core hack

• Move your config file outside of webroot
  This is a core hack. Files you change as described on this page will be overwritten during updates of Joomla!

  This tip explains how to move your configuration.php file outside of your webroot as well as making it unwritable by the server. That makes it nearly impossible for someone to corrupt or gain access to the information in the file.

• Password strenght checker - for free!

  It's one of besk keept "secrets" of Joomla 2.5+ - there is a built in password strenght meter, ready to be used. And some are selling for good money - and others offering free plugins - to let you unleash the hidden power. 

  But if you aren't afraid to make your hands dirty with some PHP code, here is how you can do this:

• Patching Joomla 1.0.x to support AOL users

  Did you received complaints from your AOL users that they have problems using your Joomla powered site? Did you read in Joomla forums that other users and administrators have the same problem, namely that the last few 1.0.x releases of Joomla do not properly support AOL users?

  I did, and searched the web for some solution. This way I had came across the Eric's blog, where I found the following hack, which worked for me.

• reCaptcha stopped working

  While working on a new site I discovered, that reCaptcha - which used to be a rock solid part of the CMS since Joomla 1.7 - stopped working. Spent couple of hours googling around and checking and double-checking settings, just to discover, that Google, in his infinite wisdom, has changed things again without notice. The problem affects all Joomla versions from 1.7.1 to 3.2.0.

• Register Globals

  Many of you probably had seen already the red warning in Joomla's admin interface, that you need to have the Register Globals set to "on", otherwise your site is exposed to security treats.

  And also many of you haven't a clue how to do it...

  So, let's see what an average webmaster can do about this problem.

• Running your Joomla Website over Secure Connection

  Joomla 1.5 and newer versions have full https support without any hacks being necessary. But what you can do if you want to run your Joomla 1.0 site over https for some reason? Upgrade it!... Easy to say, I am managing even Mambo based sites, running rock solid and doing the job they have built for, so this might be out of question. Bud don't despair, You can do it! You must hack here and there...

• Save failing when adding new tag in Joomla 3.0

  Did you ever get this annoying error?

  Save failed with the following error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1 SQL=INSERT INTO ***_contentitem_tag_map
  
  

• SoBiPro - problems with ItemID in Alphabar

  You might experienced this, the links in the Alphabar are sometimes misbehaving, the module assignments in the resulted pages are gone off, if you have some fancy module to menu associations set in your SoBiPro powered site. Obviously, this is an ItemID handling problem, and, unfortunately can be fixed only with a core hack.

• Stopping Google from indexing e-mail links

  Recently one of my clients - who are still believing in "Page Rank Sculpting" whatever this may mean - asked me to stop Google from indexing some of links Joomla generates. Most of them are easy to "patch", using various tools (sh404SEF, Marco's nofollow plugin), the most problematic one (for me, of course) was the E-mail this button on the top of the article.

• This File type is not supported

  Have you ever seen this error message? Yea, correct it's seen in Media Manager when you try to upload files of certain types, as a MP3 file to use with your brand new MP# player module, or an Excel sheet to share whit your visitors.

  Embarrassing. Let's get rid if it!

• TinyMCE editor background color fix

  In an earlier tip (Help! My editor background is colored!) showed the most foolproof way to fix the common problem, when the template CSS settings are causing the WYSIWYG editors to have colored background, making edits hard to perform. Apparently there are couple of situations when the tip does not help - and there are many of you using still the default TinyMCE editor (and not switched already to the best Joomla content editor - JCE).

• VirtueMart invoice overrides don't working?

  Recently a co-worker asked my help for a seemingly trivial problem, he complained that whatever he does, the template overrides for the invoices done by the book aren't working. Well, the cause is simple - and is not really qualifying as a hack for non-rookies, but since the solution involves deleting files in Joomla's filesystem, the procedure can harm your site. So, put your helmet on, fasten your seat belt, and do a backup.

• Weird charactes in the page

  Just happens, that after you publish new content, this shows up on your Joomla 1.0 page with weird characters. (The problem was solved for Joomla 1.5+.) The causes, and the cures for it may be many, but sometimes a simple hack can solve your problems.

• You cannot access the private section of this site

  You just upgraded your Joomla site to latest Joomla 2.5 or 3.* and your regular, registered users cannot login to the frontend, seeing this error:

  "You cannot access the private section of this site"

• You Do Not Have Access to the Administrator Section of This Site - Reloaded

  After year of using myself the tip You Do Not Have Access to the Administrator Section of This Site successfully today I hit the wall.

  I did one more stunt as the ones described above - but didn't helped.

  But let's see first the failed hack - because that\s interesting too: