This year, more businesses are seeking to expand their company and utilize a partner in the digital world to help them grow. Now, more than ever, businesses are harnessing the power of the cloud and getting rid of on-site servers that are costly to setup, run and maintain. Instead of hiring specialty workers who must be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in case of a server meltdown, companies are instead putting their IT staff to better use and moving their server operations off site to a data center.

According to a survey of IT decision makers in North America, done by Digital Realty Trust, 43% of businesses are looking to expand their operations offsite in 2012, and another 44% are planning expansion in 2013. If your company is one of the many planning for an expansion, there are four important factors to consider when deciding where and how to partner with a company.

1. Server management and maintenance

Your business is going to trust a partner with one of its most powerful commodities: knowledge. Therefore, the servers they use to store this powerful information need to be in the right hands and maintained properly so that you can be confident it will always be accessible and safe from destruction.

2. Operational reliability

Reliability is crucial when partnering with anyone in business. You are handing over a piece of your success and putting it in the hands of someone else. In order for your company to be successful, you must be certain that you can trust your new partner to be there when they say they will be and to be reliable enough to do what they promise.

3. Infrastructure management

The infrastructure on which your data is stored is holding valuable information that cannot be replicated if lost. When choosing a partner, it is important to know how they manage their infrastructure to protect against natural disasters or loss of equipment.

4. Location

Prime locations are now data centers in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and Phoenix. If your company is located in the New York area, for example, try looking for a NY data center facility. That way, you can stay close to your servers and partners who are managing your digital information.

A reliable company who has the operations, servers and infrastructure in place to properly store and manage your information is crucial when looking for a place to expand your operations in the coming years.

Technology happens to be one of John's favorite things to write about. If you'd like to find out more about digital realty trust, please visit www.digitalrealtytrust.com

Joomla is becoming worldwide. Why? Who uses Joomla?

First of all, Joomla comes with many awesome  features right out of the box, such as, user group management, content management, menu and template management, bread crumbs and so much more! Secondly, Joomla also offers extensions to reach the individual and specific needs of web site. Because of the flexibility, extensions and being open source. Joomla appeals to those who are looking for a content management system that fits their individual needs. They love the option of being able to easily manage and update the content of their website themselves.

Joomla users are churches, restaurants, small and large business you name it!  

Here are a few websites using Joomla.

Ikea

IHOP

Book Travel News

With immense excitement Google Summer of Code has announced Joomla! for it's 2012 summer mentorship. Google's  goal is to encourage and inspire student developers by introducing them to open-source software, life experience in working with real world situations and help improve the students employment opportunities and even earn cash.

The Google Summer of Code starts with a student who has a creative project idea. Students will then present their ideas to an open source software company, such as Joomla!. They will have the summer to program and build their project. At the completion of the project the students will have the chance to receive an award and earn money!

This opportunity Joomla! has to participate with the Google Summer of Code  expresses the importance of community that Joomla! greatly values. 

Student applications will be open on Monday, March 26, 2012 at 19:00 UTC.

To sign up or find more information check out their site Google Summer of Code.

Let's face it most people start off small especially if they have a new and growing business. Many hours might be spent working out of a spare room or making an office out of an unsavory basement. This is a necessary step for most people who are just getting off the ground with a limited budget for office space.

But what happens if your feeling unmotivated or having a creative block. What if you need to meet with new clients or want to collaborate with others to share ideas. The solution is called "coworking". Coworking is a way to work independently but have a shared work environment with others. The unusual thing is that most people who share these work environments are typically not employed by the same organization. Coworking can be summed up as a social gathering of like minded people who are interested in working and being surrounded by other talented people in a common space.

Coworking can work for a multitude of people like entrepreneurs, freelancers, corporate work groups, and mobile workers. For many people who work from home or travel, coworking can give them a break from the isolation of the home office or hotel. The spaces are usually very inspiring and offer a great alternative to the local coffee shop or cafe. Most offer affodable daily rates for those who just need to get away once or twice a week.

Many coworking spaces are popping up around the country as more people are finding out about the benefits of these collaborative work environments. The next time you are heading down to your home office or coffee shop to get some work done consider giving coworking a try.

Due to be released in January 2012 is the new version of Joomla called 2.5. Some of the new features included will be update notification, new search functionality, and multi-database support.

Making the jump from Joomla 1.7 to 2.5 is made easy with a single click upgrade. The nice thing about Joomla 2.5 is that it will be able to run most of the extensions from Joomla 1.7.

The new update notification takes out the guesswork by telling you it's time to update Joomla. Site administrators will know exactly when to update right after they log-in. The best thing about this feature is that it allows the site to be easily updated with just a one-click process. 

Joomla 2.5 has a new search functionality that boasts a feature with stemming and auto-completion. With stemming, it will allow you to run a search using a root word to find and local matches.

The new Joomla 2.5 is also more flexible with the ability to support new databases. MySQL is the database that Joomla has traditionally worked with in the past. If you were using a MS SQL database, making updates with Joomla could be a difficult process. The new Joomla 2.5 will work with MS SQL with a list of additional databases soon to follow.

These are just a few of the many great upgrades offered in Joomla 2.5. The awesome thing about Joomla is the amazing growing community that makes all of these new features possible.