I have been working with JoomlaShack for a year-and-a-half, and you could not ask for a better group of people to work with. They have recently announced the JoomlaShack Developer Club, which is a way for professional web developers to use JoomlaShack's high-quality Joomla! templates on unlimited domains, have access to a private developer section of the JoomlaShack forums, gain Professional Developer status on the JoomlaShack forums, and have access to JoomlaShack's top notch educational resources. The cost of $499/year may seem steep for the average user, but this program is not aimed at the average user. For a professional developer, the time and money saved by using JoomlaShack's templates more than make up the cost of joining the club. I highly recommend this club, not only for the great features, but for the opportunity to work with a great group of people. Join here.

I just read on Steve Burge's blog that Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's website is running Joomla! Not only that, but he is running RS Gallery 2 as his photo gallery, and I designed the logo for RS Gallery 2. The logo is used as the default image for a gallery with no images, so the logo appears on the photo gallery page of his website.

I can now tell everyone I know that something I designed ended up on a presidential candidate's website. Too bad it's not a candidate I support.

Today I came across an interesting website called ScratchBack. They offer a product called the ScratchBack TopSpot widget, which is basically a digital tip jar for your website. It seems like a fun way to add some interaction to your website while making a little bit of extra money. The basic concept is the visitor pays a small fee (like leaving a tip at a restaurant), and in return, the visitor leaves a link to his or her website with a brief message that displays when your mouse hovers over the link. The last person to leave a tip gets the number 1 spot in the top spots list, and the person before that gets bumped down to the next spot automatically. Right now, I only have 10 spots. Once 10 people have left a tip after you, your link gets bumped off of the list.

If you visit HowToJoomla often and find this site useful, now you have a fun, interactive way to give back. Plus, a link to your website will appear in a prominent position on every page of HowToJoomla.net. All for just $2.00 USD!

Click here to visit the ScratchBack website and get a TopSpots widget for your website.

A few weeks ago, I tried out a new free online language learning tool called Mango. I went through a couple of lessons for learning to speak German, and overall I thought it was a great tool. Tonight, I got an e-mail from them saying that their site had moved and been improved, and when I visited the site, I found out that the new site is powered by Joomla! It looks like they are using a customized RocketTheme template, and the application itself is an Adobe Flash-based application. This site is a great example of the power of Joomla!

Click here to visit the Mango website.