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Packt Award Roundup: Joomla! Takes Runner-up
Each year Packt Publishing opens the voting booths for users everywhere to cast votes for the best content management system. There are a number of very qualified contenders in each of the categories including CMS Made Simple, Plone, and Drupal. This year, Joomla took the runner-up prize in the categories of Best Overall Open Source CMS Award and the Best PHP Open Source CMS (tied with CMS Made Simple). This results in a total prize winnings of $3500 to the Joomla Project.
Even though Joomla has taken home several Packt Awards in the past, Joomla Core Team member Andrew Eddie asserted, "This has made me more determined to do better next year."
Also, Joomla developer Johan Janssens was awarded the Open Source MVP 2008 prize, a new category in this year's awards, for his outstanding contributions to Joomla.
We at the Joomla Project would like to thank all of our wonderful users to voting for us and a big congratulations goes to Drupal for taking first place in the Best Overall Open Source CMS Award category. We also want to congratulate all the other winners.
Joomla Core Team member Brad Baker summed it up, "The future is bright for open source content management systems like Drupal and Joomla, whichever you use."

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Look Smart with New Joomla! Products
You may have noticed the Joomla Shop recently got a facelift to match the new Joomla.org front page design. Now, to really perk it up we've added new items too.
When your house doesn't seem to have enough official Joomla merchandise, the Joomla Shop has you covered. Expanding the offerings of the shop are three cool new products, guaranteed to make you the envy of open source enthusiasts everywhere.
Autumn is coming, and with it the brisk weather and need for an awesome Joomla-embroidered lightweight jacket. The Men's R-Tek Fleece Jacket is made from recycled material so it's both stylish and eco-friendly.
For those Joomla supporters who need to lug books, a computer, files, and more around, look no further than the new urban backpack. The Joomla Urban Backpack has a padded computer case, MP3 player pouch and chest/waist straps to make it useful on hikes. And, of course, it also has the beautiful Joomla logo embroidered on the front.
Women do Joomla too, and the shop hasn't forgotten that. Adding to the fall outerwear options is the Women's Soft Touch Hoodie. This hoodie is made from Pima cotton, and due to its infusion of Modal fibers it's luxuriously soft.
Support Joomla by patronizing the shop, and get some great stuff in return.

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Joomla 1.5.7 Security Release Now Available
The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.5.7 [Wovusani]. This is a security release and contains a number of bug fixes, improvements as well as security fixes. It is strongly recommended that users immediately upgrade. It has been nearly four weeks since Joomla 1.5.6 was released on August 12, 2008. The Development Working Group's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla community.
Instructions
Want to test drive Joomla? Try the online demo. Documentation is available for beginners.
Release Notes
Security
- Several security issues were fixed in this release. There was 1 critical, 1 major and 2 moderate security vulnerabilities fixed in 1.5.7. For more information, visit the Security Center.
Articles
- com_content: Metadata handling; Alias not copied for Articles
- String Escaping: External links; Titles; Alt tags missing on images
- Blog Layout: Article Page break; new Left-to-Right option; Breadcrumbs; Archive Intro Text formatting issues; Section Blog Article links
- Submit Article: Article Order Drop-Down List on Front End Shows Archived and Trashed Articles; Preview edited Article does not use Template Editor.css
- RSS Feed: Publish Date fix; External URLs rendering incorrectly
- SEO: Index and Follow Meta Tag for Print View
Modules
- Show_noauth problem; Module Deletion after uninstall; Colspan in mod_latest; Copy Newsflash Module
- Name and Username in mod_login; Menu item is locked after closing
- Search: Textfield Width Parameter; Show Search Results option; Category Search
Legacy
- Menu Access Rights Corrections; Menu Separator shows as Link
Templates
- Beez: Contact Image; Typo in Attribute value; Newsflash Article URL
- ja_purity: e-Mail and Print Button files; Default Article Layout does not display Edit Icon for Authors; Site Logo Text goes under Header background; Top menu
- UPDATE (Sept. 10, 2008): New function countMenuChildren() added for hiding empty split menus
Administrator
- $row is not Initialized
- Help: Latest Version check; Help Key Reference Update for Modules: New Screen
- Configuration: Time Zone correction
- Media Manager: Base path missing slashes
- Sample Content: Outdated Links in "Welcome to Joomla", Newsfeed Fixes, several updated articles and statistics
- Installation: Remove confusing error message about language files for extension installations
System
- IIS 6 and IIS 7: JRoute::_() and Application Redirect() fixes
- Parameter Types: SQL, Textarea for Templates
- E-mail: JMail class ignores JConfig.sendmail path for sendmail; Incorrect SEF URLs for outgoing recommendation e-mails
- API: JHTMLSelect fix; queryBatch logging in debug mode; JSite::getParams(); strpos(); setMetadata creates duplicate meta tags; $row is not initialized
- XML-RPC client ID is too high; Profiling J1.5 framework; $row is not initialized
- Cache: JCacheStorageFile::gc flawed logic in cache expiry; Clean Cache file with Cache Manager
UPDATE (Sept. 12, 2008): For FAQs about this release, see http://docs.joomla.org/Category:Version_1.5.7_FAQ

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Voting season is here. Vote Joomla!
As announced earlier, Joomla was nominated for the Packt Publishing Best Overall Open Source CMS and Best PHP Open Source CMS awards. Thanks to our awesome community support, we're finalists in two categories. Voting for the final round has begun and we need all the help we can get.
This is the time to show your support for your favorite CMS. Click here to vote for Joomla for the Best Overall Open Source CMS and then click here to vote for Joomla as the Best PHP Open Source CMS. You can vote in both categories.
Help us spread the word about Joomla by using the banners below on your Web site. Choose the size that fits best and add one of the following links:
Vote for the Best Overall Open Source CMS
http://www.packtpub.com/article/overall-open-source-cms-award-final-joomla
Vote for the Best PHP Open Source CMS
http://www.packtpub.com/article/best-php-open-source-cms-award-final-joomla
Thanks for your support!

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Joomla! Turns 3
Happy third birthday, Joomla!
It's hard to believe that three years have passed by so quickly. In that short time, the Joomla community has grown so much larger and stronger than we could have ever imagined. Today, Google search results on Joomla yield over 100 million results. The Joomla group of Web sites serves 1 million visitors per week.
In the past year, Joomla has released the groundbreaking Joomla 1.5, launched the
Joomla Community Portal and team blogs (including the
Joomla Community Magazine and
JoomlaConnect™), the
Joomla Documentation Wiki,
Joomla Developer section and our new site design.
Since March 2007, there have been over 6 million downloads of Joomla. And yet, it feels like we are just getting geting started. We hope that you are having fun using Joomla and we encourage you to get involved in the community and help make Joomla even better for the fourth birthday celebration. There are great things in store for Joomla in the years to come!
