we consider this the gold standard, this is a great listing to look at as

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what a really great extension will look like here inside of the Joomla!

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Extensions Directory.

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So, first of all, you'll see that we have some social media buttons across the

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top. That indicates, of course, who has been talking about this extension on

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Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and on LinkedIn.

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And as you can see, there has been a fair amount of sharing about this extension.

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Also at the top here, you'll notice that we have some icons that appear

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across the top here.

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One is the Editor's Pick.

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At this point, I just checked, there's only three Editor's Picks.

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This number may vary from time to time.

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But this is something that the editors that put together the Joomla!

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Extensions Directory, when they feel like there's a really exceptional extension

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that you should be including on your Web site, they flag it as an Editor's Pick,

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and so Akeeba Backup is an example of that.

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Popular indicates it gets a certain number of page views each particular day.

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I believe that number is about 180 page views a day, so a lot of people are

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looking at this page; a lot of people are considering Akeeba Backup.

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These three icons here, C, M, and P, indicate whether it's a component, a

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module, or a plug-in.

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And in the case of this particular extension, it's mostly a component, but

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you will also find that there is a module that will remind you to back up

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your Web site, and there is a plug-in also behind the scenes that can automate

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the backup process.

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So that's why it says C, M, P.

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It will indicate what the most recent version of this extension is.

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This is one of the most important things you can look at when evaluating an extension.

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So this is version 3.6.8, and you see that it was last updated on October 20th, 2012.

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Today is November 1st,

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so it was last updated about 12 days ago.

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That always indicates to me that the developer of this particular extension is

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engaged, and involved; that they are actively developing this extension.

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In terms of getting a listing in the Joomla!

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Extensions Directory, there are some basic sort of requirements that you have to

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meet. For example, the extension actually installs in Joomla,

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but beyond those fundamental requirements, an extension can sit in the Joomla!

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Extensions Directory for a very long time.

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So it's possible that a college student, for example, might have had an

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assignment to build a Joomla

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extension, they post it in the Joomla!

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Extensions Directory, and then they forget about it.

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It can sit there for a few years with no updates at all.

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You wouldn't necessarily want to trust your Web site with an extension that's not

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actively being developed.

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So I like to look at the Version, and the last updated as an indication of how

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involved this particular developer is with the Joomla

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community, and how actively they are developing a given extension.

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The Rating, of course, is also very important.

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The Rating for this extension is 4.9 out of 5, out of 297 users.

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Just recently, the Joomla!

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Extensions Directory purged a bunch of old extension reviews, and old voting from

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many, many, many years ago, because so many of these extensions have evolved

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through the years, and I believe they are only looking at the last two years now

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of extensions and votes.

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So these 297 users have used Akeeba Backup at least over the last two years, and

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they are giving it 4.9 out of 5.

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That's a pretty good indication that this is a great extension, because the

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ranking is so high, and yet so many people have voted it.

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You'll also see that this has gotten a wide number of views; over 1 million page views.

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And so that's another indication that people think this is a great extension,

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and a lot of people are looking at it, and considering it.

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You'll also see the Date Added.

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So, this was added back in 2007.

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So the extension has some longevity behind it.

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It wasn't brand new, fresh release, with a developer who doesn't have a track record.

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This developer, Nicholas here, has a very long track record in the Joomla

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community, and as I said, he is very well respected.

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You can read the description about the extension down here, and then as you

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continue to scroll down, there's a few images.

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If you click on these, it will show you a few screenshots for the interface for

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this particular type of extension.

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You can flip through these, and consider if this is going to work for you based

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on a handful of screenshots.

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Then finally, down here at the bottom are the Reviews.

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You see that Nicholas actually has 771 reviews for this particular extension.

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That's because those have accumulated over the whole life of this

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extension being listed.

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But we're only considering 297 for calculating the voting total at this point in time.

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You can go through and read these.

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What I like to do is take a look at the reviews, and see what is happening most recently.

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So, these last two reviews were posted in the last month.

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It looks like these are very happy people.

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As you scroll on down the page here, I think with Nicholas, you are just going to

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find a bunch of five star reviews.

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But if you do wind up seeing a review that is not a good review; one star,

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two star type of review, what you want to look for is the developer has responded to that.

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A developer can always respond to a bad review.

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They can also respond to a positive review.

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And they can make a comment about what happened with this particular user, or why

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they might be giving a bad review, or certainly provide technical support as to

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why the extension might not be working.

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If you see a lot of bad reviews, and you don't see the developer commenting on

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those, that's probably an indication that that's an extension you don't want to use.

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All right.

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So now that I've showed you some of the high points to consider when looking at

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this extension here in the Extensions Directory, feel free, of course, to run out

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to Google, and Google for the extension, and see what other people are saying

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about it. Ask your friends.

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If you're a member of your local Joomla

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user group, be sure to ask at your user group, and find out if other people have

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used the extension, and what their experience was with it.

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For the most part, Joomla

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is a word of mouth community, and talking to your fellow developers is the best

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way to figure out what the good extensions are, and what is safe and sound to

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include inside of your Joomla

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site, as opposed to what would be something that you might include, but may not

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have as strong a track record as something like Akeeba Backup.