Blog!
| New Venture Products website in the process of going live |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Friday, 27 August 2010 00:35 |
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We have finally completed the latest reincarnation of New Venture Products website in the form of a massively revamped Joomla 1.0 website. The site has existed in three forms, the original HTML which we did a while back and then a test CMS conversion using the original look and feel. The final change brings it into line with NVPs online shop based upon OSCommerce, it now has the same 'look and feel'. A few more tweaks and it will be online. . |
| To convert postcodes to co-ordinates for embedded Google maps |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Saturday, 14 August 2010 10:54 |
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To convert postcodes to co-ordinates for use in embedded Google maps use http://www.streetmap.co.uk look for the text bottom right "Click here to convert coordinates" Or go into Google maps and centre your shop in the middle of the map when done put this in the URL bar javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter())); |
| Moving Joomla static content into categories |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Friday, 13 August 2010 17:36 |
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Using Joomla 1.0.15 I created a lot of uncategorized static content before I realised that it should be in categories and sections, and now I'd like to move these content items into newly created categories - I need to organize things a bit, the trouble is Joomla 1.0.nn does not allow you to move contant from static into a category. You can achieve this - but not easily. Joomla 1.0 was pretty poor by not providing this functionality by default. Once you've created loads of static content and you realise you want to categorise a chunk of it then you're stuffed! So, if you have static content already built then the only way I know of doing it is to go into myPHPadmin and look up the table joscontent. Find the articles that you wish to categorise and change the item secid and catid to correspond to the content section/category IDs that you want them to appear under. This appears to have no major ill-effects. All your static content will appear in the section/category of your choice. A way round this happening in the first place is, from the outset before you create any content, create an entirely separate section and category both called "static content" or similar. Then, when you want to create any content that does not fit into an obvious category drop it in here instead. The benefit is that all content dropped in this duplicate "static content" category is actually dynamic, meaning that you can move/copy it into any other section using standard joomla functionality. Dynamic content also has other improvements over static content in that you can give it a "read more" which you can't do for static content in Joomla 1.0.15 |
| mod_simpleemailform not working with both Joomla cache and loadposition |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Friday, 13 August 2010 17:30 |
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I was using the simpleemailform module at the bottom of the page embedded in an article. This particular template did not have a module position at the end of the content area so embedding it was a workaround to the problem... The module was in an unused position called contact and it was being included in an article by use of the loadposition mambot {loadposition contact}. For some reason it was therefore not picking up the item id from the chosen menu. The result of this was that the module on a cached site was displaying the same captcha each time the page was refreshed. Not much good having the same captcha on each visit is it? I moved the module to position 'right' which is displayed on all pages via a menu selection and removed the embedded module altogether and it now works with the cache on/off. So, it is worth noting that mod_simpleemailform does not work with both Joomla cache and embedded in article with loadposition. |
| ReadingHomeSearch.co.uk has gone live |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Friday, 13 August 2010 17:23 |
 We have just completed
readinghomesearch.co.uk and it has gone live. Not a finished product by any means but it is done for the moment. The most important thing was to go live as the site needs a Google ranking within 3 months. |
| Stonehaven real ale festival is coming up again |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Wednesday, 28 July 2010 17:08 |
The Stonehaven real ale festival is coming up again
With that in mind we are coming up with some changes that will enliven the old Stonehaven real ale festival site and make it newer and fresher - http://www.stonehavenrealalefestival.co.uk/
We've added a new top navigation menu, moved some of the options around and added a blog tool. We may go for an entirely new look and feel but we'll wait and see if the client wants that. |
| New property relocation website to be launched |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Wednesday, 28 July 2010 12:07 |
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We are just about to start work on a new property relocation website for the Reading area. The domains are being purchased, the basic design is done, a sample header has been created and the client is now providing the text and images for the front page. This means we will have a mock-up available very soon and we can start to spend some time on the look and feel. |
| Some small site issues |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Thursday, 17 June 2010 08:52 |
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Subsequent to the site hack there were a few smaller problems encountered. Images on the demo pages were not showing and some downloads were missing. The missing downloads was because we resorted to restoring the site back to an earlier state. The missing images problem was caused by Artio JoomSEF not fully working with Internet Explorer. Both problems were fixed a week after the hack. Apologies if this caused you any inconvenience. |
| Site hacked by The Russians...? |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Sunday, 06 June 2010 19:48 |
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We were hacked on the 1st June by Russian(?) b*sterds. The site was corrupted and scripts inserted. We removed the scripts immediately and then restored the site just to be sure everything is fixed. If you experienced any down time during this period then we do apologise. We have done evertything we can to make sure the site is not hacked again in the future. The hackers used a trojan on a laptop and extracted passwords from filezilla's site manager which stores passwords in plain text. Moral of this story: Don't use filezilla, keep the anti virus checker up to date and don't visit dodgy websites... |
| Lightquick Site hacked by russian mafia? |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Sunday, 06 June 2010 20:07 |
 Apologies to web visitors whose antivirus tools flagged an error whenthey visited the Lightquick Website. On the 1st of June we were targetted by a trojan that inserted some naughty code into the main page. It was discovered straight away and completely removed and the site fixed the next day. Our apologies if you could not access the site during this time. |
| New website for the undertones |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Sunday, 06 June 2010 20:07 |
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That legendary 70s and 80s punk rock group 'The Undertones' have requested that Lightquick create a technology demonstrator for their new website. We have created a test site using Joomla CMS version 1.5 taking the static content from their old html site, dropping it into categories and then creating a new look and feel suitable for a rock group. The new site is designed to be easy to update by email and through a browser. At the moment it is available here on the temporary URL: http://host.qvoxdns.net/~underto. |
| how to update the site |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Sunday, 06 June 2010 19:56 |
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Using MMS Blog it is really rather easy to update the site. All you need to do is to email a certain configured email address and then you send a text or image-attached email to it. All content will automatically be published on the site. |
| New version of MMS Blog 1.0 on Joomla 1.0.15 |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Sunday, 06 June 2010 19:56 |
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We have just posted a new version of MMS Blog 1.0 for Joomla 1.0. It has two small enhancements from the original, the first is thet the module does not SHOUT the Blog entries and the second is that the mail response to the administrator has a customisable subject. When you have a few sites reporting to onw admin. it is important to know which site is sending the email. The component and module have been bundled together. and are available from the downloads section of this site. |
| Welcome to the Site Blog |
| Written by Dean Beedell |
| Sunday, 06 June 2010 19:55 |
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This is the site blog, it has been installed as a test of a particular piece of technology, notably the MMSBLOG component under Joomla 1.0. I will be using it to post the occasional useful bit of information that would otherwise go unpublished due to the time it takes to create a 'proper' news item. With a blog item it is so easy to create by a simple email or mobile phone MMS message that the general user is much more likely to use it to create content. |
