The Philippines is set to witness the next biggest event for the month of June besides Independence Day. On June 14, 2008, Filipino webmasters and amateurs alike will converge at the Engineering Library and Computer Science Building, Velaquez Street, UP Campus, Diliman, Quezon City to liberate not just Filipinos but every single individual in cyberspace. The event is dubbed as Joomla! Day Philippines.
Since knowledge in computer technology assures individual a competitive edge in the 21st century, Joomla! Day Philippines is indeed as remarkable event for Filipinos as Independence Day (June 12). Joomla! is an award-winning free open source content management system (CMS) enabling professionals and amateurs to build and administer feature-rich, powerful web sites without having to have an extensive knowledge of web programming languages. It is designed to power simple personal homepages as well as complex corporate web applications.
Joomla! has been applied by individuals and institutions to manage online magazines and newspapers, school and church websites, personal or family homepage, small business websites, non-profit and organizational websites, etc.
The best things in life are free but things could still get better when they bring freedom. Joomla!, apart from being free (available to all under GPL license), precisely brings freedom to its end users. A Joomla! package is easy to install that even non-programmers can install the software up and have it running all by himself. All it takes to install and manage a Joomla! powered site is basic knowledge in word processing. Moreover, there are more than 150,000 friendly users and developers in the Joomla! community who will be very much willing to inform and assist.
For software developers, Joomla! features a powerful application framework to allow them to create sophisticated add-ons such as inventory control systems, data reporting tools, complex business directories, custom products, the possibilities are endless.
Born in cyberspace on August 17, 2005, the software was not named Joomla! until fifteen days later on September 1, 2005. Joomla! is the English spelling of the Swahili word jumla which means “all together” or “as a whole”. Joomla! has since lived up to the meaning of its Swahili equivalent, a large number of software developers, computer programmers, webmasters of the world have united rallied behind the software. Joomla! is broadly deployed worldwide with more than 3.5 million downloads.
Shortly after Joomla! was made the official name of the software, the Philippines celebrated Software Freedom Day at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) on September 10, 2005 joining the ranks of other nations in their quest for cyberspace freedom.
Come June 14, 2008, Filipinos online will once again express its commitment to the free software movement with the holding of the first-ever Joomla! Day Philippines – a great opportunity to learn and network with other Joomla! users and developers in the country. The conference will be attended by representatives from the Joomla! Core Team and Working Group, representatives from non-governmental organizations, local government units, and the business sector. Joomla! Day Philippines is another good reason to celebrate freedom after Philippine Independence Day. Don’t remove the Philippine flags just yet until June 14.
FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT www.joomla.org.ph
