In 1911, Ernest Shackleton was looking for recruits to join him on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The plan was to make the first ever overland crossing of the Antarctic continent from west to east.

Here is the wording of a (possibly apocryphal) advertisement which Shackleton posted for his expedition:

Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.

When Shackleton announced his plans, he received over 5,000 responses from interested men and women. He chose 27 men to join him in an ill-fated expedition that would go down in history as a triumph of human endurance and perserverance.

Well, it's 99 years since Shackleton's posting and now the JCM is looking for recruits. We aren't off on a first ever transcontinental trek, but we are breaking new ground in delivering broad and diverse community driven content about Joomla!. We won't get shipwrecked but we may need to stay up late every once in a while to meet a publishing deadline. And while we probably won't go down in history, we are determined to have a strong positive impact on the worldwide Joomla! community. With apologies to Shackleton, how does this sound for our JCM recruiting advertisement:

Volunteers wanted for adventurous journey, priceless experience, warm friendships, endless opportunities for rewarding teamwork, constant good humour, safe and inclusive work environment, pride and satisfaction in serving others and strengthening a global community.

If that sounds like fun to you, please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and tell us a little bit about yourself and what area(s) of the JCM you would like to help with! We are especially interested in finding volunteers with experience in or an interest in helping with public relations, online documentation, editorial skills, as well as members of international communities who speak languages other than english.

We are also always seeking community members who are willing to share their articles and stories to be published in upcoming JCM issues. If you would like to contribute your Joomla! story in one of our JCM topics, please learn more about how easy it is to become a contributing JCM author!

In this issue

We have added a subscribe feature this month. When you click on the new subscribe link (also in the main horizontal navigation menu) and enter your email address, you will receive an email with links to all JCM articles when each new issue is published.

Feature stories

• Matt Lipscomb has written an interview with Paul Orwig about the JCM.
• Herman Peeren has contributed a story about nominations for the upcoming Packt Open Source Awards (be sure to click through the link he provided and nominate Joomla!).

International stories

• Community members have submitted articles in six different languages for this issue.
• Opportunities are now open for community members to submit articles in 17 different languages.

Extensions and Services Evaluations

• Don't miss the third installment in Team EaSE's series of detailed looks at Joomla! template frameworks.
• Miljan Vujosevic has contributed an article which explains how to configure .htaccess and robot.txt for search engine optimization.

Website case studies

• Cristina Solana and Robert Vining have teamed up to deliver another in-depth look at an innovative Joomla! website. This month they focus on the Kosher Kingdom website, a design challenge which included a conversion from a difficult to update Flash based site and integration of shopping cart and point of sale systems.

Leadership connections

• Steve Burge has contributed another update on Open Source Matters activities for August.
• Paul Orwig has published a volunteer profile of JED team member Pierre Gazzola.
• Paul Orwig has written a volunteer profile of PWG system tester Matt Thomas.

Joomla! events and Joomla! User Groups

• Bo Astrup has written a story about signifigant upgrades to JUGs listings on the Community website.
• Bo Astrup has published an overview about Joomla! Day USA West 2010 which is coming up on October 1-3 in San Jose, CA.

Joomla! in the press/media

• Mark Bender has compiled another set of recent links to Joomla! related stories featured on other websites.

Designer's studio

• Moriah Chesler has contributed a thorough look at W3C standards and why they are important.

Developer's workbench

• Nicholas Dionysopoulos has written a book review of The Joomla! Developer's Bible.
• Arlen Walker has delivered a profile of Ian MacLennan in the The Joomla! Setup series.

Administrator's toolkit

• Nicholas Dionysopoulos has written an article about improving your site's security by changing the default super administrator username and id.

On the lighter side...

• Yepr has contributed another Jane Beyond and friends cartoon.

In our next issue

We want to publish your Joomla! story in the next JCM issue! So take a look at our Author Resources content to get a better idea of what we are looking for, and then register to become a JCM author and submit your Joomla! story!