This addition to the Joomla Documentation addresses adding/editing/managing images for both Static and regular Content Items.

The editor an Administrator will be using is JCE Editor, which provides more advanced tools then Joomla’s default editor TinyMCE.

The following instructions will be based on editing an existing Content Item. To add an image you would:

=> select Content Items Manager
=> select a Content Item
=> place curser at intended image location
=> select Insert/Edit Image icon
=> select appropriate Folder
=> select Upload Icon
=> browse for appropriate image
=> add Name for image
=> select preferred options (overwriting)
=> select image you just uploaded
=> select Insert

The image will now be inserted into your Content Item. You can also adjust things such as Size, Alignment, and Border size and color within the Insert/Edit control panel.

You can now Save your Content Item and view with the image you’d just uploaded. As a note; Adding/Editing images through the Administrator handles images technically different then going through the steps of Adding New Memorial or Gallery Item. However, it is not noticable on the front end.

In most versions of Linux edit the file:

/etc/my.cnf

Anywhere under [mysqld] add the line:

log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log

If log file doesn’t yet exists add and set permissions:

touch /var/log/mysqld.log
chown mysql:mysql /var/log/mysqld.log

Restart MySQL in:

cd /etc/rc.d/init.d
./mysqld restart

Nice little blog post on “How to recognize a good programmer”:

http://www.inter-sections.net/2007/11/13/how-to-recognise-a-good-programmer/

There’s a bit at the following blog on Google’s launch it’s new social networking api:

Google has announced OpenSocial, a new open API for social networks. The new standard will allow developers to create Facebook-like apps on any social network site that implements it with the same calls.

You can check out the post here:

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/10/google-opensocial-api-launch.html

There’s a component from the Joomla Extension Gallery called perForms which helps you create custom forms for your Joomla powered Web sites. I’ll list below the simple steps to install perForms.

The first thing to know is that perForms is a Joomla Component, so you’ll need to download the Zip file for perForms and then use the Joomla Component Installer to get it up and running. Installing is easy:

1. fire up you admin
2. select Installers => Components
3. browse for the ZIP file (com_performs.zip)
4. select Upload File & Install

You should now see a confirmation screen letting you know the install was successful. Adding to the menu can be done for each new form you create. I don’t believe you’d need to link the actual component for anything.

*Note: there may be a bug in which the mainmenu will try and publish the component url. You can disable this error message (seen at the foot of the menu), by going to Modules => Site Modules, select perForms Module, select None in the Menu Item Link(s) menu.

*Note: there seems to be a bug in my case atleast where, if you put in the Form field under Email Form the mail does not go through.

I’m going to walk through creating a simple contact form, which includes name, email, and comment fields. Once this is walked through, creating even more complex forms with select lists, radio buttons, and checkboxes is just a logical extension of the tools.

So, to create your first simple comment form:

1. fire up your admin
2. select Components => perForms
3. select New
4. add Title
5. add text to initial screen (form page)
6. add Missing field text
7. add Thanks Text
8. select Buttons tab
9. select Yes for Include Submit Button
10. select E-Mails tab
11. select Yes for Email Form
12. add From
13. add your email to To
14. add E-mail Subject
15. select Save

Now the foundation of your form is created. What’s next is adding the input and textarea fields:

1. select Edit Items at your new form
2. select New Item
3. add Caption
4. add and/or edit Name
5. select Type : Text
6. select Check : Name
7. add Help Text (optional)
8. add Error Message
9. select Display tab
10. select Save

You’ve now added the name field. You can follow the same steps to add your email and comments fields. You’ll just need to select the appropriate options.

Your next step is to link your new form to your menu. The first thing you’ll need to do is to copy the “Link” of your new form at the perForms main screen. With the link copied proceed:

1. select Menu => mainmenu
2. select New
3. select Link - Url
4. select Next
5. add Name
6. add/paste Link
7. select Save

That’s it. You should now be able to visit your site, click the link to your new form, submit and recieve it at whatever email you had assigned.

Here’s a great tutorial from jext.info:

http://jext.info/content/view/9/20/ 

Those Russian spammers are hard working folk. I’m starting to see lately that my visitor logs receive pretty predictable traffic patterns from what I’m going to come out and guess are Russian spammers. You’ll see a pretty standard traffic pattern, something like:

206.63.89.165 17/Sep/2007 “http://diethylpropion-51581sf4.pechenka.info”
206.63.89.165 17/Sep/2007 “http://www.kliky.net/quickies/wordpress-editor-keyboard-shortcut/”
206.63.89.165 17/Sep/2007 “http://www.kliky.net/quickies/wordpress-editor-keyboard-shortcut/#comment-523″
206.63.89.165 17/Sep/2007 “http://www.kliky.net/wordpress-editor-keyboard-shortcut/#comment-523″
206.63.89.165 17/Sep/2007 “http://www.kliky.net/#comment-523″

And of course what you’ll eventually and always get is the eventual comment. Thankfully, the simple plugin Wordpress provides block these comments, but this will keep happening because it works. Simple do a google search:

http://www.google.com/search?q=pechenka.info

You’ll see thousands of comments on blogs, review sites, etc. which curiously both praise the blog poster and the Web site itself and always seems to get a plug in for some page on pechenka.info. It’s time to say nyet to this type of this thing.

There’s a few discussions on password management when building Web applications. The first post from Coding Horror entitled, “Your Probably Storing Your Passwords Incorrectly” urges developers to NOT store passwords in plain text, which is the true and correct method. Within the comments section is a good discussion on the topic with many links to outside sources.

One of these sources is a blog post on the same issue, yet a discussion on openness in the methods used:

http://blog.tribalpizza.com/2007/09/how-do-we-secur.html

That’s it for now, well worth reading. I haven’t posted in quite some time due to what I believe is RSI, but that’s another story.

There’s a blog post with 125 Web Designer resources worth taking a look at:

http://www.paulspoerry.com/index.php/2007/05/18/125-code-snippets-for-web-designers/

This is not my list… I snagged the list from tutorialblog.org, I’ve just compiled it all into a single resource. Below are 125 handy HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and AJAX snippets for your site or blog.

Here’s a blog post with a nice list of PHP Tools:

http://immike.net/blog/2007/08/15/5-tools-every-php-programmer-should-know-about/

I’m especially interested in Phing, a project build system, which I’ll be using for an application I’ll be building in partnership with another company.

Here’s a bit summary from his blog on Phing:

The idea behind phing (and other build tools) is to evaluate a set of dependencies, then execute a set of PHP classes to properly install and configure an application. The build process is controlled by a simple XML configuration file. Out of the box, phing can perform token replacement (e.g., to change include paths on your development and production systems), execute SQL, move and copy files, run shell scripts, and more. You can also create your own custom tasks by extending the “task” class included with the package.

This guy thinks so:

A single line of JavaScript is what powers a lot of blogging technologies these days. Widgets, sharing tools, visitors tracking, advertisers. In many cases a single line of JavaScript is all that a blogger needs to add a new technology to their blog. The problem is what happens when a lot of these single lines of JavaScript come together…

There is a well-known phenomenon in physics called non-linearity: When a lot of different things interact with each other, the outcome is hard to predict. Software is no different - when you put together a lot of components, you just do not know what you are going to get. This is because each component acts as if it is standalone, but they are literally fighting for real estate space and people’s attention. The truth is that this war is hurting everyone - the readers, the bloggers and the services. Everyone is frustrated.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_javascript_is_slowing_down_the_web.php