We all know that Joomla is a fantastic CMS for building professional websites. The JED (Joomla Extension Directory) is full of components, modules and plugins that can add almost any type of functionality to any Joomla site. That's great and all but what if you find a component or module that gives the functionality needed but the output and layout is not exactly what you want? A big mistake that some developers and webmasters make is going in and editing the core code of an extension. Joomla makes it easy by allowing overrides.

What is an Override?

An override is a copy of an extensions layout/template file that is placed in your Joomla template directory. You can then customize it to your liking. The difference with doing this as oppose to just editing the file in the extension directory is that when you upgrade Joomla or the extension, your changes will not be replaced with the new versions. Joomla knows to look in the overridden file first, then the actual extensions file.

Have you ever read our hottest blog post "9 Joomla! Template framework solutions for developers"? It's amazing, right? Do you want to know more? Let's get started with the part 2! New Joomla! template frameworks are waiting for you to explore!

To choose one Joomla! 2.5 form extension, first you might go to the Joomla Extension Directory, but there you see more than 30 form extensions, and you have no time to try all of them. Moreover, you might worry about paying for an extension, is it suitable, is it worth the money, does it have good support? Therefore, based on my experience and user reviews, I've chosen the 5 best Joomla 2.5 form extensions for you. There are both free and commercial extensions. Check them out below.

Why and when you should choose Joomla forms?

There are many types of forms and in many cases when you need one. If you start a company, you might need a form for the "Contact Us" field or a form for "Recruitment" purposes. When you launch new products, you need to collect Customer feedback, so another form is necessary. Normally, Joomla users think about using the built-in form in Joomla, however with this you cannot use the Captcha to prevent spam, and in addition it doesn't have an "attachment" feature, so it's limited use. Therefore, you need to choose 3rd party extensions.

Page loading times on your website are important for a number of reasons. Not only can slow pages frustrate visitors and cost you conversions, but the search engines also take an interest in your page loading times, meaning slow-loading pages can affect your SEO. If you have a website running on Joomla, one option you might want to consider to improve your page loading times is to deploy a Content Delivery Network (CDN).

What is a CDN?

A CDN consists of a number of optimized servers located all over the world. These servers work together to distribute content, which includes downloadable objects, JavaScript files, applications and more. The basic principle is that when someone visits your website, their data comes from the server that is located nearest to them, significantly increasingly page load times wherever they are located in the world.

Why Use One?

There are a number of reasons why using a CDN for your Joomla website is a good idea. Faster page load times is the main reason to invest in a good CDN. When customers visit a website that performs badly and the pages take a long time to load, at best they will hit the back button and head to one of your competitors’ websites; at worse you could damage the reputation of your brand.

Unlike its content management system rival WordPress, Joomla doesn’t come with many core blogging features. But that doesn’t mean it can’t make a great blogging platform. You just need to make some modifications first.

This post will highlight some of the free extensions that can help you turn your Joomla website into a fully functioning blog.