settings

  • 1&1 SEF URL's problem reloaded

    A while ago I already posted an article about problems getting SEF URL's work on 1&1-s servers and thought I know how to deal with the idiosyncrasies of 1&1's (very unprofessional) server settings. I was wrong...

  • 500 Internal Error when saving an article - reloaded

    After solving couple of times the "500 Internal Server Error" problem as described in a previous post, I received another complaint from one of my clients I host:

    "I also cannot save the articles and here is the error I got
    500 - An error has occurred!"

    Easy cake - I was thinking, but after checking his account, discovered, that all settings described on that article (namely the collation settings in database) where correct.

  • Accessing the administration panel

    Okay, you've installed your Joomla site, and want to began to master it. You click on the administrator link in the frontend and instantly hit the wall: a blank page is showing up. What's the deal? The cause is generally simple: This is happening almost always because your 'live-site' setting in your configuration.php file doesn't correspond with your Administration URL. You either have a www in your live-site setting in your configuration.php file and you are accessing your administration backend without the www or vice versa. It's highly recommended to correct this, the problem can impact even your site's Google rating.

  • Baba Yaga

    Baba Yaga is an entity that haunts the dreams of children and a common threat that parents use when their children misbehave in Slavic countries across Eastern Europe.

    But in the world of malware, BabaYaga is a form of malware that can update itself, use antivirus functionality and more. Much like the mythical creature, BabaYaga malware has the potential to haunt Joomla/WordPress or, in fact any PHP site administrators and IT support staff.

  • Can't log in with admin, no error messages

    This error comes back time-to-time, especially after a Joomla site is moved from one server to another. The symptoms are simple - but frightening. You try to login to the administrator interface as usual, with your well known credentials, and the login box is reloading whitouth any kind of error message and withouth letting you in. No errors in browser console, no error in the logs, and no errors even if you turn the error reporting to maximum or the Joomla debug on. You can try even the tricks described elsewhere in this site to change your admin password - that won't help.

    Why? Because the cause(s) - yeah, there can be multiple causes - are different from having bad credentials! Let's see what you can do about!

    ATTENTION: these tricks are qualified as core hacks, so be careful: backup, wear your lucky hat, keep your finger crossed - and take any other security measures before you proceed - you can ruin your site easily with a wrong move.

  • Category Meta Data

    One of most annoying limitation SEO wise in the Joomla versions prior to Joomla 1.6 was the inability to set directly (without use of some SEO component or a core hack) meta data information for categories. This was important especially on category blog or category list type of pages, where you have left without proper way to control the meta data added to these pages.

  • Change the file and folder permissions automatically

    File and folder permissions are a key part of your Joomla site's security. It's highly recommended that you have set them properly. They should never be 777, but ideal is 644 for files and 755 folders.

  • Crashed article editor

    Today one of my clients called me with this problem:

    When I click article manager or category manager in order to edit an article or category, I see a page with no textarea, no buttons, no menus

    Was a weird call, and proven to be a difficult problem

  • Create your next Joomla site locally with Ampps

    Like the majority of web developers I develop my websites and services locally before Ipublish them on the Internet. This makes sense in a variety of ways, from saving a lot of bandwidth to faster updating or improved security.

  • Did you missed the Guest access level in Joomla 1.7?

    After struggling for years to set up menu items shown only for guest visitors in various Joomla/Mambo versions prior Joomla 1.7, was a real relief to have an easy and foolproof way to do it. No hacks needed, no scripts to add, no configuration trickery... you simply selected from the Access Level dialog the Guest access group for anything qualifying for this settings (modules for example, but not only..) and you where set! And if you upgraded your site from Joomla 1.7 to Joomla 2.5 the feature where still there. Recently I had a big surprise, I needed the feature in a brand new Joomla 2.5 site... and don't found it!!

  • Enable Content History in Joomla 3.2

    For any website administrator, having a content version history is an important asset. For Joomla, until recently, you had to find and install a third party add-on. But not anymore, finally content versioning is part of Joomla since Joomla 3.2.

  • Enable GoogleBot to fetch your JavaScript and CSS files

    Google announced recently that they’ve updated their webmaster guidelines to specifically note that blocking your CSS or JavaScript files may have a negative impact on your indexing and search rankings in Google. They are claiming, that for better understanding your site, they need to access these files too (and, probably next time they will want to take a peek in your laundry bag too...)

  • Enable HTTPS and make your entire site secure

    Life is full of surprises. One of these days I got a job offering with a consistent budget, one of my former clients approached me to "make his site secure".  I said yes, but when turned out what he wanted in fact i had a surprise: he wanted nothing else, just to make the browser warning about "unsecure site" go away. He actually purchased a security certificate and hired someone to install it onto his server - with no success.

  • Error: Invalid login during Joomla upgrade

    Today I had to upgrade an old, Joomla 2.5.7 site to latest Joomla, everything went out fine until I had to do the first critical step - the upgrade from Joomla 2.5.28 to Joomla 3.51. Did I mentioned that server has PHP 5.6.25 withouth possibility to upgrade - at least not on short term?

    OK, so, wasn't the best setup condition available, but usually this is not a dealbreaker.

    And BUMM, I have seen an old "friend", a popup saying:

    ERROR: Invalid login

     

  • File and folder permissions

    This is a key security issue, but unfortunately many of the Joomla site-owners need guidance on this.

    First, let's see what you should know:

    Joomla is a typical LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) application, even if runs on many other platforms too. The entire access rights "philosophy" is relying on the native environment's settings.

  • Finding module positions on a Joomla 1.7 page

    In the Joomla 1.5 world things where relatively simple: you just added "&tp=1" to the live site homepage's URL, and the available module positions where shown, with a red border and the module position's name in the top left - unless the template's author didn't applied some tricks from preventing you doing that. But what about Joomla 1.7? Anyone tried to do the trick even on a default install can see, that the trick apparently does not works here. Why?

  • How an author can submit a story?

    We all know that Joomla is all about collaboration. And anyone who had set up at least one instance of Joomla knows, that there are multiple levels of access in Joomla, among them one called Author who is supposedly able to submit an article to a Joomla site from the frontend.

  • How to configure Joomla to open by more than one domain?

    Did you followed the advices of SEO gurus, and now you have a bunch of domain names, like mydomain.com and mydomain.org, mydomain.info and mybestdomain.net, and you want to use all of them to display your sole, well built Joomla site, but dunno how? Here's the trick you need!

  • How to restrict a user to access only one component in admin

    Sometimes you need to allow a user to access and manage only one (or a few) Joomla! component in the backend. This is quite easy to set up, you need to use cleverly the ACL sytem Joomla has allready in.

  • How to sell your downloadable products?

    Yes, things like media files - or your software. No, I don't sell software - I give it away for free, for example here. Bu I build sites with selling capabilities. My favorite solution for it is VirtueMart, THE shop to be used with Joomla.

    Is powerful - but is not for beginners, you can easily lost here without proper guidance.

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