Joomla and more

Is your Joomla! site up to date?

Steven Zeegers — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:45:50 +0000

Do you have a Joomla website for yourself or your business? If someone else built it for you, it’s important to be sure that it’s up to date. Any content management system that is not up to date, is at risk of being hacked. They don’t build these updates for nothing, you know…

Checking if your website is up to date is easier than you might think, as the version number is displayed in the administrator side of the website. The position of the version number depends on which version you were using.

Screenshot of Joomla! 1.5

If your administrator panel looks like in the image above, you are using Joomla! 1.5. This is an older version of Joomla! for which updates no longer be available soon.

You can find the version number in the top right corner. If the version number says anything other than 1.5.25 it’s really, really outdated. In this example, it says “1.5.15″ – which makes it ancient.

Please note that 1.5.x will no longer receive any updates soon. If possible, have your site upgraded to the latest version.

Joomla! 1.7 in action

If your administrator panel looks like above, you are using Joomla! 1.6, 1.7 or 2.5. To find the version number, you need to look at the bottom of the site.

If the version number says 1.6 you’re using a version which will no longer be updated. The same applies to 1.7. We suggest you to upgrade to 1.7.3 . When Joomla! 2.5 is available, we suggest you to upgrade to that version instead. This should be easy, when you use the built-in feature or Admin Tools.

Free download: “Joomla 1.7 beginner Guide” by Hagen Graf (joomla-and-more.com)
Upgrade to Joomla! 1.5.25 using AdminTools (joomla-and-more.com)

Upgrade to Joomla! 1.5.25 using AdminTools

Steven Zeegers — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:08:48 +0000

As we all know, upgrading your Joomla! website is an important thing to do. And with two security releases in a short time, it’s possible some of you forgot to apply all the updates.

If you’re not on version 1.5.24 of Joomla you’ll see that there are no upgrade packages available for your version of Joomla!. The only upgrade package available is the 1.5.24 to 1.5.25 upgrade.

In the worst case scenario you’d now have to upgrade all sites to 1.5.23 first, then upgrade them to 1.5.24 and then to 1.5.25. Which is quite the chore if you’ve got a few sites under your belt.

Not if you use Admintools, though…

Users of Admintools can easily upgrade their sites using the built-in “upgrade” functionality which offers you one-click upgrades. Nice and easy! But what do you do when the “Upgrade” option isn’t available in Admintools because there’s no upgrade package? Use the “Re-install option!”

Using the re-install option you can upgrade your site to the latest version of Joomla, without breaking your site. What happens, is that (all) the new files are written to your website, so you’ll have the latest version.

As always, we recommend you to create a back-up before upgrading.

Haven’t installed Admintools yet? Get it here for free.

Steps to follow

1. Go to Components > Admin Tools.

2. Click the button saying “Joomla! Core UPDATE FOUND

3. In the next screen, click “Reinstall 1.5.25”

4. In the following screen, click “Update Joomla!”

After Admin Tools does its thing, your website will now be upgraded to the latest version.

Note: Admin Tools also works under Joomla 1.7.

Update your domain name information, please?

Steven Zeegers — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:31:03 +0000

Every time I’ve got to order a hosting package for a client, who already owns the domain name I cry a little. Why? Because transferring their domain name usually takes longer than it should, because they haven’t kept their information up to date. Especially the most important part of the information – and to be honest the only part I care about – the e-mail address for the domain holder.

Below is an image of an e-mail conversation I had just last week. Please note that I’ve “recreated it” by exchanging mails with myself for various reasons.

Oh, it's been unused for 10 years?

As it turns out our client no longer had access to the mailbox it had used to register the domain name with. For over 10 years, no less!

Why is that a pain in the butt? Because when we request to transfer a domain name, an e-mail will be sent to the client’s registered e-mail address. And if that address no longer exists… well, things become complicated. We’ve got to convince the client to change the information themselves – but in most cases it turns out we have to ask for their username and password and do it for them, and then end up using one of our own e-mail addresses. This entire process can take some time, and while I always warn the clients of this very early – before we submit the transfer request – they still think it’s our fault. Obviously.

So please, people. If you own a domain name or multiple of them, please log in at the website where you registered them, and check what e-mail address you’ve used. If it no longer exists, change it. For your own sake. For future generations of website builders. For me?

Free download: “Joomla 1.7 beginner Guide” by Hagen Graf

Steven Zeegers — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:44:20 +0000

Joomla! 1.7 has been available for quite a while now. Hagen Graf has written a new book to cover Joomla 1.7 and I realize I haven’t linked to it yet.

The book, which is written in English (with different translations available) covers all the aspects of building and maintaining your own Joomla! website. The PDF version is free for everyone to download. Unfortunately it’s not ad free, but that’s a small price to pay for a free book. Other versions are also available, but the price might vary.

You can download the book as a PDF here.
You can find the page with links to other formats here.

How I caused and solved “Infinite loop detected in JError”

Steven Zeegers — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:18:52 +0000

I should have known better than to try and postpone moving a site from our development server to it’s live environment on a Friday afternoon, merely an hour before I’d stop working. As usual, that’s why things go wrong.

After creating the back-up of the development server, I uploaded it to the server and fired up Akeeba Kickstart. (Read an article here on how to use Akeeba Kickstart with your own distro, an new article will come soon) Because of a bad experience with the mysql server the day before, I decided to create a new database. I decided to be as “safe as possible”, and generated this cool fellow:

Xk;&7~F>sR9k=5ZVo2]q?>>~ka=a_#s3vDs”

I used Akeeka Kickstart to deploy the site on the live environment and this time I encountered no problems with the database. I was relieved. Until I tried to vied the site, and was greeted with the following message:

Infinite loop detected in JError

Solving this issue

I’m not claiming credit where it’s not due. An article in the Joomla! knowledge base explains perfectly what the cause of this problem is. To summarize, this file indicates that something’s wrong with your configuration file. Read the document for more information, it’ll set you on the right path.

As for me, the “problem” was… the password for the MySQL database. I’ve learned that, generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to end your password with a “. Or any other setting in the configuration.php file, as it turns out…

Coming soon: Videos.

Steven Zeegers — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:18:02 +0000

Here at Joomla & More we believe that we’ve done a good job at helping you solve your (Joomla!) problems, with our written tutorials. But somewhere this year, we’re going to try and take this site to the next level.

To do that we’ll be recording screencasts to accompany our posts when suitable / possible. Because of the restrictions of this website, this means we’ll also be creating a Youtube channel to host these video’s. Hurray?!

We’ll start recording our first videos around December, when we’ve got more time to get this new initiative started properly. To cover some of our costs, we’re considering to seek sponsoring for our videos but that’s not a given yet. (But just in case you’re interested… you know where to find us.)

Two ‘NoNumber’ Tutorials published on Toralko

Steven Zeegers — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:30:22 +0000

Just because we haven’t posted something here at Joomla & More doesn’t mean that we’ve slacked! In the past week, I’ve written and published two tutorials for Nonumber extensions:

Nonumber Extension Manager: Covers how to use this very important extension. It allows you to install and update all other Nonumber extensions so this is the first extension any Nonumber fan will want to install.
Nonumber What? Nothing! (The Ultimate Guide): This guide reveals the secrets of What? Nothing. Not sure what it’s supposed to do? Not working as expected? Then read our extensive and detailed guide!.

In the past we used to publish our guides as PDF’s, but from now on we’ll likely post them online at www.toralko.net. Joomla & More will still be the place to go for Joomla! tips, fixes and suggestions.

This is what happens when you don’t RTFM

Steven Zeegers — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:30:24 +0000

Merely moments ago, I banged my head against the nearest wall. While my head still slightly hurts, I decided to share with you what happens mere moments ago.

I was just working on a website of mine, when I started to make a series of mistakes. Well, two according to my twitter stream, but it seemed to be much worse.

I was creating a new Super Administrator account when I noticed I got a 403 error after saving. While I recognized the error screen from Admin Tools, I went to look for the solution elsewhere. Until kind Tweeps pointed out that I was “probably using Akeeba Admin Tools” and had an option enabled.

But it got worse. After I tinkered with Admin Tools without reading the Fine Manual; I noticed something strange in my website. What ?! My URLS’ were broken! Certainly that had to be the fault of the SEO component I was using. I changed things. Nothing. Aaaaargh!

Then I noticed something else. Why was “Joomla” removed from all my menu items? At that point I had already stopped using my brain and came up with a brilliant conspiracy theory: it had to be because of Joomla! 1.5.24!

Once again, people who had read the manual told me to “think, you non-manual reading n00b.” Well, that’s what I would have told myself. Had I perhaps enabled an option in Admin Tools, which removes “Joomla” everywhere in my site.

“Ehm, no, why would I do that?” (I did, and quickly went to check this, and made the necessary change. Suddenly, my links and menu items were “fixed” again.)

What have we learned today?

If you’re using Admin Tools (or any extension of which you don’t know what it does), RTFM
Breath! Think! Track back, what did you just do / screw up?

I plead guilty on the charge of “Not reading the Fine Manual” and “Tinkering with stuff of which I didn’t know what it’d do. May the judges be mild.

Hosting from Hell: ‘Joomla! Hosting’ in action.

Steven Zeegers — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:36:27 +0000

Those who follow my rants on Twitter, can’t possibly have missed it. The past few weeks, I’ve had my share of hosting woes. Clients with cheap hosting which broke Ninjaboard, Unsafe setups, poor customer support – I’ve seen it all. So, for therapeutic reasons I present to you our new series: Hosting From Hell. This section will be dedicated to terrible hosting experiences.

Call to action:
Got your own negative, terrifying or dramatic hosting experiences? Send me a mail (See: Contact), and I’ll publish your story.

‘Joomla! Hosting’ from hell

You can’t ignore that Joomla! (and WordPress and Drupal) are the cat’s meow (borrowed from @nikosdion). Hosting companies know this, and many try to sell their hosting as “Joomla!” hosting. The main actor in this story takes it a step further: If you order “Joomla! hosting” from them, they’ll setup your site for you. Sounds like a sweet deal, right? What could possibly be wrong with this?

I was alarmed when we tried to deploy our own ‘Distribution’ on another package by the same guys. Akeeba Kickstart alarmed me that a bunch of folders were unwritable. Once I managed to setup the site anyway and I started to work on the site a bit, I noticed that all the folders were unwritable because we had set the folder permissions properly.

How not to setup permissions

This made me wonder. If I had no problems, how was it possible that we had no problems with another site – one where they had installed for my boss?. Using the always usefull Akeeba Admin Tools, I checked on the folder permissions they configure for their install. I’ve made a screenshot to share the joy with everyone interested…

That’s right. They install the site, and then set all folder permissions to 777 to make Joomla! “usable”. Once you use AdminTools to set the permissions to safe settings, the site breaks into a thousand pieces – because all folders are now unwritable.

Virtually all folders are “Onschrijfbaar” or unwritable (except one, with perm’s set to 777 to test)

I’m well aware that you can use the FTP layer, if needed, but you shouldn’t have to. Hosting companies should know better than to recommend users to set their folder permissions to 777 or – even worse – set them to 777 theirselves. Why, you ask? You can read this excellent post by the developer of Akeeba.

We’re still waiting for their reply, to our support request in which we asked why we’ve got permission problems despite “setting the standard folder permissions.” No reply so far…

Note: I left out the name of this company because I don’t want yet another PR person to call me, asking “you mad at us, bro?”

OpenTranslators and the Love Triangle

Steven Zeegers — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:45:56 +0000

If you clicked the link to this post because you wanted to make some kinky love connection – sorry. What I can offer you, is the opportunity to start collaborating, and engage in the Joomla! Community. Oh, and the triangle thing? Those are real.

OpenTranslators – what is it?

OpenTranslators is a project that grew from within the Joomla! community. The goal of OpenTranslators is to bring extension developers and translators together; so these extensions can be translated in the many languages our team members speak. Why would we want to do that? That’s where the love triangle comes in!

The love triangle – why you should join.

Joining OpenTranslators is fun and rewarding, but if that’s not enough for you, let’s look at the three parties that profit from a translation (assuming you’re the translator)…

Interested to read the full article? Read it on Joomlareporter.net