We don't only work with Joomla, we also use it. A lot of us help clients on a daily basis, but we also create our own personal sites.

My father is a (retired) military man, and I am very proud of him and his service. The unit that he was stationed with the longest - the 7th Radio-Technical Battalion of Łask, Poland, where he served as Chief of Arms, had a fairly poor website and I decided to build them a new one using Joomla.

The old site had a lot of  features when I took over, but it was still in the raw HTML form, and, speaking frankly, it would have made a 1990's web developer cry blood. I decided to remake it in Joomla! The military unit (Siódmy Łaski Batalion Radiotechniczny in Polish) no longer exists, as the splash page states. The site was initially just a single page where the unit's “sympathizers” could learn about future reunions. Later, as old service men and other staff found each other, they started exchanging photos, and a gallery was born. The history of the battalion was developed in much the same way. Subsequent reunions produced even more photographs and the gallery currently features 13 years of reunion photographs from 1998 to 2011. Older photographs of equipment the men when they were soldiers were also added. Images of Polish-made and USSR-made weapons, radio turrets, guidance systems and much more were also added.

Props to Pawel Borowicz, our lead graphic artist, for designing this incredible infographic now featured at joomla.org. The infographic displays a variety of information about the six year history of Joomla (2006-2012). Included in the infographic are statistics about the rise in monthly traffic at Joomla.org, the growing JED, the expanding Joomla multilingual capabilities, JCM submissions, Joomla Forum visitors and posts, and worldwide Joomla! Day events.

Joomla! contacted Pawel about creating the infographic around the most central statistic: the 30 millionth download. The numbers speak for themselves, but the infographic combines the stats to capture just how popular Joomla! has become. Pawel worked closely with the Joomla! Marketing Team to develop this and when I spoke with him about it he said “they [the marketing team] sent me the statistics and I made them pretty.”