Here is where I will blog all about the parks of Australia.

You can make a blog on your website by creating a category to write you blog posts in (this one is called Park Blog). Each blog post will be an article in that category. If you make a category blog menu link with 1 column it will look like this page, if you display the category description (this part) displayed.

To enhance your blog you may want to add extensions for comments, interacting with social network sites, tagging, and keeping in contact with your readers. You will also enable the syndication that is included in Joomla! (in the Integration Options set Show Feed Link to Show an make sure to display the syndication module on the page).

This module shows a list of the calendar months containing archived articles. After you have changed the status of an article to archived, this list will be automatically generated. Help

This module displays a list of categories from one parent category. Help

This module allows you to display the articles in a specific category. Help.

All components also are used in the administrator area of your website. In addition to the ones listed here, there are components in the administrator that do not have direct front end displays, but do help shape your site. The most important ones for most users are

  • Media Manager
  • Extensions Manager
  • Menu Manager
  • Configuration
  • Banners

Media Manager

The media manager component lets you upload and insert images into content throughout your site. Optionally, you can enable the flash uploader which will allow you to to upload multiple images. Help

Extensions Manager

The extensions manager lets you install, update, uninstall and manage all of your extensions. The extensions manager has been extensively redesigned for Joomla! 1.6, although the core install and uninstall functionality remains the same as in Joomla 1.5. Help

Menu Manager

The menu manager lets you create the menus you see displayed on your site. It also allows you to assign modules and template styles to specific menu links. Help

Global Configuration

The global configuration is where the site administrator configures things such as whether search engine friendly urls are enabled, the site meta data (descriptive text used by search engines an indexers) and other functions. For many beginning users simply leaving the settings on default is a good way to begin, although when your site is ready for the public you will want to change the meta data to match its content. Help

Banners

The banners component provides a simple way to display a rotating image in a module and, if you wish to have advertising, a way to track the number of times an image is viewed and clicked. Help