Virtuemart 2 on Joomla 2.5

It seemed like such a long wait for Virtuemart to release their new version 2.0 which would finally be compatible with Joomla 1.7. However now Joomla has released their new version Joomla 2.5. So once again I'm unsure if the two latest versions will work together. Only real way to find out it seems is to try it. 

I started with a fresh installation of the Joomla 2.5 with no sample data installed. I then downloaded the latest version of Virtuemart which is 2.0.0 and installed via the extensions manager. There was an option to install sample data which I chose yes so I could see faster if there were any issues. To my surprise there were no errors and it installed fine. Below is the screenshot I was greeted with after the install.

Read more: Virtuemart 2 on Joomla 2.5

Buffalo NAS Transfer Rates

I've been playing around with a Buffalo NAS storage device recenetly and realised that the write speeds are much slower than the read speeds. When moving data off the device which is essentially a copy and delete the transfer rate is around 6-7 mega bits per second. However when I move data to back to it which is essentially a write function and delete, the transfer rate is only 1.6 mega bits per second.

Slow To Copy Files From NAS

I recently has an issue where trying to copy video files between my main PC and NAS drive was extremely slow, around 300k/sec. I'm using a Netgear N wireless router and a generic N wireless network USB stick on the PC so would expect around 6 tp 7 meg/sec. My setup is that the NAS is cabled directly to the modem router so all devices in the house can access it equally as fast and the slowest part bottleneck should be the wireless.

After playing with all the wireless settings I could think of and even buying a new wireless USB stick the problem still persisted. Finally I replaced the LAN cable joining the NAS and the router and what do you know, suddendly all the devices in the house can transfer files at the expected speed. It turned out to be a faulty LAN cable.

Then I remembered the old OSI table and how you should always trouble shoot from the lowest level first and work your way up. IE check power, cables and hardware first, then play with software. Hopefully this may help someone if they are having similar issues.

Kunena Discuss on Joomla 1.7

If you use the forum Kunena they have a plugin called Kunena Discuss which I really like. It uses article comments to automatically create forum topics. This is prefect because it makes your forum look active and it gets rid of duplicate communications. Anyway since upgrading to Joomla 1.7 and Kunena 1.7 (which have the same version numbers just by chance) this great feature was a real pain to get working again.

Firstly, when a guest commented and clicked it did nothing but refresh the page and clear the comment form. Not a good experience for the guest. I also realised that the captcha was not showing. You really need that to stop the spam. 

To date I have not solved this problem and therefore you cannot comment below ... 

Checking the Kunena forums this is the best explanation I could find. There's an issue with caching in general on Joomla 1.7. The Joomla articles get cached after plugins get called and there's no way to turn the caching off. So for now Kunena Discuss on Joomla 1.7 is not available. Best to disable the plugin until its resolved.

CAPTCHA is not properly configured (public key is missing). Please contact site administrator!

Webmaster Crawl Errors and Joomla

Password Recovery for Catalyst 3500XL Series Switch

This is the procedure I used to recover the password for a Cisco Catalyst 3500XL series switch

1. Attach a cisco configuration cable to the console port of the switch and a com port on a PC. start up hyperterminal and use the following terminal settings:
   Bits per second (baud): 9600
   Data bits: 8
   Parity: None
   Stop bits: 1
   Flow Control: Xon/Xoff

2. Unplug the power cable.

3. Hold down the mode button located on the left side of the front panel, and reconnecting the power cable.

   Release the mode button after the LED above Port 1x goes out.

   You'll see the following instructions appear:

   The system has been interrupted prior to initializing the
   flash filesystem.  The following commands will initialize
   the flash filesystem, and finish loading the operating
   system software:
       flash_init
       load_helper
       boot
   switch:
   
   

4. Issue the flash_init command.

   switch: flash_init
   Initializing Flash...
   flashfs[0]: 143 files, 4 directories
   flashfs[0]: 0 orphaned files, 0 orphaned directories
   flashfs[0]: Total bytes: 3612672
   flashfs[0]: Bytes used: 2729472
   flashfs[0]: Bytes available: 883200
   flashfs[0]: flashfs fsck took 86 seconds
   ....done Initializing Flash.
   Boot Sector Filesystem (bs:) installed, fsid: 3
   Parameter Block Filesystem (pb:) installed, fsid: 4
   switch:
   
   

5. Issue the load_helper command.

   switch: load_helper
   switch:

6. Type the command dir flash: command.

   The switch file system is displayed something like this:

   switch: dir flash:
   Directory of flash:/
   2    -rwx  1803357   <date>               c3500xl-c3h2s-mz.120-5.WC7.bin
   4    -rwx  1131      <date>               config.text
   5    -rwx  109       <date>               info
   6    -rwx  389       <date>               env_vars
   7    drwx  640       <date>               html
   18   -rwx  109       <date>               info.ver
   403968 bytes available (3208704 bytes used)
   switch:
   
   

7. Type rename flash:\config.text flash:\config.old to rename the configuration file. There's no output shown if the command is successful

   switch: rename flash:\config.text flash:\config.old
   switch:
   
   

    

8. Type the boot command to boot the system.

   switch: boot
   Loading "flash:c3500xl-c3h2s-mz.120-5.WC7.bin"...###############################
   ################################################################################
   ######################################################################
   File "flash:c3500xl-c3h2s-mz.120-5.WC7.bin" uncompressed and installed, entry po
   int: 0x3000
   executing...
   
   

9. Enter "n" at the prompt to skip the setup wizard

10. At the switch prompt type en to enter enable mode.

    Switch>en
    Switch#

11. Type rename flash:config.old flash:config.text to rename the configuration file with its original name.

    Switch#rename flash:config.old flash:config.text
    Destination filename [config.text] 
    Switch#
    

12. Copy the configuration file into memory:

    Switch#copy flash:config.text system:running-config
    Destination filename [running-config]? 
    1131 bytes copied in 0.760 secs
    Switch#
    

    The configuration file is now reloaded.

13. Change the password:

    Switch#configure terminal
    Switch(config)#no enable secret 
     !--- This step is necessary if the switch had an enable secret password. 
    Switch(config)#enable password Cisco
    Switch#(config)#^Z 
     !--- Control/Z. 
    

14. Write the running configuration to the configuration file with the write memory command:

    Switch#write memory
    Building configuration...
    [OK]
    Switch#

How To Create A Consolidated RSS Feed For Joomla 1.7

After I upgraded this site and some others to Joomla 1.7 I was stumped how to create a consolidated RSS feed. The problem is that Joomla seems to assume your home page will be a rolling blog so they provide you with a module to install called Syndication Feeds. This module will automatically create the RSS feed of all the articles displayed on the blog layout page. Sounds good except many websites don't use the top level category blog layout menu item. Especially static sites for small businesses.

To get around this you still need to create a top level category blog but the trick is where to hide the menu item. I created my category blog menu item under my help menu and called it RSS. This way most people will ignore it.

When I initially clicked the new menu link the default settings only showed the categories and no articles. You need to go into the joomla menu options and set them like in the picture to the left. The main thing being that 'include sub categories' must be 'all'.

Now when you click your new RSS menu link it will show all your latest articles. Assigned the syndication feeds modules to the new RSS menu item. Now the page will show the RSS feed link generated from the syndication module.

Finally you have a consoidated RSS feed that you can paste into feedburner. Also don't forget to give the RSS link to google webmaster tools so Google will be happy too.

SH404 Won't Generate URL's

SH404 as of version 3.2.0.1108 seems to have a bug where if you are logged in the back end and have done a url search, therefore limiting the url's it shows in the backend, if you then purge your URL's, it won't generate any new URL's meaning every page you click on will be a 404. This has been replicated in Joomla 1.7 only so I can't be sure if its a bug in other Joomla versions.

To fix the issue simply clear your search filter in SH404 in the back end of Joomla. Then purge the URL's again.

Kunena Discuss Adds a 1 To Every Article

Has anyone else noticed this behavior? Everytime I enable Kunena Discuss on a website running Joomla 1.7, all the articles suddenly show a number 1 in the top left hand corner. I've confirmed it on two websites we host now that are Joomla 1.7 and are using Kunena forums so it seems fairly easy to replicate. Any comments on how to fix it would be appreciated.

As usual with new releases of software I guess its best to just wait for the developers to iron out the bugs.

How To Inprove Bounce Rates

I have recently upgraded a few Joomla websites to version 1.7 and found some interesting results related to how it affects bounce rate.

Faster Loading Times With Caching

The first and foremost thing I've learnt is that enabling caching lets pages load faster and when pages load faster the visitor is happier. After one particular website upgrade I checked Google analytics and was amazed to see the bounce rate had dropped from 85% down to 15% and less. Before the migration I had tried all sorts of things to try and lower the bounce rate but nothing ever worked. So why the sudden improvement? The only thing I could put it down to is that Joomla 1.7 has caching enabled by default. Everything else on the site is exactly the same layout. 

Have No Side Bars

Joomla users will be familiar with how modules are assigned to menu items. So if a page is clicked from a menu item, you can choose which modules are displayed alongside the article. By accident a particlualr website was upgraded to Joomla 1.7 and the sidebar modules were not showing. This was an error caused by the SEO friendly url software called sh404. From this I realised the real reason the bounce rate had dropped. Having a full width page article with no modules down the sides was decreasing bounce rate. For some reason when people come across a full width article they were more likely to click the menu across the top of the page to find more information.

If you want to captivate visitors and get them clicking around, then less is more. Get rid of all the busy user options and go minimalistic. Remove all your side banners, side menus and popular article links. Just have a full width page layout with a clear menu structure at the top. This will get you around a 50% bounce rate and that equates to more page views.