The Joomla! community is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla! 1.5.4 [Naiki]. This is a normal maintenance release which includes a few low to moderate security issues, many bug fixes, and several very nice improvements. It has been a little over ten weeks since Joomla! 1.5.3 was released (content/view/4852/74/) on April 24, 2008. The Development Working Group (http://community.joomla.org/contributors/developers.html)'s goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla! community containing the latest bug fixes and minor enhancements. Instructions New installation (http://help.joomla.org/content/category/48/268/302/) Upgrade from an existing Joomla! 1.5 version...

The Joomla! Community Portal (http://community.joomla.org) is a new web site for the Joomla! community. There you will find a constant source of information about the activities powering the Joomla! project, learn about Joomla! Events (http://community.joomla.org/events.html) worldwide, and see if there is a Joomla! User Group (http://community.joomla.org/joomla-user-groups.html) nearby. A new, monthly Joomla! Community Magazine (http://community.joomla.org/magazine.html) promises an interesting overview of project activities, community accomplishments, and learning material. Those who regularly contribute to Joomla! will tell you the best way to get more out of the project is to participate actively. In doing so, you learn. Your contributions help shape the project. You build a support...

Front row (left to right): Lorenzo Garcia and Andrew Eddie; Back row (left to right): Ryan Ozimek, Levis Bisson, Sam Moffatt, Wilco Jansen, Louis Landry, Elin Waring, Michelle Bisson, Rob Schley, Alex Kempkens, Dave Huelsmann, Chris Davenport, and facilitator Adrian Ganz; Not pictured: Joomla! Core Team members Brad Baker and Ole Ottosen and OSM Board Members Wendy Robinson and James Vasile who were unable to attend the summit. The Joomla! Core Team (content/blogcategory/13/29/) and Board of Directors of Open Source Matters, Inc. (http://www.opensourcematters.org/content/blogcategory/37/62/) held their annual summit last week in the beautiful area near Pfronten, Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfronten). Meeting as a group is obviously rare given the community's international...

The South African Joomla! community (http://www.joomla.org.za/) is pleased to invite you to the first Joomla! Day South Africa - Durban (http://www.joomladay.co.za/), an event to be held June 20 and 21, 2008, at the Varsity College, Durban North (http://www.varsitycollege.co.za/slideshow.aspx?Campus=durbannorth). Durban is the third largest city in South Africa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa), a popular destination for tourists, and considered to be the busiest port on the African continent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa). It is an ideal location for those interested in Joomla! to gather. Joomla! Days offer an excellent opportunity to learn, network with other Joomla! users and developers, and discover ways to contribute to the Joomla! Project. The South African...

The Joomla! Project is evolving. What started with a more closed, small organization is developing into the much larger and more open organization that produces, protects and supports the Joomla! Project today. This month is filled with events reflecting that evolution. This last December we had a Pizza, Bugs and Fun (content/view/4274/74/) event that was key to getting Joomla! 1.5 ready for its phenomenal release in January. It also provided an opportunity for us as a community to get to know each other a little better and build relationships that will continue to drive the Joomla! project into the future. If you can, you should consider participating in the second PBF (http://developer.joomla.org/home/26-coordinator-blog/112-pizzas-at-the-joomla-bazaar.html) coming up this month. It...

The Vancouver Joomla! community invites you to the first Joomla! Day Vancouver (http://www.vancouver.joomla.ca/). The event is scheduled for Saturday, June 14th, 2008, from 9 AM to 5:30 PM, and will be held at the Vancouver Public Library (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Public_Library) in downtown Vancouver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver), beautiful British Columbia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia), Canada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada) . Joomla! developers and enthusiasts from the greater Vancouver area and all over the world will attend this important community driven and inspired event. Many are flying in for Joomla! Day Vancouver (http://www.vancouver.joomla.ca/) and the Sites and Infrastructure Working Group...

The first Joomla! Day Philippines (http://www.joomla.org.ph/) is scheduled for Saturday, June 14, 2008, to be held at the Engineering Library and Computer Science Building on the Diliman (http://www.up.edu.ph/) campus of the University of the Philippines (http://www.upd.edu.ph/) in Quezon City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quezon_City), Philippines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines). The morning event is offered at no charge and does not require registration. Those interested in attending the afternoon event are encouraged to register soon (http://www.joomla.org.ph/joomladayphilippinesregistration.html) before limited seats are sold out or the June 5 registration deadline passes. Since knowledge in technology helps ensure a competitive edge in the 21st century, Joomla! Day...

The developer.joomla.org (http://developer.joomla.org/) Web site has been re-launched using Joomla! 1.5. You are invited to frequently visit and enjoy a steady stream of information shared by approximately 50 bloggers, each of whom are actively involved with Joomla! development. Reading their blogs and providing your feedback is an excellent way to stay in touch with Joomla!. Keep up-to-date on what is new in Joomla! Development On developer.joomla.org (http://developer.joomla.org/), you will find posts from Joomla!'s Development Working Group Coordinators (http://developer.joomla.org/), Andrew Eddie and Wilco Jansen. Here, the coordinators share key development directions such as the decision to raise the Joomla! 1.6 minimum requirement to PHP 5.2...

The Joomla! Sites and Infrastructure Working Group (http://docs.joomla.org/Sites_and_Infrastructure_Working_Group) has scheduled their first general meeting for Friday, June 13, 2008, to be held in conjunction with Joomla! Day Vancouver (http://vancouver.joomla.ca/). The purpose of this meeting is to discuss issues, such as moderating practices and member involvement in the Joomla! forums, and to consider ways to continue to improve support for the Joomla! community. Joomla! Day Vancouver (http://vancouver.joomla.ca/) begins at 9:00 AM on Saturday, June 14, and is shaping up to be another great community event. Speakers include Chris Adams, Brad Baker, Levis Bisson, Michelle Bisson, Steve Burge, Louis Landry, Jennifer Marriott, and Toni Marie Swats. Joomla! Days offer excellent...

Joomla! Day Sydney 2008 (http://sydney.joomladay.org.au) is scheduled for Monday, May 19, 2008, in conjunction with CeBIT Australia (http://www.cebit.com.au/). Community members from Sydney, Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney) are finalizing plans for a great event to be held at the beautiful and world famous Sydney Conference and Exhibition Centre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Convention_and_Exhibition_Centre) located in Darling Harbour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darling_Harbour). The event agenda (http://sydney.joomladay.org.au/) is designed to share a broad range of technologies and ideas with a diverse audience of designers, students, charities, businesses, technical experts, and end users. Topics include: A technical discussion entitled Joomla! 1.5: Under...

This event has been postponed until June 20-21, 2008. The South African Joomla! community (http://www.joomla.org.za/) is pleased to invite you to the first Joomla! Day South Africa - Durban (http://www.joomladay.co.za/), an event to be held May 9 and 10, 2008, at the Varsity College, Durban North (http://www.varsitycollege.co.za/slideshow.aspx?Campus=durbannorth). Durban (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durban) is the third largest city in South Africa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa), a popular destination for tourists, and considered to be the busiest port in the African continent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa). It is an ideal location for those interested in Joomla! to gather. Joomla! Days offer an excellent opportunity to learn, network with other Joomla! users and...

The Joomla! community is pleased to announce that Google is sponsoring 15 amazing projects (http://code.google.com/soc/2008/joomla/about.html) in our fourth Google Summer of Code (http://code.google.com/soc/). Students and mentors from all over the world will work together this summer to bring great things to Joomla!. This year, Joomla! is honored that CiviCRM (http://civicrm.org/node/328) is also part of the team. Sincere thanks to Google for their continued support of Joomla! and the 175 other free and open source organizations participating. Congratulations to the Joomla! Google Summer of Code 2008 Students Your proposals were selected from a very competitive pool of nearly 100 applications. Thank you to the mentors willing to share time for this important effort. Projects that...

Credit: Judith Tepper. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Byron_lighthouse.jpg) The Joomla! community in Byron Bay is looking forward to their first ever Joomla! Day event. Joomla! Day Byron Bay 2008 (http://www.joomlabyronbay.com) will be held on Sunday, May 11, from noon until 5:30 PM. Those visiting the area for the Joomla! Day event will want to consider taking time needed to enjoy Byron Bay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Bay)'s beautiful beaches, parks, and nature reserves. This easternmost tip of Australia is a popular destination for tourists. As event organizer, Greg Cromwell, explains in this invitational video (http://www.joomlabyronbay.com), Joomla! Day events are for a wide variety of people, including developers, site builders, designers, and end users. Not only...

The Thai Joomla! Community is looking forward to their second Joomla! Day Bangkok (http://joomladay.in.th/) in Thailand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand)'s beautiful and thriving capital city (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangkok). The event will be held on Saturday, May 10, 2008, from 9:00 AM until 5:30 PM at the Chaophya Park Hotel (http://www.chaophyapark.com/). JoomlaCorner (http://JoomlaCorner.com) and the National Electronics and Computer Tecknology Center (NECTEC) (http://www.nectec.or.th/english/) invite you to attend Joomla! Day Bangkok 2008 (http://joomladay.in.th/) which promises to be an incredible day of learning, sharing, and networking with others. This year, several key members of the Joomla! community are scheduled to speak: Mr. Samuel Moffatt...

The Joomla! community is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla! 1.5.3 [Vahi]. This release is earlier than scheduled in order to correct a database name validation error introduced in 1.5.2. It has been a month since Joomla! 1.5.2 was released on March 23, 2008. The goal is to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla! end user community containing the latest bug fixes and minor enhancements. Instructions New installation (http://help.joomla.org/content/category/48/268/302/) Upgrade from an existing Joomla! 1.5 version (http://docs.joomla.org/Upgrading_1.5_from_an_existing_1.5x_version) Migration from Joomla! 1.0.x (http://docs.joomla.org/Migrating_from_1.0.x_to_1.5_Stable) Download Joomla! 1.5.3 and update packages...

Credit: Daquella manera (http://www.flickr.com/photos/daquellamanera/2231276432/sizes/m/) On Saturday, April 19th, 2008, the Spanish Joomla! community will hold their inaugural Joomla! Day España (http://joomladay.es) event on the beautiful campus of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (http://www.uc3m.es) in Spain's capital city. This event sold out nearly a month ago, evidence of the strong support and enthusiasm of the Joomla! community from all across Spain. Attendees (http://joomladay.es/registrate/asistiran-al-evento.html) will enjoy a variety of presentations and discussions held all day from 9 AM to 8 PM. During the day, the group will meet in the Assembly Hall. In the evening, smaller break-out sessions are scheduled in parallel to encourage focused discussion and...

The Norwegian Joomla! Community eagerly awaits its second annual Joomla! Day Norway to be held April 26, 2008, at the Papirbredden (http://www.papirbredden.no/) in Drammen. The Papirbredden is not only a beautiful facility, but it is also a fitting venue for a Joomla! Day event. It is the city's center of knowledge, boasting a unique library, career center, and research facilities available to students, researchers, and entrepreneurs. The city of Drammen is also ideal, being only 45 minutes from Oslo. It's an easy commute for those Joomla! Day attendees who wish to also visit Norway's capital city.The program (http://www.joomladay.no/content/view/2/9/) for Joomla! Day Norway 2008 is guaranteed to interest those who wish to learn more about Joomla!. Chris Davenport, Joomla! Core team...

The French Joomla! community is excited to announce their second annual Joomla! Day France (http://www.joomladay.fr) scheduled for Sunday, April 27, 2008, in Paris, France (http://maps.google.fr/maps?hl=fr ie=UTF8 dq=residence+internationale+loc:+Paris daddr=44,+Rue+Louis+Lumi%C3%A8re,+75020+Paris geocode=16560862605809226075,48.860087,2.411319 f=d t=h ll=48.859979,2.411284 spn=0.00247,0.00456 z=17 source=embed), the most beautiful city in the world. Joomla! Days are a great opportunity to learn, share and network with other Joomla! users and developers, and to discover ways to contribute to the Joomla! project. This year's program features Michelle Bisson (content/view/29/85/), Joomla! Core Team Member, who will travel from her Quebec home to discuss the Joomla! project, working group...