Brian Teeman

Joomla 2.5 was released earlier this week and I would like to publicly thanks everyone who helped to code and test this release. It truly is the next major step in the life of this awesome community software project.

The upgrade process from Joomla 1.7 is a very simple one-click process but there are a few things you should do immediately after performing the upgrade to ensure a smooth transition.

Of course it goes without saying that you should perform a full site backup before starting the upgrade process.

The advice below should be followed in this specific order.

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains.

The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
William Arthur Ward 

It seems that almost everyday there is a new social media opportunity appearing online which is immediately followed by an inevitable land grab phase. But before jumping on the bandwagon of the latest and greatest thing to hit the net take a moment to think.

Are you getting the maximum benefits you could from your current social media streams? Are there some that just didn't work for you? Are you missing opportunities because you just don't get it or did you not put in the time and effort and create a consistent social media presence.

This year I have been fortunate to travel and speak about Joomla in 13 countries across almost all the continents on the planet. One thing I quickly learned is that despite increasing globalistaion and harmonisation we are all different.

I've written before about the obvious differences of language but there's much more too it than that. Local culture and economics play an important part as well in defining and differentiating the Joomla communities around the world.

• I smoke.
• I shouldn't smoke.
• I need to stop smoking.
• Cigarettes are bad for my health.
• Cigarettes are bad for my wallet.

I just don't have the willpower required to stop smoking. I need your help to motivate me to stop smoking.

Over 28,000 people have now seen the slides of the presentation but sadly only about five hundred have seen the presentation live in it's full glory.

Those of you who have seen one of my presentations before will know that the slides are only a small part of the presentation. It's just not the same without the full visual and audio experience.

Two weeks ago at JoomlaDay South Africa I gave the first presentation of my new talk "The Hidden Secrets of Joomla 1.7".

A lot of work went in to preparing that presentation and I hope to be taking it around the world in the coming months. (If you can't wait to see it live or for the video you can see the slides now.)

Reducing the "Hidden Secrets" to a 45 minute presentation sadly meant that some of them were dropped so I intend to write about them here instead.

Six years ago today I sent a short email to just over 100 people.

Whilst the words may not go down in history with the words of Neil Armstrong or others their results have had an effect on the lives of people in every country in the world. Something that I don't think any one of us could have predicted.

In my dim and distant past I was employed as a youth leader and as part of the training for that role we spent a lot of time discussing the differences between being a leader and a manager. The differences in personality required, tasks to achieve, goals and ambitions.

After a UX (User Experience) presentation yesterday I found this fantastic presentation by Kim Goodwin. 

This weekend all the joomla leadership teams, including OSM, are gathering in San Jose, California to discuss numerous issues effecting the future directions and goals of the project.

It's really great to see so many people travelling across the world in their own free time to meet up and consider the future path of our project.