Read more: Joomla web site hacked

Today I got one of those client emails we all dread. The client had visited his brand new site and it wouldn't load it just gave a blank screen.

Experienced web developers know that a blank screen is really an error message so I dug a little further and checked his site with my ftp client. Not surprisingly I saw that some malicious code had been inserted into the index.php files. Fortunately there was a bug in this code and that gave the blank screen.

Read more: It's good to fail

Now that might seem like a strange thing to say but if you don't fail at some things then it means that "you are not trying hard enough".

If we always take the "safe" option that has guaranteed success then we will never truly move on and progress.

When I started this blog, and it took a lot of convincing to do it, I took a decision that this blog would not be the usual Joomla blog.

My intention is to write articles that are of interest to a wide audience and to not only provide "tips and tricks" and republished "product news" but also to write articles that are "challenging and make you really think".

I had intended on writing a long blog post with screenshots and everything explaining some of the new features, and changes, in the upcoming Joomla 1.6.

But I'm lazy and I don't see any point in re-inventing the wheel so just take a few moments to read this excellent presentation from Andrew Eddie.

I'm still not convinced that the core of Joomla needs the bloat of tags and comments but only time will tell on that one. (I originaly came to mambo because I was looking for an open source application to build dynamic web sites that did NOT have comments)

Read more: Talk to developers

Is there an extension that you regularly use and regularly modify (hack)? If you're anything like me then I'm confident that you have found a joomla extension that is just perfect for a site but just needed a little tweaking.

When I mentioned this to several people during Joomla!Day many people came back with the same answer, "Oh yes I always use XXXX but each time they release an update I have to re-apply my fixes".

That's a pain in the proverbial butt, of course, and yet not one of the people I spoke to had actually passed on their "fixes" to the extension developer.

Read more: Automatic Joomla updates

When a new (security) release of joomla is released how do you do the update?

Do you actually look at the changes or do you blindly do an update either via ftp or using an automated "update extension"

Blindly updating your site is not good security!!!

What? Is Brian saying that we shouldn't keep our joomla sites up to date. Absolutely not.

Read more: Joomla Suppporters Club

Are you a "supporter/fan" of Joomla?

Would you like a simple and easy way to show your support?

How about joining a "Joomla Supporters Club".

Read more: Michael J Jackson danced his last mambo

OK I know what you're thinking this is a blog about joomla and web development so what is Brian doing writing about Michael Jackson for. Sure his death is sad news, especially for those of us who grew up with The Jackson 5 but why give it space on this blog.

What many of you may not know is that in December 2004 his web site "MJJSource.com - The Official Source of Michael Jackson News & Information" was launched  using Mambo.

Read more: How much does joomla cost?

That might sound like a silly question as we all know that Joomla cost zero pounds, zero dollars, zero euros, zero yen, zero yuan etc. But it is not as simple as that.

Earlier today I twittered

Trying to write new blog post "how much does #joomla cost" not easy. struggling with some of the math.

Joomla does not cost nothing.