As a web developer,I have to move sites around frequently. Sometimes this can be tricky accessing both websites before/after the move has occurred.

One case is trying to get to the "old site" after it has been moved.  This can be accomplished using a special file on a Mac (and all *nix based systems) named /etc/hosts.

I like to think of Joomla as the content management system that I love to hate. I know WAY too much about it to just stop what I am doing and start over again with another CMS. I have done some simple things with Wordpress and Drupal, when it comes right down to it, I can install a working Joomla site with 4 server commands.

People often ask me about how Joomla organizes its pages/articles, so I figured I would make up a quick blog entry.

I have been doing a little Geneaology research lately and found that my Great Grandfather sold a family product named Laws' Bluing - which was a laundry additive to whiten clothing.  Google gives me 10 results for the search of "Laws Bluing".  As much as I hate it, I decided to give Bing.com a try.   I think they missed the mark just a little ...

Want to integrate the mos_map plugin to appear on your Contact Us page? here's how

One of the things I love about my Mac is the access to the *nix command line.  Controlling your CD/DVD drive from the GUI is something that may work well on a "real" mac, but on my "hackintosh", some times it doesn't work as expected.

First impressions -- hmmm ... could be a keeper.  for the terminal program alone ...  Crunchbag replaced gnome-terminal with Terminator.  Took me a while to get used to it, but I think its going to become my primary terminal program.

Quick Intro:  Say you go to the ABC website and want to get the contents of the alert at the top of the page, which is enclosed in a <div> with the class "alertContent".

So a couple weeks ago I logged into Bing! to add @viewdm's listing on their new map feature.  I updated the listings it found in Upstate SC - based on the office phone listing and another listing we had while we were all getting started.

I got 2 letters in the mail the other day with the PIN codes that I needed to complete the verification.  It contained the URL : https://llc.local.live.com/listingcenter.aspx and instructions to go there, login, and enter the code.

Upon going there, I got a big warning in Firefox : "This Connection is Untrusted"

Looking at the cert, its for a Bing! domain :

DOH!  Most people are going to see the first warning and bail out.

Also, as I logged in, Bing! could not find any of the previous requests and I had to re-enter all the update requests and "We will send you a letter in a couple of weeks..."

ARGH!  Their incompetence even shows in their web practices!

Buy.com started a new contest called "Tweet and Seek" this past week using social media outlets. "Contestants" were asked to watch for Buy.com to submit a clue via a "tweet" via its Twitter page http://twitter.com/buy_com. This clue was to lead people to on a hide and seek type game across several websites.

The first clue was : Hint-The company-whose logo features 3 Gouldian finches-recently launched a PC line leading the way as a Smarter, Greener, Computing Company

I stumbled on the answer by accident, watching the messages to/from @buy_com - Viewsonic.

So, on to the Viewsonic.com website - What's this, a twitter bird in the footer?

This is a link over to http://www.buy.com/tweetnseek/clues.asp?site=viewsonic with the question:Question: This cold-forged aluminum spool sporting goods product shares its name with a city in Arizona.

Hint: The company that manufactures this item earns 75% of its revenue from bicycle components (its other specialty).

Spool was the magic word here - Shimano.  A search on the Buy.com website for Shimano .. first result is Shimano Sedona Spinning Reel - again, down near the bottom is a Twitter bird, leading to another clue, and another, and another ...

I won't ruin the fun, but you can check it all out here :  http://www.buy.com/tweetnseek

Maybe I am just a new age Mac guy - or because I am a convert, but I love my right mouse button.  I was using a PowerPC iMac for a while and kept wanting to throw it across the room, because it was using one of the old apple mice that only had a single click... ARG!

Anyway,  here is a trick to add a short cut to the OSX Right click menu. Ever spend several minutes searching for a file and then have to go through the hassle of starting a new email message to attach the file to ...

check this out.

By efault, on a cpanel system, Spam Assassin doesn't allow the subject line rewriting.  I find it a quick short cut to be able to glace at the subject line and tell if the email is junk or not ... Here is how to enable it.  Requires root level access on the server.

So what, I am a Joomla Hacker :)

I have tried several different ways myself to hide the fact that sites are running Joomla - from hacking in a custom path to the template directory, to using mod_rewrite to simplfy URL references to the /plugins/... directory.

One quick and dirty trick I have found that seems to always bypass these hacks is by appending ?tp=1 onto a URL that I think may be a Joomla site ... the parameter tp=1 is a trick that tells Joomla to display its module positions.

So, try it yourself - where else?  http://joomla.com

Yuk - Switched to Fedora 11 recently - ran into problems today installing updates ...

http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/fedora/linux/updates/11/i386/grubby-6.0.87-1.fc11.i586.rpm: [Errno 14] HTTP Error 404: Not Found
Trying other mirror.
http://mirror.lib.ucdavis.edu/fedora/linux/updates/11/i386/grubby-6.0.87-1.fc11.i586.rpm: [Errno 14] HTTP Error 404: Not Found
Trying other mirror.
http://mirror.cc.vt.edu/pub/fedora/linux/updates/11/i386/grubby-6.0.87-1.fc11.i586.rpm: [Errno 14] HTTP Error 404: Not Found
Trying other mirror.
http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/fedora/linux/updates/11/i386/grubby-6.0.87-1.fc11.i586.rpm: [Errno 14] HTTP Error 404: Not Found
Trying other mirror.
http://mirror.uoregon.edu/fedora/linux/updates/11/i386/grubby-6.0.87-1.fc11.i586.rpm: [Errno 14] HTTP Error 404: Not Found
Trying other mirror.

Cool.  Have a bunch of DVD VIDEO_TS folders on your hard drive?  Use Automator to open them with DVD player

First, find a VIDEO_TS folder on your hard drive - right click, go to "More" -> "Automator" -> "Create Workflow". 

Need for speed :) Figured I would try the latest kernel in my VirtualBox setup on my mac

grab the deb packages from :

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/

Index of /~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30

	Name	Last modified	Size	Description
	linux-headers-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb	10-Jun-2009 11:27	598K
	linux-headers-2.6.30-020630_2.6.30-020630_all.deb	10-Jun-2009 10:04	8.8M
	linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb	10-Jun-2009 11:27	24M

Install these packages : sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Reboot :sudo reboot

Setup the virtualbox driver : sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

Reboot : sudo reboot

done - perfect :)

$ uname -a
Linux glaw-desktop 2.6.30-020630-generic #020630 SMP Wed Jun 10 09:45:40 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

What's this really get me? Don't know yet - but its kewl :)

**Edit ***

On my laptop, running Ubuntu natively, I also had to update to the newest 180.60 Nvidia drivers :

nvidia-180-kernel-source_180.60-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

nvidia-180-libvdpau_180.60-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

nvidia-glx-180-dev_180.60-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

nvidia-glx-180_180.60-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

First I uninstalled the kernel -

sudo apt-get purge linux-headers-2.6.30-020630 linux-headers-2.6.30-020630-generic linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic

then installed the new nvidia packages :

sudo dpkg -i nvidia*.deb

then reinstalled the kernel :

sudo dpkg -i linux-*.deb

Then rebooted

So, after messing with it for an hour, I had an idea - wouldn't it be much easier to work with it via Leopard's Screen Sharing.  So, with the laptop powered down, we connected it another Mac via a firewire and then started the laptop up holding down the T key - this starts the laptop up in "target" mode.  A few seconds later, the laptop hard drive appeared as a mounted drive on the 2nd Mac. (*note - I read somewhere that if the 2 mac hard drives have the same label - ie "Macintosh HD" you will have to rename the volume on the 2nd mac for it to mount the laptop's drive).

After upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 (and using 8.10 before), I noticed that some applications would show garbled fonts, similiar to:

One of my favorite tricks with J1.5 is the template overrides.

J1.5 ships with an example set of template overrides in the "beez" template. If you check out the "beez" template directory, you will find a directory named "html".  This directory contains copies of certain module and component directories and their corresponding views.  

Being a linux command line junkie, I always want fast access to a bash shell.  Previous versions of Ubuntu and some of the off shoots like Linux Mint, had fast access to a terminal via a right mouse click on the desktop.  Where did it go??!!

Ah, to get it back you have to install the nautilus-open-terminal package

I downloaded the latest Ubuntu (version 9.04) and installed it on my laptop the other day.  So I figured wtf? lets loaded it up into VirtualBox on the Mac.

The install went pretty smoothly, pointed VB at the Ubuntu .iso image, installed pretty quickly.  Trying to get the "Guest Add-ons" installed were another story.

If you are like me, you have a ton of different email addresses, some for work, some for play, etc...

Most times, you don't want to take a chance to mixing these, and sending your personal signature on a business email, so if you do what I do, you sent up a couple different email clients.

~~ Update ~~ seems the BIOS on my damn Toshiba laptop refuses to report 4GB to the  OS level.

Gave up on this... Oh Well.

I got all exited the other day and went ahead and ordered 4 GB of RAM for my laptop.  Rushed home and put it in.

ack!  needed to do some updates on some graphics for a website.

fired up gIMP and I was like wtf? "where is Arial, where is Verdana?!?!"

I found myself in possession of a Toshiba P105-S6217 laptop.