Since October last year I had to face a series of personal problems that kept me from iWiccle community, even though I kept a distant watch on the development of new versions. In recent months, however, life has been easier and and while reorganizing my life and my work, new requirements were presented for which I believed a community software solution would be ideal.
What I want is a site where my family (it's a big one) can communicate, collaborate and share stories and memories and things that interest only to family members without fear that the entire web is knowing if Grandpa stole a horse or Grandma fell in love with the postman (just examples, I hope!) So, it's a small site but need lots of good things: blog, forum, chat, calendars, galleries, groups, etc. You know how families are...And all this should be very easy to use, intuitive because most members do not got a clue what's going on behind the pages with which they interact.
In turn, I'm not exactly a professional web developer, far from it I'm just one among thousands of people able to put a site online without knowing exactly why it works. If it works as I wish, I leave aside the details and I'm the happiest person in the world. Naturally, my resources are also quite limited and I'm not willing to spend big bucks just to chat with my cousins. So, I got a free server, a very good one but with the expected limitations.
Sure, as a teacher I can use that same solution to provide online support for my students but this does not change much the overall picture of my needs: a community of users with little computing experience and great demands for resources with powerful but user-friendly interfaces. All this basically at zero cost.
Of course, iWiccle was on top of my list but I thought it would be interesting to do a search for new releases as well as a review of former candidates who had new versions. For fifteen days I downloaded, installed and tried some of the top-rated free products from this category and these are my views on the matter: iWiccle is truly an amazing product and is far more advanced than its competitors on the way to please different types of users (beginners, experienced, advanced).
In short, after a tiring but very rewarding testing period, I can say I chose iWiccle 1.21 because I'm sure is the best option available. It has powerful features that can meet the needs of any community and yet is extremely user friendly for both the end user as for administrators.
The installation process is actually very simple - a few clicks and a minimum of information and everything is ready to run. The system requirements are also fortunately very modest so that is easily accommodated on free servers. Really, iWiccle can be installed by a monkey and this is a huge relief to those who have lost time and good humor trying other packages with cabalistic edits of configuration files, system permissions and (not allowed) changes in PHP config.
Sure, you need to properly solve the problems with internationalization / location and also to broaden and simplify the customization (templates and skins). But iWiccle is barely out of the oven and it already has the essential characteristics that are missing even in mature packages. Wysiwyg text editor available for most modules is a good example. And I mean actually available, prone to use - no installation or change is needed. Heck, you do not realize how important this is for a non-geek user!
Well, I could stand here singing the wonders of iWiccle until next year but I think the best I can do is go back to work and put my site up as it can help to disseminate and improve the product. Right now I'm immersed in the work of translation; soon iWiccle will have its version into Brazilian Portuguese. Next step, templates and skins.That's right, I'm dreaming big!
A bit o' cheer 
Iggy
