As basic as this is, providing the fundamentals of using Joomla properly is key. There is a stream of new Joomla Users coming on board each day and for those who are completely new, I will provide the steps to logging into the Joomla frameworks and some useful tips.

Joomshaper have released their new Joomla Template called Zaara. Available freely for Joomla 2.5, Zaara creates a specific look and feel with lots of features and flexibility. The template style is not fixed for any specific sector, it can be used for portfolio, showcase, blog, business and many other website styles. Zaara is built on Helix Framework and arrives with a predefined suffix class or module class suffix and six preset styles in color. It has built-in 68+ collapsible module positions where you can store all your modules. It is easy to customize and can be used for many modern designs. We included the override layout of our Free Slider SP1 module as the main slide of the homepage, the place that visitor will see or read when visiting your site.

It is fast loading and compatible IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc. It is RTL & LTR language supported. You can find some long-established features like Google Analytics, mega drop down or drop line menu here. So no more searching, Zaara is here at JoomShaper for your choice.

Not too long ago, I finally solved a problem a client site was experiencing. The site is built on Joomla, version 1.5.25 with JFusion. They site was recently hacked and some files were removed, from a quick glance it seemed to be just the main files in the installation root, namely "index.php", "config.php" and the others. They were restored and the site seem fine, however the client tried to login and received an error "Call to undefined method stdClass::onAuthenticate() ... /libraries/joomla/user/authentication.php on line 121" and that's where is where I came in.

Joomla has won the Packt Publishing award for the top open source CMS.

Now in its sixth year, many consider the Packt Open Source Award as a top honor for an open source project. Joomla won the award based on a combination of public voting and input by a panel of judges consisting of open source luminaries.

Julian Copes of Packt Publishing said:

“Although around since 2005, Joomla really reinvented itself this year with the introduction of Joomla 1.6 and 1.7, the first product releases for the CMS since 2008. Furthermore, Joomla realized dramatic growth this year as evidenced by its number of downloads and documented government sites powered by Joomla.