Blog

Details

Siteground (above) and CloudAccess both are willing to host Joomla 1.5 sites. Siteground has the ability to choose a PHP version from cPanel. CloudAccess does not. As of summer 2014 CloudAccess is running PHP 5.3.x. If your 1.5 site requires 5.2 to function, it won't work properly at cloudaccess. That being said, both will move your site for you which is very nice.

CloudAccess

cloud access logo

Hover over Services and click Migrate to CloudAccess.net. CloudAccess.net will move your site to their server regardless of size (might mean 50GB).

 

Domain name choosing tips (sure you can google more):

  • You can use your company name if you already have one and the domain is available.
  • Or, you can choose a domain name that tells the visitor what they "get" as a result of doing business with you or visiting your site.
  • The domain name should be easy to remember.
  • It should be logical.
  • It shouldn't be to long - unless it fits with the logic (like the company name, etc.)
  • It should avoid confusion - like if the company name is berriesandcherries - and yet the domain name is berriesncherries (cuz the "and" wasn't available).
  • Avoid numbers unless it is part of your company name - for example 4u2win - tough for people to remember if it was a number or the word.

Details

Featuring Joomla! 3!

Using Joomla, Second Edition is an O'Reilly animal book. Jennifer Gress and Ron Severdia co-author this 350+ page book empowering you to use Joomla in its most exciting and powerful release, Joomla! 3.

Who is Using Joomla for?

Beginners: Using Joomla is great for Joomla beginners or Joomla newbies. Packed with hands-on exercises, Using Joomla gives directions to install Joomla, extensions, and template as well as how to work content effectively with all the tips you need to know! Learn to add categories, articles, menu items, and modules after planning your website.

Clients: If you're a web developer/designer who builds Joomla website for others and train clients to add their own content, Using Joomla can be utilized. Just hand the book to your clients. They get full step-by-step documentation on all the things they most commonly need to do like create text content, hyperlink internally and externally, manage images by properly resizing and optimizing, media manager organization, inserting videos and documents and more. By your clients using Using Joomla, they win and you win. They get the valuable instruction they need to manage their content/site and you get more time to be able to serve more people with Joomla.

Bonus: Appendix B is all about updating Joomla for security releases/bug fixes, updating extensions and migrating to Joomla 3 from both 2.5 and 1.5. Hands-on exercises for all!

Details

The following post might be a little upsetting if you are in the midst of realizing that your site is very messed up after being migrated by Bluehost. You probably won't want to read it. Rather, just contact me.

If you have received a notification from Bluehost but they haven't yet done anything on your account, I highly recommend you move your site to a new host immediately. A couple of hosts that will let you have a 1.5 site on their servers are in the right sidebar.

I had been hearing rumours of Bluehost forcing Joomla 1.5.x sites to migrate. I have only 3 Joomla 1.5.x sites left - the rest have all migrated. These few just don't have the wherewithall to migrate and indeed, they are hosted at Bluehost.

Even still, within a day of the rumour I heard, I decided to email one of my clients and find out if they got a notification from Bluehost. Indeed they had, but they didn't send it to me.

That client told me that Bluehost had sent them instructions on how to migrate from 1.5.x to 2.5.x. Huh? Migration isn't exactly the most straightforward of tasks. It's not like adding a hyperlink to an article.

Today, I received an inquiry from my website stating that she needed to migrate one or two sites from 1.5.22 to 2.5.17 (Bluehost sites). Further investigation with the prospect gave me this blurb from the Bluehost notification email to the customer:

"Throughout next week we will be migrating users found to be using Joomla less than 2.5.17, to 2.5.17. We strongly encourage you to perform the upgrade ahead of schedule to avoid any possible unforeseen issues."

They had received the email on Friday, January 17th. So not a lot of time there.

It seems there are a lot of variations on these notifications Bluehost is sending. Some say they only received one. One said they got a notification even though they're on Joomla 3. They had to call Bluehost and clear it up. Be proactive.

So I called Bluehost to find out what is going to happen with this migration

Details

After searching multiple sources on how to add attributes to Virtuemart 2 and finding a bit here and a bit there and then just messing around to get it to work, I've decided to type it up for the benefit of humanity. Here goes. May you have a simpler time than I did.

  1. Login to backend administration to joomla.
  2. Hover over Components and click on Virtuemart
  3. From the Products Menu, click on “Custom Fields”
  4. Click on the “New” icon at the top right (the big orange circle with the + in it)
  5. In the “Custom Field Type:” dropdown, select “Cart Variant
  6. Type the Title as you want it to appear on the front end of your store. Example: Size or Colour.
  7. Make sure it is published.
  8. Do not select a parent
  9. Make sure the “Cart Attribute” is set to “Yes”
  10. Leave Description blank
  11. In the “Default” field, type your attributes separated by a semi-colon.
  12. Example for Size: XXL;XL;L;M;S
  13. Example for Color: Black;White;Red;Blue
  14. Leave the “Admin only” radio button set to “No”
  15. Have the “Is a list?” radio button set to “Yes”
  16. Have the “Hidden” radio button set to “No”
  17. Save & Close

Next, add it to the product:

  1. Click “Products” from the Product Menu
  2. Click the name of the desired product to add the attribute to
  3. Click the “Custom Fields” tab at the far right of the product tabs
  4. Click the dropdown under “Custom Field Type”
  5. The title of the custom fields you just created should appear in the drop down
  6. For each of the items you added to the “Default” field in the custom field, click the desired custom field title that many times. So, if you have 3 sizes, small, medium and large, you click the dropdown under the Custom Field Type 3 times.
  7. When you do so, 3 new lines will appear under the Custom Field Type area showing the title, a value (with a dropdown), price field, type, cart attribute and delete.
  8. In each of the new lines that were created for your title, select the “Value” desired to show up in the store. So, if you had 3 sizes, you would select “Small” from one drop down, “Medium” from the next drop down and “Large” from the 3rd dropdown.
  9. To show a different price for different attributes, enter that price into the “Price” field. To have no price show at all, make sure the field is blank. Remove the “0.”
  10. Click Save & Close.
  11. Check it from the front end.

Looking for Joomla Web Design Services? Please do contact me!

Squarespace Circle Member

 

Joomla Certification Badge