I moved the blog to a new server a few days ago. I hope you can notice the speed difference.

The old server had an old version of MySQL, and the same goes for PHP. So it was about time I switched.

Joomla 1.5.15 was released today, three months after the 1.5.14 release.

The update contains two security fixes and a lot of bug fixes. A lot of issues with TinyMCE has been addressed.

There has also been an addition to the TinyMCE editor, i.e. the option to create templates in TinyMCE editor.

An important addition to the system is the added option to disallow users to view extension XML files. This was proposed by Brian Teeman, I believe, and will increase the security of your installation.

Great news, everyone! The second alpha version of Joomla 1.6 has been released by the project team. And this time, the ACL is in place.

Read on for more about the new features and additions, and what's in store for the beta release.

First, I want to remind you that any alpha or beta release is only meant for evaluation and testing purposes. They should never be used on a live website.

Many readers of JoomlaBlogger are already following my Twitter account (around 1,200 followers at this time). At the same time, I believe many of you would probably also like to connect with other readers of this blog.

To facilitate this, please use the comments function in this post to share your Twitter username. Make sure to leave a link to make it easier for us to quickly follow as many of you as possible.

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...

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.

From Joomla.org today:

Joomla! is a finalist in the "Hall of Fame" and "Best Open Source PHP CMS" Awards sponsored by Packt Publishing.

With the exciting news about the implementation of Access Control Lists (ACL) in Joomla 1.6 and the incredible growth of all parts of the Joomla Project, now is a time to celebrate the great successes of this community. Over 1000 sites in the Site Showcase, 3500 extensions in the JED, 150 Resources in the JRD and almost 13 million downloads, what a great set of accomplishments by everyone in the Joomla community.

Remember that you can also vote for best extension and best template and nominate someone who you think is a Joomla MVP. There are so many great contributors who could be nominated. Think of all those people who make the JED, JRD, Showcase, Forums, JoomlaCode and Joomla itself possible.

I encourage all Joomla! fans to vote for Joomla for both awards.

I picked up a small comment from Hannes Papenberg from the Joomla 1.6 development team some time ago. He was talking about the process of upgrading from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6.

Today, Joomla is upgraded by copying all the files for the upgrade into the web root of the site. This works fine, and there are also some upgrade scripts that makes this process even faster.

Upgrading to a completely new version of Joomla is another case. Joomla 1.6 will have a lot of new functions and changes. Not only the files will change but also the structure of the tables, and some files will be deleted. Those things don't happen in a regular upgrade. Thus, the upgrade process is not just about copying files. Normally, the process would be to delete all of the files for 1.5, and then migrate all data, image files and setup into Joomla 1.6 manually. This is not ideal. For this reason, Hannes from the development team has proposed that a migration script be made.

I'm happy and excited to announce my very first contest here at Joomlablogger.net. If you have a Joomla website you can take part in the contest.

Jump in and participate! It's easy to enter and the price is very useful for everyone who owns or runs a Joomla website.

The contest is now closed. Check out this post for more about the winner: Winner of 'Joomla Greatest Challenge Contest' Chosen

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.

Only some ten days has passed since my last update on Joomla 1.6. Then, the latest news was that Joomla 1.6 beta 1 would be released around now.

Today, however - the Joomla Production Team released news that they would soon announce the release of Joomla 1.6 Alpha 2. Apparently, the ACL (Access Control List) functionality is what makes the project take more time than previously expected.