This Article presumes basic knowledge of Joomla. A working installation of Joomla is required.

Let’s say you need – or just want – to create a Site just like EzineArticles or similar. If you are keen on using a more generic CMS, and not an article-site targeted script, you might think about using Joomla. This is always a good choice.

If you tried to use Joomla as it is, with the default Article Management you will soon feel its limitations, There are some flaws that will hinder you to manage your site like a professional Article publishing Webservice.

1. You have to make the users Editors. Regular users (Registered) do not have the right to create Articles. You have to make them manually Editors. This might work for some website concepts, but for most an automation would be bettter.

2. Users Cannot view their submitted content. There is no list of submitted articles.

3. Administrators do not get any notification per email when a new Article was submitted.

4. Users do not get an email notification when their Articles got approved and published

5. Users do not get a message or notification when their Article is NOT approved.

6. Article Submitting interface is confusing and rather complicated for novice users and users not used to Joomla interface. There are some features that are not needed in a regular article based website. For instance the whole concept is merely a pain for a regular user, since no webmaster in the right mind would allow any user to upload media on their server. Also the whole image embedding concept that Joomla uses is not very intuitive for the first time user.

7. The most annoying part of the whole Article Management process is the approving system of Joomla. By default there is no way to filter the unpublished content or even to have the latest submitted articles first. Imagine you have hundreds of articles already submitted by users and around 10 submitted a day. To find these and to check the contents you have to search after the title or somehow narrow the list.

8. There is no way to have a reject-edit-republish workflow. That means if your user publishes an article that you then reject, there is no mechanism to ensure that the user gets a feedback on his mistakes so he can re-edit the article and resubmit it. This is a major flaw in the article concept of any respectable article publishing website.

Looking for overcoming these shortcomings of Joomla we tried to find a set of components that allow you to complete these tasks and use the standard Joomla article Management. We did not try out core hacks or similar since these are hard to maintain to the latest version of Joomla and also could interfere with other components that are vital for a good Joomla Website (Community Builder, etc)

We looked into several resources in the hope to find an integrated solution for our problems. We could only find scattered components that solve some of the problems, but not in the way we hoped:

JA Submit and Ninja Simple submit – ninjoomla.com

- simplifies the submission process

- allows non-registered submission (not our goal thou) but overcomes the problem with manually making the users Registered.

- Remove some of the confusing errors Joomla throws at the unknowingly user

myContent

- Allows users to edit their past submissions

- Allows users to unpublish their content

- Allows users to submit in any section

Article Factory Manager – http://www.thefactory.ro

- The installation of this component went without a problem, just like a normal Component. Then we made a Menu (displayed just for registered users) with some links to the main functionalities of this component. We defined “My Articles”, “Submit new article”, and ” my Resource Box”

- An interesting feature the component introduces to our workflow is the “resource box”. This is a small signature box allowing only limited HTML code in it (just Anchor and Breaks – a and br ). This is an information box regarding the user that will be appended to their submitted articles. This way users save their info and backlinks once and can focus on the Article submission process.

- Another neat feature we discovered and that proves to be a very useful for us webmasters that do not want our webpages to turn into a link farm – is the limitation of the number of anchors in an article and separately in the Resource Box. This way we ensure that users will not submit articles with a lot of links in them without having to reject them. They simply cannot submit them.

- We were happily surprised also by the HTML tags limitation possibility, a feature that strips all tags besides the allowed ones. As we discussed with the authors, all “script” tags are automatically striped regardless of your settings. This is a must-have security feature.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

If your business is not using eBay and other Internet

auctions, you could be missing out. Here are just a

few ways of generating additional income, profits and

cashflow from online auctions.

1. Convert Excess Assets to Cash

Sell personal or business items that you no longer

use. For example, are there slow moving inventory

items in your store? A major camera store chain sells

their slow movers, quite successfully, through eBay.

2. Buy and Sell Anything

Sometimes people put things out in the garbage because

they don`t need them anymore and don`t know anyone who

could use them. You can successfully sell some of

these items by Internet auction.

As well, if you pick up bargains from garage sales,

flea markets, importers, wholesalers, closeout dealers

or other sources, these items can also be sold through

online auctions.

3. Drop Shipping

There are suppliers who will ship one item at a time

for you. You don`t have to stock any inventory. You

simply pay your dropship supplier out of the money

you receive from your auction sale. They will ship

the product directly to your customer.

For further information about drop shipping, visit:

http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/dropship.html

4. Self-Publishing

Do you have expertise in a specialized area of

interest to people? Then, you could publish your

own information product.

A very popular format for self-publishing information

products is the electronic book (or e-book). E-book

compilers, some of which are free, are readily

available on the Internet. When people buy your

e-book, they can download it from your website or

receive it by e-mail.

You could sell such self-published information

products on eBay and other Internet auction sites.

Incidentally, online auctions are an inexpensive

method of testing the market for your information (or

other) products.

For further information about self-publishing, visit:

http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/selfpub.html

5. Reprint and Resale Rights

You may not want to produce your own information

products presently. Or, perhaps, you may already

have an information product, but would like to

supplement your income with additional, related

product offerings. This is where reprint and resale

rights come in.

You can buy the rights to reprint or resell excellent

information products created by other people. Some of

these rights are inexpensive.

In addition to selling these products from your own

website, you can use Internet auctions to create

extra sales. Another advantage of online auctions

is that they can create additional traffic for your

website.

For further information about reprint and resale rights,

visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/instantpub.html

6. Sell Your Services

Do you design logos or websites? Do you sell consulting

or other services? These, also, can be successfully sold

through eBay and other auction sites.

7. Run an eBay Consignment Shop

There are still people who don`t have a computer or who

don`t use eBay. You could sell on a consignment basis

for them, taking a commission on the successful sale.

You would need to charge for advertising expenses

incurred, such as eBay listing and selling fees.

8. Promote Affiliate Programs through Auctions

Some affiliate programs have brandable e-books that

contain your affiliate link. When people order from

the e-book that they bought from your online auction,

you get credit for the sale. As well, some of those

purchasers may sign up as affiliates, earning you

additional commissions.

Some of these e-books have valuable information that

is worth the nominal value you would sell it for on

eBay. In other cases, such an e-book is readily

available for free. In this latter case, you might

consider selling another related product and offer

the e-book as a free bonus.

For further information about affiliate programs,

visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/affiliate.html

9. Supply Fellow Online Auctioneers

During the gold rush days, it is said that those

who sold picks and shovels were more likely to make

money than those panning for gold. Similarly,

since there is such a big market for online auctions,

you can make money supplying eBayers with information

and auction tools to help them start and grow their

own online auction business.

10. Internet Auction Consulting

As you gain experience and expertise in online

auctions, you might consider charging for your

knowledge.

Consulting services, seminars, information products

and other ways of packaging your knowledge can

earn you additional income streams.

For more information about consulting, visit:

http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/consulting.html

These are just a few of the ways you can profit

from Internet auctions.

For more information about Internet auctions, visit:

http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/auctions.html

Article Source: EzineArticles.com