The upgraded 2.5 version of the content management system (CMS), which became available on Jan. 24,  offers multi-database support, notably Microsoft SQL Server out of the gate, and Oracle support in the near future, as well as an enhanced natural language search engine and automatic notification and delivery of updates and extensions.

Automatic notification when a Joomla or extension update is available. When logged into the control panel, site administrators will instantly have access to new notification buttons that allows them to see and act on the latest updates. In addition to updates for the Joomla CMS, a second button offers third party extension notification updates.

A better natural language search engine to the Joomla core. Complete with auto-completion and stemming (for example if you type “running” in a search field you also see run), it is faster and more versatile than the standard search.

Over the last year, Microsoft and eBay have contributed code to the Joomla project.

If you had reservations about Joomla robust enough for your business requirements, it is time to drop is a line -- we'd be happy to provide a personal walkthrough of the Joomla 2.5 platform.

One of the surefire ways of gaining a huge client base is by having your own website. However, creating and maintaining websites can be a hassle to those who do not have a programming background. Plus, hiring a web developer and a designer may be an expense most businesses would rather not be burdened with. This is why most companies have started adopting content management systems.

A content management system (CMS) is used to create and manage the content of a website. Platforms such as Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal are used to create dynamic websites which can be changed easily even by those who know little about HTML. However, that isn’t all what you can get by using a CMS.

Here are some other advantages to tempt you to start using a CMS:

• More Room for Change – With a CMS, you can easily tweak your website to make it more attractive to its visitors and your potential clients. Plus, you can always add more pages and update content quickly and effectively. This is definitely a valuable feature because your clients will appreciate that your content is up to date and available online most of the time.
• Configurable Access Restrictions – You can easily determine who can edit your content and who can update it. This way you can keep tabs on the content published and ensure that only high quality material appears on your website.
• Consistency of Design – You can choose a template for your website, which is one of the beauties of having a CMS. With a single design for all your pages, your website will be attractive to your visitors’ eyes.
• Easy Access from Anywhere – You can edit your content from anywhere in the world because it will be stored in a central database. In addition, this allows your material to be formatted for any device aside from a regular computer.
• Fewer Costs – This is the most enticing benefit of all. You won’t have to pay someone to maintain your website for you. So, you will be saving more money than you ever expected.

So, don’t you think that it’s about time that you start using a CMS? Yes? Well, consider using Joomla as your platform. Aside from being a strong and cost-effective platform, Joomla comes with numerous components, modules, plug-ins and templates.

The Joomla community is currently anticpating the first production-stable release of Joomla 1.6 on January 10th, 2011.

This is the release thousands of Joomla designers have been waiting for.

With Joomla 1.6, the concept of sections and categories disappears, to be replaced with just nested categories -- think "nested folders". This is going to be a big improvement for content categorization, and certainly is more intuitive to endusers.

Also, we'll be seeing a more robust, extendable ACL model (ACL = access control list) and is the security model used to control who can access various parts of the site -- whether it is backend admininstratirve features (eg: who can install components, who can access components) to who has access to specific categories of content (eg: Marketing is only allowed to manage the Marketing section of a site, and Human Resource can only edit their area of the site). This will make Joomla a great contender for enterprise-scale sites.

We've been staying on top of 1.6 development for the past year, and we're excited to be building our first Joomla 1.6 production web site in the first quarter of 2011.

Joomla, the hottest Content Management System (CMS) around, is growing more in popularity every day. Many developers have switched from using Drupal, which was THE CMS of the century, just because they discovered how strong Joomla is in satisfying their clients’ content hosting requirements. If you still haven’t tried what this open source CMS has to offer, here are some reasons that will definitely make you convert to Joomla:

1) Fewer Costs

Joomla offers lower upfront, implementation, customization and maintenance costs in comparison with other systems, which is why it has been nominated as the best system for clients on a limited budget. Customers can ensure their web presence for years and get a great return on their investment.

2) Many Inherent Features

Joomla offers so many features that add value to clients and allow developers to unleash their creativity. Here are a few which stand out:

• Components – Joomla allows developers to add many components such as banners, newsfeed, search, polls and much more. This enhances web content and adds more value to clients.
• Modules – Developers can use existent modules and customize them according to clients’ requirements. So, having an archived content module, a login module, or a news flash module are very possible.
• Plugins – This is the main strength of Joomla. Plugins like XML-RPC, email clocking and Cache are easy to add to any CMS.

3) Numerous Customizable Templates

Joomla comes with numerous attractive templates which offer to enhance the appearance of web content. This spares developers from spending time and money on template design. Many template companies offer excellent templates for low prices or for free, which also contributes to reducing the costs of the CMS developed.

4) Extra Support from National and International Developers

The developer and user community for Joomla is increasing steadily. There, developers and customers can ask or answer technical questions, solve problems, identify security weaknesses and develop new features or expand existing ones at very low costs.

With so much to offer, starting from interesting template design to lower costs, Joomla is definitely the best CMS choice for any user.

Are you considering a web site redesign? If you have an existing site, one of your worries might be what happens when you change the names of your pages during a web site redesign.

When you change a name or remove a page from your site, or even change a domain name, you run the risk of losing the rankings that were associated with that page. If you have popular pages on your site, you want to protect those URLs when you rebuild your site.

A 301 redirect helps Google, other search engines, and human site visitors where to find the new content.

There are some ways to do a 301 redirect that will further harm your rankings -- for example, using a meta tag refresh is a technique that some search engine spammers for malicious purposes -- so many search engines will ignore this approach.

Yet again, Joomla comes to the rescue with a great component specifically designed to handle 301 redirects.

So, when we are redesigning your site for you, you can be assured we have a strategy to protect your existing web ranking!