It's mid-May now and we're less than a month away from Joomla! 1.7's release. As you may have already heard, Joomla! 1.7 is more or less the same as Joomla! 1.6 with a few additions for developers. With Joomla! 1.8, the next Long Term Support release, closing in it is a good time to start considering the improvements in the new generation of the CMS and preparing yourself for a migration. What you need, as a site integrator and user, is a guided tour of Joomla! 1.6 and beyond.

The Christmas season is linked with people making gifts to each other, or even themselves. What's a better gift than a book? I was fortunate enough to receive a free copy of Packt's new book, Joomla! 1.5 Cookbook, a great resource for Joomla! site owners written by a knowledgable member of the Joomla! community and personal friend Tom Canavan. Let's take a more in-depth look at it.

Most of us are already very experienced with Joomla! so as not to require any help building our own sites. Listening to the client's objectives we can intuitively translate their needs to extensions and potential set-ups. This knowledge comes from years of experience in doing this kind of work. However, this isn't always the case with those who are fresh to the world of the Joomla! CMS. What they need is some guidance or, if you'd like, a way to “seed” their brains with adequate ideas to get them started. I was recently reading Packt Publishing's new book, “Joomla! 1.5 Site Blueprints”, which seems to fit nicely this bill.

On quite a few occasions fellow developers ask me which is the best way to get started with Joomla! Development. Among other things, I always propose that they should have a complete reference of the Joomla! Framework API. The only book which was up to this task was “Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development”, albeit a bit outdated since it was written when Joomla!1.5 was still in beta, some two and a half years ago. When Packt Publishing announced that they'd release the updated “Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development (Update)” I got ecstatic! So, here you go, I reviewed the new edition of the book and I'm willing to share my experience with you.

As I've written in the recent past, one of the most challenging endeavours for anyone experienced in Joomla! is trying to disseminate his own knowledge of the CMS to a complete newbie. Being a developer – instead of a tutor – puts me in an impossible position, as my understanding of the system is registered within me in a way that's impossible to transfer to a non-developer. Well, unless he's in for a steep learning curve and awkward tech-talk. Thankfully, there's Packt Publishing's new book, “Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide”, written by Eric Tiggeler. As promised, this is the full review of the book!

Don't miss the raffle at the end of the article!

Whenever I say to a circle of friends that I am a Joomla! developer, the dreaded question always pops up: “Hey, I've heard that this Joomla! thing is good, can you help me build my own site?”. This usually makes me frown because a. the person who asks is a complete newbie to Joomla! and/or web sites and b. they don't want to hire a web developer – like me, for example – to build their site. If I respond positively to such an inquiry I will end up building a site, explaining step-by-step how I do that, do a lot of training and not get paid for my time (no, buying me a coffee doesn't make up for 80 hours of lost time, sorry). If I respond negatively I am usually accused of elitism, or even confronted with the equally dreaded “Oh, come on, you'll just teach me the basics, I don't want to steal your job”. Awh... What can anyone do in such an awkward situation?