Joomla 1.5 News: RC4 is here

Written by Tom Elliott
Thursday, 20 December 2007 05:22

RC4- the next step on the path to a "stable" Joomla 1.5, was released yesterday. The Joomla team is calling this release "Karibu" which they say is Swahili for "close by" as in, almost here.

The Joomlashack team is very engaged in testing RC4 and we're impressed by the many bugs that Joomla volunteers have squashed. While it's "close by," RC4 is still not 100% stable, and you shouldn't yet rely on it to deliver your critically important web content.

When will Joomla 1.5 move into the realm of "stable?" According to Joomla.org:

Joomla! 1.5 RC4 is by far the most stable release of version 1.5 to date. It has undergone a great deal of testing and bug fixing since RC3 and is considered very close to stable... Karibu marks an important milestone in 1.5's development, as barring any major issues we believe it will be the last release candidate, with the next release being the big one... Joomla! 1.5 stable. When that happens will in part be influenced by the Joomla! community.

So there you have it. If our Joomla community uses RC4 and tests it thoroughly, and no major problems are discovered, then the stable version of Joomla 1.5 will be coming in early 2008. Cool. Now go download and test it!

Joomlashack Charity Contest '07 Finalists

Written by TJ Baker
Tuesday, 18 December 2007 09:22

Season for Giving: Vote and Support these Five Charities 

Last month we asked our Joomlashack community to nominate their favorite charity for a $1,000 USD cash prize. More than 90 excellent nominations poured in from around the globe, including NGOs solving problems on all seven continents and across an incredible range of issues. Each Joomlashacker carefully read every entry and then narrowed our list down to the five nominees below.

An appropriate trend seems to have emerged in a year when Team Joomlashack saw the births of two new babies and new hires whose families raised the collective Team Joomlashack honor roll to nine awesome kids. Here at Joomlashack, it's the year of the kid, and our picks for the five most deserving charities reflect this perfectly.

Please check out and then support each of these excellent and deserving organizations with an online contribution, and then vote for the charity that you think is most deserving of our $1,000 USD cash prize. Voting ends Sunday 12.30.2007 at 11:59PM EST.

May peace on Earth prevail for all men, women, and especially, for children.

Joomlashack Developer Club

Written by Barrie North
Tuesday, 27 November 2007 19:00

Whether you're a new or advanced user, if you're a web developer who is serious about Joomla! you might want to take a moment to consider the Joomlashack Web Developer Club. We'd like to invite you to join us "behind the scenes" to be a part of something great. We believe this will be very beneficial to those who use Joomlashack products and resources on a regular basis.

Joomlashack's 2nd Annual Charity Contest

Written by TJ Baker
Friday, 16 November 2007 07:59

Last year we asked ourselves, "what can we do to support important organizations that do good work to make the world a better place?"

 The answer was our first Joomlashack Charity Contest- an opportunity for 5 charities to be showcased on Joomlashack (and get donations!).

Announcing our 2nd Annual Joomlashack Charity Contest - where our community nominates and chooses a deserving charity to win a 1,000 USD cash donation.

Joomla Wins Award for Best Open Source PHP CMS

Written by Tom Elliott
Wednesday, 31 October 2007 19:00

Shack blog readers know all about the Packt CMS awards. If you voted for Joomla in either of the categories in which it was nominated this year, you'll be happy to see that Joomla did win Best Open Source PHP CMS.

According to the Packt announcement, contest judges liked Joomla's "good front-end for administrators and end-users, which gives users a simple and traditional company website straight out of the box." The also commented on the "size and responsiveness of the community as a massive strength."

Hey everybody- that's you! Massive strength!

Joomla Day New York City

Written by Tom Elliott
Tuesday, 23 October 2007 04:55

Some Joomlashack friends might have stumbled upon the fact that while our small & lean team is spread all around the U.S. (Alabama, California, Pennyslvania, and Texas), the company's "official  headquarters" is here in Vermont. (By headquarters I mean two of us in the same office at the same time occasionally, a wireless network named "Joomlashack," and a P.O. Box for our mail. Our real HQ is a persistent skype chat.)

Needless to say, previous Joomla Days in the U.S. were not anywhere near Vermont, a tiny state 4,000 miles from Silicon Valley and closer to Montreal than any major American city. So when the the first East Coast Joomla Day scheduled just 300 miles away in New York, we jumped at the chance to drive to the Big Apple.

Joomla 1.5 RC3 Released

Written by Tom Elliott
Monday, 22 October 2007 14:05

The march to a stable Joomla 1.5 quickened earlier this month with the release of RC3. Here's some helpful links about RC3.

Read the official news: http://www.joomla.org/content/view/3994/1/

Get Joomla 1.5 RC3: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=2892

Instructions for upgrading from RC2 to RC3: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php?board=430.0

Discuss Joomla 1.5 on our forum: http://www.joomlashack.com/community/index.php/topic,6544.0.html

Joomla 1.5 installation guide: http://www.joomla.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,105/p,419/

If you're curious when Joomla 1.5 is going to "released" and "finished," better check out this perspective piece by one of Joomla's core team members and developers. Needless to say, RC3 is not the last of the RCs, as Joomla's developers believe in the "release early, release often" philosophy of open source development.

One thing's for sure- Joomla 1.5 will only improve if you use it, break it, report your problems, and offer your input. Download it today and try out Weblogic, our 1.5 native template!

Upcoming at Joomlashack!

Thursday, 11 October 2007 14:47

This is just an update of some things to come in the near future at Joomlashack. We've been kind of quiet lately and thought we might share some of the excitement with you before it gets here.

• New Weblogic Joomla Template! This is our first 1.5/1.0 native template with a plethora of features. While we were spending the last 71 days building this template for 1.5, we said to ourselves, "Why not make all these cool user defined parameters available for 1.0 versions as well?" So we did. We've included the same flexibility of the 1.5 template parameters in the 1.0 version. We also decided to make the 1.5 and 1.0 versions as a bundled release. We hope you like it.
  
  
• New Flash Rotator coming! We're working on a major overhaul of this module which incorporates a new (customizable) navigation system, some new transitions, SEO features, and more. This module is about to get even better.
  
  
• The Joomlashack Developer Club is coming! We have some very loyal customers here - some who have bought one of every template we've ever built. So we're outlining a new system that will grant you access to an awesome community in a private forum, unlimited domains on all templates and to a library of mods and hacks for extending Joomla! and Joomalshack templates to a new level. I'm really looking forward to this. Basically this club will put you on the inside of Joomalshack and allow you to make the most of your Joomla! experience with no limits!
  
  
• SlideShowPro Update! Have you heard? SlideShowPro has done it again. A new release of the popular SSP gallery and Director. We're currently updating our module to be fully compatible. On a side note if you like Flash video, The FLV format is leaving! Flash Player 9 beta now supports H.264 and MPEG formats! SlideShowPro and Director already supports video and image management. Think of the possibilities we come into as users  and developers around the world. Exciting stuff.
  
  

Stay tuned!

Joomlashack Releases 1.5 Template: Weblogic

Written by Barrie North
Thursday, 11 October 2007 04:25

With the third release candidate available for Joomla, Joomlashack has unveiled our first template that runs on Joomla 1.5 natively: Weblogic.

You get both 1.0.X AND 1.5 Joomla versions bundled TOGETHER for only $39.95!

Joomlashack Releases 1.5 Template: Weblogic

Written by Barrie North
Thursday, 11 October 2007 04:25

With the third release candidate available for Joomla, Joomlashack has unveiled our first template that runs on Joomla 1.5 natively: Weblogic.

You get both 1.0.X AND 1.5 Joomla versions bundled TOGETHER for only $39.95!