There will be three full sessions on Joomla security at the Denver CMS Expo in December, and judging by the enthusiasm for the topic at the Chicago Expo in May and at Phil DeKoker's presentation to Joomla Chicago just two days ago, these should be some of the best sessions at the event.

Tom Canavan will be leading all three sessions. I attended Tom's session in Chicago in May, and when my

Attendees at the monthly Joomla Chicago meeting got a treat on Wednesday when Chicago member Kendall Cabe presented "Beginning Joomla" at 11:00 a.m., prior to the main presentation on security by Phil DeKoker.

Kendall covered basic installation in this session. In the next several months, he will teach a session on navigation and one on content -- to round out his presentation of everything you

Website structure and usability will be a major subject at the CMS Expo in Denver.

Jen McKibben kicks off the day Thursday morning, December 4, with Website Planning 101. She'll cover Jesse James Garrett's 5 S's of Website Planning and how to get a basic site map planned. Then, after lunch the same day, Jen will lead a more advanced session on website planning, which will reach into

Joomla Chicago member Phil DeKoker gave an excellent presentation on "Security for Joomla" yesterday at the group's monthly meeting.

Phil's presentation provided a deep dive into server configuration and other issues that are critical for Joomla security. Details of the presentation will be posted to the Joomla Chicago site soon. In the meantime, here are a few "tip of the iceberg" suggestions

One of the top interests of the Joomla user community is templates. And there will be plenty of material about templates at the CMS Expo in Denver.

According to Jen McKibben, "There are a number of ways to customize the standard features that come with any Joomla site without having to have extensive designer experience. " On Friday, December 5, Jen will conduct a session on "Joomla Graphics for

Ever notice how being unable to access something makes you all the more curious about it?

Nick Martinelli's post about online community best practices got me thinking . . . so I poked around a little and found out about a social networking guru named danah boyd (uncapitalized is the way she does it), and I got interested in some of the things she's said about the differences between MySpace

In a previous blog post, I talked about how the vast array of available extensions -- and the seamless way they plug in to the Joomla core -- is one of the three most important features of Joomla. At the CMS Expo in Denver there will be a wealth of instruction about the best extensions for Joomla and how to use them.

The action starts on the morning of the first day, when Bill Tomczak will be

The CMS Expo in Denver is just around the corner, so I think it's a good time to look at what's in store for us. I'll start out with a topic that's on the top of everyone's list: search engine optimization (SEO).

Steve Burge will be presenting a session on "Advanced SEO Techniques" on Thursday, Dec. 4. He'll follow up the next day with a session entitled "How to Make Google Love You."

Also

In many of my blog posts, you will find me touting the benefits and advances of Internet interconnectedness and interactivity (Web 2.0). It would be an oversight to only talk about the positive without also talking about areas of concern.

I was reminded of this by the headline in the New York Times today: "Skype Text is Monitored in China". It is a sad reminder that all of the elements that

In a previous post, I said, "It's only expedient to add in all kinds of 3rd party extensions because Joomla provides a single, organized way for an admin/manager to interact with all those extensions."

This is my sneaky way of suggesting that we not miss the forest -- the almost limitless extensibility of a Joomla website -- by getting hung up on a few trees, by which I mean minor features like