Kevin's Papers

Technical Papers by Kevin Morrison

I am an all-around tech nerd with 25+ years' experience designing power user systems and networks and a passion for graphics and web development. My goal with this site is to bring all my knowledge into one place where I can easily manage it and anyone who seeks that knowledge can easily find it.

The Joomla Update scheme has changed AGAIN!

When I first started working with Joomla nearly 6 years ago the update path was different than it is today. Up until 2.5 it seemed to work just fine and while it always felt like the odd ball to me it worked. So the general rule was until a version reached .5 it was considered a short term stable release (STS), which meant you could still use the .x version prior to .5 but you did so at your own risk. If you absolutely needed what was coming in the new release you installed it and dealt with the constant struggle of updating it and fixing everything that broke along the way. Otherwise we was told to wait until the long term stable release (LTS) was out.

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Joomla Update Manager Is Dangerous!

OK so the title to this blog may be a bit harsh but I wanted to get your attention because although it is not dangerous it is potentially a problem. So now hopefully you are interested in what I have to say because after you read this I am sure you will agree there is the potential for a problem.

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Help Grow Your Online Business

With Shipwire you are free to take care of more important business. Shipwire will provide the storage space and handle all the delivery of your products from one of their many warehouses around the country and across the globe! No matter how big or small your business is, Shipwire can assist you in getting your products to your customers no matter where they are.

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How to Embed Google Docs into Your Joomla Website

Google docs being probably the most popular service for managing online documents, I am going to show you how with no flash or PDF browser plug-ins you can embed Google Docs, spreadsheets, documents, forms and presentations into your Joomla website and this works for Joomla 2.5 up to 3.0 and beyond.

Step 1: Setting up your documents

Before you start you have to make sure that your documents are labeled as public and not private otherwise this will not work. Open the document that you want to share and click the Share link that the top of the browser to make it public readable.

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Configure Joomla to Send Email using Google Apps

By default Joomla is setup to send mail from the server using the PHP Mail() function. Some servers do not allow this or restrict it to the point that it is not functional in which case this could be an alternative to freely giving out your email address to thugs. While some (myself included) use Gmail and Google Docs for business it just makes sense. This also is a great way to ensure your messages get to where they are going. 

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