redirecting/dns setup with home machine and a bought domain name

So, I have a computer at home hosting a website and I wanted it to have a nice domain name (mynicedomainname.co.uk). So here's how I did it:

1. Sign up to no-ip
2. setup a Host/Redirect
3. Host type "DNS Host (A)"
   
4. get it to use the ip address of your home machine
1. install the no-ip client
2. and set it up
5. do port forwarding on your rooter to get it to point to the right computer on your home network
6. Buy a domain (I did with www.daily.co.uk)
7. go to Domains > Manage DNS >
8. Add a hostname > www
1. type > CNAME
2. data > your.no-ip.address.here
9. Delete the www one that was already there

Sorted!

Just trying to revert it back now. Found this help page.

Sending Files over the internet - Zendto

So, just a quick note because I'll probably forget, but Zendto is a very nice system to send and receive files over the internet.

It's a nice simple system which is why I like it.

Creating a Joomla Template

So, I've made a few websites in Joomla now, but I've only been able to 'cobble' them together either by editing existing templates, or by deleting content from a traditional website I've made and putting the right code it.

This second way is close enough to the real thing. I've found this nice tutorial on how to do it for Joomla 1.5. But it's not too different from the latest version (2.5).

I think the easiest way is to have your own machine setup as a webserver (see this blog on setting that up) and editing the files locally, and easily seeing what Joomla makes of it by viewing the pages through the web browser.

On top of this I found this youtube video explaining how you can setup dreamweaver to interact with the website locally so you can edit all files in dreamweaver. To do it:

1. Set up a new site in Dreamweaver
2. edit the local folder to that of the joomla site
3. in server enter the web URL which you need to type in the browser to access the site
4. Make sure you tick the "testing" box

Here are some screenshots:

locate the local root folder for that particular joomla website

enter the weburl that the computer has to go to view the website

Make sure to tick the "testing" box.

If you havent got a new template in the joomla site yet, just create the folder within the templates folder, make index.php and templateDetails.xml files (found tutorial here), then go to extensions > extension Manager > Discover > press Discover button. If you're templateDetails.xml file is the correct format then you should see it in the list. Tick and click install.

To edit a template:

1. load up its "index.php" in it's own template folder
2. click "live view"
3. click yes to the dialogue box
4. you will need to change the address of the viewing page to the root of the joomla site. i.e. you are editing the main template, which changes the whole site. So you view the website like normal

I did have a few problems refreshing whatever changes I'd made. The simplist was to just go to File > Save All, which would then work.

Embedding multimedia into Joomla

So, I just wanted to make an article with an embedded youtube video. Easy you would think:

1. go to the youtube video
1. click share > embed
2. copy code
2. make a new joomla article
1. write what you want
2. go to code view
3. paste iframe code
4. save
3. done

Not so simple. Seems when you go back to 'not code' view, it gets rid of the pasted bit of code. Very annoying.

After reading a forum discussion it appears for some reason it's best to have an extension. The simplest is "Allvideos". Download and install it under extensions. Enable it under "Plugin Manager". Then the procedure is:

1. go to the youtube video
1. get the id code of the video (the last bit of the address in the address bar)
1. i.e. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI97VGGHkic (bit in bold)
2. make a new joomla article
1. write what you want
2. where you want the video to appear type:
1. {youtube}kI97VGGHkic{/youtube}
3. save
3. done

So, in the end not too hard, just have to know the right buttons to press. Not good user design if you ask me, i.e. I had to look it up in a forum. The good thing about it is that you can embed all sorts of stuff, like flv files, mp3 files and more like it. Nice.

Moving a site to Joomla

So, here I am moving www.wallspacevisualarts.co.uk to Joomla. I thought I'd best keep notes so I don't loose where I am when I finally give up for the day.

So far I have downloaded and installed the latest Joomla - 2.5.4 on the home machine and put it in the folder - /WallSpaceVisualArts/

I've ran the setup wizard:

1. The admin user is me with my usual password.
2. The sites database is - wallspacevisualarts  (all lowercase). Admin for this is root. My own password.
3. I didn't install the sample data set.

The plan is relatively simple. I put the whole website on there, minus the content that can change. For the moment the only content that is changing is the tabulated text in the tabs. These can be articles which are always shown.

I want to eventually make the pictures an article also, but this would require much more work.

Here's the plan in chronological order (or maybe not so chronological):

1. get the documentation to know how to make a template
1. here it is
2. take out the css and put in a file
1. I called the file "main.css" in the css folder
3. make the template files and folders
1. made the root /Joomla Website/Templates
2. made one inside called /WallSpaceVersion1/
3. Made /css/ and /images folders
4. made templateDetails.xml
1. copied all info from link above and made it relevent
5. made index.php
4. move ALL images into "images" directory
1. moved images from "assets" directory to "images" directory
2. change any mention of "assets" with "images"
5. Change the way the tabs work so that they are called "tab1" and the information attached to each tab is called "tab1_info" to make more universal.
6. re-write the templateDetails.xml to encompass all the files used
1. if you declare a folder, do you need to declare the files in that folder?
1. looking at atomic's templateDetails.xml, they just put the files in the root folder
2. I think you just declare the files that you want to be editable
7. put the right bits of code in the right places
8. delete text
9. replace text with relevent code which brings up articles
1. Just found this article about Jdoc statements. It will hopefully work nicely
2. So, having looked into it, I found that what I actually wanted was to make each article a "Custom HTML" module. Each of these modules is then assigned a position in the page
1. Here's an example of what I put in the html code:
1. <jdoc:include type="modules" name="menu1" />
2. and for the module I assigned it to position "menu1.
3. don't forget to declare the menu1 in the templateDetails.xml document
10. make into template
11. put in joomla
1. had a little trouble with this. It turns out the "discover" button doesn't work well. The template turned up in "templates" tab but not in "styles" tab! Had to zip it and install it!
12. test
1. with initial testing, the images didn't appear
1. here's the code that I eventually used to link pictures placed in the template:
2. basically, where-ever you have
1. ="location.jpg" you replace with:
2. ="baseurl; ?>/templates/location.jpg
13. make johns login
14. make a space for it in index.php and declare it in templateDetails.xml
15. upgrade daily.co.uk account to Home Pro
16. make database on Daily (limited to 20 databases)
1. described it as "wallspacevisualarts"
2. db name is wallsp_1
3. To get on the database, you can go to mysql.daily.co.uk
1. it runs on phpmyadmin
4. normal password
17. backup joomla on home machine
18. backup old website on daily server
19. restore on daily server
20. give him a tutorial

Transferring from blogger/blogspot to joomla

So, I'm hoping to make a website for myself, which I want this blog to be a part of. But how to do it. Well, at first I thought I'd just have it as a feed, but actually I want to incorporate it fully into the joomla site. So.... here's what i found on the amazing thing called the internet:

Found on this forum

1. Export xml from blogger
2. import to wordpress
3. export from wordpress to joomla

Looks like wordpress is the go-between. Not found anything more recent then 2009, so maybe there is a straight blogger to joomla extension?

Found a how to website with information on the wordpress to joomla conversion. Need to install JoomBlog extension.

Also found this blog on how to do it. Costs $15 to by feed2post though

Just had a quick search on the extensions directory for joomla and found this PLo Blogger, which duplicates blogs on your joomla site onto your blogger site. This would be a good way to have them both up and running, and not loose any followers and such.

The question is: Is it worth the hassle? Perhaps keep blogger going, and make a new blog for other things on the joomla site. Might be the best thing to do?

Joomla on a Mac

So, I've been trying out the cloudaccess.net version of Joomla and I thought I'd try the totally free downloadable version, mainly to see the differences and also to perhaps edit files more locally.

Just read up on the txt file which comes with the download, takes you to this page for installation requirements. At the bottom of the page it says there is a quicker way then installing all the little things; MAMP, Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP. 

So... here's how I did it:

1. Download MAMP and install
2. run MAMP from applications folder

1. Go to "Open Start Page" or open browser and type : http://localhost:8888/MAMP
2. Go to MyPHPAdmin

1. Name a new database and click create
3. Now download Joomla
1. unzip it (if safari doesn't)

1. Put the new folder in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs
2. In the web-browser go to http://localhost:8888/Joomla_2 (or whatever folder you've named it)
3. It now takes you through the Joomla installation
4. One point I got stuck on was the database name. Type in the database name you created in MyPHPAdmin
5. The default password for the database thing is:
1. username = root
2. password = root
3. I wouldn't change these if I were you. If you do:
1. Go to MAMP/bin/mamp/index.php and change the password bit
2. Got to MAMP/bin/MyPHPAdmin/config.inc.php and change the password bit in here too
4. Done!!

I'm going to try and download the joomla site I made on cloudaccess.net and put it on the computer? I shall hopefully write a post and stick it up here.

Notes:

Had this error message come up:

Could not connect to the database. Connector returned number: 2

Turns out I didn't create the database and/or put the right password in. It would be easier if Joomla could do this bit?

I'd gone and changed the password for root in MAMP!! Doh, I ended up having to look for where the password entries were for each part of MAMP. Found the main two:

1. Go to MAMP/bin/mamp/index.php and change the password bit
2. Got to MAMP/bin/MyPHPAdmin/config.inc.php and change the password bit in here too

How can I change the password for the MySQL database?

Open the terminal and type the following:
/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p password

Instead of  use the new password you want.
Afterwards, you also need to change the password for phpMyAdmin and other scripts which are running under MAMP. You can change the password for phpMyAdmin in the file /Applications/MAMP/bin/phpMyAdmin-X.X.X/config.inc.php