Joomla!

Last night we had the presentation on Joomla!

I was trying to download it when we suddenly lost audio--I thought the download might have been eating into my RAM so I aborted the operation. As it turns out, that wasn't the issue, but oh well--long story short I don't have Joomla! downloaded yet because it was too late last night to get the ball rolling. I have, however, read over some of the user manual and instruction guides, and I'm very excited at the possibilities.

I've been wondering about expanding the functionality of some of my blogs for a while now. In particular, I have a personal blog that I keep with 4 of my friends from high school. We use it as a sort of small in-group newsletter where we keep current on each other's lives. Because we live pretty spread out--everywhere from Colorado to Georgia--this is our typical way of keeping in touch. However, with five of us posting, and five different ideas on how the site should be, things get cramped. I'm hoping I can expand us comfortably using Joomla! somehow. From what the presenter said, Joomla! is a pretty friendly environment for people who do or do not want to deal with XML, so I'm looking forward to some good templates and maybe some of my own upgrading.

However, I do feel the need to remark on the guides I looked over. For a product designed to be so user-friendly, the install looks to be pretty complex. Also, it looks like it might be a little confusing for individuals who are not familiar with hosting and hosting services. After I scope this one out, I'll report back.