When recently migrating the DeeEm.com site I needed a way to be able to organise the tutorials section so that each tutorial was easily accessible. This meant creating an index of blog posts so that visitors could browse through each category so see if there were any mods that applied to their site. Whilst EasyBlog makes provision for listing category titles, there is no way to list the blog posts without additionally showing an intro portion from the post itself. This is achieved using the 'Latest Blogs' module, and whilst there is a setting to control the length of text displayed, even setting this to the minimum possible value, you will still display a couple of newlines in the output.

Whilst digging though the code to see if there was a way that I could modify the CSS or core code to force the list to display as I wanted, I discovered that there is a hidden value within the administration settings for the module that hides the intro text. The solution is to manually apply this value by directly editing the database table.

The value in question is for the 'introtext' variable: (Content be taken from). This will only allow you to select between 'introtext' or 'main content'. What you cannot see is there is a third value 'Hidden'. I assume that this does not display, due to it having the value '-1', or at least it does not display in the browsers that I am using.

The solution is therefore very simple. 

using phpMyAdmin or your favourite MySQL client, browse to the #__modules table and search for the Latest Posts module you wish to edit (TIP - search for the module title + if you have just added the module it will be on the last page!). When you have found it, hit the edit button, and then scroll down to the 'params' section and search for the text "showintro":"0" . This may have the value of either 0 or 1 depending on the value of the setting in the admin section. Simply change the value to -1 and save it. Be careful not to change any of the other text.

Now you will notice that the intro text is gone, and the additional carriage returns are no longer visible.

One caveat is that if you edit any other settings within the admin section, it will overwrite this value and you will neeed to manually re-apply this fix.

/DM

The recent migration from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 1.7 left me without a comments system for the tutorials section of the site. Previously this was handled by Jcomment, a great component that allows you to easily add commenting to standard Joomla articles, its only drawback, is that the Joomla 1.7 version is still some way from release.

After having taken a look at various options, including several other commenting systems, I decided that the best solution would be to import the tutorial articles into EasyBlog, mostly as this would help keep some continuity on the site. The migration of the posts went flawlessly, as expected, but this still left me with the actual comments to migrate. I briefly considered a manual migration, but then discovered that there are actually quite a few comments on the site.

After a bit of digging around I discovered that EasyBlog creates a table that cross references the old article ID's to the new ID's. This is created during the migration process and the values are stored in the '#__easyblog_migrate_content' table. Perfect for migrating the missing comments across.

Using this table I was able to change the object_id in the original jcomments table to match the new post_id for EasyBlog. I simply ran the following SQL statement from within phpMyAdmin. (You will notice that I've made a copy of the original table into the table j17_oldjcomments, just in case.)

UPDATE j17_easyblog_migrate_content p, j17_oldjcomments pp
SET pp.object_id = p.post_id
WHERE pp.object_id = p.post_id

With the correct values assigned to the comments, I deleted all unnecessary fields (all fields except `userid`, `comment`, `date` and `object_id`) and then exported the table.

I then modified the SQL in a text editor as follows: I deleted the CREATE TABLE section and modified the INSERT statement as follows...

INSERT INTO `j17_oldjcomments` (`userid`, `comment`, `date`, `newid`) VALUES

Changed to

INSERT INTO `j17_easyblog_comment` (`created_by`, `comment`, `created`, `post_id`) VALUES

I then saved the file and using phpMyAdmin I imported the new comments into the database (again using phpMyAdmin).

Now all of the comments were under the correct posts but when viewing them I found that some of them had a left-margin set within an inline stye causing the comment to shift over to the right side of the page. After a  bit of digging, this transpired to be because there was some data missing from the database. For each entry there are two fields set which relate to the comments location within the comment stream, this is needed EasyBlog allows nested comments. My quick import simply assigned zero values to these fields confusing the script as to where the comments should sit within the comment stream.

The fields should function as follows - Assuming that all comments are sequential and not nested, on the first comment the values for the two fields lft and rgt will be 1 and 2, the next comment will be 3 and 4, and so on...

Rather than get technical and write a PHP script to do the job properly, I decided to manually add the values. I simply gave all comments the values 1 and 2 for the fields lft and rgt respectively (via phpMyAdmin). I then manually edited the posts where there were more then one comment so that the subsequent posts had the values, 3&4, 5&6, etc. I used the following SQL to find the duplicate entries:

SELECT `post_id` FROM `j17_easyblog_comment` GROUP BY  `post_id` HAVING  (COUNT(`post_id`) > 1)

Fortunately there were not too many posts with multiple comments.

/DM

If you are a regular internet user, or even a regular user of other more traditional media, you probably couldn't fail to be aware of the blackout of several well known websites. Amongst the most reported was the blackout of Wikipedia. It's actions receiving a lot of media coverage here in Australia on the radio and television, coverage that was no doubt echoed around the rest of the globe...

The black out of Wikipedia, and several other high traffic sites such as O'Rielly, WordPress Reddit and Cheezburger, is in response to the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy) / PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property) Acts. These Acts have respectively been proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and are considered by most to be ill conceived and not needed. 

Although the intent of SOPA / PIPA is to prevent online piracy and sites such as The Pirate Bay from operating, the crux of the issue with the proposed acts is the apparent lack of due process laid down in their enforcement, resulting in the ability to be able to misuse the acts for purposes other than their original intent. This is of course very bad news. 

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act

Application of the existing DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) has already seen many instances of the existing law being liberally applied without following any formal due process, resulting in unfounded Cease and Desist notices being issued and major inconvenience to those on the receiving end. The proposed SOPA / PIPA acts far exceed the scope of the existing DMCA Act, and without a formal process for their application have every chance of eventually morphing into a set of laws that bear no relevance to the original intent of the acts.

If like me, you do not live in America, you may think that the proposed SOPA / PIPA acts do not affect you. Well think again. There are several precedents where those falling foul of the DMCA in Australia have been extradited to America to face charges, resulting in custodial sentences. Admittedly, in each case the sentence was befitting of the crime, but it goes to show that the proposals do in fact have a very far reaching nature, and that operating a warez or torrent site in Australia, on Australian servers does not exclude you from might of American law. 

Whilst stories of extradition of individuals under the DMCA are relatively uncommon, action against service providers is not. The easy target for enforcers of the DMCA is to target the hosts of infringing sites or the service providers of those guilty of dealing in the infringing data, the results of this are usually very effective, resulting in stopped services and almost instant solutions. The big issue with the application of the existing DMCA (act) is of course that the effected users have no participation in the process at all, it is a case of guilty until proven innocent. Basically if your site is taken down, it is up to you to engage lawyers, or enter into lengthy debates with your ISP to reverse the process.

So why is there a need for the new acts?

Like many others, I think that the new acts are mostly in response to the corporate giants feeling sore for the loss of sales to online piracy, the acts do not really protect the intellectual property of the 'little man' at all. Being a software provider I have been the victim of piracy myself, where others have taken my work and passed it off as their own. My attempts at trying to get the data removed from the offending sites by issuing a formal request was met with disdain, and short of employing expensive lawyers to act on my behalf (not really feasible for a $20 CMS extension) there was very little I could do. Generally under the DMCA, a representative of the copyright owner will contact the provider and make a similar request, this is long before a ceast and desist notice is raised, but with the weight of a large company behind such requests, most ofter this request is executed unchallenged.

Ironically enough, I have also been on the receiving end of such a situation. i designed some t-shirts for vdubber.com (a VW enthusiasts website that I run), and offered them for sale on the site through zazzle. The t-shirts contained the site's logo and a slogan which included the name of the auto manufacturer - 'www.vdubber.com - Next generation VW community'. One day whilst browsing through the site I noticed that the t-shirts were no longer available in store. There was no notification from Zazzle, no opportunity to put forward a contrary argument, they were simply removed. I then subsequently found out that an independent representative acting on behalf of VW had contacted them and asked for the t-shirts to be removed, which Zazzle had done without argument. Such is the perceived power of the DMCA. Needless to say, I no longer use Zazzle.

So what is the solution? 

Hack, the current affairs program hosted by Triple-J radio here in Australia, had a reportage on the new acts and invited comment from the public. The general consensus seemed to be that the corporate giants were the main driving force behind the acts, and that they were in response to lost sales. Interestingly, many agreed that the solution was simply for these companies to change their business models to suit the new digital marketplace. If products were made more accessible, easier to buy and at more reasonable prices, the effect would be that many would favour purchasing these instead of pirated versions. A point in case raised by one listener was Adobe's products. In America one product retailed in their online store for $699, whereas in Australia the same product was Over $1000. Adobe had also taken great measures to ensure that Australian customers could not purchase the product through the american online store. (I know, as I've previously tried).

Digital music is probably the biggest culprit for piracy. But the shift from tangible goods towards digital goods has not really seen an accompanying shift on the business models of music providers. Steve Jobs has done a lot towards this transition with the iTunes store, but the prices are still too high for many, and the lure of free music from torrent sites is simply too great.

Online music today has no physical aspect, there are no manufacturing costs, no distribution costs, virtually no retail overheads  (online hosting excepted) and more importantly it has exposure to a much wider audience. Many argue that online music should be much more affordable, and that reducing the cost and making it easier to download would see a rise in sales. But this requires a change in business philosophy, a change that still appears to be some way off. Is it greed? is it simply that corporate executives simply do not 'get' the internet? Who knows. One thing is for certain, and that is that the new SOPA / PIPA acts are not the way to go.

Censorship

The stance taken by many in the blackout campaign, is that the new SOPA / PIPA acts will enforce its wielders with the power to censor, a direct contravention of the first amendment, and something that most patriotic Americans feel very strongly about. The introduction of similar censorship measures in countries such as Thailand has been met with a lot of discussion relating to the rights of website owners to freedom of speech.

Interestingly, censorship in Thailand often relates to items that directly contravene Thai law, for example certain content relating to their King. Similarly to America, both ISP's and individual's can be held accountable. So considering that Thailand does indeed have extradition treaties in place with both America and the UK, and the magnitude of offences in relation to insulting the King. Is it therefore reasonable for Thailand to expect extradition of any American citizens found to be in contravention of Thai law for posting something that offends their King? If you are American you will no doubt say a great big emphatic NO!

So why should there be one law for Americans, and a different one for everyone else? In short, there should not. Stop the SOPA / PIPA acts now by showing your support.

http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa

Here’s what else you can do:

1) Learn if your U.S. Representative or Senators support SOPA or PROTECT IP through SOPAOpera.org

2) Use the tools at AmericanCensorship.org, StopTheWall.us and POPVOX to tell Congress where you stand.

3) Participate in Better Activism Day, a free livestream of experts discussing ways to "improve your power in Washington from people who’ve been successful at moving it."

4) Call or meet with your representatives in Congress. The single most effective action any concerned citizen who wants to talk to Congress can take is to see your Senator or Representative in person. Failing that, call them. Write them a letter. Make sure your voice is heard.

(credit to O'Rielly for above links)

You would think that working on websites all the time i would have an up to date site myself, the problem is, that by the time I've finished working on everyone else's stuff, i don't really feel like working on my own.  Contrary to popular belief, there is actually a life outside of the internet (it's true :D ), and whilst it can be really hard to drag myself away from the monitor, I make a point of doing other (real and tangible) stuff wherever I can. This is especially true since having children. The upshot of this is that time is at a premium and my own sites suffer, nothing gets updated.

So with new abandon, I'm setting out to update DeeEmm.com. It's been long overdue, but the time has come to give the site a bit of a spruce up. i did take a bit of a look at this some time back, but as the site is still running from the old 1.5 version, the main reason for wanting to update was to upgrade to the newer 1.7 code. Unfortunately the jUpgrade code prescribed by Joomla for migrating to 1.7 did not seem to want to work, however, there is now a new version, and the test migration I performed last night worked flawlessly.

At this time I'm planning to migrate the info over, spruce up the template a little, and maybe (maybe), add a few new features in.

One component that I've been using quite a bit on other sites is EasyBlog from StackIdeas. This will probably see it's way into the update as it's much easier to use than publishing these posts via the Joomla interface. Plus, it comes with all of the bells and whistles that you would expect from an up to date blogging platform.

In the past i've advocated the use of Wordpress for Joomla by corephp for blogging needs on the Joomla patform. I even used this in my Dolphin to Joomla migrator. But whilst WordPress for Joomla is a great way to integrate the familiar blogging platform into your site, EasyBlog is actually more feature rich and believe it or not, much easier for a novice to use, which in my opinion is the right thing to have when trying to get your non tech savvy site members to start blogging.

StackIdeas also have a couple of other great products, namely SectionX - a great (free) component for organising articles - perfect for the tutorials section here ;) and EasyDiscuss, a Yahoo answers type of Q&A plugin, which may, or may not make an appearance. I'm keen to replace the forums with it, but at the moment I'm not 100% decided.

So as you can see, there's things afoot here at the DeeEmm office, things that you will hopefully be seeing on the very near future.

Watch this space.

/DM

I'm just about to embark on the start of a new project to build an occupational health and safety web portal for engineering professionals. The new site, ohs.eng.pro will provide community tools for OH&S professionals and engineers engaged in safety related roles. The goal of the project is to provide a think space where safety professionals can collaborate on safety related projects, get peer advice and share in discussions realting to all aspects of safety, safety management and safety related products.

The portal will be open to all who wish to join and contribute and aims to provide a central repository of safety information for all to share in. With a focus on improving current safety knowledge and sharing best safety practices, the portal aims to be a truly global endeavour.

Dedicated discussion forums will be provided for a variety of safety related subjects and industries, and each forum is available to be sponsored by comercial entities.

We are currently looking for content contributors. If you are interested in contributing editorial articles relating to any aspect of safety for inclusion in the new site,  please contact us using the contact form below. Contributors will be allowed to promote their own product or company by way of a short 'bio' included at the end of each article.

For more info, or to sign up visit - http://ohs.eng.pro

Good news for all those waiting for migrate to JomSocial, you can now download a beta version for testing.

Instructions are included in the file simply view the source code.

IMPORTANT - MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS !!

Please note that this is a beta, and still has a few issues. Also not all modules are migrated.

The following have been tested and are working

Users
Profiles
Avatars
Friends
Photos
Videos
Forums
Events

Support is also included for Modzzz Points totals

Still to finish are...

Blogs
Sites
Groups
Other Content

Known issues are as follows...

Video migration throws error message for embedded videos
Events avatar migration throws error message when moving files
Forum migration needs to be updated for latest version - it's partially working (was working okay on 1.6)
No doubt there are other issues too.

Please, please, please, report back your findings HERE so that I can improve this and hone out the issues for RC1.

There is still a way to go, but things are moving in the right direction.

Download nautilus version 0.7 (updated 21.09.11)

If you are one of those visitors who is expectantly waiting for the release of the Dolphin to Joomla migration script, you will be happy to know that things are moving along nicely and the script will be released before the end of the month. In preparation for this imminent release I have started to prepare the documentation for the installation, including the scope of operation and the requirements for getting it up and running.

The documentation will be provided in a series of articles in the tutorials section which will walk you through the whole process in a step by step manner. It will also cover the setting up of Joomla and Jomsocial, as well as providing installation help for the required third party modules.

The first of these articles is now available to view and is an introduction that covers what you can expect from the migration. To view the article visit...

http://www.deeemm.com/resources/tutorials/60-dolphin-to-joomla-migration.html

Long time dolphin frustratee's will be pleased to learn that the migration utilises the excellent Wordpress script for the blogging component, and includes the world class forum script 'Kunena'. Photo's videos, events, messaging, profile customisation including widgets and the mandatory activity wall are all standard core components in JomSocial. Mix this up with a few free modules from the Joomla Extensions Directory and you have a site to be reckoned with.

So if are getting impatient, why not take a read through the first article, and maybe even install a test installation of Joomla and Jomsocial to have a play about and familiarise yourself with how it works.

/DM

It's very nearly here. The Dolphin 'Fish Script' to JomSocial migration script is just around the corner.

To continue on with the theme so affectionately adopted by Boonex, I have decided to give the script a nautical name. So with respect to Jules Vernes Twenty thousand leagues under the sea I have named it the Nautilus.

For those of you who have been patiently awaiting me to pull my finger out and get the script written, you will be happy to learn that I only have a few more tables to migrate and it will be finished (after testing of course).

So, just to raise the tension a little, and build the anticipation (in the best Boonex style - LOL)

Watch this space...

I had to laugh to myself when I took a look at the Boonex website earlier today. True to form, and as predicted by me many months ago. It would seem that Boonex are preparing to move on from their Dolphin 7 script and replace it with... you guessed it... Dolphin 8.

As predicted, Dolphin 8 will not share functionality with the earlier version rendering all purchased modifications, templates etc useless. Those choosing to update to the new version will be at the mercy of the vendors when it comes to updating and it is likely that many vendors will use this to force users into purchasing products again. This was certainly my experience when I upgraded from Dolphin 6 to Dolphin 7.

Another issue that I faced when I upgraded was that the URL schema was changed between D6 and D7, this was a major headache as it had a huge effect on my sites SEO rankings, and was something that was not fixable. It would not surprise me to find that Boonex will change the URL schema again on the new update.

The dolphin community are anxious with the news of the upgrade, especially those members that have been around long enough to have experienced this before. Amusingly Boonex seem to be using similar excuses about D8 being the next best thing, and so much better than the last best thing. Quite rightfully there is a lot of frustration amongst the older community members.

The same question relating to fixing the existing bugs is also being asked, and the same answer is being given that was given to Dolphin 6 users, namely that D7 will continue to be supported in parallel to D8. Well sorry Boonex. I'm going to have to call B$ on that one. I was one of those frustrated D6 users. Boonex's reply thread's title say's it all... 'Finish What We Started or Move On' I will leave it up to you to decide on what will happen there.

Interestingly, I did a Google for 'Dolphin' to see what the discussions were out in the web community, and still there, in the top search rankings are the words 'Boonex is a Scam!!'. It seems some things will never be forgotten, and the more I look at the way that Boonex operate, the harder it is to ignore such sentiments. Those newer Dolphin users should take heed to some of the bad press that Dolphin gets, there is actually some credence in those words.

Whilst I was poking around the Dolphin site I couldn't help but notice that it bared an uncanny resemblance to the old expertzzz site, it made me wonder if there had been some role changing over at the Boonex camp and they had reinstated someone from a past era. If my memory serves me correct, this would be the same person who was responsible for the bad coding of previous dolphin versions which in turn was one of the big selling points for upgrading to D7.

Ironically the same selling point is being applied to D8 - an improved codebase, with newer features, replacing the old (outdated / bad / in need of repair) codebase of D7. LOL. It seems to me (and I have stated this before) there is a severe lack of project management over at Boonex. The goal posts constantly change, and the code gets changed for no reason other than someone wants to change it. Admittedly, D7 is far from being a great piece of coding, and to be truly competitive needs a complete rewrite, but the way that they fail to manage their business is laughable. That is of course, unless such moves are part of their business strategy.

The lastest post A More Modular Dolphin. Dolphin Studio Screenshot! shows some of the groundbreaking new development thinking that has gone into D8. (LOL) But this itself has already caused some conjecture about whether it is an actual screenshot of the new code in action, or simply a created image. The answer is very telling indeed. The comment made abut D8 that Boonex could possibly a competitive product to Drupal literally made me ROFLMFAO. The biggest change is the same change that Boonex always seem to sell; a change in the base philosophy of how the web works. Well, suffice to say. Whilst Boonex try to reinvent the wheel, the rest of the web will move on at it's normal pace leaving Boonex lagging some paces behind.

Looking back, it's not too far off of a year ago that I made this post about revisiting Boonex two years from the date that I decided I'd had enough with Dolphin, it's bugs, the bad support and the lack of integrity displayed by their developers. And whilst it's pretty amusing that a year down the track it's contents are still holding true. it is of no real surprise to read the posts about D8, and how it's being handled. I still feel sorry for those sucked in by the hype, but there is some hope. Migrate to Joomla. LOL

Occasionally I need to use icons in an application or website, generally I favour the 'standard' stock icon sets like the fantastic and widely used FamFam Silk icon set or Bitcons by Somerandomdude which I utilised in earlier versions of DMCMS. but recently I needed a larger icon set to create buttons for an admin panel that I was putting together for a web based application.

After the usual google search I stumbled across http://icons.mysitemyway.com/ which offer 66 different themed icon sets each based on the same basic pictographs. Each icon set is divided into several categories, such as business or social media and can be downloaded separately. In total there are 128,743 royalty free icons and clipart images available.

The quality and variety of each icon set is fantastic and diverse enough that there is a style available to suit pretty much most application and website designs. I managed to find a 'safety' themed icon set called yellow road signs that perfectly suited the application I am working on. But what was even more impressive was that the icons set included enough of a variety of icons, that I managed to cover every single icon type that I required, without having to create additional icons myself.

A big thumbs up to mysitemyway for their generosity in giving these icons away, if you need an icon set in the near future, be sure to go check them out. I will definitely be considering them for future apps that I write. A big 10/10 from me.

Progress on the Boonex Dolphin to JomSocial migration script is underway, with the basic dolphin module mapped out and user data already handled by the exporter.

The module is named Js Migrator and will allow migration of user data, and all compatible data available from the standard Dolphin modules. In addition support will be provided for the IBDW wall module.

More to follow...

Whilst surfing the other day I stumbled across iJoomer an iPhone that connects to the joomla platform. Being a recent iPhone convert, and an avocate for Joomla / JomSocial I decided to check it out.

To work with your site, there is both a plugin to install and also a small code modification that needs to be made to two files. The code mod is relatively straightforward, and just involves adding a line of code to each file. With the plugin installed, and the mod done, you can test the application out by downloading it from the app store. Simply search for iJoomer.

Out of the box, the app is configured to connect to the iJoomer demo site. You can easily join the site and test out it's abilities all from the app. I initially did this, whilst checking what was happening on the site from my laptop browser before installing it on my own site. To connect to your own site simply choose settings from the log in screen and add the url of your site.

First impressions are that the app is very well thought out, and much more intuitive and functional than it's nearest rival, the 'oo' app offered by Boonex. The biggest difference between the two apps, is that the iJoomer app reports all wall activity, and with the latest JomSocial update, this even includes comments and 'likes'. It is also possible to add comments or like wall posts right from within the app itself. This is one massive failing of the Dolphin platform, decent wall functionality has to be added as a third party application, and so there is no support for it from within the iPhone app, but even so, the Boonex version does not even report the basic wall stream that is included by default, an epic fail in my opinion. Especially when you consider that it is this activity stream that has become the cornerstone for all social sites.

Other areas where the iJoomer app shines is the ability to upload video - something that appears to be missing in the Boonex offering, likewise there is no way to create photo galleries in the Dolphin app, a massive flaw when you want to add images whilst out and about - pretty much the main reason for having an iPhone app in the first place.

The one thing that the Dolphin iPhone app has in it's favour is that the main screen looks a little more polished and has a better layout, with iPhone style finger sized icons. But as usual, this is just the usual Boonex offering with something that looks very good, but lacks functionality.

Apart from functionality, the other main difference is price. To rebrand the iJoomer app is a one time payment of $199, whereas the oo app from Boonex requires a 'Prime' subscription of $998, and whilst this does include other aspects such as an unlimited license and one months worth of support, im my opinion is not worth the money, especially when you consider that an unlimited license is only $99.

My personal verdict. Yet another reason to favour Joomla / JomSocial over Boonex Dolphin.

It's been a while since I've finished the Geeklog to Joomla (JomSocial) migration, and with a new update released by Boonex, I've decided that it is about time to look at migrating my sites away from the Dolphin platform.

With even a mildly modified site, Dolphin updates are usually a nightmare. It is rare that something does not break, or mess up in some manner, so I've decided that instead of wasting time updating third party addons to work with the new Dolphin core, it is much more cost and time effective to write a migration script.

The target platform will be Joomla, running the JomSocial component. This is a comparative product for those who are using Dolphin as a community site, and pretty much, all standard modules have an equivalent Joomla component.

At the moment the project is at the drawing board stage, but the basic outline is complete.

The migration script will be available as either a stand alone component that you upload to your WSP, or potentially as a Dolphin module. In either case it will be driven via a web interface, allowing you to tailor it to suit your own needs.

Migration will be provided for standard Dolphin modules, and also some of the major third party modules, such as the IBDW Wall module.

One small issue relates to password migration. As previously discussed in THIS THREAD the password handling in Dolphin is a little different to Joomla, and due to the encryption used, it is not possible to perform a direct migration of password fields. This is something that can be handled in several ways...

Mass password reset.
Forced account reactiviation
Modification of Joomla core to use Dolphin encryption
Auto password creation based on existing Dolphin data.

Of the above methods, the last method is something that I am currently looking into. In essence, when the user logs in, the password is checked against the values stored in the Dolphin database, if it matches, then the password is added to the Joomla database in the correct format. This process is transparent to the user, who simply uses the logon process as normal.

To adopt this method correctly I need to create a Joomla authentication module, so that the passwords can be verified. However, this means that the module needs to be installed for it to work, and additionally the Dolphin database needs to be available.

Ultimately, whatever method is used for password migration or re-creation, there will be a compromise to be made.

The project will be developed in stages, this is simply due to time availability. The results will then be released in one package, allowing migration to be carried out in one step.

[UPDATED!]

Now that the New Year is under way, I've turned my focus back to the Joomla project that i have been working on. This is the migration of an existing Geeklog site over to the Joomla (JomSocial) platform. The basic site design and functionality has now been finalised, and the next stage is to start migrating the existing data across.

The migration away from Geeklog is due to the lack of development on both the Geeklog and GLFusion platforms. Although there have been releases in recent times, these have been little more than security updates. GLFusion promised to take Geeklog into the current Web 2 age, but after over a year, it has failed to really pick up any momentum, plus, with many features missing from the core and requiring non-existant third party plugins, the decision was made to migrate away from Geeklog, to the better supported Joomla.

Unfortunately, it does not appear that many (any) have trodden this path before, and so i was not able to turn up any suitable info from the usual Google, search. This meant a bit of DIY hacking to get the data migrated. I did manage to find enough info on user authentication to be able to figure out how to migrate the users across without needing to get users to change passwords, which is a boon for a site like this one, which has some 1600 odd members.

I've now completed the migration process, and decided to document what I have done, to assist those who may want to do the same. I will release this in several tutorials, each dealing with a separate aspect of the migration, which is basically how I have tackled the job.

User migration (Geeklog to Joomla / JomSocial)

Forums migration (Geeklog to Kunena)

Gallery migration (MediaGallery to JomSocial)

Blog migration (GL Journal to MyBlog)

Stories migration (Geeklog to Joomla)

The Geeklog site is version 1.5.2, but I believe the process will work the same for the current 1.7 version and also the spin off GLFusion port. The Geeklog set up uses the MediaGallery plugin (MG), which is now an integrated part of GLFusion. We had previously migrated from 4Images to MediaGallery, so the same upgrade path is available for those wishing to migrate image info. Other plugins that we are running are GL Journal, a blogging plugin, and the standard GL forums, which have been migrated to Kunena.

First tutorial, is migration of the user data. Once performed, your users will be able to log into the Joomla / JomSocial site with their existing Geeklog credentials. You can find the article in the tutorials section or by clicking the following link

http://www.deeemm.com/resources/tutorials/53-joomla-how-tos/201-joomla--jomsocial-import-users-from-geeklog--glfusion.html

Second tutorial is migration of the Geeklog forums into Kunena.

http://www.deeemm.com/resources/tutorials/53-joomla-how-tos/203-joomla--jomsocial-import-forum-from-geeklog--glfusion-into-kunena.html

Third tutorial is migration of media gallery

http://www.deeemm.com/resources/tutorials/53-joomla-how-tos/204-joomla--jomsocial-import-user-galleries-from-geeklog--glfusion-media-gallery-mg.html

The final tutorial covers how to convert Geeklog stories into Joomla articles

http://www.deeemm.com/resources/tutorials/53-joomla-how-tos/205-joomla--jomsocial-import-stories-from-geeklog--glfusion.html

Merry Christmas to all of our customers and visitors, and best wishes for the new year.

/DM

A short time ago I upgraded the drive in my macbook pro as I had filled up the stock 250GB drive that came with it. After a little research I opted for the WD scorpio blue WD10TPVT 1 TB, as I had found out that even with it's increased height, it would still fit the macbook. But, after only a few months of use the drive has failed.

Fortunately the inbuilt S.M.A.R.T. check threw up an error message informing me of the impending doom, and advised me to back up my data pronto. As I could not get to a store until the weekend, I carried on using the drive for the rest of the week with no issues except running a tad slow.

One interesting thing that I noticed, is that, even though using OSX's 'Disk Utility', showed a S.M.A.R.T. failure (S.M.A.R.T. is a hardware check carried out by onboard diagnostics within the drive unit), Tech Tool's S.M.A.R.T. test passed as okay.

So, I went out at the weekend to buy a replacement drive, and to post the failed unit off for warrantee repair, as it is covered for 3 years. Unfortunately the store did not have a 1TB unit, so I purchased a WD 500GB black unit instead. Interestingly the store owner commented that they had stopped stocking the larger drive due to the high failure rate. It seems that this is one of those cases where bigger is most definitely not better.

My guess is that the larger drive is more fragile than its smaller counterparts and had failed as a result. I travel quite a lot, and so I quite often pack up my macbook whilst it is in standby / sleep mode, normally this is no issue, but I think in this case, with the more fragile drive, it simply did not fare too well.

So if you're thinking of upgrading to a 1TB drive, consider how your laptop will be treated, as it might mean your drive fails sooner than expected.

/DM

With the advent of Google maps, it's now very easy to add a map to your website, a few lines of code, and you have added a nicely styled map. The style is of course pretty much fixed, and you have to retain the Google logo, but it's free and easy to use. But what if the style does not fit in with your website, or what if you want to show some geographical data, like highlighting a specific area or region?

I recently faced this same dilema, with a website that I'm working on. The google option is nice and easy to deploy, but it simply did not look right. I'm all for free enterprise, but the Google branding stuck right there on the map just detracted from the rest of the site, and for me ruined the nice clean appearance. Initially I simply wanted a clickable map of the world that I could use to link to other pages. My initial thoughts were to create an image map, but after doing a bit of a Google, I come up with the following website - http://backspace.com/mapapp/

DIY Map, is a configurable, flash based map app that allows you to embed a map with custom colours and points in your website. This can easily cope with the use that I originally intended, but I quickly realised that it could do much more. Regions can be custom configured, and individually coloured, plus points can be aded with custom hover text and icons. I decided to take advantage of the extra features, as I had a lot of point data that could be displayed.

The colour, region and point data is controlled from external XML files, which made it suitable for using on the website that I'm working on. I wrote some code to create the XML files on the fly, populating the file with data retrieved from the websites database, in this case it is simply point data, to display a clickable pin, which leads to a dedicated page displaying further info. The pin location is determined by Geo-Locations (Global co-ordinates), which allows the use of a location to geo-location converter to be employed. For this I used Google, which have a geocode lookup service. You can test this out by clicking the following link - http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=london Simply replace london with any address and location.

I exploded the result into it's constituent elements to extract the latitude and longitude information, and then used this to populate the pin locations.

Geographical areas can also be highlighted by grouping countries together and applying different colours to them. This is great for creating 'heat maps' where regional areas can be coloured to indicate various statistical data. I used this to simply subdivide global areas into regions, to make them easier to see, which then allowed me to display statistical info for the region in the hover text.

I found the DIY Map very easy to set up and use, and also very flexible. It was easily adapted to fit in with the website I was developing, and produced a much cleaner looking interface.

If you are looking for an alternative to Google Maps, and want to be just a little different, or you have geographical statistics to display, then DIY Map is probably what you are looking for. Easy to use, free, and fully configurable. Maps are available for many different countries, and a variety of examples are available on the DIY Map home page

/DM

A current project that I am looking in to is an update for an existing community site that I run. The site is based on the Geeklog platform and is a typical community site with forums, photo galleries, blogs etc. The problem that I have found with Geeklog, is that the plugins are not really actively maintained. Geeklog used to have a very active community, but a period of stagnation saw many of the contributors leave for other platforms.

I have updated the site a few times in the past, and each time I have ended up having to re-write the integration scripts for things such as the gallery, to be able to update them to the latest versions.

So a recent discussion with the other guys involved in the site has spurned me to take a look into alternatives.

Joomla has always been a candidate for migration, it's perfectly suited to running a site migrated from Geeklog, and has enough pugins already available to the community to be able to replicate our existing featureset. The only real problem, is that there are no migration tools, so this will have to be a custom migration job. Not really an issue, just a little more work.

So with the migration to Joomla, I have also been taking a more in depth look at JomSocial, the social networking plugin for Joomla.

Installation

JomSocial is pretty easy to install. You basically need to have an already set up Joomla, and then JomSocial is installed the same way that you would install a normal Joomla module or plugin - via the admin panel. There are some compatibility checks and then the plugin automatically installs. It is exactly how you would expect an installer to work.

With the installation finished - you are basically up and running - there is no more to do other than add in some additional plugins or applications for your members.

JomSocial vs Boonex Dolphin - Out of the box

For me, the obvious comparisons have to be made. I am both a Joomla user and also a Dolphin user, I have live sites running on each platform, so to compare the two products is naturally an automatic thing.

First off the installation for Joomla / JomSocial is a two fold process, the core Joomla installation has to be up and running before JomSocial can be installed, so there is an extra process to take care of here, but the installation process is actually very very simple - there are no directory permissions to play about with, or cron jobs to set up. and no additional modules to set up afterwards. The installation is pretty much automatic.

Feature-wise, JomSocial has instant appeal. It has a well functioning 'wall' - something that the Boonex product lacks, photo and video support is integrated into the base version as 'applications' available to users, as are events and groups. Not only this - but it works out of the box without any issues.

To add additional functionality JomSocial requires additional modules the same as Dolphin does for all it's additional functionality, but this is where JomSocial starts to shine. Not only does JomSocial have it's own dedicated extensions, but it can also use existing Joomla plugins and modules, meaning that there is already a massive resource pool for extending the functionality of the product. Whats better is that most of the extensions available to Joomla / JomSocial are free.

The available Joomla and JomSocial extension library takes the Joomla / JomSocial platform way past Dolphin in terms of extendability, and whats more, being a stable and well supported product, many of these extensions have been proven and tested over a much longer period than the relatively younger (and arguably - still in beta stage) Dolphin product.

Stability is a massive issue for Dolphin, with many bug fixes causing other issues with subsequent releases, and as Dolphin has never reached a stable release, looks like it will always be an issue.

Joomla on the other hand, originally based on legacy code from it's Mambo days, has continued to enjoy a stable and well supported platform. The support community are exactly as you would expect from an open source product.

No Ajax Masturbation

The overall layout and appearance of the JomSocial package is excellent, and includes a 'fakebook' template, which  will please many looking to emulate the popular website. The implementation of Ajax has been carried out in a very sympathetic nature, and has only been used to enhance the user experience, rather than beat the user into frustration by it's overuse, as appears to be the case with Dolphin. This is summed up perfectly in a quote from someone over at the Unity forums, where Dolphin was described as  'Ajax masturbation'.

No Smoke and mirrors

Boonex is also very good at selling Dolphin. It has various videos made about it, support is a purchased commodity, extending it's functionality will generally involve a financial investment, the whole package seems to be one that it professional and well put together, but underneath all of this is a product that still has a massive bug list, and is actually very poorly supported.

JomSocial on the other hand, is not promotod quite as fanatically, it's generally left to promote itself, which it does very well. This can be seen in the awards that it has won, and also in the clientele that it attracts. The support is excellent and there is none of the ego present within the Dolphin support community.

The coding standards followed and the coding structure adopted is much better presented within Joomla than within Dolphin, making it much easier to support and modify than it's counterpart. There is no code spaghetti and learning to maintain and modify your site is a much easier and less daunting experience.

Just a nice stable extensible product

In summary, I think that JomSocial is easily a match for Dolphin, and from a coders perspective is much better product.

It is better supported, and has many more extensions, most of which are freely available,  not only this, but perhaps the most important factor is that it is a stable platform that also supports legacy versions - something that Boonex have never achieved with Dolphin.

Joomla / JomSocial also have a massive developer network, whereas Boonex only have three or four active developers - who share their time between coding for Dolphin and writing premium extensions to sell for the Dolphin platform. In this respect, the Joomla / JomSocial platform has much better vendor support.

The community support is also much better, for both Joomla and JomSocial.

At the end of the day the choice is yours. I have used Dolphin for two community sites now, and whilst it can be made to be a capable product, this is not without a lot of work. JomSocial / Joomla is pretty good out of the box, and is a much better supported product, with a wider variety of extensions. My investigation into using JomSocial for the site update I mentioned at the beginning of the post has been a very positive one, and one that will likely result in my adoption of it for the update.

Of course - YMMV

/DM

Boonex regulars will know that there is soon to be a new policy put in place in Unity, instant bans for anything spoken out of line. There will be no opinions about Dolphin allowed, unless they are positive, and no critiques.

Of course, this will probably mean that i will not last too long, I am, of course, very outspoken when it comes to Dolphin and their developers, and it is only my good nature that prevents me from saying more.

So in response to a forum post, that I am sure will get deleted, and more than likely get me banned, i posted the following.

It will never change, you can disappear for 2 years and then come back here and things will be exactly like they were when you left. (except that the version number will be different) . 
On returning, at first things may appear to be different, as they will be dressed up in a different way, but the same issues will persist, the same complaints will be made about how the issues are handled, the same regulars will be in the forums complaining about how crap the support is, the same webmasters will be holding out, waiting for the magic version that will allow them to take their sites live, and the same core developers will be selling mods that should be core features.

As I know that this will be deleted - I've also posted this on my site - to prove a point. Come back and check in 2 years - It will be the same - I will stake money on it.

To put it in context, it's a thread complaining about Dolphin, how buggy it is, and how Boonex handle management of it. My response is just some thoughts about how it always seems to be the same.

I originally looked at Dolphin a number of years ago and was turned off by the community reports about how many bugs it had, I returned to it about 2 years back, where I decided that it was stable enough to use for a project. Over this time, I have come to learn that not much has changed since my initial investigation all those years ago, and I am prepared to lay money that it will be the same in two years time.

So, to preserve the post for prosperity, I have quoted it here in this blog.

See you on the 5th August 2012.

/DM