Community Magazine

This month I had the opportunity to go to a tech conference and talk about Joomla!, Open Source Communities, and Education – nothing unusual for me, I do that all the time at colleges and Joomla! events around the United States and elsewhere. But this time was different, because I was showing up to an event I’d never been to, a WordCamp. The most common questions I got almost non-stop for two days? “Why in the world are you here?” and “Isn’t this ‘enemy territory’ for you?” Here’s what I said, and why I went, and why I’m definitely going to go to more events in other Open Source communities.

With 159 user groups around the world, there is always something exciting and interesting happening in the Joomla! Community! This is a monthly round-up highlighting new Joomla! User Groups, events, and reviews of JUG meetings. If you have anything you would like me to feature from your Joomla User Group please send me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You must be writing from a registered Joomla! User Group (i.e. listed at https://community.joomla.org/user-groups.html).

Joomla!Ignite was a new presentation style added to the 2013 Joomla World Conference. Twelve presenters took the stage at Harvard University to battle a tightly controlled five minute presentation format where 20 slides changed automatically every 15 seconds. Topics varied widely, but generally fell into three areas – self improvement, the Joomla! community experience, and soapboxes for change.

This year was very successful considering the number of Joomla! events held around the world. I'm very happy and proud to have been able to participate in many of them. Each event was different, and each was very special. Here is a short report from the events in which my husband Radek and I were able to participate.

When I arrived at the Harvard Medical School building for the Joomla! World Conference 2013, I took a moment to look around. In November 2012 I went to San Jose, CA, to attend the very first JWC. There, I expanded my understanding about what the Open Source community is all about, and I got involved in the Joomla community as an illustrator for the Joomla! Community Magazine. After a while I started to wonder: what's next? I went to the second Joomla! World Conference in Boston looking for an answer...

Dear Joomla! developers, jQuery is already installed in Joomla! 3... KNOCK IT OFF! 

If you haven't heard of Twitter, you've been living under a rock. Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networks on the Planet. It's the fastest growing for an older 55-65 demographic. It also gets a lot of interaction. This month we had a chance to sit down with Twitter Expert Branden Hampton. Branden manages the most interactive handle on Twitter @notebook.

If your clients want a simpler backend to their websites, don’t log them in to an 'admin' template – serve them a 'client' template.

A big thank you to all who submitted artwork for the Joomla! Fan Art Logo Contest, we had some great logos to choose from! All three stickers will be printed by StickerMule.com and will be available at the upcoming Joomla! World Conference!

Have you got your tickets yet? This is the Joomla! conference you don't want to miss! We kick it off on Thursday, November 7th with our J!Party Pre-event... there are not many tickets left for that (space is limited!) Can't make it for the whole weekend? Join us on Friday for Business Day! The best thing is to be there for all the action, with all the Joomlers, all weekend!