I call this “Part 1″ because inevitably, as before, I’m going to find something I left out.

What I want to do here is go over some of the very first things I do with any Joomla install, and there have been several now. For this example, I will be referring to 1.0.1x versions of Joomla.

1. Install JCE : JCE allows you to have a considerably more functional WYSIWYG editor for Joomla (of which, I still only use like 10% of the buttons – consider deactivating some if you are running a public site). The two biggest additions that this site brings are the hyper link Manager and Image Manager giving you automatic links to any content item in the one and a Graphical interface for choosing your image on the other. ***Note that the image manager defaults to “float: left” and will not respond to the center command without editing the HTML
2. JoomSEF: Joom SEF allows for standard “Search Engine Friendly” URL’s and work with most basic installations. More complex installs with many front-end accessible components may cause some problems.
3. RD RSS: Let’s face it: the default Joomla RSS feed blows. It’s beyond horrible. I have take to cleaning mine up by installing this application and then burning the feed with FeedBurner. I should probably point you to this article about Joomla and RSS that helped me.
4. DS-Syndicate: This is a replacement for the embedded RSS feed generator in Joomla.  Previously I had recommended RD RSS for this solution, but I have since found out, much to my chagrin, that RD RSS (like the default Joomla feed gen) only publishes “Front Page” items.  You still need to burn the feed with Feedburner and change all of your RSS references to the burned feed.
5. Calendars: There are two good options if you need a calendar…
   1. jCal Pro: If you want a standard view of a calendar and fairly simple use (especially if you’re going to allow front-end users to add events) then I would go with this install. Don’t fail to take advantage of the “jCal Latest Events” module on every page to advertise your events.
   2. gigCalendar: if your calendar is meant to be more of a list with events spread out over time, then this is the calendar for you. Drawbacks: having to add every “performer”, “venue”, and doing some intermediate database level editing to change the band oriented labels.
6. LetterMan: Newsletters can be an integral part of your marketing effort. There is a lot of information out there about how to make effective newsletters so make sure and read that before you try to do this, but a great permission based newsletter campaign can really grow your business. LetterMan allows you to make them fairly complex, as well as supporting multi-part MIME messages.
7. Community Builder: If you are going to have many front-end registered users, you have to use this, and you need custom fields for the registration to get demographic information. See the available directory of custom apps for this component.

That’s all for now. That’s a great start. Email me if you need more info.