After a long wait, the Joomla! store is finally open! There is currently only one t-shirt option, but I bet that will change pretty soon. I recommend buying 7 shirts...one for each day of the week. Or, if you already have dozens of t-shirts and the last thing you need is another t-shirt, you could always make a donation to the project.

A month-and-a-half ago, I posted about TJ Baker's daughter, Azaria Sage. I was just on her website, and I read a very touching thank-you note on the front page from Azaria's parents, TJ and Debi. Here are a couple of excerpts from that note:

...Azaria's site received many new visitors. We received many well wishes and prayers, and a total of $600 in donations within a months time!

This was a very unexpected and pleasant surprise. Every day that we opened her email, we received notification of a donation and/or prayers. We became overwhelmed with gratitude and we are so very thankful.

To those who have given us their gifts, you have no idea how you have touched our hearts. Your gracious giving has helped Azaria continue her therapies, medications and continued planning for her upcoming dolphin therapy trip this summer.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who visited Azaria's site and sent your prayers, encouragement, and donations. If you have not yet had a chance to read the Bakers' remarkable story, I strongly encourage you to do so and to consider how you might help this family. Joomla! is so much more than just a project or a piece of software. It is a community, and I thank you all for rallying to support the Bakers.

I started using Mambo toward the end of 2003. Today, just out of curiosity, I thought I would use the Wayback Machine to check out some archived versions of the Mambo website from the early days. I clicked on the the link to the archive from January 24, 2003, and I found something very interesting. Apparently, the community voted to make the koala the Mambo mascot. Scroll down to the article titled "And the winner is ..." on the archived site to see for yourself. By the time I joined the community later that year, the koala was already a distant memory. Go figure.

I am not a security expert. In fact, I know very little about how one would go about exploiting holes in software to potentially cause damage to a website. But, I'm trying to learn as much as I can because I recognize the potential vulnerability that exists when developing a website with PHP. That's why I was excited to find this article which explains "Basic PHP Security".