We're back after a rather short lived vacation. These momentous holidays are great for using up all that well earned cash, and then some - another reason the interest rates keep going up.

My suggestion, stop with the interest rate hikes and cancel Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter and all school holidays (children have developed their giftings in spending when they are not at school). There is always the pressure to perform under the premise that if you haven't delivered you are not worthy.

Of course these suggestions just crash against the walls of traditionalism and just the desire to splurge for a change instead of always saving and being so jolly careful. So who really cares?

In the January 2007 Jump Start edition;

• Joomla 1.5 - The future of content management
• 3rd Joomla! Day in Cape Town Report Back
• New sites in the search zone
• www.Joomla.org.za dominates Google rankings
• Classifieds
• Joomla! Recommended Resources 
• Wish list for 2008 Joomla! SA Portal Development

Joomla 1.5 - The future of content management

As for Joomla!, still going strong of course. With such a great community of developers, designers, users and those lurking on the fringes, who wouldn't be interested in Joomla! In fact, 2008 will undoubtedly see the release of the next major step in CMS history, the best CMS of the year to be, the one and only, Joomla 1.5!

For those who still have not heard, here is a snippet from the official press release from Joomla! Coding Central about the latest and final release candidate, Joomla 1.5 RC4 - Karibu;

Joomla! 1.5 RC4 --- Introducing Karibu
Just a week and a half ago people from all over the globe gathered in various locations to do a little Bug Squashing... today the fruits of their labour can be revealed as we announce the release of Joomla! 1.5 RC4.  This release is code named Karibu which is Swahili for nearby, close,  close by,  at hand... all terms that we feel reflect the nature of this release.

Karibu marks an important milestone in 1.5's development, as barring any major issues we believe it will be the last release candidate, with the next release being the big one... Joomla! 1.5 stable. When that happens will in part be influenced by the Joomla! community...

More so than any previous, this release really has been one of unprecedented community involvement with people from all the various Working Groups as well as others banding together to help increase momentum as we head for a stable release.  There is an enormous amount of energy building up around the 1.5 release and it is inspirational being a part of the process. 

The Joomla! Southern African Portal managed to squeeze in one more Joomla! Day South Africa event, which was held where it all started earlier in the year: Cape Town. Here's the report back, courtesy of Matthew Philogene of RaraMuri Design , who co-ordinated the event. Thanks, Mat - we look forward to more like this in 2008.

3rd Joomla! Day in Cape Town Report Back

After short notice and some marketing the 3rd Joomla! Day was held at Cape Peninsular University of Technology, who kindly sponsored the venue, through Moegamat Alexander.

A big thank you needs to go to the team from the university for organising the live feed to Germany with Alex Kempkens.

The first presentation was held by Stephen Tredea from Com-du-IT . He spoke more about collaboration with the various people working in the industry and ways in which this can be streamlined. This opened up a few questions to each person as to how we run our business.

The following presentations where from Alex in Germany, via live skype chat. With a few technical problems, like no mic from our end, everything else was smooth. He introduced us to Joomla 1.5 and gave us interesting perspective as to what is to come from this version. Alex also gave a brief introduction on JoomFish, the language component for Joomla.

We returned to hear Charl van Niekerk, who also spoke about Joomla 1.5. He was invited by Joomla to work on code at the Google summer of code. Joomla! adopted the code he wrote and he is actively involved in expanding this. His main talk focused on template overrides.

All in all a great meeting, and we are sure to be back in 2008. Thanks to all for attending and we hope you enjoyed this.

images: allchorn.com & raramuridesign.com

Thanks to the following Sponsors who have made this day possible:

AlterSage gurus are all passionate about the online world and help their clients make a success of their websites by providing marketing strategies that work!

We would love to get your Feedback if you attended the event, and Request your Input as we plan the year ahead in terms of similar events.

New sites in the search zone

Last year saw a huge number of New arrivals on the Joomla! local scene;

If you did not see your website here, do register, login and share your site(s) with the rest of Southern Africans and the world. 

Joomla! Directory New!

We managed to secure a sponsorship of a Mosets Directory late last year, and encourage all Joomla! enthusiasts to list all of your Joomla! related sites, services, products, extensions and whatever you would like to suggest that will benefit the rest of the community. Hey, maybe you have just started a local Joomla User Group in your neighborhood - let everyone know about it in the Joomla! Southern African Directory.

Add Your Listing Now

Check out some of the early birds who have already listed below;

IT Technician

R9000 neg .plus incentives Your A+, N+, MCSE qualifications & 3 to 5 yrs experience in hardware & software support essential. Mature attitude regarding customer service important. Training will be given on specialised software. A great opportunit ...

Cape Town Accommodation

Our new Cape Town Accommodation portal is up and running! It provides accommodation listings in an easy-to-glance style. Our portal also provides Cape Town Tourist information, Tour operator information, and news. Visit our Cape Town Accommodation ...

Obros Office Solutions ^New!

Obros Office Solutions is a leading supplier of office furniture, stationery and computers. Our office furniture consist of reception units, lounge suites, desk, chairs, steel furniture and accessories. We also do corporate stationery, computers, printers ...

ating0.000000

Ecommerce enabler - Etailing ^New!

Erich Meyer 15, Secunda, Mpumalanga, South Africa, 2302

http://www.africa-mall.co.za

 

Africa-Mall isn't another shop directory, but a real Online Mall with multiple vendors leasing store floorspace in our mall. You can now shop online in SA as if you were walking through an actual mall. Africa-Mall aims to provide the online retailer with ...

Category:Internet Service Provider

Rating0.000000

Africa-Mall: Shop under the African Sun ^New!

Erich Meyer 15, Secunda, Mpumalanga, South Africa, 2302

http://www.africa-mall.co.za

 

Africa-Mall isn't another shop directory, but a real Online Mall with multiple vendors leasing store floorspace in our mall. You can now shop online in SA as if you were walking through an actual mall. Africa-Mall aims to provide the online retailer with ...

Category:Shopping

Rating0.000000

Webtonic ^New!

PO Box 784, Sandton, Gauteng, South Africa, 2062

http://www.webtonic.co.za

 

Increase your internet sales with our proven sales techniques and ebooks. A great online companion for any small to medium internet business looking the increase internet sales.

Category:Internet

Add Your Listing Now

www.Joomla.org.za dominates Google rankings

Yes [FIRSTNAME], that is right, our little country portal is doing rather nicely at present, topping the Google Ranks at position number three for a search for "joomla" internationally. Did we say position number three? Sorry, we meant to say TWO (since I started this mailshot it has climbed another notch). Yes, see for yourself, and do tell me if my eyes are giving way to dreamy delusions.

Shucks, let me just post in a screen shot for all you Doubting Thomas's out there;

You will have to go online to see the #2 ranking...

Classifieds

To start the year and back by popular demand.... (drum roll)

New Year Specials: (these specials only apply if bookings and payments are made by the 14th of January 2007)

Joomla! Training Workshops:
Pretoria/Johannesburg: 17 - 18 January 2008
Cape Town: 24 - 25 January 2008
Durban - 31 January - 1st February 2008
25% discount on these Joomla! Workshops

SEO - Search Engine Optimisation Workshops
Pretoria/Johannesburg - 16th January 2008
Cape Town - 23rd January 2008
Durban - 30th January 2008
25% discount on these SEO Workshops

Learn Joomla! Online

Anytime, anytopic, anyone - contact Sean on 035-7722-712 or Skype me on [slingshotsean] to get started with the best CMS.

Prices available on request.

If you would like to advertise here, please contact us (by replying to this email) for details about rates, frequency of mailshots etc. Joomla.org.za boast a mailing list of approximately 1000 subscribers, and is arguable the most comprehensive country portal for Joomla!, based on it's current ranking at 2nd internationally for "joomla", as highlighted in one of the preceding articles.

Joomla! Recommended Resources

Joomla CSS Guide prouds to announce the release of their new website. As a club member, you can access all the visual references for joomla, remository and joomlaboard and other references (Docman, Community Builder, Fireboard,...) in the near future.

These references are must have tools for template designers and developers and those who are looking for a visual guide on joomla templates css. Cl0ub Members will also have access to professional templates which is released evey month. Joomla CSS Guide also offers customized joomla tempate design and conversion in a really affordable prices.

To find out more about our services and membership benefits visit Joomla CSS Guide

Wish list for 2008 Joomla! SA Portal Development

What would you like to see happening on the Joomla! Southern African Portal in 2008? We implemented a few interactive features last year, such as the MX Comments, which allows everyone to comments , rate and reviews any article on the portal, however we have seen very little activity from the community in this regard. We were hoping that service providers in the community would encourage their clients, colleagues and partners to take full advantage of these resources, but from what I can tell, you are all so busy servicing your clients that you can not spare the time to do such things. If you are like me, you probably struggle to keep your Facebook and Linked In networks satisfied.

So, what do you want to see on our portal? Do you want instant messaging features, or a collaborative advertising system? How about a tender system for bidding on projects? Please reply to this email should you want to give us your input.

On the the topic of communication, are we talking here people? I would like to know how everyone else is finding the communication in the community. We set up an open mailing list using Google Groups, called SAJUG, which is supposed to serve as a quick and easy way to get a message out to other Joomla! users - advice, support, suggestions, warnings etc. Is anyone benefiting from this list, or should we rather can it, and setup another social networking group somewhere?

That's all from Joomla.org.za for now. Hope to see you at one of the Joomla! Day events this year.

Sean

all4Joomla! & Joomla!4all

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