After over 2 years of running on Joomla! 1.0, HowToJoomla! has finally been upgraded to Joomla! 1.5. I will post more about the upgrade/migration process when I get a little more time, but in the meantime please feel free to join the HowToJoomla Community, read some how-to's, download some extensions, and read the blog

I just wanted to let everyone know that I will no longer be writing "Blog" posts here at HowToJoomla.net. I will continue writing tips, tricks & tutorials here as often as I can, but all blog posts will be written over at my new blog, http://blog.corywebb.com/. The main reason for this is that I want to keep HowToJoomla a place for tutorials, and I feel like my blog posts here are distracting from that purpose. I will also no longer be writing blog posts at JoomlaForm.com in favor of blogging at my new blog. So, if you are interested, head on over to http://blog.corywebb.com/ and check it out. There is only one post there for now until I have time to get everything set up and start writing. Thanks for visiting!

Back in September, I gave you my first impressions of the templates in the Joomla! 1.5 template contest. Rob Schley announced today that it is time to vote for the winner, and I am pleased to see that three of my top 5 choices made the top 5.

After reviewing the top 5 candidates, I have decided to throw my support behind RedEvo_Aphelion. If you get a chance, head over and vote for your favorite template. The winning template will be included with the core distribution of Joomla! 1.5. Good luck to all 5 candidates!

I mentioned Joomla! CSS Guide several months ago as a great resource for Joomla template designers because it offered a comprehensive list of all the core CSS classes and ID's output from Joomla and its core components. I went to the site a few months ago to find that the site was off line. I got an e-mail this morning from the founder of Joomla! CSS Guide letting me know that the site is back online, so I went to check it out.

Unfortunately, the CSS guide is no longer free. Visitors to the site now must purchase a membership in the site's professional template club to gain access to the CSS guides. In my opinion, this is a huge mistake. The CSS guide is a great resource and a great way to draw traffic to the site. If the guide were free, it would attract more traffic and more potential customers for the template club.

My Advice

My advice to Joomla! CSS Guide is to make the CSS guide a free resource for anyone visiting your website. You will see an increase in traffic and more potential customers for your template club.

My advice to you is, if you feel the CSS guide and templates are worth paying for, go ahead and pay for them, but I will not be purchasing a membership.

Best of luck to Joomla! CSS Guide. I hope your business model works out for you, but I have a feeling you will be unlocking the CSS guide when you realize its value as a magnet to your site.