The release of Joomla 2.5, a popular open source content management system, is expected to occur within the next few weeks. This release gives Joomla! fans a reason to celebrate and those new to the CMS a chance to consider Joomla! for thier next project. Like clockwork, the Joomla community is preparing the way by educating the masses on the new features and enhancements included in this version. I'm not an expert on the Joomla! development process, but I'm going to do my best here in summarizing the information that I've gathered so far on Joomla 2.5.

The general availability of the official Joomla 2.5.0 release is due on January 24, 2012.  Also, in case you missed it, Beta 1 of Joomla 2.5 was released just as the holidays were getting in full swing.  You can also expect another beta and a release candidate from the Joomla developers between now and Release 2.5.0. 

For those new to software development, the beta and release candidates of software typically is not suitable for production sites and should be used only for testing purposes. Testing the pre-release software isn't only a great way for you to get to know Joomla 2.5 better but it is also a great way to help the developers identify and fix bugs in the software. 

I'm doing a little morning reading at some of my favorite Internet spots.  A couple of this morning's IT related posts that caught my attention:

• Rich Hoeg (eContent) has created a very nice tutorial/screencast on Google's SearchWiki.  Personally, I can't decide if this is a good move for Google or not.  It seems to me the biggest benefit of Google is that you go there, do a search, find the link you want, and get out.  Internet junkies like me already are too distracted with places like Digg.com that I like Google's single purpose pages.  When I'm on a search mission, I don't need the collateral damage.
• Dries Buytaert explains the weaknesses of serving your own CAPTCHA to fight spam and the benefits of Mollom hosting CAPTCHAs for you.  He also discusses the dirty business of comment spam where services will leave comment spam at sites like yours and mine for a fee.  As I commented on Dries blog, comment spam makes this world a scary place for website owners. I'm glad we have Mollom!