Steve’s Blog

Serious IDevAffiliate Security Hole

This is an worrying security update that affects the Joomla world. Up until now iDevAffiliate – the system used by almost every Joomla affiliate program – has stored passwords and Social Security numbers UNENCRYPTED in the database. That means if you join an iDevAffiliate program the owner can go along and view your password whether its “12345”, “password” or something more personal. From there they can go back to your site, see other iDev programs that you’re using and try to login to those, pretending to be you. If you’re dumb enough to use the same login for your email…

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Automatic Updates for Joomla

If you subscribe to the Joomla Extensions Directory RSS feed, you can see the future of Joomla pass before your eyes. Sure, there are a lot of "me-too" listings but at least once a week there’s something new and exciting. The latest extension to catch my eye is an automatic installer and updater. Its key selling point? It allows you to install just one extension and use that install and updates dozens of others. No more registering, downloading, uploading and looking out for updates.

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An Early Warning System for Hacked Sites

After Joomla’s recent security issues, people have been double-checking their sites. In some cases it’s easy to tell if your site has been hacked (the large Turkish flag and blaring music are strong hints) and on other occasions, the hackers might leave no trace. One of my colleagues found a very subtle hack … his robots.txt file has been altered to block his entire site from being indexed by Google. The hack had been in place since June, causing him to lose all his rankings. It’s likely that this was a highly motivated rival rather than just another group of…

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Big Discounts on Joomla Training

UPDATED: We have a few tickets sold out our Joomla Training in Atlanta, next weekend, Saturday August 23rd. However, we’ve opened registration for the next class on October 25th. Click here to sign up , and use the coupon "allediablog" for a $50 discount! In addition to the class, attendees get: Lunch and coffee / snacks throughout the day. Free membership to our SEO Club. Free copy of Barrie North’s best selling Joomla Admin Manual eBook. A flash drive full of tutorials and best-of-breed Joomla components. Coming up in December, we’re taking our training to Colorado and early birds get…

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Change Joomla Can Believe In

Joomla.org has a new template today. The design looks a little similar to the website of another emerging new force in the United States. It’s also interesting to note that the ! has been dropped from most uses on the homepage, something most books and blogs have done for a while.

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Joomla ECommerce Solutions Compared

I’ve made this chart after getting several requests in the last few days, all asking which Joomla E-Commerce they should use. There’s no right answer as the two main shopping carts, Virtuemart and iJoomla Digistore, are both very different. There are two other shopping carts available that look like they may become contenders: Freeway is an enhanced modification of osCommerce and thanks to Damian, the lead developer, I’ve been able to create a column for it also. IXXO is a commercial script I haven’t had the chance to fully test-drive yet. It costs nearly $300. If any major features have…

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Where Have the Joomla Forums Gone?

There has been an interesting update to the forum sections on the Joomla Extensions Directory. It has been split into Native Joomla Forums and Forum Bridges.  I was shocked to see only five native Joomla forums remaining. There are two native forums with a wide range of features: FireBoard (still in legacy mode on Joomla 1.5 until version 2.0 in the fall) Joo!BB (still in Alpha) And three very basic forums: Simplest Forum Rapid Forum Nice Talk

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Joomla Trademarks Name and Logo

There are some third rails in every community … things that people are reluctant to discuss. Joomla’s move to a GPL license was one of those, and I think we did a reasonable job of openly talking about the issues and implications. This week, I’m going to attempt to touch another third rail: Joomla’s trademark. Today, Joomla’s trademarks for its name and logo were accepted and published. This week, I’ll attempt to answer questions about what this means for Joomla and for people running Joomla sites. This first post lays out facts about the trademarks:

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Solving Common Problems With sh404SEF

If you read this blog often, you’ll know I love building sites with sh404SEF. However, its such a powerful extension that it can be complex. There are several issues that people keep asking me about. So instead of giving the same answer every time, I’ve written up the answers in a single document. This is a free article from the SEO Club’s guide to sh404SEF. Club members can look forward to the release of a full guide to Artio JoomSEF within the next couple of days. If you’re not a member, we’re still offering a free two week trial.

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