About two weeks ago, I launched a competition here at joomlablogger.net. The price was the recently released book Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide by Packt Publishing.
The lucky winner of the contest was the one who would give me the best reason he or she deserves the book.
I have now picked the winner.
The winner is David from the UK. He's a complete beginner at Joomla and has recently struggled with setting up a website for his sea scout group.
Congratulations! The book will be sent from Packt Publishing shortly.
David won after submitting the following comment to the contest:
I haven't spoken properly with my wife for over a week because I've been struggling to get my first Joomla site up and running for my scout group. If I had the book, we could at least spend a few minutes at bedtime reading together!
I could really relate to this comment. I can't count the nights I've been sitting late to fix some kind of web related problem or learn something new.
And the wife thing? Well, let's not go there ;)
I also asked David to write some words about how he came to use Joomla:
Someone set up a web site for my sea scout group using Joomla but it never got populated. I had a basic web site for my own section which I made using MS Publisher but I wanted something that the other sections could use to give out programme and activity information. I decided to give Joomla a try and you can see my attempt here: www.thirdportchesterscouts.org.
In time I would like to develop the site into a management resource so, for example, parents can update membership records and give activities permissions on line. I hope this is possible using Joomla but I am a complete newbie and this is my first attempt at using Joomla. I am really pleased that the leaders in one of the other sections of the scout group have used their front end access to publish their programme and news about their summer camp. I am hoping the others will find it (the front end) easy and will help me keep it up to date. Once they sign in they read a help section and I’ve uploaded lots of scouting clipart for them to use. I think I have made a reasonable start (if only I could work out how to get the ‘Affinity’ top menu working!)
I’m really looking forward to receiving the book and some useful bed-time reading instead of midnight guessing!
Stay tuned for more contests like this :)
About The Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide
The Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide» is a new book by Packt Publishing. The book will teach you to get started with Joomla! and quickly go beyond the basics.
This Beginner's Guide is different from the rest of them. It challenges you to start using Joomla! at full pace and build a basic website within an hour. But you won't get stuck at a beginner's level: the books guides you in taking things further and enhance your site step by step, with user friendly navigation, different page layouts, new functionality and a customized look and feel.
The book is easy to read, easy to follow, helping you to solve real-life web building problems. You'll learn to build, expand and customize one example website throughout the book, but you can easily apply the instructions to the particular site you yourself have in mind.
The book features chapters on how to:
- Create a web site that meets real-life requirements by following the creation of an example site with the help of easy-to-follow steps and ample screenshots
- Practice all the Joomla! skills from organizing your content to completely changing the site's looks and feel
- Go beyond a typical Joomla! site to make the site meet your specific needs
- Get to grips with inspiring examples and best practices and implement them to enhance your Joomla! site