Rediscoverer

I was really interested with Joomla as an alternative for web publishing. It was really easy to understand and use (plus the admin panel rocks, imho). Then this update for Joomla came up, related to high-risk security vulnerabilities affecting all the past versions of Joomla. I have read the warnings about the update being incompatible with some extensions but I went on upgrading anyway. All was running smoothly when I stumbled upon the upload part in the admin panel. It was telling me I was not authorized the view/use th upload page (on the pop-up window). What the??? I am the super admin and the only user (I tested it on a localhost to make sure I don’t screw up the site on our test server). Then when I started using other extensions, they we’re giving me several warnings. Some of them I was available to work around, but most of them had something to do with Joomla’s inner workings so I didn’t messed with it (yet). Only two extension were left (barely) working.

Awww… man. Just when everything with Joomla looked promising. Well, I’ll be waiting for more updates and fixes regarding those extensions.

I’ve been handling this project for quite sometime now. It was a construction related forum, where homeowners seek advice from professionals. Our client wanted to add more services/features to the site. When the site was handed down to me there were already some additions. It had a classifieds section and a company directory, that were quite buggy and problematic. I had to take it down and rewrite it, salvaging any parts that I can. I also spiced it up a bit and turned it into a mash-up using Yahoo! Maps . I added a wiki on the site, hoping that users would help contribute and build a useful knowledge base. But I guess th folks there aren’t really ready for that. I was also assigned to create Jobs section, that would pull out related job feeds from another site and display some graphs/stats regarding the jobs. I did it, but got a little attention from the users (though some users got jobs from it). I also added a weather section, since weather was an important factor in their trade and a forecast would be quite helpful. They are also planning to have a product review/rating part, and an encyclopedia/dictionary to replace the wiki. They also want to add a gallery where the works of the contractors can be displayed/featured. They also asked me to install a newsletter application ( PHPlist ) to inform users/partners with lates news and site updates.

Almost all of the requested features are done and are ready to be integrated with the site. The problem is that things are quite unorganized/scattered. I have two versions each for the Classifieds and Directory section, running using CakePHP and another using an OOP approach. The weather section and the Jobs section where done using normal procedural programming. As for the gallery, there’s already a user gallery mod (by the way, we’re using PhpBB or the forums) for the forum, so we I don’t think we need to install Coppermine Gallery. The Review/Ratings and encyclopedia things are yet to be decided, since the folks are still busy with the new site design/layout. I really hate the frequent switch between programming environments ( procedural, OOP, CakePHP framework and PhpBB), and I tend to accidentally mix things up. It’s tiresome and maintenance nightmare. This urge me to look for options on how I can choose an approach and apply it consistently through out the project. I rounded them down to three: PhpBB super mod, CakePHP and by using a CMS like XOOPS or Joomla .

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It’s my birthday today. But nevermind that. I got a new PC as an advanced birthday give. Well not really a gift. And not really intended for my birthday. It’s just that my brother was stupid enough to mess with my old PC (prehistoric computer). One day I came home with coverless CPU welcoming me at my desk, the hard drive and CD-rom drive detached. I got really pissed off (I arrived late in the evening from work) and almost woke everyone in the house. My mother told me that my brother (who just arrived from several months of his duty on a ship) tried to “repair” my PC (just ot remind you: he doesn’t know anything about computer hardware!) and see what he can do with my busted CD-rom drive (he was planning to replace it with a spare one). I was always reluctant in disassembling and replacing the parts of my PC because the parts were in critical shape. It was really old, a PIII 550 mhz, 64+32mb SD-RAM PC-100, 10G disk space (laughable, yes; but it was the top of the line during its time). If any part of it breaks down, I won’t be able to find any replacements, which means “bye-bye PC”. It tried to save my PC by putting back the harddisk and the CD-rom drive. Someone also messed with the processor settings. Mom also told me that my brother tried to bring it to a repair shop when he realized things were getting out of hand. But of course, the technician wasn’t able to revive it since it was way too old for him. Might be because of some weird evil magic, I was able to run it and see the Windows start up screen again. But then, it just froze… and that’s just about it. I didn’t see the start up screen again. I tried to repair it again but I kept on getting a mild dose of free flowing electrons on my arms. The PC was turned off but still plugged in, so I knew it was already grounded. I remember a previous computer repair shop telling me that my PC was hopeless, since the power box (I don’t know if it was the right term) inside my PC was failing, and anytime soon my motherboard might get toasted. I think it already happened.

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Errr… I’m planning to switch to Wordpress from Textpattern. I like Textpattern for its simplicity, but I got the chance to try out Wordpress and liked it very much. I could do so much with it. But I thank Texpattern for introducing me to Textile .

4000 Out of 5000 visitors are using Internet Explorer
That’s why Internet Explorer is still the best of all and the best to view overlayed profiles
So, use Internet Explorer now!
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/
IE Beta7 available for download at Microsoft!
IE Statistics are based on user visits in our forum.

I use IE just to know how it feels to get exploited.

Image was from an IE fan . Thanks rjene! You really love _{to kill} IE.

1. It gives you that nice, warm feeling for being able to help other people and also makes you feel that you’re worth something.
2. You can help yourself come up with a solution to a problem that stomped you for the past few days.

Hey wait I minute! The advice I gave to you… that’s what I’m looking for! Aw shucks! Thank you for making me think. I’ve been very stupid these past few days