Cory WebbChristian, husband, father, Joomla! guy

Cory Webb Media LLC, a new chapter

Published on 02/01/08
by Cory

As many of you know, I have been working as a contract developer for JoomlaShack for the past year-and-a-half along with my full-time job, writing tutorials at HowToJoomla, and generally staying involved with my favorite CMS community, Joomla. Today, February 1, 2008, is a milestone in my life. This is the first “official” day of my new venture, Cory Webb Media LLC.

Before I talk any further about CWM, I want to take some time to thank the guys over at JoomlaShack for giving me the opportunity to do what I love professionally. You could not ask for a better group of guys to work with. This is a company that truly cares about its customers, its employees, and its contractors. Everything they do is with quality and integrity, and for that I am truly honored to have had the opportunity to work with them.

From hobby to career (a little history)

I started designing websites in my dorm room over 10 years ago as a hobby. As time went on, I started learning as much as I could about web design, and I discovered the concept of content management systems (CMS). A little over 4 years ago, I was looking for a system to redesign my company’s website, and I came across a little CMS called Mambo. I loved its simplicity and its slick administrator interface compared with what I found in other CMS’s like phpNuke and PostNuke, so I decided to give it a try.

In 2005, when the core team split from Mambo to form Open Source Matters and Joomla, I made the decision to stick with the developers and switch my company’s site to Joomla. In April of 2006, inspired by sites such as Unmatched Style and CSS Beauty, I started a little site called JoomlaForm.com to showcase what I believe are some of the best examples of well-designed websites that are powered by Joomla. Not long after that, I met Barrie North when I showcased JoomlaShack’s website at JoomlaForm. In e-mail conversations with Barrie, I found out that JoomlaShack needed an experienced Joomla designer to help them perform custom design and development work for JoomlaShack customers.

In the year-and-a-half since I started working with JoomlaShack, I have learned a tremendous amount about Joomla, web design and development, and working with clients on web projects. Through my experiences, I decided to share some of the knowledge I had gained through a new website, HowToJoomla.net starting in September of 2006. I feel honored to have helped hundreds (maybe thousands) of people learn some of the tips and tricks that I have learned.

Last fall, I really started to feel that this was my calling, to design and develop websites and share my experience and knowledge with the world. That started the idea in my mind of going out on my own and starting a web design, development and consulting company specializing in Joomla. I approached Barrie about the idea, and he has been extremely supportive during this process. I truly cannot thank him enough. He is an honorable and good man, and I am proud to call him my friend.

Yesterday marked the end of my time with JoomlaShack, and today is the beginning of Cory Webb Media! The good news is, I am already up to my eyeballs with work. The bad news is, I am pretty limited with the number of new projects I can take on at the moment. However, if you are in need of Joomla custom design, development, consultation, etc., please feel free to e-mail me at cory@corywebbmedia.com to discuss your project.

That's it. What Next?

Please leave your comment so we know what you think about this article. Trackback URL: Cory Webb Media LLC, a new chapter.