Read more: A funny thing happened on the way to DC

I've just returned from travelling to the USA where I attended a meeting of the Milwaukee JUG and Joomla!Day DC where I had the opportunity to meet many friends, old and new, some of whom I've previously only met online.

One of the great things about meeting in person is to share stories and adventures, consider new ideas and of course get to know the real person behind the avatar or nickname.

Over the next few days I'll be writing several blog posts as a direct consequence of the trip but before I do that I wanted to share a small story about my adventures travelling to the USA this trip.

Read more: Meetup at Joomla!Day

Perhaps the greatest things that has happened to me by being part of this amazing Joomla! community is that I have met so many people from all over the world.

Of course I'm not alone in that and probably every one of you reading this blog will have made new friends as a result of your involvement in Joomla!

But making online friends is only the start of it.

Read more: Thank You OpenSourceMatters

Several months ago the "new" OSM board published a set of accounts.

At the time many people in the community questioned the amount of money that was being spent on Legal and PR agency fees.

Today I saw that OSM have published an updated set of accounts and I'm really pleased with what I saw.

The amount of money being spent on Legal and PR have been drastically reduced. Thank you OSM for listening to the community and taking action.

Read more: Launching a new site

On the 5th anniversary of the release of Joomla 1.0 I have decided to launch a new web site.

Suprisingly it is probably only about the third or fourth site I have ever built just for myself and not a client.

HiddenJoomlaSecrets.com is the new home of all my presentations and videos, which I hope to be adding to considerably in the coming weeks and months.

Read more: New software isn't always an improvement

Last night I started writing a new blog post and it quickly became apparent to me that it really should be a video.

Not a problem I thought, I know how to produce videos.

Just this morning I was telling some friends how brilliant iMovie is on the Mac for producing videos.

Read more: Beauty isn't just skin deep

You enter a crowded bar and across the room you spot a beautiful person. They're dressed in the latest fashions and they have a welcoming smile that draws you across the room to say hello.

We all know that beauty is only skin deep and that it's what's inside that really matters and yet despite that we are still attracted to the one with the stunning looks.

Read more: Happy 5th Birthday Joomla!

I thought long and hard about what to write for this Birthday blog post.

I started to look back at the early days, back in September and October 2005, to see if the aims and ideas of the co-founders have come to fruition.

Then I realised that we had no grand aims of world domination just a desire to work together with a wider community to build something special.

Read more: Top 10 Joomla extensions

Wherever I am I always seem to be asked for my top 10 joomla extensions.

So instead of keep repeating myself I'm writing them here and I can just point people at the blog and talk about something more interesting instead when I meet you.

This is MY list and I'm sure people will have other some other ideas so please add them in the comments.