Joomla Saves Lives!

Joomla is an open-source language that allows non-techies to build robust websites with user management, e-commerce, slide shows, newsletters, blogs, forums and so many more. It is a content management system (CMS) that allows a non-programmer to create a website that could otherwise take weeks to design, cost hundreds - even thousands of dollars to create in a fraction of the time (relatively speaking of course).

Once Joomla is downloaded and configured on either your local or remote host computer, you can then activate and configure the plug-ins, modules, and components that come standard with Joomla, as you see fit. Some of the built features are:

• Login interface - Allows visitors to create an account
• Feed displays - allows you to integrate RSS feeds into website
• Latest News - Automatically displays latest articles added to website
• Blog feature - You can create an entire blog or integrate a blog into your website
• Custom HTML - Allows you to add your own coding for additional functionality and appearance
• Online Users - Displays the number of users logged into the website
• User Status - Displays the status of users

These are many of the modules that come installed with Joomla. You only need to configure and enable them and they are ready to go. Third party extensions are available as well - some are commercial and many are free. You can search under "Extensions" on www.joomla.org website. Currently, there are over 5000 extensions developed by the Joomla community! The categories range from extensions for client management, community building (forums) to news productions. There is a tremendous amount of freedom with a Joomla site. In fact, it's easy to get carried away with adding features that probably aren't really needed. If you Google "Joomla extensions," you will find many websites with additional Joomla extensions but you will probably find more than enough at Joomla.org.

For the appearance of your Joomla site, Joomla comes with three built in templates that are available for your use. If you know some CSS, you can make changes to them. There are also many websites dedicated to Joomla templates and they are some very talented Joomla template designers out there. This website is a Joomla template that I customized and added modules and components.

Some of my favorite Joomla template websites are:

• IceTheme (my personal fav - this template came from here)
• GavickPro (my second choice)
• Joomla-Monster
• Template Monster
• JoomlaXTC

Joomla is a flexible, stable and robust CMS. If you are planning on having more of a static, brochure-type website without any dynamic data, a CMS might be a little too much. A CMS is good for websites that require more features that are driven by robust content. Joomla is a great choice should you decide to try it out.