2012 was a year of big changes for me. I moved my physical location, shifted my focus, and had a blast doing it all. Here's a summary of highlights for 2012.

Translations

• German: thank you, Joomla!Club!
• Russian -- thank you, Eugene Sivokon!
• Spanish -- thank you, tramundatio !

Joomla 3.0 is on track for release in September 2012. Your Joomla site isn't running Joomla 3.0. 

Should you wait for 3.0 to migrate your 1.5 site? Should you move from 2.5 to 3.0? Should you stay or should you go?

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know

Come join me in Boston next week for some live, in-person, hands-on Joomla training. It will be held at CompuWorks, 263 Summer St, 1st Floor, Boston, MA 02210 (right near the Downtown Crossing subway stop) from 9 AM to 4 PM each day.

June 13 is beginning Joomla. No prior experience with Joomla or website design is required! Come learn how to build a simple Joomla site from start to finish. Register now.

When I first started my web design business in 2000, building static, Dreamweaver-based sites, I didn't want to be in the web hosting business. One host was very much like another, and if there was an issue with hosting (and there almost never was), I figured I'd deal with it on a case-by-case basis.

As I got into more dynamic sites, eventually working with Joomla almost exclusively, I realized how important it was offering hosting as part of the website development work.

With the Joomla 1.5 lifecycle ending in September 2012, clients are being told they must migrate to Joomla 2.5, so that they can keep up with security fixes.

As expected, we are seeing much resistance to this process from clients. I paid for my site once, say the clients, so why am I paying more money for this migration, and why is it important? I addressed this question in an August 2011 Joomla Community Magazine article, Nine Questions When Preparing Clients for Joomla 2.5.

This post was inspired by a presentation I did at CMS Expo 2012, originally called "Become a Sitebuilding Samurai Using Joomla."

You love making Joomla websites. You've created sites for yourself and your friends and maybe even a paying clients. You're having so much fun, you want to make Joomla your day job, or maybe it is your day job and you just want to get known for your great work.

Be sure to check out Jonathan Shroyer's great presentation on responsive design from the CMS Expo 2012 conference. It's packed with great information and links to learn more.

My latest presentation from CMS Expo 2012 is how to become a Joomla rockstar in 7 easy steps. Contribute to the project, share what you know with others, and learn HTML and CSS!

My latest Joomla Community Magazine article is published:

Joomla ACL: Configuring back-end ACL

How to set up a better user experience for your clients — while enhancing usability — by using ACL on the back end of Joomla

My newest Joomla Community Magazine article has been published:

Joomla ACL: Improving usability by customizing the login screen for different access levels

Improve user experience by customizing login modules, menu items, and other content to provide a consistent, tailored experience for your users.

Hey everyone, my latest lynda.com video has been released! It's called Migrating from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5. This video covers how to move your site from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5 using tools like jUpgrade and spUpgrade. It also covers migrating your commercial or custom template as well as moving over your data.

Want to give it a spin but you're not sure if you want to subscribe to lynda.com yet? Try a 7 day free pass.

Hey everyone, my latest lynda.com video has been released! It's called Joomla 2.5 Essential Training. Just like Joomla! 1.6 & 1.7: Essential Training, this video covers the basics of Joomla, assuming you know nothing about how Joomla works. I cover categories, articles, and menus, configuring extensions, and later move on to ACL basics and multi-lingual websites. I'll show you how to launch a site as well as choose a good web host.

Want to give it a spin but you're not sure if you want to subscribe to lynda.com yet? Try a 7 day free pass.

My latest Joomla Community Magazine article has been published:

Joomla ACL: Access Levels

Now that you have a grasp on the terminology of ACL, let's implement a simple system where different users see different content on a website. To follow along with this example, you should be working with Joomla 1.7 or higher.

Hey everyone, my latest lynda.com video has been released! It's called Joomla 1.7 & 2.5: Access Control Lists in Depth. It covers the basics of Joomla's ACL system, as well as detailed examples for configuring ACL on the front end (who can see what), the back end (who can do what), and how to improve usability in Joomla's logins and admin interface using ACL.

Want to give it a spin but you're not sure if you want to subscribe to lynda.com yet? Try a 7 day free pass.

My latest article is available at the Joomla Community Magazine:

Nine Questions When Preparing Clients for Joomla 2.5