Here are some interesting Joomla blog posts I found during week 45:
• Fix a hacked Joomla web site
• Future of People Joomla Org
• The JED and GPL
• Joomla Security just got a lot easier!
• DOCman 1.6.7 released
• DOCman 1.5.15 released
• Introducing the Ecospirit Joomla template
• JB Type now 100% more awesome
• Joomla SEO with sh404SEF at SEO Camp Toulouse
• Joomla upgrade 2.5.8 now available - 1 security issue resolved
• November's awesome template - JSN Kido is released!
• New terms of use JoomlaShine products
Written by Brian Teeman
Over the years I have written many blog posts about Joomla! websites being hacked. But that is nothing compared to the number of websites that I've been employed to fix. Several years ago I came to the conclusion that it would not matter how diligent you are at ensuring that your server is correctly configured and your extensions are always up-to-date there is still the possibility that your site could be hacked.
After all there will always be a time between a vulnerability being discovered and a fix being released. In fact I coined a phrase "exploited yesterday, hacked tomorrow". Like many of my colleagues who also spend time fixing hacked, exploited, defaced and broken websites I have created, collected and modified a set of handy scripts to help me resolve the issues. Although the scripts are good they are quite time consuming to use and often require a level of server access that is not available.
Written by CLT
In may 2010, the people.joomla.org website (PJO or JPeople), mainly built on Jomsocial, launched as a beta to see if the social media sides of joomla could be centralised. It also provided a home for the Joomla User Groups, developer fan clubs and various communication channels with the Joomla teams.
Recent changes on the joomla family sites such as Events team getting their own subsite, the JUG team relaxing the rule on forcing people to have a listing on PJO, Community blog posts discussions moving to the forum and with the impending release of 2.5 earlier this year, the moderation team asked the community for suggestions of how to improve the site.
Community comments received on why PJO didn't work.
Written by Matthew Baylor
Back in 2008 when the JED decided to make GPL a requirement to be listed, part of the rule included that in order to be listed, a developer could not distribute non-GPL Joomla extensions from the same site he/she wanted to distribute listed extensions from. At the same time, it was decided that it wouldn't be enforced retroactively for existing listings until some point in the future so developers had time to adjust.
From that point on if a developer submitted a new extension for listing and was distributing non-GPL extensions from the same site, the submission would be flagged with an error. If it wasn't resolved, the submission would be rejected after 60 days. The future is here. Effective January 1, 2013 all listings will fall under the same rules. Any listings that distribute extensions from a site that also distributes non-GPL Joomla extensions will no longer be eligible for listing in the JED.
Joomla Security just got a lot easier!
Written by Phil Taylor
I’m very happy to announce that the next best thing for Joomla has just been released! After almost 5 years of planning, writing, rewriting and testing I’m pleased to reveal our Joomla Security Auditing service open!
I have been fixing hacked Joomla sites every day for many years now. I’ve seen it all, nothing is new, and everything is fixable – so “Don’t Panic!” The tools you find here are the very tools I use myself when I’m debugging and fixing a hacked Joomla site or when I just want to know what state a current Joomla site is in. They are the result of years of Joomla experience, backed by a rock solid personal promise from myself. It all starts with a full audit, that gathers information about your site. This then allows you to look under the hood of a hacked website, identify core files that have been modified, locate hackers backdoors, shells, remote code and other “bad” things with a simple control panel interface.
Written by Johan
We are happy to announce the release of DOCman 1.6.7 for Joomla 2.5. This new maintenance release of DOCman is available for download at the Joomlatools Member Center. This maintenance release brings a many bufg fixes and also includes 3 new features. Here is an overview of the new features we added :
What’s new
1. View only access for documents
DOCman 1.6.7 now includes ‘view’ only access for documents. To turn on ‘view’ access you need to set the frontend guest access to ‘browse only’ in the DOCman configuration. The download buttons will then be redirected to the login page.
2. Support for menu metadata and title options
We have added support for the menu metadata (description and keywords) and title options that where introduced in Joomla 2.5. You can set them per menu item and DOCman will then add them to every page of that menu item.
Written by Johan
We are happy to announce the release of DOCman 1.5.15 for Joomla 1.5. This new maintenance release of DOCman is available for download at the Joomlatools Member Center. This new maintenance release brings many fixes and one new feature : ‘view access for documents’. View only access for documents allows users to browse documents without the ability to download them.
To turn on ‘view’ access you need to set the frontend guest access to ‘browse only’ in the DOCman configuration. The download buttons will then be redirected to the login page. More information about the new release and a list of all bug fixes can be found in our DOCman change-logs.
Introducing the Ecospirit Joomla template
Written by Anthony Olsen
The Ecospirit Joomla template is our November Joomla template release and our 17th responsive Joomla template to date. This theme is classic bamboo. It features a delicate mix of clean lines, white space and subtle grungy textures. It's a responsive Joomla template built for a variety of uses.
The template is built on v2.4.0 of the Zen Grid Framework which contains a stack of new features and optimisations. At the moment the other templates have not been updated to use this version of the framework so please only install 2.4 on sites using the Ecospirit template. All v2 themes (Except for Shop Ignition will be updated later today and tomorrow.) The focus for this version has been around improved performance and so there have been a number of code optimisations that affect the front and the back end.
Written by Anthony Olsen
If you have had a chance to look at the demo of our November Joomla template - Ecospirit - you may have noticed that we have used some very handy font icons in the menu and in the content of the site. We have done this using our JB Type plugin which now comes with the complete set of Font Awesome Icon fonts.
Fast and flexible fonts icons
While Icon fonts have been around for a while they are fast becoming (one of) the next big things in web design. Icon fonts are great because they are a single font asset (no images needed) and are able to be scaled using traditional css techniques - this makes them fast and flexible. The icons behave like any other font and so you can specify their color, size background etc using some simple css. Font icons also scale to suit the pixel ratio of your browser - so no need to specify a new image for retina or higher pixel ratio devices.
Joomla SEO with sh404SEF at SEO Camp Toulouse
Written by Ron van Schaik
Anything Digital would like to thank the organizers of SEO Camp Day Toulouse for a wonderful event and inviting Yannick Gaultier, the lead developer of sh404SEF® to speak. Yannick's presentation focussed on the use of sh404SEF® for Joomla SEO optimization. Features such as duplicate URL management, URL structure, 404 error management, mobile Joomla SEO, security and more were discussed in detail. The slides from this presentation in french can be found below. The event took place on November 10th in Toulouse France and was a great success. Check out the presentation below and SEO Camp's website for more information about the organization and future events.
Joomla upgrade 2.5.8 now available - 1 security issue resolved
Written by Victor Drover
Joomla 2.5.8 has been released. Notable in this build is the inclusion of a security patch for a clickjacking vulnerability affecting versions 2.5.7 and earlier versions of 2.5. 6 items from the bug tracker were also addressed. Full details can be found in the official 2.5.8 release announcement at joomla.org Since this release improves security, we recommend that all users perform an Joomla upgrade immediately. A Joomla upgrade can be performed directly in the Joomla administrative backend. For users with multiple sites, we recommend updating all your sites from Watchful.li — a centralized site manager for Joomla.
November's awesome template - JSN Kido is released!
Written by Bui Thi Mo
First, in introduction, I would like to give my congratulations to those who love VirtueMart and have searched for a Joomla template that fully supports its style. I can definitely say that "Your search finishes here", JSN Kido is the first JoomlaShine template which applies VirtueMart's style with our own amazing design. JSN Kido is a lovely Joomla 2.5 & 3.0 template which is good-looking. This template would be a great choice for any e-commerce website. Want to discover more about JSN Kido?
JSN Kido remarkable features
Fully supports and has specific style for VirtueMart.
Supports K2 style.
Responsive design lets you enjoy the template on any browsers beautifully.
New terms of use JoomlaShine products
Written by Tuan
Dear valued JoomlaShine customers,
We’d like to inform you that since 7 November our Terms of Use policy will be changed as following:
If you buy PRO STANDARD edition, then you will get free support and product update for 06 months.
If you buy PRO UNLIMITED edition then you will get free support and product update for 12 months. The main reason why we decided to reduce support and product update period is to invest more resources in product maintenance and development. Right now, we are deploying Agile Kanban approach which allows us to release product’s updates every 2 weeks. With this kind of update rate, you will get stable and performing product continually. It also means that you get the products compatible product version with latest Joomla! CMS sooner. As the result all JoomlaShine templates, JSN ImageShow and JSN PowerAdmin are compatible with Joomla 3.0 for now.
