Joomla has many extensions and out of theme some are extremely necessary for building a successful site. Some extension I cannot forget and wish those are part of the core Joomla! distribution. In this article I introduce two extensions. Please let me know if you also think that these should be part of Joomla! distribution.
Akeeba Backup
One of the most useful extensions I have ever seen for Joomla!. Whenever I build a Joomla! site my first task is to install Akeeba Backup just after installing Joomla!. As the name conveys, it is used for making backup of you site. Once installed, you can make backup of whole Joomla! site and download the backup archive in .zip or .jpa format. Later you can install the site from that archive.
The purpose of using Akeeba Backup is not only making backup. It is a very good tool to transfer your site to a new server. For example, you are doing your development work on local host. After finishing the development and testing you want to transfer the site to your web hosting provider’s server. Of course you can transfer the files to web server using FTP and recreate the database on that server. But there are lot of hassles doing so. If you have tried in this way you know what I mean.
Akeeba Backup makes the site transfer a snap. Take the backup archive (.jpa) and upload that single archive to web server. Then create the database on that server – either using cpanel or phpMyAdmin. Remember, you just need to create the database and remember username and password to connect the data – no need of creating the tables in the database or importing .sql dumps. Then you need to download Kickstart files from Akeeba.com and upload those to webserver. Point your browser to www.yoursite.com/kickstart.php and it starts a wizard. Asks you few questions to know site name, database host name, database name, username and password. You give these information and it sets up your site there. At the end you find the site same as the site you made on your local host.
Akeeba Backup has a free version as well as a Professional version. Professional version has many advenced features including backing up on remote server or on the cloud. Get the Akeeba Backup now.
Admin Tools
Admin Tools is another extension that needs to be part of Joomla!. Just after installing Akeeba Backup I also install Admin Tools. This is a swiss army knife type thing. As an administrator of Joomla based site, you need to harden its security, password protect access to administrator directory, clean temp directory, clean caches and do such things. Admin Tools can also be used to update Joomla! core and other extensions.
There are some other extensions I also like to be part of Joomla! distribution. Will be discussing those soon.