Make sure you’re not hacked!

I was surprised to notice recently, one of my favourite Joomla websites (Not one we’ve designed I hasten to add) had been hacked, by the looks of things this was by changing the permissions on the files and directories on the webserver – for information folders are generally chmod to 755 and files are 644.
This brought me to thinking that although Joomla is a great CMS, with some patience hackers can run free throughout your site!  If you run a Joomla site, you already know that the backend can be accessed simply by going to http://www.yourdomain.com/administrator – it’s then simply a case of hacking the administrator password.

There are ways and means however, to stop the hackers before they’ve even got started! I came across a fantastic plugin the other day, which is available free from the Joomla Extensions website: jSecure Authentication. What this plugin does, it creates a Key in the back end of your choice, (There is an option to make the key any word you want it to be) you then have to enter this key as part of the URL to get access to the backend of the site. For example, if your key was letmein you would type http://www.yourdomain.com/administrator/?letmein without the key, a 404 page is displayed! Nice and simple. To make sure you are also extra protected, take a look at the Vulnerable Extensions List on the Joomla.org site. This is a list compiled by Joomla displaying any extensions which have been found to be vulnerable, and therefore could be a back-door to your site for would-be hackers.

Hackers will always try to gain access to any site. Make sure your site is protected, don’t pay money to companies who try to sell you things to protect your site – follow this post and your site will be at least a bit more protected!

Berners-Lee ’sorry’ for slashes

Tim Berners-Lee started the web to help scientists communicate

The forward slashes at the beginning of internet addresses have long annoyed net users and now the man behind them has apologised for using them.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, has confessed that the // in a web address were actually “unnecessary”.

He told the Times newspaper that he could easily have designed URLs not to have the forward slashes.

“There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said.

He admitted that when he devised the web, almost 30 years ago, he had no idea that the forward slashes in every web address would cause “so much hassle”.

His light-hearted apology even had a green angle as he accepted that having to add // to every address had wasted time, printing and paper.

Sir Tim is currently director of the World Wide Web Consortium and he is also working with the UK government to help open up access to government data.

Taken From the BBC Website

Top 10 Joomla extensions you can’t live without!

I have just written an article for Heart Internet’s blog on the Top 10 Joomla extensions you can’t live without! It’s just been published today! Take a look:

http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/blog/2009/09/top-10-joomla-extensions-you-can%E2%80%99t-live-without/

Joomla 1.5 “Must Have” Extensions

After several years of running Joomla we started to realise that we had to compile a list of “Must Have” Joomla extensions. This is a brief run down on which extensions we think every site needs! Read more…

HTC Hero update from Orange

The HTC Hero Orange Update...

We are the proud owners and users of the HTC Hero handset. We love it. Google Android O/S, Market, everything about this phone is fantastic!  The only downside is the slight lag and the battery life. Which has been apparently fixed in the latest update from Orange and HTC themselves…. Great! Or so we thought.  On Saturday, the update was installed on a HTC Hero handset, mine in fact and I thought I’m going to be running the latest piece of kit, running smoothly and running well! Today it’s still not working… Am so annoyed about this, Orange customer services don’t even know what I’m talking about and HTC have said that the update has been successful… So now what?!