When I was first approached to write an article for the Joomla! magazine, my first thoughts were that of panic..... OMG... my ramblings would now need to actually make some sort of sense. Then the reality set in, jeeeesh, I had already agreed, you know how hard Amy and Elin are to say no to. Now what am I am going to write about, that might be vaguely interesting or useful?

Site developer David Umlauf shares his first experience developing with Joomla! 1.5 as he designed and developed the Philly Roller Girls Web site. This is a great example of how even those just starting with Joomla! can build powerful solutions. Since January, David has continued working with Joomla! and now has ten Web sites completed.

Casey Lee, long-term Joomla! community member and incredible design talent, shares a professional technique with lots of potential. In this tutorial, Casey shows how to add a parameter to Joomla! 1.5 Menu Types to create a unique style for Article Titles that can vary for each menu item. Learning this can open a new world of creativity.

The Joomla! Community has worked very hard this past year releasing and improving Joomla! 1.5. Vote for Joomla! as the Best Overall Open Source CMS and the Best PHP Open Source CMS. Banners to spread the news to others are in this article. Proudly display yours today and get the word out!

The Joomla! Google Summer of Code project is complete. Thanks to Google for inviting us to participate and funding 15 projects this year. Thanks to each student, mentor, and those who tested and provided feedback.

So, is anyone interested is seeing what is now available? If so, come on in!

Ron Severdia is a member of the Joomla! Communications Team, the Bug Squad, and is a forum moderator. He's also the design genius behind the Joomla.org Web site redesign and the August 2008 Joomla! Forum Member of the Month.

With all this talk about Google Chrome recently, Arno Zijlstra decided it is time to take a moment to explain for us how to use "Module Chrome" with Joomla! v 1.5. If you have not used capability, yet, now's the time. It's pretty powerful stuff - way cool!

Lorenzo Garcia is researching the use of Joomla! around the world to learn how well Joomla! and other open source solutions are accepted. Today, he shares findings from Cape Verde where e-Governance solutions and Web technologies have helped to usher in progress for developing nations.

On this, Joomla!'s third birthday, Chris Davenport, Joomla! Core Team member announced the completion of important statements of the Mission, Vision and Values for the project. These foundation principles help to guide project decisions and inform the strategy for taking the project forward.

Joomla!'s Google Summer of Code student, Flavio Kubota shares the results of the Joomla! Day Brasil 2008 held this past August 16, 2008. The event held in São Paulo was very successful with over 120 participants in attendance. Eight speakers representing business and government shared Joomla! implementation and development talks.

Kevin Devine is the author of a system plugin for Joomla! 1.5 called Usermeta. This plugin makes it easier for users/developers to extend the user parameters. We asked that Kevin share some of the details behind this plugin so that others might learn how to take advantage of this capability.

Dion Hinchcliffe declared Joomla! the number 1 platform for creating online communities in his ZDNet article Ten leading platforms for creating online communities.

Joomla! developer Hannes Papenberg demonstrates how to use Template Overrides, an existing extension, and a bit of code to customize a "Terms of Use" acceptance for registration. HP Registration is now on the Joomla! Extensions Directory and downloadable from Joomlacode.

"When it comes to CMS solutions, some things are just plain obvious - here are five ways Joomla! falls down again and again."

Now, read on as author Chris Szabo makes five rock solid points regarding the drawbacks of using Joomla!.

Joomla! developer and Open Source Matters Board Member, Rob Schley, shares a step by step tutorial describing how to use Google Charts in your Joomla! Web site. This article was reprinted, with Rob's permission from Webimagery.

Joomla! developer and designer Arno Zijlstra had no clue his niece, a contestant on The Million Dollar Wedding, would call and ask for a beautiful Web site, right away! In this tutorial, Arno shares his standard approach and "starter template package" that help him quickly develop fabulous, standards compliant, custom designs, one right after the other.

It takes an entire community of people working hard all over the world to make a project like Joomla thrive. If you help write documentation, answer questions in the forums, report, patch or test bugs, share GPL-compliant extensions on the Joomla! Extension Directory, write core code, create translation files, run a Joomla! User Group, organize Joomla! Day events or participate as an active member in a Joomla! Working Group, then you are an important part of making Joomla! available to the world.

HarryB is a long time Mambo and Joomla! community member who has helped out over the years. In this tutorial, he uses the classic rhuk SolarFlare II template to detail the steps needed to migrate a Joomla! 1.0.x template into 1.5. Thanks Andy Miller for the SolarFlare and to HarryB for making certain we don't leave good friends behind. To Download or find Support.

Alan Langford, member of the newly formed Joomla! Security Strike Team, introduces the team's purpose and goals and shares what we can do to help.