Joomla! is one of the most popular CMS. On the one hand, it's definitely not as easy to set up as a personal blog on any free blogging platform, but on the other hand, it grants you total control on the way your website is displayed, managed and updated. And in case you need help, Joomla! features a highly detailed help section on its website which can bring light on any problem you may have during installation and configuration.

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These last 24 months, the blog has become a complete new way of communication. In addition to traditional information channels such as newspapers, radio and television, the web 2.0-powered internet enables a more modern, rapid information delivery. Blogging, today, is considered as natural as speaking or chatting.

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DevKick is another directory where you can find carefully hand-picked components and resources. Focusing web developers and designers, DevKick provides a well-organized space with a clean interface, where you can browse components, play with demos, read the latest news from the blog and experience the latest web development experiments in the lab section.

Allthrough DevKick is quite new (at least, in its current instantiation) and is a bit limited at the moment (about 70 scripts and components are listed), it has a great potential to grow fast and become a good and solid reference, like WebAppers or Smashing (which is more generalist, but offers great content for developpers, too).

» Visit DevKick

There will be no new articles this week, but one – friday or saturday. This is mainly due to some heavy workload (hey, who would complain about that!) and the redesign of the blog (which should happen in a few weeks). But wait, there's something HOT inside – come and read !

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Brusheezy, Vecteezy and Fresheezy. Like their proud parents say, "Stupid Names"... But cool free resources. We featured one of those (Brusheezy) in our yesterday's article on free Photoshop brushes. Why not take a tour and learn to know the two other brothers? Vecteezy is an index of free vector graphics, while Fresheezy (as the name doesn't say) does the same for Wordpress themes.

» Brusheezy, Vecteezy and Fresheezy

So you've decided to become a programmer. That's a great decision, but let us ask you a little question: do you know where to start? There are — as usual — thousands of place on the web where you'll find hermetic references, cryptic cheat sheets or endless keywords lists. Maybe reading this article should be a good starting point.

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Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.

Packt Publishing is a modern, unique publishing company with a focus on producing cutting-edge books for communities of developers, administrators, and newbies alike.

What happens when you mix both? You get a free eBook titled "Building Websites with Joomla!".

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One of the most powerful features in Photoshop is the brush tool. Thanks to its numerous settings, it can create an infinity of shapes, effects or textures. The sites we're featuring today offer free brushes for your favourite graphic toolbox. As usual, don't forget the read the licencing terms before you download and use what you'll find on these sites.

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Web design isn't 100% about design, we know that. It's a complex mix that requires several ingredients to be effective. In every webdesigner, there should be a graphic expert, a useability guru and a marketing specialist. That's a lot of things to combine.

In their neverending quest for excellence, our friends from Smashing Magazine wrote two extremely interesting articles over the basic principles of effective web design. These articles do not discuss implementation, code or design per se, but rather focus on the theory, the principles, the heuristics and the approaches for an effective web design.

Keep in mind that there's no magical receipt; creating a website with an high value requires a lot of work. You won't become the next "big man" after you've read those articles. But you'll better understand some key concepts like avoiding to squander users' patience, make use of effective writing, using fluid and minimalistic designs, and adressing the user's needs and expectations — certainly the most important one, and also the least implemented one...

» Article #1: 10 Principles of Effective Web Design
» Article #2: 5 More Principles of Effective Web Design

Are you into AJAX? What a silly question, of course you are! Who isn't, those days? AJAX is everywhere, and it fuels the so-called "web 2.0". So even if you're not into it, you have to deal with it. That's the story.

Now the wonderful thing about AJAX is that, since everybody does it, there are tons and tons of scripts, modules, libraries, snippets and frameworks available. And the place to start looking for those is certainly AjaxRain.

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