I had my first website (an online shopping store) in 2005. It was written in ASP programming language by a small company with three young programmers. It was a complete online shopping system at that time, with a simple CMS, shopping cart, checkout system and payment via Paypal. I was able to upload products and articles through backend interface.
However, this company closed abruptly after three years. Apparently website design was not good enough to sustain their business. My domain name was going to due very soon and hosting need to be renewed as well. I was running around to get help, hoping someone could continue the development of my website. Luckily I found someone and he recommended me to migrate all data to Joomla/Virtuemart platform.
I started my learning curve with Joomla 1.5, then 1.6, 1.7, 2.5 and now 3.1. It was not an easy task as you can guess, with Virtuemart 1.x as one of the most complicated Joomla extensions. Back then, there are very little books on Joomla, not even Virtuemart. The best way to learn was through trial and error, and through discussion in forum.
I created many types of website since Joomla 2.5, such as company directory website, advertising website, forum, online store, dating social website etc.I used many components, modules and plugins during the process. In this category, I will share some of my experiences on Joomla.
