CMS Solutions

Now available in shops in Portugal is the latest issue of the leading IT magazine ‘Exame Informática’. Navega Bem – Web Design, one of Portugal’s leading CMS website developers were commissioned to write a series of tutorials covering the open source framework Joomla 1.6 which is soon to become available in Beta.

The tutorials cover the fundamentals of Joomla and explains in detail how to install the software, configuration and template setup. If you want to get and up and running with Joomla – these articles will do it for you. It really is quite easy to setup your own web site.

So what exactly is Joomla? It is a ‘free’ open source framework and content publishing system designed for quickly creating highly interactive multi-language Web sites, online communities, media portals, blogs and eCommerce applications.

The name ‘Joomla!’ is derived from the Swahili word for ‘all together’. Once Joomla! is installed and running, it is simple for even non-technical users to add or edit content, update images, and to manage the critical data that makes your company or organization effective. Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla! site.  Best of all Joomla! is opens source and freely available to everyone.

Who uses Joomla!

Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications. Here are just some of the ways this award winning CMS solution is used:

Corporate websites or portals
Real Estate Agent Websites
Online commerce
Hotel and Tourism websites
Small business websites
Non-profit and organizational websites
Government applications
Corporate intranets and extranets
School and church websites
Personal or family homepages
Community-based portals
Magazines and newspapers
the possibilities are seemingly endless…

It can be used to easily manage every aspect of your website, from adding content and images to updating a product catalogue, processing credit card payments or taking online reservations.

New Features of Joomla! 1.6 include:

Nested Categories – No More Section/Category/Article forced hierarchy.
Granular ACL System – Set specific access permissions based on a user’s group to components, menu items, and much more.
Tableless Core Components – Not talked about as widely, but still just as wonderful is the move to make most/all core components use tableless layouts (when tables shouldn’t be used, that is).  This is great for design, SEO, and general scalability going forward.
Article linker plugin for editors
New frontend template
New backend template
New uploader for media manager

If you can read Portuguese and want all info about Joomla 1.6 before the Beta launch – get the May 2010 copy of Exame Informática – available in shops and kiosks now.

Follow this link visit our web design portfolio

They say “If it’s happening in Madeira – it’s on Acontece Madeira“.

Acontece Madeira is the events portal for Madeira island and Porto Santo that has information on everything that is going on. Cinema, events, exhibitions, music, theatre, conferences, nightlife, kids events, concerts and much more!

Acontece Madeira was born out of the simple fact that it wasn’t possible to find information in one place easily and quickly. In collaboration in with all the councils on the island and many other institutes, groups and clubs – Acontece Madeira supplies current information for the whole island of Madeira and Porto Santo.

Further development will ensure that the portal continues to grow and is as easy as possible to navigate. The addition of interactive image and video galleries is now underway. Multilingual content is also very likely within the coming months.

Developed by Navega Bem – Web Design, the information portal was officially launched last year in August at the ‘Café Teatro’ in Funchal. Having been highly successful due to the collaboration of many entities, it became apparent that the high volume of events required a more intuitive user interface for both input and display. Therefore the site has been ported away from Wordpress into the Joomla CMS framework.

If you are an organisation that regularly stages events and would like to collaborate with Acontece Madeira – please contact the site administrator. They can feature your events and even give you personal access to add your events whenever you wish.

For those times you need to know about Madeira island events – Visit Acontece Madeira!

Hotel websites can get their prices into Google Maps: Google Maps is often one of the first sites travelers visit to find and compare hotels. Today Google started experimenting with a new feature, for the time being only visible to a small portion of users, to help make that process even easier by showing specific prices for selected hotel listings.

This is great news for consumers. With this feature, when you search for hotels on Google Maps you’ll be able to enter the dates you plan to stay and see real prices on selected listings. You can click on the price to see a list of advertisers who have provided pricing information for that hotel, indicated by the “Sponsored” text, and click through to reserve a room on the advertiser’s site. By showing you this relevant hotel rate information directly in the Google Maps results panel Google  hopes to make this aspect of your trip planning more speedy and efficient – so you can get where you’re going and enjoy your travel destination!

A potential visitor to Madeira island for example could quickly compare prices to all hotels with ’sponsored’ listings. Although the trend is more and more to visit independent hotel websites and evaluate services, location and ratings – this is certainly a tool full of promise for certain sectors of the hospitality market.

Here’s an example of the Google Maps results for someone who is searching for hotels in New York City:

This new feature will not change the way that hotels are ranked in Google Maps. Google Maps ranks business listings based on their relevance to the search terms entered, along with geographic distance (where indicated) and other factors, regardless of whether there is an associated price.

Whilst Google is experimenting with this feature, they are currently working with a limited number of advertisers and it will only be visible to a small portion of users . As always, they will evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of this new feature based on both data and feedback, and hope to make it available to more users and offer prices from more partners over time.

To learn more about smart hotel websites – visit Navega Bem Web Design.
To learn more about Google Maps and Hotel Prices follow this link.

Group AFA based on Madeira island has published its new corporate website. The Group which began its activities on Madeira in 1980 has become one of the largest construction companies in Portugal, and a major player in Europe.

Today with a technical team of 840 specialists that operate in distinct areas of the construction industry, AFA is now preparing to expand even further and pioneer new and larger projects as it looks to new markets in its quest for globalization.

The new website has been carefully developed to act as a portal with complete information for the viewing public and with an intranet for the company employees.

CMS specialists ‘Navega Bem – Web Design‘ (also based in Madeira) were responsible for the design and programming of the multilingual site.
Chris Szabo, MD of Navega Bem explained “Grupo AFA is embracing the newest technological advances on the internet and this has helped us a great deal in developing the site which has been created with the Joomla CMS framework.
Having previously run a static website, the new AFA site allows the company to edit and manage their site without any external help or costs. This is a major advantage for any company that needs to remain highly competitive.”

Navega Bem are currently developing several other sites for the AFA Group and intend to publish 2 radio websites within the next month.

To learn more about Grupo AFA  – visit their new website at: www.afa.pt

Homes Trading Real Estate have now launched their new property website, where you will find a wide-ranging selection of the finest properties in Madeira Island, Portugal. If you want to buy, sell or rent a luxurious villa, a stylish apartment or a cozy cottage, either facing the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean or with a breathtaking panorama of the Madeira hills, take a look at the Homes Trading property portfolio.

Homes Trading can provide you with a varied real estate selection, from residential to commercial properties. They offer a fine selection of semi or detached houses, apartments and plots with many different features available for you to choose from, namely localization (urban or countryside, sea view and/or mountain view) and architecture (modern and/or traditional design).

The new Homes Trading – Real Estate website has been developed by CMS specialists Navega Bem – Web Design based on Madeira island, Portugal.

Chris Szabo, MD of Navega Bem explained “with our ‘CMS Real Estate‘ component, you can run a multilingual CMS Real Estate Agency website and manage it from anywhere in the world. All you need is an internet connection and a standard browser. Or an iPhone

Navega Bem provides a complete, ready to launch website that includes a unique design (we don’t use commercial templates), initial search engine optimization and pre-launch marketing. All a Real Estate Agent has to do is add or import its properties and off they go. It’s that easy! And there are no license fees, no monthly fees, no maintenance fees or set-up fees.

The complete Real Estate web site is managed through just one back office! Our Joomla 1.5 component (’CMS Real Estate‘) has been developed from the ground up with a complete new architecture and offers total management of the properties and the clients. A version for Joomla 1.6 and Drupal is under development. The sites provides the total management of properties and clients.

In just 1 hours online training with our remote software we train our clients to confidently manage their complete website. We are Joomla specialists and our focus as developers is always on user friendly and search engine friendly web sites that bring exceptional results.”

Visit the new Homes Trading website here: www.homes-trading.com

There is a solution for your Success in 2010…

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Go for an impressive professional web site package  A small investment that delivers big pay offs.

• We provide a Professional CMS web site that you can manage yourself. You need have no programming or HTML experience. Editing can be done with any normal web browser from anywhere in the world – or with your iPhone

• A web site that is optimized for the search engines (start getting visitors from day 1)

• There are no monthly fees – no license fees – no maintenance fees – you are not tied to us in any way. You simply login to your own website to control your own content. You have complete independence and total control! If you should require any support, we are there for you.

• We’ll set up FREE accounts for you so that you can actively participate in key social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. These networking sites will bring you a lot more traffic and help you attain better results in the search engine listings. Oh… and they are really easy to use!

• We’ll also show you how to run a successful Google AdWords campaign. No matter what your budget, you can display your ads on Google and their advertising network. You pay only if people click your ads.

Visit our the Navega Bem website and see for yourself that you really can achieve success in 2010

The Hotel Royal Orchid is a 4 star hotel, is situated on the sunny south coast of Madeira Island, on the touristic area of Caniço de Baixo. Strategically positioned on the seafront, the Hotel presents its guests with a magnificent panoramic view over the Atlantic Ocean.

The Royal Orchid is the ideal place for relaxing holidays away from the daily bustle of Funchal, the Madeiran capital.

The stylish new website for Hotel Royal Orchid has been developed by Hotel web design specialists ‘Navega Bem – Web Design‘ – based in Funchal, Madeira.

Chris Szabo, MD and Creative Director explained “Royal Orchid is one of Madeira islands most popular Caniço located hotels. It is very fashionable with the more sophisticated tourists in the middle-age group. The hotel offers a vast array of facilities and is very much in demand by diving enthusiasts. Also very popular is the amazing Nautilus Health Club.”

“We have developed the site to reflect the stylish hotel and the programming is based around Joomla 1.5 – the award winning CMS (content management system). This will allow the hotel to manage the site themselves very easily and without the need to ask for our help. Joomla allows very simple management and no technical expertise or programming knowledge is required.”

The Royal Orchid Hotel has a total of 98 rooms:
- 71 Studios
- 25 Júnior Suites
- 1 Sénior Suite
- 1 Penthouse

All the rooms are equipped with kitchenette, private bathroom (with bathtub/shower), hairdryer, direct dial telephone, rádio/cable and satellite television, air-conditioning and rental safe. The sea view rooms have a balcony.
Visit Hotel Royal Orchid here: www.hotelroyalorchid.com