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

The beta test launch of Joomla Pro is December 9, 2009 at 11:00 am. During this Roundtable, we’ll discuss how to put your backup on an autopilot with Xcloner. This session will also focus on making updates, upgrades and working on a live site without the risk of messing the site up.  Joomla Pro will be led by Robert Nowak and Dan Pietroske (thank you, Robert for the write-up on Joomla Pro).

Meetings of JoomlaChicago are on the second Wednesday of every month, from 11am - 1:30 pm at the offices of The Acquity Group, 500 West Madison St, Suite 2200.

We're making updates to the site on a nightly basis, so keep watching for improvements, especially to the Social Network and Blog Areas of the site. Thanks again to all the folks helping out on the new site design and development. If you're a Member of JoomlaChicago, and you're interested in blogging here on "The Loop," please contact one of the JoomlaChicago leadership team right away. Thanks! -JC

We're now ramping up "Phase Four" with re-engineering the usability of the Community Area, including JomSocial and our Forum. Our goal is to fully integrate (seamlessly) the JoomlaChicago Social Network, Forum, Blog and Commenting. There's some really, really cool software we got our hands onto that you're going to love!

Our buddies - Stephen and Patrick - over at F3 Studios just released another massive website, this one for Parker Guitars. Powered by Joomla 1.5, this site just oozes cool. Nice job guys!  See Parker Guitars site at www.ParkerGuitars.com.  

Here's a quick update on the JoomlaChicago website. 

I. Phase One - Complete!
"Phase One" is always the hardest phase isn't it? You know, the first step. The JoomlaChicago Leadership Team accomplished a complete overhaul of the website over the past three months, with the three over-arching objectives:

Now that the functionality is upgraded and final bugs are being worked out on the site, we are entering Phase Two: Design.

Thank you to ALL the volunteers who have stepped up to help upgrade the site's functionality, design and other improvements. 

II. Now Phase Two Begins: Design! 

"Form follows function," right?  That means, it's time for our super-fabulous Web Designer, Robert Nowak, to step in.  Now that the functionality of the site is operational (with some bugs still needing to be worked out), Robert can study how the site flow works, and give it a facelift.

Over the next 30 days, you'll see major design changes to the site to make it faster, sleeker, more attractive and more communicative. We've very fortunate to have Robert helping re-design the site. I've already gotten a sneak peek at the design and it is simply marvelous. 

I must say, I'm not easily impressed either. It truly is a work of art. I can't wait to unveil it!

During this Design Phase, you'll also start to see new content! John "JB" Vanover will join our very own Joe Scarry in offering up a regular Blog on the new "The Loop" Blog section. Hopefully, it will inspire you to get onto the site and write your own blog too - right here on JoomlaChicago! Finally, during the Design Phase, Avery Cohen and Ken Novak will work their magic, and we'll have some great Google Analytics and Web Marketing systems in place!

Come October 1st, we'll being Phase III: Content.

Content means "happy." I for one will be "happy" to be on Phase three. :)

By December, you will witness an entirely new website, completely re-written from top-to-bottom.  I want to make sure you are VERY PROUD to be a Member of JoomlaChicago, and when people ask "What is this Joomla CMS you speak of?" You can simply point them to this site, and be fully confident that when you show it off, at bare minimum you won't be embarrassed; at the best case, it will help you achieve your professional objectives.

Want to get involved? You're 100% WELCOME to join our team. Just send me a PM here on JoomlaChicago.com. It's that simple.  Meanwhile, please spread the good word about the incredible folks here at JoomlaChicago.

If you're not growing, you're not going.  Thanks!

How many times have you had a client say, "Oh, and we'll be wanting email marketing to integrate with that brand new Joomla site of ours!" . . . . ?

Peter Medlock of online marketing solutions specialist Dark Heart Studios will talk to Joomla Chicago members in March about how to use the Joomla sites you create to generate high quality email marketing campaigns. In addition to email marketing, Dark Heart's principal focus, Peter's firm also provides web and other graphic design, SEO and SEM, and other integrated marketing services.

"With email marketing, the biggest payoff lies not in pushing product, but in building traffic," Peter told me when we talked by phone today. "Our clients find that loyalty soars when they implement a good email marketing campaign."

Peter and his team have come up with an innovative way to employ Joomla templates, a convenient editor, and standard email marketing service that you can use to put together a solid email marketing system for any client.

Sign up today!

Joe Scarry is head project manager for Chicago Joomla web developer and web design firm Arc Technology Group.

Let me share my newest discovery with you: go to Joomla Milwaukee and get signed up for their next meeting. I've been to two meetings so far and they've both been fabulous.

At yesterday's meeting there was a great, hands-on presentation by Tom Egan of Egan New Media about customization he did on a calendar module for a site he built for the Grand Prairie, TX, Air Hogs professional baseball team.

Dan Knauss of New Local Media provided an excellent overview of the planned Joomla 1.6. Key focus was on access control. (That's a presentation I'd love to see at our Chicago meeting!)

The level of discussion at Milwaukee Joomla meetings is really helpful: precise and practical, and edging on technical, but without being obscure.

One other interesting note: John Fischer, a member of the group, will be presenting a two-day program on "Joomla: Building Powerful Content Managment Systems and Onine Applications" at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) on April 30 and May 1. Tuition is :$525. See http://www4.uwm.edu/sce/course.cfm?id=17282 to register.

Once again, hats off to Victor Drover of Anything Digital and Gabriel Wahhab of Connexion Technologies for their leadership of this group.

Joe Scarry is head project manager for Chicago Joomla web developer and web design firm Arc Technology Group. Arc Technology is one of the sponsors of Joomla Milwaukee.