Sweet Home Chicago

The Joomla Project is proud to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.6 beta 5 (download). IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a beta version and is not intended to run any type of production site. It is intended to be used for evaluation purposes only.

Since the Joomla 1.6 beta 4 release on Jun 28, we have fixed approximately 65 issues in the tracker. Much of this progress is directly related to the stepped up efforts of the Joomla! Bug Squad. Thanks for all your hard work in bringing us one increment closer to stable!

See the CHANGELOG for details of what has been changed in this release.

What's next?

This is the fifth in our series of continuous beta releases. Beta 6 will be released on July 26, 2010.

There is already another security release of Joomla. You may download version 1.5.20 here. This is available immediately. Thanks Joomla!

The Joomla! Project announced the immediate availability of Joomla! version 1.5.19. This new version is for improved security. Download the full version or upgrade versions here.

In preparation for the July meeting, we'll be upgrading the networking software on JoomlaChicago, so you may experience some interesting turbulence in flight over the next 48 hours on the JoomlaChicago.com website. We apologize for the rough ride, but FAA regulations require us to make the upgrade as soon as possible. Please wait for the site to come to a complete rest before moving about the cabin. Thank you ;)

Come to the July JoomlaChicago Meeting for insights on how to expand your knowledge of one of the best Open Source CMSes on the market today: Joomla!  Used in Fortune 500 corporations, major government installations and small business alike, Joomla! Content Management System software is exceedingly versatile. Joomla! adapts to suit whatever application you need.

Sign up to be a part of the JoomlaChicago User Group to get up to speed, and stay up to date on Joomla! While you're at it, meet great new contacts to help you continue to make progress.  It's free! The meeting space is incredible (thanks to the Acquity Group), and lunch is on us (thanks to Arc Technology Group). Come be part of the largest Joomla! user group in the world today.  Hosted by the CMS Association, you can attend live meetings, keep in touch with fellow members on our highly interactive JoomlaChicago Network, make presentations, get involved in the organization and more! 

Joomla! is free, open source software, available for download here.

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Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 Meeting Agenda
For the first segment at 11:00 a.m., choose either Joomla! KickStart for newer Joomla! users, or Joomla! Pro for advanced users. Then, at 11:45, we'll combine for our Joomla! Showcase presentation, lunch, and our featured presentation from 12:05 until 1:00 pm. Stick around afterwards for business networking, from 1pm - 1:30 to find great help to accomplish what you need: admin's, businesspeople, creative folks and developers!

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11:00 - 11:45 ~ Joomla! KickStart for New Users
Room C: 4-Part Series On Joomla! CMS For New Users. Hosts: Kendall Cabe & Nick Martinelli
July Topic: Content & Navigation - Part 2 of 4, led by Kendall Cabe & Miles Baltrusaitis

11:00 - 11:45 ~ Joomla! Pro Roundtable Discussion
Room A: Advanced Joomla! Topics & Discussion. Hosts: Daniel Petrowski & Robert Nowack
July Topic: ProjectFork, led by Thomas Sparkman

11:45 - 11:55 ~ Joomla! CMS Site Showcase
Rooms A, B, C (Combined): 10 minute overview of a Joomla! Site
July Topic: RainTees.com - Presented by Joe Liu

Noon - 1:00 ~ Updates & Featured Presentation
Welcome & Group Updates: Linda and John Coonen
July Topic: Social Interaction Extensions, led by John Coonen, Justin Kerr & Josh Miller
Extensions: JomSocial, CB, Anahita, People Management & Forums

1:00 - 1:30 ~ Business Networking
Bring your business cards for informal time to make business great local connections

1:30 - 2:30 ~ Professional Hour (optional)
Need 1:1 help? Schedule an hour with a fellow member ($75 - by appt)

Sorry, this meeting is now sold out. Hope to see you in August!

Remember: You MUST be a JoomlaChicago Member (and logged in) to register.
Membership in JoomlaChicago free.  Sign Up For JoomlaChicago Here.

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If you're interested in learning all you can about Joomla!, you're invited to join us at one of our upcoming JoomlaChicago meetings. Our business lunch meetings are on the 2nd Wednesday of every month, from 11:00 am - 1:30 pm at the offices of the Acquity Group, 500 West Madison, Suite 2200 (Ogilvy Transportation Center). Lunch is provided for you free of charge, thanks to Arc Technology Group.

JoomlaChicago is an Officially Registered Joomla! User Group. You must be registered on this site to sign up for our live meetings. Photo ID is required for our business lunch meetings for security purposes.

The Joomla Project is proud to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.6 beta 3 (download). IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a beta version and is not intended to run any type of production site. It is intended to be used for evaluation purposes only.

Since the Joomla 1.6 beta 2 release on May 31, we have fixed approximately 102 issues in the tracker. Much of this progress is directly related to the stepped up efforts of the Joomla! Bug Squad. Thanks for all your hard work in bringing us one increment closer to stable! This is the third in Joomla's series of continuous betas. Beta 4 will be released on June 28, 2010.

Download here: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=5276

Now that the email notification issue is solved, we're finally out of Beta1. ;)

If you're part of the Joomla Chicago User Group, and you've spent any time at all in the Community Area of the site, it's likely you woke up this morning to at least one or two (or ummm...150) email notification emails from the site's social engine (we run JomSocial 1.7.15).

While I'd like to apologize for that little snafu, it wasn't a mistake or due to anything improperly operating.

Nope, rather, after many months of working on the site, I discovered how to toggle-ON the ability to send members email notifications when they receive friend requests, responses to their discussions, and a whole littany of other goodies (called cron jobs). In doing that, several months of important and overdue pent-up social messages made their way OUT of the bottleneck created by yours truly.

So, with this discovery, I can officially announce, we have graduated out of the 7 month Beta1 Phase of the new JoomlaChicago.com site existence. We are now in Beta2, until further notice. ;)

Life is a continuous beta test, after all. Cheers and enjoy your weekend!

-JC

Great news for the Joomla! Community!  Joomla! 1.6 Beta (1) was just released! Now you can dig into all the new goodies in the new version. We recommend you do NOT use 1.6 yet on your live sites, but go ahead and give it a shot for testing purposes.

Here's the link to the full article on Joomla.org

Here's a link to DOWNLOAD Joomla! 1.6 Beta1 now.

Have fun! Joomla 1.6 ROCKS!

Starting in December 2009, we are introducing the Joomla Pro Roundtable. This great new learning session will take place at the same location (we are dividing the space for new/pro users) from 11:00 am until 11:50 pm. Joomla Pro is targeted toward professional web developers, web designers, project managers, extensions developers, coders, template designers and site administrators. Joomla! KickStart, for newer Joomla users, will be going on concurrently.  At 11:50 am, we'll open up the walls for lunch and our Featured Presentation.

The November 11 Joomla Chicago meeting promises to be a sell-out - the presentation will provide a preview of Joomla 1.6.

I've seen a couple of previews so far, and it looks like 1.6 is going to have some powerful features, especially with respect to Access Control Levels (ACL). I can't wait to start developing in 1.6!

As for existing sites . . . what will the path to upgrade look like?  One of the important topics we covered in Joomla Chicago meetings during 2009 was the 1.0 > 1.5 pathway.  Presentations included hands-on programming steps, as well as decision model for site managers about if and when to make the migration.

What do people think?  Should we get some similar events on the calendar for 2010 with respect to the 1.5 > 1.6 upgrade path?