At the beginning of April, Facebook implemented a change that broke authentication for many websites. We identified the change quickly and released JFBConnect v7.2.0 which fixed this problem and added some great new features we've been working like Open Graph tag improvements, more social widgets, K2, JomSocial & Kunena improvements and more. Read on for all the details.

We're very proud to announce that JFBConnect v7.1 is now available for the best Joomla social networking integration around. This release focused on improved registration flows, enhanced Twitter support and Joomla 3.6.x compatibility updates. Of course, there were numerous minor bug-fixes and features scattered throughout to improve social network integration for everyone.

Allowing social network registrations on your site can be a huge boon to signing up users quickly. There's a few things you should consider while implementing the registration flow. It's extremely easy to use the "Enable Automatic Registration" setting in JFBConnect so that you have a simple, 1-click social network login process. It couldn't be simpler to let users register, have their account created, email address, avatar and profile imported quickly. So you'll probably be surprised to hear it's not the best option for all sites. Read on for the details.

JFBConnect v7.0.3 is available now with some great improvements to the best social network integration extension for Joomla. This is the last expected update to the 7.0 release until the 7.1 version, planned for Q4. Read on for all the details of this release and what's coming for JFBConnect later this year.

I've given presentations at more than a dozen Joomla World Conferences, Joomla Days, and Joomla User Groups meeting. Those presentations have covered JFBConnect, our social network extension for Joomla, as well as topics like 'Introduction to Joomla Development' and the generic 'Top 10 Must-Have Extensions'. We even had a chapter in the "Joomla! Development - A Beginner's Guide" book on Running a Business Around Joomla Extensions. In all presentations, regardless of topic, the same questions almost always comes up.. and usually in that order:

Those are all excellent questions, and it's time to delve a little into our business model, what an extension developer does, what an end-user expects and our philosophy on coupons.

Between August 3rd and 4th, the Joomla project put out 2 new releases for the 3.6 series and 3 blog posts explaining the changes and how to update. The rapid fire changes may be confusing, especially when reading through the announcement posts that talk about CSRF, PHP versions, security issues with different levels and other details. If you're unsure what to do, read on for a general overview of the updates and a step-by-step guide on how to update.

Joomla's caching system can be a huge benefit to your site, but can also cause a lot of headaches. The advantages are obvious: an overall better user experience, faster load times, less powerful server requirements and more. We're not going in-depth on the benefits here though. Let's talk about some of the pain-points that you should know about when trying to get Joomla's caching setup.

Should you enable SSL on your website? Yes, you should. Look at that! I just saved you the time of reading the full post. Years ago, there would have been a checklist of reasons for or against enabling SSL. Now there's no need for that list. The answer is yes and you don't even need to skip to after the fold if you don't want to. Every website should be accessible with that little 's' in https, have a green padlock and bask in the glory of some additional security. Better yet, https should be the only way to access your site.

If you do read on though, you'll get a good explanation on what SSL is for, why you should enable it and why things have changed since that non-existent post I could have made long ago.