The Virtuemart team has released a new version of their free e-commerce solution for Joomla. It's been a long time since the last version was released - back in January 2009.

Version 1.1.14 of VirtueMart is mostly a bug fix release as far as I can see from the change log. One new feature, however, is the support for PHP 5.3.

I purchased a license for sh404SEF today, and installed the lastest version (1.5.3.296). As I was playing around with the settings I noticed that the 404 redirection didn't work on my site anymore. If an incorrect URL is entered, sh404SEF redirects to the front page of the site. This is not good - as Google will not reindex the wrong URLs. It might also lead to unwanted URLs being indexed.

For instance, a person could link to a site like this: www.companyname.com/thecompanysucks/, and get the URL indexed in Google, showing the front page when clicked. Not very nice for the site being linked to...

Yesterday, I was surfing the Joomla Extensions Directory for new Joomla Extensions. I noticed that a lot of new extensions for sh404SEF had been added on September 19th.

The extensions are created by JoomAce LLC, the company behind AceSEF, another SEF component for Joomla.

Front-end developer Marco Barbosa has just released his advanced Joomla admin template: Minima.

This is a template for the Joomla administrator that changes the way it's presented. It also adds quite a few nifty features to the interface.

Minima is built using advanced CSS and other modern techniques. For that reason, you should use Firefox, Chrome, Safari or another browser with the latest CSS support to get the full experience from the template.

You will also need Joomla 1.6, as the template will only work on that version of the Joomla framework.

AdminPraise3 is the third iteration of the Joomla admin template concept by PixelPraise. This version takes another step forward in improving the administration of Joomla.

AdminPraise3 tries to improve how you work with the administrator. Kyle Ledbetter of PixelPraise has initiated collaboration with several Joomla component developers to create specific modules for the AdminPraise template.

This means you can have customized modules showing information from your favorite components on the dashboard or in other places in the admin.

A few months ago, I did a post on 9 awesome free Joomla templates. The post turned out to be one of the most popular posts on this blog.

Now, I've collected another 13 free joomla templates. And they're as awesome as the previous ones ;)

All of these templates are created for Joomla 1.5.

After Kyle Ledbetter left JoomlaPraise a while ago to start TapTheme, he's been busy building admin and mobile templates for Joomla.

His latest offering is the TapTheme Android template for Joomla. The template gives the user a customized experience when surfing your site from an Android phone.

Using a free plug-in, the template is automagically loaded when visited by an Android handset.

Finding a great template for your Joomla site can be a challenge. There are tons of free Joomla templates out there, but to be honest: Most of them are junk. Finding quality free Joomla templates is important to ensure you can work smoothly with the content, modules and other extensions you want to include.

In this post I take a look at 9 high-quality free Joomla templates. Made by some of the most renowned template providers in the Joomla community.

All of these templates are made for Joomla 1.5.

Once again it's time to take a look at what the various Joomla template clubs have to offer.

The October 2009 templates look promising. Let's take a look at what they look like and what kind of functions they feature.

I've looked at templates from RocketTheme, YooTheme, JoomlaBamboo and GavickPro.

Join me as I explore some of the releases - from one eye-candy to another.