Ever thought you found the perfect host that gave you everything you could ever dream for in order to build the perfect site, but then realised that something was missing when you started development, or worse yet, launched?

Shopping for a great host that offers packages which work well with Joomla is a nightmare these days.  Among the problems are the thousands of hosting options whose websites all look the same and seem to offer the same services.

We're working on helping you out with a simple comparison chart but in the meantime offer your comments and hosting suggestions for all the Joomla heads reading this and pulling their hair out!

Here's a couple we're looking @;

• Media Temple - a staple for graphic designers...
• Mosso - 1 plan, $100/month (!)
• Dream host - employee owned, tons of everything for well, cheap prices...
• Rochen - hosts of joomla.org

As you may now know, Joomla  1.5 is now available in BETA .

This is great news and we recommend downloading it to install on a development server and explore all the cool new functionality plus improved admin interface - which is a whole lot simpler and easier on the eyes (less darting around the screen with more collapsable menus etc).

JoomalJobs.net has just been re-launched after a few months on hiatus.

Its an innovative listings site that allows freelancers, professional firms, job seekers and employers to fill out detailed profiles on their services as well as post job or gig listings (where 'jobs' are long-term/on-site positions and 'gigs' are typically short-term contracts).

Membership is free and Joomla!Jobs is offering free gig listings through october while they run in BETA!

If you work with Joomla and are interested in meeting like-minded people, we recommend checking it out and signing up today!

Google's great at bringing people to your site, and Joomla's pretty well tailored to helping that happen (hint: use keyword and description META tagging, post regularily and turn SEF on!), but you can also do more to promote your site by empowering your community.

For a long time, mambo/Joomla's had the ability to let users email short messages to their friends specific to the content they're browsing - its stock with a base install and can be turned on/off from your general configuration settings in the back-end.  I recommend you leave it on.

Additionally, there are a few extensions you can use to create specific areas on your site to Spread the Word about your site in general.

Here are a couple of options: 

I've just started poking around with Google Analytics , despite being invited to use it 'by Google' some months ago... I suppose that's irrelevant now because its totally free!

This is great news for anyone using Joomla because we've been plagued with sub-standard statistics solutions for years - almost any stats extension I've tested that works doesn't offer the depth of Urchin - the platform and predecessor-brand that runs Google Analytics .  In fact, pretty much any stats s/w I've ever heard about - whether it integrates w/J! or not, isn't as good as urchin/Google Analytics.