There's been much talk about the new Joomla 2.5 release, the coming end of life (EOL) of Joomla 1.5 in April, and whether one should upgrade from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5.

So, should you upgrade from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5?

Looking for information about Joomla 1.7 ACL? How about Joomla 2.5 ACL? My new title, Joomla 1.7 Access Control Lists (ACL) In Depth, will likely work with Joomla 2.5 as well. Here are a few free videos to check out. You can subscribe to see the full title at lynda.com.

The phone rang at 8:45 PM. "Help!" the client said. "We just sent an email out to 18,000 people and the slideshow on the home page doesn't work. Please fix it ASAP! This is an emergency!"

This is a relatively new client, one with whom we just started working in the last 2 weeks, and they have an existing Joomla website. They asked us to add a few things here and there, but we had never touched the slideshow on the home page. We weren't even sure how it was put together -- we simply hadn't had the time to look.

Having poked around the back end of the site, as well as looking at HTML and the front-end layout, we realized the slideshow on the home page was built using Flash. The slideshow was a SWF file. It was nothing special -- just a fade-in, fade-out series of images that could be clicked to go to the relevant pages.

Hey, ITWorld quoted me in two of their articles!

Joomla! jumpstart: 8 tips and best practices from Joomla! developers

Essential Joomla! extensions

This is a topic covered in my recent book, but the question comes up all the time.

In the early static days of the web, there was really little difference between one host and another. You uploaded a bunch of HTML pages and images (and later a CSS file or two) and the web host just worked. There wasn't a lot of analysis to do for the average small business site. One host was pretty much as good as another.

Now we're working with Joomla. And now, when it comes to hosting, everything has changed.

Chapter 15 of my new book is available for you to explore! It covers all of the usual post-launch issues, including ongoing site maintenance, upgrades, backups, and training your client how to use Joomla.

Download Chapter 15 here (PDF)

If you ever installed the sample data in Joomla, you've seen that little "welcome" message over on the right side of the screen, right in the control panel.

Ever wondered how to get rid of it? Ever wondered if you could make your own, so that it was actually useful to your client and not just you?

It's easy to do!

The Marlboro College Graduate Center in Brattleboro, Vermont, just released its Open Source Web Development certificate in a wholly online format.

If you've been working with Joomla, but you want to know a lot more about it, this is the certificate program for you.  The certificate introduces students to Joomla, as well as planning a website, understanding the code that runs it, and developing and executing an online marketing plan.

The certificate consists of 12 credits:

You've got your first Joomla site running! It's fabulous! It's amazing! And now how do we start taking it to the next level?

Just like you should never wear white shoes after Labor Day, and visible panty lines are never cool, there are a few fashion NOs that you should stay away from doing on your Joomla site.

1. Why does it need to say "Main Menu"?

Got an email from someone looking for this information. I covered this in the Lynda.com Joomla! Advanced CSS videos but I'll write out the instructions here as well.

The basic instructions are:

• Make sure the Load Module plugin is enabled and configured correctly
• Make sure the module you want to display in the content is turned on for that page and that position
• Insert the Magic Code in the article.
• Voila. Magic happens.  (Some styling may need to happen at this point, too.)

1. Make sure the plugin is enabled and configured correctly