Articles - Page 67

ai12z Takes AI Visibility from Scoreboard to Playbook, Turning AI Search Insights into Action

matt-garrepy

Kentico CMS is one of those content management systems that has continued to impress me with each new release. With version 5.5 R2, some of the additions made to the CMS include new document and project management, Microsoft Azure support, WebDAV, Workgroups and Sharepoint 2010 support.  Does it continue to impress? Read on to find out in today's Kentico Review.
In this review, I will be looking at the new features that have been added. If you are looking for a review of the back end functions and page editing, you can read my <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/kentico-review-net-at-its-finest/">previous review</a>.
First on the list of new features is…
<h3>Project Management</h3>
To access the new Project Management features of Kentico 5.5 R2, you need to log into your CMS desk. Once inside, navigate to the tools tab and you will see the new section:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cms-desk-tools-project-management.jpg" alt="Kentico Review" />Click on the header to enter the new Project Management section.
Once inside, you will see a list of any existing projects as well as a number of tabs labelled: Projects, Tasks, Configuration.
On the main tab, Projects, the screen looks like this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/piwik_newfeat_histreport-620x428_bz7kmt.png" alt="Kentico Review" />
As you can see, I already have a Test Project which I've added here. It shows the name of the project, the deadline, any progress that has been made and of course, action icons to edit or delete the project.
If you want to add a new project, you simply click on the link and will be taken to a page where you can enter the new project's details.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cms-desk-tools-project-management-new-project_2011-03-14_09-43-19.jpg" alt="Kentico Review" />
As you can see in the screenshot above, you have a number of options to configure for the project. The name, code name, goals of the project as well as the start date and deadline. If you wish to assign an owner different then yourself, you can do so using the selection dialog and you will be given the option to choose another user from within the CMS.
There are a number of status options such as On track, At risk, Finished, etc. that can be changed as the project progresses. There is even an option to select a specific page from within the CMS to use as a project page. As an example, let's say you work for a large corporate entity who has a number of projects going on at any given time.
You have the ability to custom design a page that is not published to the the public facing side of the website and use it as a basis for your project. You could incorporate any of Kentico's many features into this page and assign page specific security if you like. This gives your project managers a great deal of flexibility.
To modify your project, click the Pencil icon beside the project name and you will see a screen similar to this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/piwik-2-620x393_uycukc.jpg" alt="Kentico Review" />
Within the Tasks tab, you will see a list of each task within the project, including their assignee, progress and status. To get a description of the status, simply hover your mouse over the status icon.
On the General tab you can edit your project details and the Security tab gives you access to Kentico's powerful security options for the project.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/piwik-4-620x445_t0vjwq.jpg" alt="Kentico Review" />
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Project Management component in a nutshell.
<h3>Document Management</h3>
Managing documents on your site can be done using a web part or component that you add to the site.
Once added, you gain full document management capabilities such as:
<ul>
<li>Direct editing using Microsoft Office or other applications via WebDAV</li>
<li>File management – Copy/Delete/Open/Edit/Upload</li>
<li>Permissions management per file and per document library</li>
<li>Check-in/check-out</li>
<li>Workflow</li>
<li>Document archiving</li>
<li>Version history</li>
</ul>
Within the module, you are able to manage the library, add new documents and manage existing ones directly on the page.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/piwik-7-620x114_hlmada.jpg" alt="Kentico Review" />
Clicking on the dropdown to the left of each of the individual documents brings up a context menu with a number of options:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/firefox-13-thumbnail-page-620x468_xjwijl.png" alt="Kentico Review" />
From within this menu, you can view everything from Version History to the properties of the document itself. You can even archive or modify the permissions directly from here.  The Document library allows you to upload translated versions of the document in other languages. This is great for a multilingual website.
Security Permissions are set with simply check boxes as shown below:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/document-properties-small_bmp_aspx_.png" alt="Kentico Review" />
This is a very welcome addition to the CMS and adds a new level of capabilities to an already capable system.
<h3>Webdav Support</h3>
For those who are unfamiliar with Webdav, it is a protocol that has been incorporated into this version of Kentico and allows you to edit documents within Microsoft Office and save directly back to the document repository on the CMS.  The Kentico website describes it as follows:
<blockquote>Kentico CMS comes with built-in WebDAV support which allows you to open, edit and save documents from Kentico CMS using Microsoft Office and some other applications. It means you do not have to save the document on the disk, make changes locally and then upload them. So it greatly simplifies the way you work with documents published on your website or intranet.</blockquote>
This is one of those handy additions that further enhances the user friendliness of the CMS and works exactly as one might expect. More details can be found here: <a href="http://www.kentico.com/cms-asp-net-features/Modules/WebDAV-Support.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.kentico.com/cms-asp-net-features/Modules/WebDAV-Support.aspx</a>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
The addition of these new features put Kentico a level above it's competitors. The development team continues to impress and add user friendly functionality that puts creativity into the hands of the end user with style and simplicity.
Learn more at <a href="http://www.kentico.com/home.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.kentico.com</a> or try their <a href="http://www.kentico.com/Demo.aspx">Demo</a>.

Kentico Review: A look at the new features in 5.5 R2

mike-johnston

Open Source CMS are extremely popular choices for many users. With huge communities and plenty of support from developers around the world, they are a great choice for those looking to learn content management systems or to contribute as developers. This year, we had three very popular CMS competing for the Best Open Source CMS award; MODx, Concrete5 and Django CMS.
Of course, only one can win and it's with great pleasure that I announce that the winner (by a significant margin of several hundred votes over the competition) is…
<a href="http://www.django-cms.org/en/" target="_blank">Django CMS</a>!
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/best-open-source-cms300x0-is.png" />Congratulations to the developers and community that supported Django CMS on their win. For those of you who have never had a chance to try Django, there's never a better time than the present. Head on over to their website and give them a whirl, you might just find yourself a new favorite!
Their website: <a href="http://www.django-cms.org/en/" target="_blank">Django CMS</a>

Announcing the 2015 Winner for Best Open Source CMS

KnowledgeTree has recently been making headlines here on CMS Critic with their recent shift to a SaaS based document management platform and we decided to take some time to find out the reasons for their move. In this interview with CEO, Daniel Chalef, we discuss the reasons behind the move to SaaS and his vision for the future of document management, among other topics of interest.
Enjoy…
CC: Can you give our readers a bit of a basic rundown as to how you came to be with KnowledgeTree and a bit about your background
 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/knowledgetree-daniel-chalef-100x100_vvqzgp.png" />
DC: Mike, the genesis of KnowledgeTree was a product developed for a South African customer by a South African systems integrator. At the time I was CTO of the SI and we decided to open source the results of the project.
We put the project up on to SourceForge.net and started seeing many thousands of downloads per month and we figured there was a business model to be had.
We subsequently started up a company in the US, of which I became the CEO, and redeveloped the software which is the incarnation of KnowledgeTree's document management solution that is available online today.
CC: Interesting. Compared to competing DMS products, what do you think made KnowledgeTree peak the interest of potential customers/users?
DC: To business users:
<ul>
<li>simplicity</li>
<li>fast time to value (i.e. what equipment, people, configuration and customization, and training is required to start seeing value from the product)</li>
<li>affordability versus very expensive enterprise content management suites.</li>
</ul>
For technologists running KnowledgeTree on-premise:
<ul>
<li>The accessibility of KnowledgeTree's code. Being written in PHP it is easy to modify and extend</li>
<li>The fact that KnowledgeTree is delivered as a service, a cloud offering, really assists both business users and technologists with seeing value very quickly</li>
</ul>
KnowledgeTree is designed to allow users to quickly start managing documents online, and to go beyond other basic content management services available today in in allowing users to manage their document lifecycle with tools such as workflow and contracts management features.
KnowledgeTree also has pretty neat integration with Microsoft Office applications, the desktop and even HTML5 drag and drop.
CC: Can you explain a bit further how your customers see benefit from moving to your platform now that it's SaaS based? What is the primary difference to the end user between a SaaS cloud offering and a locally managed install, in your opinion?
DC: Document management as a Service provides the following benefits:
<ul>
<li>Customers don't need to make capital expenditure on equipment and software;</li>
<li>The software can be implemented immediately, without requiring IT's assistance, reducing IT's workload and streamlining the purchasing process</li>
<li>their content is stored securely, with many vendors servicing customers out of datacenters that have undergone stringent physical and logical security certifications (such as SAS70 Type II certification) often this level of security is higher than their own infrastructure</li>
<li>coupled with security, DM as a service provides for very high availability and data integrity – again, the massive redundancy available on cloud infrastructure often far exceeds what a customer can economically implement themselves</li>
<li>In a mobile, or geographically dispersed workforce, a customer can ensure that all knowledge workers can access content from wherever they may be, without having to lay on additional network connectivity into their own datacenters.</li>
</ul>
Additionally, with software as a service, all upgrades and improvements are managed by the vendor, and this further reduces the burden on internal IT teams, and ensures that the customer is always running the latest, most capable and most secure product.
CC: Those are certainly compelling reasons. You mentioned the mobile workforce.. how well does KT integrate with the increasing number of mobile platforms on the market?
DC: Our web interface can be used from Webkit based phones (Android, iOS) and we have Android and iOS apps in the works.
CC: What is your vision for the next 5 years as to how people will be interacting with and manipulating their data? Do you see a change with regards to how it is being accessed? Do you anticipate more mobile applications coming into play? How is KnowledgeTree preparing itself for these shifts in the way content is managed?
DC: We will have greatly increased need to manage content. Currently, very few organizations are managing all sources of content – IM, social streams (whether generated internally, or on external social platforms), the majority of email etc are not currently managed, with adverse effects on an organization's ability to manage risk.
This problem is only going to increase and often times, the burden of doing so is too large (expensive) to manage centrally. As a result, line of business managers are often bearing the costs, both in terms of risk and in terms of operating efficiency. The costs of managing this explosion of content have until now been very significant, primarily due to two factors: available software, and the model the software was taken to market.
The available software has been expensive, difficult to implement and difficult for the line of business to maintain. It's required expensive consultants to configure, and often manage and the software was only available on-premise – with all the associated capital investment required in physical infrastructure.
Alongside the explosion of content, we've also seen the rise of cloud computing. Storage costs and computing costs have plummeted and software running on that cloud infrastructure has taken cues from consumer software:
<ul>
<li>It's become accessible for business users, with easy to use interfaces, the removal of “tech” or “ECM industry” geek-speak.</li>
<li>It's also mobile and accessible</li>
</ul>
So going forward, business users will grow ever more empowered to manage their own content, drive efficiency within their line of business, and manage risk.
Some very practical examples:
A CFO in a 200 person company no longer requires the implementation of an expensive on-premise ECM and document capture solution to manage the workflow around invoicing, purchase orders, and accounts payable.
Document management as a service offerings, such as KnowledgeTree, allows the CFO herself to build workflows, integrate on-premise scanners etc that support the above uses, all from a very accessible (as in easy to use, free of jargon) web UI.
You've got me started, but I can go on if you'd like ? It's a topic I quite enjoy.
 
CC: You recently wrote an article on the KnowledgeTree blog entitled “<a href="http://www.knowledgetree.com/blog/idc-saas-momentum-skyrocketing">Is traditional software dead?</a>” in which you pointed to some numbers by IDC that showed a steady decline in the licensed software model that most corporations have been tied to for years.
What methods are being employed by KnowledgeTree to assist these users with large time and customization investments in place with their current software to move to your platform?
DC: We are building technology that assists customers with migrating their content, and broader taxonomy (metadata, workflows, etc) from on-premise to the cloud.
We positively want to make it as smooth as possible for a customer to get from their existing legacy ECM app to KnowledgeTree in the cloud.
Already in place, we have technologies that assist organizations with putting large volumes of content in the cloud, either as the bare documents themselves, or with some migration development of XML files, the documents and their metadata.
So we have some tech already in place, and are building more to ensure a smooth migration.
CC: Has KnowledgeTree seen a growth in adoption due to this decline of late?
DC: Yes, we have seen strong interest from customer organizations for a SaaS / cloud solution and from surprising places that have validated our belief that mid-market organizations are very ready to see the benefits of SaaS. The sizes and types of organizations we are seeing certainly indicate the coming of age of SaaS.
CC: Do you feel that Knowledgetree has a leg up on it's competitors when it comes to the migration to a SaaS based solution?
DC: Our Hot Folders technology, which is specifically designed to assist with this process has certainly been well received by our user community.
CC: Can you describe Hot Folders a bit for us?
DC: It monitors a folder for files or folders and releases them into the KnowledgeTree service. What's cool about it is that it can work as simply as that, or you can train your scanner, fax server, or even other line of business apps such as accounting apps, to output an XML file alongside the document.
This file describes the document in more detail, perhaps providing a barcode, a customer number or similar. This metadata is then associated with the document in the KnowledgeTree repository. You can then report on documents added to the repsoitory, based on that metadata, using KnowledgeTree's search engine or even kick off a workflow that manages the newly added documents through their lifecycle.
For example, newly scanned in invoices could go through an approval cycle before being paid. 
This very same technology can be leveraged when migrating from a legacy on-premise ECM application to KnowledgeTree in the cloud. That is, your existing metadata can be migrated alongside the documents themselves.
CC: Thank you. Back in June, you mentioned an upcoming launch of Salesforce.com integration. When can users expect to see this and what other integrations are in the works, if any?
DC: We are able to right now provide it to customer organizations who'd like to try out the beta and will be publishing it on the AppExchange later this quarter.
We have a number of other line of business application integrations in our sights, and will be announcing these over the next few months. Our lightweight and easy to use REST interfaces do already provide a powerful mechanism for custom integration efforts that customers or partners would like to undertake.
CC: It sounds like KnowledgeTree is well positioned to be even more of a contender in the market. Where do you see the company in the next 5 years?
DC: Continuing to deliver great, innovative software that our customers enjoy using, and see significant value from, and with that, healthy growth that we and our investors can be proud of ?
CC: Can you share with us whom some of your largest or more recognizable customers are?
DC: We're proud to have a number of very recognizable organizations using KnowledgeTree. 
These cover federal agencies, such as the US GSA, the FAA, DoJ, etc to companies including folks such as Virgin America, Papa John's Pizza, and IBM. We also have a whole bunch of universities using our software.
CC: Excellent. Thank you for your time, do you have any parting comments or remarks you'd like to share with our readers?
DC: Mike, thanks for the opportunity discuss content management today, and KnowledgeTree's cloud solution for SMB document process management. I'd like to invite your readers to sign up for a free 30-day trial of KnowledgeTree to experience the contacts management, workflow and collaboration features themselves: https://www.knowledgetree.com/free-trial
About KnowledgeTree
KnowledgeTree makes sharing content and controlling document processes simple with secure, affordable online document management solutions for growing SMBs and departments at larger companies. Designed for business professionals, KnowledgeTree is easy to use, does not require extensive training and enables content to be accessed and managed anytime, anywhere via cloud computing. Rich and open APIs allow for seamless integration of popular third party business applications.
KnowledgeTree accelerates return on investment by streamlining document-centric business processes and increasing collaboration with workflow, document alerts, version control and full transaction histories. KnowledgeTree is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.knowledgetree.com/">www.knowledgetree.com</a>.

Interview with Daniel Chalef, CEO of KnowledgeTree

JIRA 4.3 and Confluence 3.5 were released today by Atlassian and promise to offer significant integration improvements and features.
Application links allow you to:
<ul>
<li>Create JIRA issues when writing specs or planning projects in Confluence.</li>
<li>Create quick reports on the status of JIRA issues without leaving Confluence.</li>
<li>Manage all of your JIRA and Confluence users in one place.</li>
</ul>
<img title="http://blogs.atlassian.com/news/assets_c/2011/03/create-new-jira-issue-thumb-600x478-6429.png" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/create-new-jira-issue-thumb-600x478-6429.png" />
More info on the <a href="https://blogs.atlassian.com/news/2011/03/confluence-wiki-jira-issue-tracker-new-releases.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AtlassianBlog+%28Atlassian+-+News+Blog%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" target="_blank">Atlassian Blog</a>

JIRA 4.3 & Confluence 3.5 Released

Are you tired of having a CMS that just doesn’t do what you want it to? Do you feel like you are just babysitting your CMS, taking care of the web servers, upgrades, hotfixes, backups, and constantly dealing with a growing list of plugins? Isn’t it frustrating when you have to rewrite your awesome code because your CMS just refuses to play nice? Are you tired of creating different versions of the same content to optimize it for various channels? Wish there was another way? Now, there is.
Kentico Cloud is the cloud-first headless CMS for digital agencies and their clients.
It’s Not Just a CMS Dropped into the Cloud
Many CMS vendors have caught onto the Cloud movement that is currently occurring. But what most do is simply to pick up their CMS and drop it into the Cloud. Sure, it works, but it lacks the elegance and agility of a truly cloud-first CMS. In fact, in 2013, we created Kentico+, which was just that—a CMS deployed in the Cloud—but we could not make it work efficiently for all users. We realized that if we wanted to provide agencies and their clients with all the benefits of the cloud, we needed to go back to the drawing board and rethink the entire CMS architecture.
Kentico Cloud is a completely new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product. By taking care of the service, it allows agencies and their clients to focus on what matters most—driving their business goals by creating truly wonderful digital experiences.
Manage All Your Content in the Cloud
Kentico Cloud works as a centralized content hub where you can produce all your structured content in one place. It provides customizable content types, taxonomy, site map, workflow, versioning, and comments—everything you need to work and collaborate on when creating your content.
Once the content is ready, you can either export it to your existing CMS (if you do not want to redesign the site) or use our content delivery API to publish the content directly on your website or in your mobile application.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kentico_draft1063x0-is.png" />
Deliver Content to Any Website or Mobile Application
Kentico Cloud provides a super-fast API for developers to display the content on websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, and any other channel. It uses the headless approach, which means you have full control over your presentation layer.
As a developer, you can use our API on any platform, using any programming language, and with your favorite development tools—just the way you like it.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kentico_deliver869x0-is.png" />
Provide a Personalized Experience
Kentico Cloud goes beyond content management. It allows you to personalize the content displayed to customers based on their profiles. It allows you to track customers on your website and personalize their experiences based on the data it collects. It can tell you which pages the customer visited, which forms they submitted, and what they bought.
Unlike with traditional web analytics tools, Kentico Cloud also creates profiles of individual users with a complete history of their activities. You can then use it to personalize the content on your website or export the data to other systems.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kentico_engage_profile869x0-is.png" />
Kentico Cloud—the Solution to Digital Agency Problems
Kentico Cloud is a set of fully integrated cloud services built from the ground up in the headless CMS architecture. As a hassle-free cloud platform that eliminates complex technology, Kentico Cloud helps agencies and their clients to be more productive while also increasing the scope of content delivery to any device or platform. Instead of wasting time looking after your CMS, put that time to greater effect and focus on delivering successful, profitable projects for your customers.
The Future Is Now
Stop babysitting your CMS and get started with Kentico Cloud now. It allows you to tackle the future of the digital landscape head on and gain a competitive advantage. From websites to virtual reality, bots to digital assistants, and augmented reality to Internet of Things devices, the possibilities are endless. Let Kentico Cloud make it easy for you—go to <a href="http://www.kenticocloud.com">www.kenticocloud.com</a> and sign up for a free trial.

Kentico Cloud - What’s It All About?

<a href="/start-social-bookmarking-site-hotaru-cms/">Hotaru CMS</a> is an open source php content management system that has been in development since last summer. What makes it stand out amongst the crowd is it's ability to quickly create a social bookmarking site with minimal effort.
Yes, we know that Drigg, Pligg and other products exist in the market, however, they only serve a single use whereas Hotaru can do social bookmarking, magazine sites, blogs and more. This separates it from the pack as far as we are concerned. This is not to say that Pligg and Drigg are not great products, but they are heavily geared towards a single purpose.
Let's take a look at Hotaru shall we?
Installation is fairly straight forward and easy:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/hotaru-cms-setup-mozilla-firefox_2010-07-28_09-09-21-580x394_pncfwv.png" alt="Hotaru CMS Setup" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/greenshot_2010-07-28_09-10-12-580x394_nytxpi.png" alt="Hotaru CMS Setup 2" />
As you can see, it's a fairly straightforward process that's only 4 steps long and should be easy for most users.
Once the installation has completed, you can get started playing with the admin dashboard.
It's important to make sure you read the manual so that you know what steps you should take during and post installation. The manual (and others) can be found on their wiki at <a href="http://hotarudocs.com/Main_Page">http://hotarudocs.com/Main_Page</a>
Your first steps after installation should be to grab / install whichever plugins you would like to use for the site. For the purposes of this review, we uploaded the social bookmarking plugin pack. Now, this plugin pack contains a number of plugins that need to be enabled and some of them rely on others within the pack.
One thing we would recommend the developers change (and this is fairly minor) is to alter the plugin installation process so that if you select a plugin that relies on other plugins that exist but have not yet been installed, it provides an option to install the dependencies for you. Currently it does not do this.
As we said though, this is a minor annoyance and certainly not a strike against the system since you should only need to install a plugin one time.
On a positive note, we were very impressed with the fact that we could download packs of plugins geared towards altering the site instead of having to figure out which ones we needed on our own. This is something we'd like to see more systems actively provide. Drupal, for instance, provides a similar functionality with <a href="http://drupal.org/project/installation+profiles">installation profiles</a>.
Settings for the system are easily configured on a single page within the settings menu:
We also noticed that the developers went one step beyond the norm and included a handy menu that allows a number of handy maintenance functions such as the ability to quickly close the site for maintenance, manage your site's cache, debug, optimize and even empty database tables!
For a developer, these are nice additions to the CMS and it's good to see they thought to include them.
<h3>Overall thoughts:</h3>
Pros:
<ul>
<li>Great maintenance functionality.</li>
<li>System is very fast and relatively easy to install / setup.</li>
<li>Availability of plugin packs to quickly add functionality to the site.</li>
<li>Plenty of uses for the CMS, all of which are easy to get started with.</li>
<li>Integrated caching.</li>
<li>Default install validates 100% XHTML 1.0 Transitional</li>
<li>Excellent documentation.</li>
</ul>
Cons:
<ul>
<li>Would like to see plugin dependencies installed automatically.</li>
<li>Still a bit new to the market (only a year old) but it is growing well.</li>
</ul>
Check it out at <a href="http://www.hotarucms.org">http://www.hotarucms.org</a>
What have your experiences been like? We'd love to hear from you in the comments below!

Hotaru CMS Review - Build your own Social Bookmarking Site!

After nearly two months of beta and RC stages, Vivvo 4.5 is now officially in Gold release. It is available for purchase and download, including the new theme (shown below).
<img style="max-width:110px" title="vivvo" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/vivvo_zpfv4t.png" alt="vivvo" />
For those of you who missed – here's the “What's New” tour: <a href="http://www.vivvo.net/whatsnew">http://www.vivvo.net/whatsnew</a>
All valid license holders can download the software from the Client area. Installation instructions are available in docs section of the website.
Also, the Vivvo team are giving away a free plugin with every purchase:
<blockquote>Giveaway: w/ every Business Edition – Banner Manager for FREE
To spice things up just a little bit, and make our newest edition to Vivvo family more loved and welcomed by everyone – we decided to give away FREE <a href="http://mailer.spoonlabs.com/link.php?M=13052&amp;N=11&amp;L=10&amp;F=H" target="_blank">Banner Manager</a> plug-in ($39.95 worth) with every purchased Business license! We know the importance of having good ad server tightly integrated with CMS software, and we know this will make a perfect bundle for all publishers.</blockquote>
Check it out at <a href="http://www.vivvo.net">http://www.vivvo.net</a>

Vivvo releases version 4.5 Gold w/Giveaway

<a target="_blank" href="http://modx.com/">MODX</a> has pushed out a new update for its in-house hosting service, MODX Cloud.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/modx-color.png" /> The cloud hosting service provides MODX users with an environment to build websites using MODX servers across the world, the most recent of which was unveiled in Frankfurt, Germany.This latest update brings about improvements to the backup process. Let's take a closer look.<h2>Backup Retention Schedule Tweaked</h2>MODX has updated the backup retention schedule for each Cloud instance.Users can set them to as low as a single nightly backup, or increase them to up to 30-days of retention on a rolling basis. For safety purposes though, there's no option to disable backups completely, which is nice. To adjust the schedule, users only need to click on the name of the Cloud from the Clouds view, click the Backups tab, and then position the slider.Saving is automatic and the schedule will be adjusted for the next round of backups later that same night. Pretty smooth stuff.MODX itself is built to handle a range of project types, from multi-domain global presences to a mobile API. I'm sure this update will come in handy for all those working with the PHP-based platform, no matter the size of their project.To learn more, check out the <a target="_blank" href="https://modxcloud.com/userguide/using-modx-cloud/backups.html">Backups in MODX Cloud</a> section of the MODX User Guide. To find out more about this update, check out the <a target="_blank" href="http://modx.com/blog/2016/01/07/better-backups-in-modx-cloud/">MODX Cloud blog</a>.

MODX Cloud Gets Improved Backup Process

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

#ffffff

Since its launch in 2006, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.shopify.com/">Shopify</a> has come to be one of the most respected ecommerce solutions on the web, supporting over 50,000 online stores to set up, sell and market their products.Shopify enables you to build an ecommerce website in seconds, upload or import your products, market yourself and track your growth in a variety of ways. The store itself is hosted by Shopify, although you may use your own unique domain name if you so wish.On June 4 th 2013, Shopify finally announced the arrival of Shopify 2, an updated, smoother version of its former self. The update came after a beta period lasting a few months, bringing with it a new admin interface, and an array of over 60 new features.<h2>The Impact of Shopify 2</h2>With the recent introduction of Shopify 2, the platform's admin panel has seen a complete revamp of its interface, along with the addition of a live theme preview editor. The update brings about a wide range of new, more intuitive administrative abilities and options.Shopify’s new host of features includes the ability for merchants to freely specify meta descriptions, offer partial refunds without having to use PayPal, as well as enjoy a newly improved search functionality to find order and customer information faster than ever before.Arguably, the biggest Shopify enhancements is the live theme preview, which allows merchants to build and customize the look of their store in a live preview window before publishing any updates. Colors, fonts, spacing, images and so on can all be refined instantly, yet no changes will be made until the admin is happy with the store's new look.Additional features include product bar codes, which allow for a seamless Google Shopping integration, along with easier page, product and blog editing.Aside from aesthetic and functional updates, Shopify 2 also bring two new price plans along with it. A new Starter plan valued at $14 per month, plus an Enterprise plan for $1000 per month. These pricing additions will help Shopify to appeal to both less experienced merchants, as well as the merchant who knows exactly what he or she is doing – and then some.<h2>Initial Thoughts</h2>Shopify is all about appealing to the masses. Upon entering the website, you are professionally presented with the Shopify sign up form, accompanied by the introductory video, which exemplifies the accessible nature of the ecommerce CMS.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1700x0.jpg" alt="Shopify, review, ecommerce" />The sleek look and feel of the home page is carried on throughout the set up process and beyond. From the admin panel to the store themes, everything is tailored to suit both ecommerce novices and seasoned veterans.All Shopify plans include secure, unlimited ecommerce hosting, all via their in-house servers. This eradicates the need for the user to hunt for a good hosting plan elsewhere, making it ideal for merchants looking to build their first online store.<h2>Getting Started</h2>Signing up to Shopify is a piece of cake. After naming your store and entering some personal information such as your full name and email address, Shopify will spend no more than a few seconds to create your online store.Once the set up process is complete, Shopify will present you with your brand new, glossy admin panel. Rather usefully, it will also provide you with a short six step guide to get your store up and running as quickly as possible.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/2700x0.jpg" />The six steps illuminate the path to a successful store launch for those who have no experience, and also makes life easier for those who understand all there is to know about launching websites and configuring content management systems.Although the dashboard houses the six tutorial steps, it may have been beneficial for new, less experienced users to undergo an optional tour or interactive tutorial of the admin panel. Unfortunately, no such option exists, so once you leave the dashboard, you are very much alone.<h3>Adding Products</h3>To add products, you will need to navigate over to the “Products” button located on the left-hand side bar. Once there, you will be given the choice between manually adding new products, and importing products in bulk via CSV files, or through another platform.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3.jpg" />For those of you who are migrating from another ecommerce CMS, importing your products from your previous platform will save a huge amount of time. Currently, Shopify allows users to import products from Magento, Volusion, eBay and WordPress. To begin the importing process, you will need to click “Import Products”.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4700x0.jpg" />If you do not already run an online store on another platform, you can go ahead and add your products manually by clicking “Add Products”. The process of adding products from scratch is easy to understand, with plenty of room to expand on the product's description, price, and so on. One of the newly introduced features of Shopify 2 also allows you to add a meta description for each new product, which helps with optimizing the product for the search engines.<h3>Themes</h3>Heading over to the “Themes” button on the left-hand side bar will allow you to tinker with the standard Shopify theme – named “Radiance”, or to visit the Theme Store.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/5700x0.jpg" />All of Shopify's themes can be refined via their own theme settings, or by directly editing the HTML, CSS and JS files.Accessing and using the theme settings page is easily done. Colours, fonts, buttons and more can all be customised and previewed thanks to the newly introduced live theme preview feature.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/6700x0.jpg" />Shopify's Theme Store makes it easy to browse and select new themes for your website. The themes themselves appear elegant and professionally constructed, ensuring that whichever look you decide to go for, you won't be compromising on quality.However, it must be said that the pricing of the themes is questionable. Although there are a range of free themes available, anybody wanting to opt for more complex, paid for option will find that the price jump is a steep one. Aside from the free options, the cheapest theme comes in at $80, reaching up to $180.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/7700x0.jpg" />Such prices are certainly not unheard of when it comes to professionally designed ecommerce themes, but the gap between completely free and paid-for is quite a large one, which is slightly surprising.In comparison, Magento's themes are available from $49, whilst Woo Commerce offer a small selection of free themes, with their paid-for themes being capped at a price of  just $70.<h3>Domain names</h3>Upon creating your store, you will be given a Shopify sub-domain, looking something similar to “my-store.myshopify.com”.However, you can choose to buy a new domain name through your Shopify admin panel, or link your Shopify account to a domain name which you may already own.<h3>Shipping, Taxing and Payment options  </h3>Configuring your shipping, taxing and payment information is essential when opening an online store, and Shopify does a good job of simplifying the process.By clicking on “Settings” on the left-hand side bar, followed by “Taxes”, you will be presented with the option to set tax rates for your home country, as well as the rest of the world. Shopify will also offer to calculate the tax rate per sale using its own formula. Via this page, you can also choose to tax shipping charges, or add sub-region taxes.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/8700x0.jpg" />Heading over to the “Shipping” page, which is now located on the left-hand side bar, you can set the shipping rates for different countries and regions, as well as for products which weigh above a certain amount.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/9700x0.jpg" />When it comes to setting up your payment options, Shopify yet again does a great job of catering for the less experienced.Payments can be taken through PayPal, as well as via a range of credit and debit cards, with each one being extremely straightforward to set up. Additionally, payment methods such as cash on delivery and bank transfer can be configured.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/10700x0.jpg" />On the same page, you are given the option to write up your returns policy, terms and conditions, and other general notes which can be accessed by your customers just before checkout.<h3>Pages</h3>Being able to easily create and modify different web pages to round off your online store is vital. Pages such as the “About” and “Contact” page can make or break a sales conversion. Thankfully, Shopify once more rises to the challenge.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/11700x0.jpg" />By clicking the “Pages” button on the left-side bar menu allows you to add new pages and edit existing ones with ease.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/12700x0.jpg" />The text editor is well designed and easy to use, allowing you to insert images and exercise a range of different formatting styles. You can also configure SEO settings for each individual page.When you have successfully uploaded of your products and configured your various store settings, you will be all set to begin your online selling venture.All of the above steps are the essential for getting your ecommerce store up and running, but now is the time to launch, tweak and market your store to the masses – and Shopify provides everything you need to do a good job of it.<h2>Apps &amp; Extras</h2>Once you have hurdled the basics and launched your store, you will notice that Shopify offers a fair amount of extra apps and widgets which can be found via their <a target="_blank" href="http://apps.shopify.com/">App Store </a>, or by clicking the “Apps” button located on the left-hand side bar within your admin panel.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/15700x0.jpg" />There is a healthy amount of free and paid-for apps available, coming in categories to do with sales, marketing, social media and more.To make life even easier, Shopify doesn't need you to download or upload any files to install apps on your website. instead, you can add all apps directly from the app store almost instantly.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/16.jpg" /><h2>Marketing Your Store</h2>Refining your marketing strategy is an important part of launching and sustaining your online store's presence. Shopify offers a few ways to engage with new customers, and lure old ones back to your checkout page.<h3>Discounts</h3>By heading over to the “Discounts” section located on the left-hand side bar of your admin panel, you will be able to configure a selection of discounts and special offers which you can make available to your customers for marketing purposes.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/17.jpg" />Using this feature, you can set date ranges, discount codes and a variety of discount types, all of which are useful when it comes to marketing and generally reaching out to both old and new customers, enticing them back on to your online store.<h3><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/18700x0.jpg" /></h3><h3>Blogging</h3>Blogging is a great way of ranking in the search engines and attracting new customers. Shopify provides a blogging platform which is exceptionally easy to get started with, even for users who have never published a blog post before.By clicking on the “Blog Posts” button on the left-hand side bar, you can immediately begin writing and publishing blog posts.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/19700x0.jpg" />Much like pages, blog posts are simple to set up, write, modify and publish. SEO settings are also provided to ensure you get the most out of your blogging. Once again however, it would have been useful to point out the relevance of blogging to ecommerce. With no guidance, many merchants will fail to reach the potential of their new blogs, if they use it at all.<h3>Tracking Orders and Customers</h3>Shopify does well to provide customer and order records and to help you keep tabs on the growth of your online store, and to help you understand its shortcomings.Both “Customers” and “Orders” buttons are again located on the left-hand side bar of your admin panel, allowing you to track all customer activity and information. The neatly presented metrics provided within these pages help merchants to track trends and gain insights from site traffic and sales.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/22.jpg" />Additionally, another update introduced alongside Shopify 2 allows you to review information arround abandoned checkouts via the “Orders” page. This information tells you about the customers who have abandoned the sale at checkout, giving you the option to email them to offer more support or perhaps a better deal.Generally, Shopify offers a great deal of marketing tools. Discount codes, Blogging, order metrics and even Shopify Apps – which can help with email marketing and social media, all combine to create a stellar marketing strategy.<h2>Getting Help</h2>When using any CMS, being able to seek help needs to be quick, easy and effective. Yet again, Shopify complies with the criteria.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/20.jpg" />Via the admin panel, the “Need Help” button is clearly visible, and offers the three useful options of getting in contact with customer support, visiting the discussion fourms, or even hiring a Shopify expert.Having said that, an FAQ section within the admin panel would have been a good idea, especially for those with no experience with setting up or using a CMS or online store.<h2>Price Plans</h2>Before Shopify 2, just three price plans were available to merchants. Such a limited pricing system, which originally started as high as $29 per month, priced out many merchants looking to get started in the world of ecommerce.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/21700x0.jpg" />However, Shopify 2 has brought with it two <a target="_blank" href="https://www.shopify.com/pricing">new price plans</a>, which consist of the “Starter” plan, valued at $14 per month, plus an “Enterprise” plan for $1000 per month. These new plans will certainly attract merchants looking to test the waters of ecommerce, whilst also catering for the executives and giants of the online world of commerce.Despite the relatively reasonable monthly prices, Shopify imposes a 2% transaction fee on both the “Starter” and “Basic” plans, reducing it to 1% for the “Professional” plan, and removing it completely thereafter. On top of the monthly fees, plus the standard PayPal transaction fees, it is not unfair to conclude that using Shopify alongside Payal – which will surely be a popular combination, is almost financially unfeasible.Also, in relation to the competition, Shopify's price plans are not the most favourable. Magento asks for similar monthly fees, starting from $15 per month, all the way up to $124 per month. However, the key difference is that Magento charges no transaction fees on any of its plans. Additionally, Woo Commerce is a free and open-source platform, charging no transaction fees.<h2>The Verdict</h2>Overall, Shopify does everything a good ecommerce CMS should do, and more. Undoubtedly, the release of Shopify 2 has propelled the platform to new heights, posing a serious threat to competitors such as Magento, WooCommerce and <a href="/products/bigcommerce">BigCommerce</a>.Getting your store online can be done in minutes, and all Shopify stores have the potential to look unique, with our without user knowledge of HTML or CSS. It does a brilliant job of appealing to both ecommerce novices and experts alike.<h4>Pros</h4><ul><li>Shopify is extremely quick and easy to set up, creating your store within minutes.</li><li>The updates of Shopify 2 greatly expand the potential of Shopify, bringing new features and capabilities to merchans on a variety of levels.</li><li>Migrating your store from a host of other platforms, or uploading products from a CSV file is incredibly easy.</li><li>The wide range of themes on offer can be customized in terms of colour, font, images, and even more thanks to theme HTML, CSS &amp; JS access.</li><li>customer and sales trends and insights can be gathered via the admin panel</li><li>The new admin panel is incredibly easy to use, understand and navigate, allowing you to upload products, make blog posts and create customer discounts in no time at all.</li><li>Enhanced abilities including partial-refunds, improved search filters and SEO friendly meta descriptions help round off Shopify's robust platform.</li><li>Customer support, discussion boards and even specially hired Shopify professionals are al on hand to provide assistance.</li><li>Google Shopping integration is easier than ever before, thanks to Shopify's introduction of product bar codes.</li><li>No third-party hosting required.</li><li>A 14-day free trial helps you get used to things before committing your payment details.</li></ul><h4>Cons</h4><ul><li>The two cheapest price plans each come with a 2% transaction fee, whilst the third offers a reduced 1% fee. These fees, alongside PayPal fees and Shopify's original monthly subscription, amount to quite a hefty sum, which will no doubt eat into any profits.</li><li>Shopify offers just 19 free themes, with the rest of the selection ranging in price from between $80 and $180.</li><li>An FAQ page within the admin panel, or an optional guided tutorial would greatly benefit merchants who are only just exploring the world of ecommerce.</li></ul><h2>Final Remarks</h2>Shopify does a remarkable job of making life simple for the ecommerce new comers who need constant guidance and simplification, whilst offering more a range of more advanced options and features for seasoned ecommerce professionals.Although many will find the ecommerce CMS to be pricey, others will argue that you get what you pay for. The release of Shopify 2 has made the platform easier to navigate and better to look at, whilst adding a huge array of extra features to an already robust set of functionalities.Shopify's revamped interface is well polished and gives attention to detail in areas where many other ecommerce CMS fail to touch upon. Without doubt, Shopify is a platform worth serious consideration for anybody looking to build an online store.<blockquote><a href="/products/shopify">Try Shopify</a>  </blockquote>

Shopify Review: Ecommerce, Only Simpler

Through the years, CMS products have generally been built as a coupled CMS. This architecture includes everything in a single application: the content repository, the back-end UI for editors, the templating system, and all your custom code. It’s a popular approach because it requires only a single environment, and is easy to set up and manage.
<h2>Coupled Architecture Has Its Issues</h2>
In the coupled architecture, the CMS code is tightly connected with your templates and custom code. Because of this, both your code and the CMS code need to be maintained at all times (during installation, with upgrades and hotfixes, during code versioning, with continuous deployment, and so on). And, you need to be aware that the CMS code is exposed on the public server. This increases security risks, while the load on your website impacts the performance of your content management back end, and vice versa.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/coupled-cms.png" />
<h2>Better Separation of Concerns with Decoupled CMS</h2>
A decoupled architecture has been introduced by some vendors to iron out the limitations experienced with a coupled CMS. This architecture is based around two environments—the content management environment, usually protected by a firewall, where you make your changes, and a content delivery environment, with which you synchronize the content. With the decoupled architecture, you get better security, much better separation of your custom code, and easier scalability.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/decoupled-cms960x0-is.png" />
<h2>But It’s Not the Ultimate Solution</h2>
Despite the advantages of the decoupled architecture, it still does not solve all the issues. It still consists of multiple environments that need to be managed, which increases the costs of infrastructure, maintenance, and software licenses. And, there are always potential issues with having to synchronize content, especially if your website allows members to contribute their own content.
<h2>Headless CMS—the Solution for the Multi-channel World</h2>
CMSs were originally built for websites and, therefore, provide content in the form of a page. But websites and pages are no longer the only digital medium that content is created for. In the last 10 years, we have started consuming ever-increasing amounts of content through mobile applications. And the new advancements in VR, bots, digital assistants, and Internet of Things have made it even more complex with the possibility of displaying content on multiple devices and via many different formats. How we manage and publish content requires an entirely new approach. An approach that requires us to think of content as a set of components that can be pulled together from a single content repository and displayed in the ways native to the channel and device they are consumed on. The traditional page content model will not suffice anymore.
The answer is headless CMS and component content modelling. By eliminating the front-end, the presentation layer is much more flexible, only needing its API to deliver the content. Also, a good headless CMS empowers users with the tools to model structured content effectively using modules or components that can be displayed as a web page on a traditional website or content elements on a mobile application, or presented in a completely different way when displayed on an in-store kiosk. A combination of delivery and content modelling is what makes headless CMS the ultimate solution for the multichannel world we live in.
<h2>Why Is Headless CMS Architecture Better?</h2>
It’s a new architecture and approach for some people. But here are some of the benefits that the headless CMS architecture brings:
<ul>
<li>Multi-channel and multi-device content use is easy with the API.</li>
<li>You are not restricted by programming language, tools, or development processes when creating your websites or mobile apps.</li>
<li>You are in control without any worries about the CMS code.</li>
<li>Security and scalability are vastly superior.</li>
</ul>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/headless-cms944x0-is.png" />
When learning about headless CMS, it is also important to know that some people use the term API-first CMS. It is intended to indicate that the CMS was built with an API approach in mind, rather than a traditional CMS that just added an API layer and then claimed to support the headless approach.
<h2>Cloud-first Headless CMS: It Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This</h2>
The headless CMS approach does, of course, work with on-premise CMSs, but you will find the biggest advantages when you use it in the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. In fact, it was the headless approach that enabled CMS vendors to provide content management as a true multi-tenant SaaS service.
The cloud-first approach means building the CMS from scratch with the cloud in mind from the very beginning and not just an afterthought like with many traditional CMSs. The cloud-first headless CMS merges the best of headless with the benefits of the cloud. The cloud-first headless CMS approach lets you focus on your website or mobile app while the CMS vendor takes care of everything else, such as the underlying infrastructure, databases, and content delivery network, the installation, upgrades, hotfixes, backup, availability, performance, and security. You still have some work to do, but you don’t need to worry about the CMS code in your environment. It is much easier to secure your code, and the main workload is taken by the cloud CMS, meaning you can handle high traffic levels, even with a modest web server configuration.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cloud-first-headless-cms972x0-is.png" />
<h2>Headless CMS Fits Most Scenarios</h2>
Headless CMS offers many benefits, and there are very few reasons or situations in which not to use it:
<ul>
<li>A simple website based on a stock template with little custom design—website builders such as Wix or Squarespace may be a better option.</li>
<li>You need to get your website operational quickly with off-the-shelf functionality.</li>
<li>Content editors want to use the page-oriented approach, or want to customize page layouts by themselves.</li>
<li>Your website and content repositories are highly regulated and strict rules and laws dictate that cloud storage is not permitted.</li>
<li>You prefer a robust, all-in-one solution that provides content management, marketing automation, e-commerce, online marketing, and many other features rather than building your solution using multiple services.</li>
</ul>
For almost everything else, headless CMS is the clear option. That's why we created <a href="http://www.kenticocloud.com">Kentico Cloud</a>, the cloud-first headless CMS for digital agencies and their clients. Try it for yourself and see why you should be thinking about a cloud and headless approach for your next project!

Cloud-First Headless CMS: What It Is and Why You Should Use It

For those of you who've recently updated to WordPress 5.1, you may be screaming in frustration due to an issue getting back to your dashboard once the upgrade is complete.
Numerous users are reporting issues with this particular screen below creating a loop and preventing them reaching their dashboard.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screenshot-2019-02-22-at-81110-am.png" /></figure>
If you click continue on the screen above, it redirects to your homepage and a second attempt to enter your dashboard will reach the same screen.
<h2>The Fix</h2>
The only way to fix this is to log into your cpanel or hosting provider back-end and find the object-cache.php file located in the /wp-content/ folder and rename it to object-cache.php.bak.
Once you've done this, retry accessing your dashboard. You'll get the same screen telling you you are up to date. Click continue and you should now be able to access everything.
I have to say I'm rather shocked that this major issue slipped by the QA process but hopefully Automattic will get their butts in gear and resolve it quickly.
Let me know if this helps and if so, spread the word for others!

WordPress 5.1 "No Update Required" Bug - We've got the Fix!

This year we had strong competition in the Best Free CMS category with great products like Grav CMS, Joomla! and October CMS in the running. Obviously, free content management systems are incredibly popular and we have numerous listed in our CMS directory for those looking for a good option. There were literally thousands of votes cast in this category but the winner quickly became evident.It's with great pleasure that I announce the winner for the 2015 Best Free CMS award is…<a target="_blank" href="https://www.joomla.org">Joomla!</a><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/best-free-cms300x0-is.png" />I know, you're completely surprised and blown away that Joomla! won this aren't you ? Let's face it, they have a very strong community and tons of supporters. There's a reason it's one of the top three most popular content management systems in the world. We would like to congratulate the Joomla! development team on their win.To learn more about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.joomla.org">Joomla! visit their website.</a>

Announcing the 2015 Winner for Best Free CMS

Elementary OS is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu that features the custom developed Pantheon desktop environment. One of the key aspects, aside from the  unique look and feel, are the custom coded apps and paid app store that are available with Elementary.  Today, we're going to take a look at the  whole picture in this Elementary OS Review.I'm not going to get into the Installation process here as it's  pretty much identical with every other Linux distro out there and there's not much to see. It worked without issue in all of my testing on multiple devices so I'm going to call it stable and solid.<h2>Elementary OS Review – The Desktop</h2>On  boot-up, we're greeted with the Elementary OS Pantheon desktop, which you can tell took inspiration from Mac OS. That's not a bad thing  however as many people are fond of the look and feel and it just works.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review-1.png" />Elementary OS Review - The Desktop (Elementary OS 5.1)<h2>Welcome Screen</h2>There is now a new welcome screen with the recent 5.1 release. It walks you through some basic options such as enabling location reporting, setting up Night Light which reduces eye strain at specific times and more.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review-01.png" />Elementary OS Review - New Welcome ScreenAlong the top we have the Applications menu on the left, the date centered in the top panel and the system tray on the right side. At the bottom, the dock where you can launch and pin apps that you use most frequently.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review-2.png" />Elementary OS Review - The Menu and Dock<h2>The Applications</h2>When it comes to the default apps, the developers tend to go with  those ones that are geared towards simplicity and minimalism. For  example, the default web browser that is installed is Epiphany.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review-8.png" />Elementary OS Review - The Web Browser (Epiphany)The issue here, however, is that this web browser simply isn't good enough by today's standards. It froze up on numerous websites I tried it on causing the whole system to lock up.While it's not a terrible web browser, it's certainly not something that's commonly used or up to par when compared to the standard Firefox  and Chrome/Chromium browsers. Sure, you can install different ones from  the app store but I think it's a waste to install something most new users are going to find less than adequate. Epiphany is not in the same league as the big boys and is likely going to not be able to correctly be able to display complex sites as well.<h2>Email</h2>Originally forked from Geary, Mail is now developed under the  Elementary banner and is slowly being rewritten to allow for more robust capabilities (<a target="_blank" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/elementaryos/comments/8a7nc0/pantheon_mailgeary/">source</a>) but it's suitable for most users.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mail.png" />Elementary OS Review - MailOther included apps are Video, Music, Files, Calendar, Terminal and  Photos to name a few. All of these are custom to Elementary OS.<h2>System Settings</h2>Taking a look at the system settings, we see there are numerous icons to help you configure your new environment:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review-3.png" />Elementary OS Review - System Settings<h2>Limited Options?</h2>While system settings do exist, the one thing that I personally dislike is the limited flexibility of the environment. The entire distro focuses too much on restricting flexibility with the pretense that it's helping users. The issue, however, is that it's not allowing new users to experience one of the best benefits to using Linux - variety and customization.An example of this is the fact that you simply cannot theme Elementary with any of the default tools without installing a third party (and unsupported) app such as <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/elementary-tweaks/elementary-tweaks">Elementary Tweaks</a>.For example; take a look at the limited selections available when you click on Desktop within System Settings.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review---10.png" /><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review---11.png" />Elementary OS Review - Desktop SettingsAs you can see above, you can change two toggles and the text size and that's it for appearance options.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review---9.png" />Elementary OS Review - Changing the BackgroundYou can also change the background, but that's about it.Some may disagree on this but I feel like Elementary is trying too hard to be like Apple - limiting people to very few choices because they feel that it's for the greater good of the user and that the user shouldn't have flexibility because they might break something.Part of Linux is about breaking something. In fact, breaking something is one of the only ways people learn how to do things. Look at Windows, it's breaking all the time and most of what I learned came from fixing things. Believe me, Mac OS has just as many issues so let's not assume that because things are limited, breaking won't occur but one shouldn't hold people back from discovering what their OS can do, otherwise we're just encouraging sheep to join the flock.Now that I've got that off my chest, let's continue.<h2>Additional System Settings</h2>There are a few key items here that I feel need to be pointed out, notably Parental Controls and Online Accounts.Online Accounts only provides operating system integration for FastMail, Last.fm and Email which is pretty limiting.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elementary-os-review---12.png" />Elementary OS Review - Online AccountsParental controls are also available within Elementary OS and it's a great addition.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/parental-controls.png" />Elementary OS Review - Parental Controls<h2>AppCenter</h2>AppCenter is Elementary OS' answer to a software store. It's one of  the only one's I've seen that functions on a Pay-What-You-Want model.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/appcenter.png" />Elementary OS Review - App CenterThis has actually worked out quite well for the Elementary OS team  and there are now plenty of developers offering paid apps through the  store. You can, of course, also download free ones, not everything is  paid (just to be clear).Here's what the team had to say about the AppCenter:<blockquote>AppCenter is our built-in app store where users can download free and  paid apps that are purpose-built for elementary OS. With AppCenter we’re  doing things a bit differently from our competitors.</blockquote><blockquote>First, every  single app in AppCenter is open source because we firmly believe in the  world-changing power of freely-licensed code and open source software.  Second, all paid apps are offered with a developer-provided suggested  price, but are ultimately pay-what-you-want. Users choose what to  pay — if anything at all — when they download paid apps.</blockquote><h2>Issues I've Encountered</h2>For some reason, the recent 5.1 update seems to have caused more issues than previous releases for me. I found the system freezing up more often than prior releases.I also noticed that when I went to mirror my display to my TV via HDMI, everything scaled to twice the size and wouldn't display correctly no wonder what I tried. Furthermore, I couldn't get sound to output properly either, and finally I just gave up trying.<h2>Elementary OS Review – My Conclusions</h2>First let me state that the intent of these reviews is to cover the quick and dirty basics that a new user will experience on first use. They are not power user reviews or benchmarked ones. My goal is to give those new to the OS a general overview and some points to consider.There's not much that a new user to Linux can actually customize in Elementary OS. While they do offer easy-to-use apps and an interface that is simple and easy to use, as I mentioned,  I found it quite limiting in capabilities without replacing major apps with better and more mainstream options from the AppCenter. Epiphany seemed to do an OK job but it doesn't support extensions. It does, however, offer Firefox Sync capabilities but it's just not good enough in my opinion.I feel like the Elementary team went a bit too far in being  restrictive with the OS but at the same time, limiting things is something Apple has turned into a successful experience and given that Elementary seems to take inspiration from Apple; perhaps it's not a bad thing. I wouldn't recommend trying to use Elementary if you are like me and love customizing things because you won't be satisfied. If you want a “just works” OS and aren't concerned about this, it's a decent option.I'm giving it a 3/5 on the basis that it's a bit too limiting for new users and with the recent 5.1 update, I experienced more freeze-ups and annoyances than before. I'm basing this on what it comes with by default. Is it a great choice for the minimalist? Absolutely.I'd rather recommend something like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/ubuntu-mate-review/">Ubuntu Mate</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mx-linux-review/">MX Linux</a>, or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/reviews/solus-review/">Solus</a>.Interested in trying it out for yourself? <a target="_blank" href="https://elementary.io/">Grab it from here</a>. What do you like about Elementary OS?

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