About JoomBiz Joomla Template

What I liked the most about this template is the header menu and the footer. The footer lines don’t represent much, but they create that nice web 2.0 feeling that we all like so much :)
Description from the author of this theme:

This is a nice and modern Joomla template wich can be used both for magazines/blogs and businesses.
The main features include:

• 12 different module positions
• Web 2.0 main menu
• Search Form
• Nice and clean design
• 2 PSD files included
• Tested and working on all major browsers
• Commented code

You can buy this premium joomla template for as low as $20.00 by following this link!

Let us see what are the advantages and disadvantages of using a free theme or a premium them for your blog.

I remember the ol’ days when the Internet wasn’t as big as it is today, way before Google and Digg. There was no BitTorrent, there was no P2P, there was (almost) nothing.

Now, in those days, for people like me, who were only learning about the Internet, there wasn’t much to do: read some news, join a forum, waste time on IRC, etc.

Almost every web-site that you would visit would look like crap, especially small web-sites. Thus the era of “web designers” began: teenagers and students started ripping off companies for ugly sites done in Microsoft Frontpage and other site building tools. All was well.

Some years passed and BitTorrent took the world by storm. One of the side-effects of that is not as popular as the video/music sharing. It is that of sharing web-site templates.

Now web-designers had to face a small decline in job requests, as basically any kid with some basic knowledge of HTML editting could download via BitTorrent full packs of professional templates ripped off from sites like TemplateMonster.com. I had a bunch of clients who preferred paying 200$ for a full (buggy) flash site instead of developing a very own identity on the web.

The same thing happens now with the Free vs Premium themes for WordPress and the rest of the available CMSs. Well, both free and premium themes are here to stay.

Free Themes

Advantages:

• They are free (duh).
• You can change them as often as you like, without getting slapped in the… wallet.

Disadvantages

• Usually they lack support from the designer/developer (don’t expect updates).
• If the theme is good, you will see it often on other blogs, so you will not stand out in the crowd.
• Most free themes are not high-quality, sometimes the features are crudely implemented.

Premium Themes

Advantages:

• Developers of good Premium Themes will always provide full support and maybe offer to implement it on your blog, thus saving you time and headaches.
• If you bought an exclusive theme, you know that you’re the only one using the theme (if it doesn’t get ripped).
• You can ask the developer/designer to make some custom adjustments to the theme, so that it better suits your needs.
• Just like buying something at the Mall, you feel some amount of satisfaction

Disadvantages

• You have to pay for it, usually by PayPal. For people from some countries in the world, that is a problem, as they don’t have access to PayPal.

Having a premium theme is the same as having a web designer work on your site: it is done by a professional (hopefully), you can proudly advertise your  site/blog, without worrying about what people will think. Invest a couple of bucks, that surely worths it.

Have something to say? Leave a comment :)

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First about the authors of this theme:

RocketTheme’s Joomla Template Club is the longest running and best known template club in the joomlasphere. RocketTheme was created by Andy Miller, aka “rhuk”, the author of the standard templates that are included in Joomla.

If you want to know more about RocketTheme, visit their website.

Meridian has been released in March 2009.
Here is how the authors describe it:

Meridian is the latest release for 2009 and does not disappoint. It is equipped with a fantastic array of features such as support for RokTabs and RokAjaxSearch. Elegance, usability and professionalism are the core elements of the theme.

The theme is also the first RocketTheme template to boast complete RTL support to make Meridian easily adaptable to international sites that require this functionality.

My opinion is that this theme has great functionality and will surely be used by many content-rich websites. However, it might need some tweaking to add more whitespace (I don’t like when the content is too crowded on my screen). In good hands it can become quite a treat!