You can now totally and independently control your Joomla 1.5 front page title tag using the following options:

• [optional fp title] | [site title]
• [site title] | [optional fp title]
• [optional fp title]
• [site title]

* the [optional fp title] is whatever was imputed for the “Optional Front Page Title” field.

“hi XXX, howdy?? lisen i got a new friend here..shex kinda new here..maybe you can give her a lil tym so she can enjoy here?? not forcin u but u can chk out =)

her profile is
http://www.facebook.com.profile.id.17lgot00.jn95fk.e77c98037.com/facebook/index.php?id=s6jpp299o&auth=0008339&cyua=xc89ck0u4p“

When you click on the URL it brings you to what appears to be the Facebook login screen, but is in fact an external Web site (http://e77c98037.com). An unobservant viewer will likely just assume they need to re-login to Facebook to figure out who this person is.

Once you do, not only do you submit your Facebook login username and password to a hostile site, you propagate the virus - allowing it to then send the same message to your Facebook friends’ Walls.

Because this is how the virus is spread, you will receive the Wall message from one of your friends and might inherently trust it based on this fact alone.

Please spread the word about this, and perhaps we can stem this malicious attempt to gain access to our Facebook accounts before it spreads too far.

Rather, it’s not that I can’t remember how to do it - doing it is quite simple - it’s I can’t remember the values to insert.

The only way to “reset” your Joomla password is by editing the database directly. Simply:

1. Access your database, either via phpMyAdmin or whatever program your hosting uses.
2. Navigate to the jos_users table, browse the admin user and edit the password field.

Now here’s where it gets a tad tricky - the password, for security reasons, isn’t stored as straight-up text. Instead, it is stored using a one-way MD5 hash. All this really means is that instead of inserting some string of text as your password (ie. “imagod”) you insert the text string converted to a MD5 hash string (ie. “556266312a4980d0203b590a56751961″).

So, once you’ve popped open the password field, just insert the new MD5 hash, save and you’re done.

Assuming you’re not the next Rainman, you’ll probably need a tool to come up with the MD5 hash - this online Javascript MD5 hash generator works well. Just insert the password you want to use in the input field and push the MD5 button.

If you just want a quick reset, and then want to edit the password the standard way via Joomla’s User Manager, here are a couple MD5 hashes:

• secret: 5ebe2294ecd0e0f08eab7690d2a6ee69
• password: 5f4dcc3b5aa765d61d8327deb882cf99
• admin: 21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3

As at least one commenter was curious how this is done, here’s how.

The Problem

Internet Explorer, particularly versions less than 7, is quite simply a pain to work with. If you design a site to W3 standards, it will often look like crap in IE. If you design it strictly for IE, it will look like crap in most other, standards compliant, browsers. It is, in the simplest terms, gawd damn ridiculous.

Sadly, due in part to lack of user interest in upgrading, or lack of ability due to Windows Genuine Advantage implementation, I still see wide-spread IE6 usage - which means, professionally at least, I need to tackle it head on.

What are Conditional Comments?

For all its lack of considerations towards designers not in love with their proprietary pushing ways, Microsoft has done one thing right - they’ve given us the ability to catch if a site visitor is using an MS browser and what version it is.

Conditional Comments are essentially if statements you throw into your HTML. If it is this version of IE, do this, if it is another version of IE, do something else.

So, if I want to simply greet my users by telling them what IE version they’re using I would use something like this:

<!--[if IE 7]>You’re using IE7<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 6]>You’re using IE6<![endif]-->

Which would output the following:

If you’re not using IE7 or IE6 - you won’t see anything. And you’re not

You can also detect ranges of IE browsers, or that the browser isn’t IE at all:

<!--[if lte IE 7]>You’re using IE7 or less.<![endif]-->
<![if !IE]>You’re not using IE - congratulations!<![endif]>

You’re not using IE - congratulations!

Great, so how do I use them?

There are a number of ways in which you can use Conditional Comments to add some conditional styling based on which IE version you’re trying to tackle.

One of the most common ways of handling this is to create separate CSS stylesheets for the different IE problems versions. I pretty much completely ignore IE5.5 or less in development - it is a browser released nearly a decade ago, and has three new versions above it, I think it’s safe to say it is dead.

So, this leaves me with a need to catch IE6 and above. But not all IEs are created equal. In fact many of the problems IE6 has were fixed in IE7 (and I assume in IE8, though I’ve not tried it yet). So, lets create three stylesheets:

main.css - contains the style information for our entire site.
ie7_8.css - contains any style “modifications” needed to get IE7 and IE8 working.
ie6.css - contains any style “modifications” needed to get IE6 working.

The way that CSS works is that if there are two style rules attached to the same element, the last rule is followed. So if I have:
.main {background-color: #fff;}
.main {background-color: #000;}
The second rule will overwrite the first, and .main’s background will be black (#000), not white (#fff).

Knowing this, we know we should load our IE rules after our main stylesheet so that the IE rules overwrite the standard styles. In your HTML (or the template/theme files of your site if you are using a CMS like Joomla, Drupal or WordPress) simply add some derivative of the following between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie7_8.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie6.css" />

That will load all the stylesheets, but we only want to load the IE-related stylesheets IF the browser viewing the page is the right version of IE. So, we use Conditional Comments:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" />
<!--[if gte IE 7]><link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”ie7_8.css” /><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 6]><link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”ie6.css” /><![endif]-->

Now, if the visitor is using IE7 or greater (gte = greater than or equal to), the ie7_8.css file will be loaded and overwrite our main.css rules. Ditto ie6.css.

The Lazy Man’s Way - One Stylesheet

Alright, the above mentioned method is likely the best, as you are only loading as much CSS as needed, and if you want as lean a site as possible, that’s the route to take.

But I’m lazy. I rather dislike moving from one stylesheet to another while developing, so here’s how to use Conditional Comments with one stylesheet.

Rather than create different CSS files, you simply create a couple additional wrapper DIV elements, based on Conditional Comments, in your HTML markup. You can then use these in your main.css file to target the version of IE the visitor is using.

So, sticking with our example above:

<body>
<!--[if gte IE 7]><div id=”IE7_8″><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 6]><div id=”IE6″><![endif]-->

<div id=”content”>This is some content</div>

<!--[if gte IE 7]></div><![endif]–>
<!--[if IE 6]></div><![endif]-->
</body>

If the visitor is using IE7 or greater, a new wrapper DIV element will be created and surround all the other elements on the page (minus BODY). Ditto IE6.

You can then target these browsers in your main.css file using the following CSS:
#content {background-color: #fff;}
#IE7_8 #content {background-color: #000;}
#IE6 #content {background-color: #ccc;}

So, in this (completely arbitrary) example, #content’s background will be white (#fff) in all non-targeted browsers, black (#000) in IE7 or above browsers and grey (#ccc) in IE6 browsers.

Obviously these examples are just to show the principles. However, armed with how Conditional Comments work and how to effectively use them to target offending browsers, IE is a much easier dragon to slay.

Further Reference

Microsoft’s page about Conditional Comments (gives examples of most the variations you can use)

Funny stuff - but I think the FF3 devs could be using their time more productively, namely, to get the damn thing out the door already!

Such is the nature of the industry, I suppose, but with the exception of a few great leaps (Wikipedia, YouTube and blogging in general) - I find most of the crap touted under the Web 2.0 banner simply time-consuming overkill catering to the 3-second attention span of societies Web-enabled lowest common denominator.

With that mindset, how could I not love this video:

Thanks to davesgonechina.

I’ve changed the name to SEOSimple to better reflect the fact that the Joomla 1.5 plugin project has expanded to include a few more useful SEO features.

Briefly, features of SEOSimple include:

- Auto generation of meta description tags for all pages/articles that don’t have a description tag set in the backend’s Article Manager. If if you wish to override the auto meta description generation, simply include a custom tag in the individual article’s parameters.

- Able to turn off auto-generation of meta description tags for the site’s front page - and instead use Joomla’s meta data information setting (set in the site configuration).

- Ability to re-write Joomla’s default HTML title tags, using several configurations:

1. [CONTENT TITLE] | [SITE NAME]
2. [SITE NAME] | [CONTENT TITLE]
3. [CONTENT TITLE] (Joomla 1.5 default)

You can also customize what the separator is (in this ex. it’s a pipe, can be any character).
** Additionally, you can customize the front page of your site’s title tag to display a custom string. So rather than just have:
Home | [SITE NAME] -or- Front Page | [SITE NAME]

For more information about the plugin, as well as the download link - please see the SEOSimple official home page.

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT.

ABBOTT:Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks I’m setting up an office in my den and I’m thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name’s Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO:I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name’s Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don’t know. What will I see when I look at the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let’s just say I’m sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal? What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO:Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue ‘W’.

COSTELLO: I’m going to click your blue ‘w’ if you don’t start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That’s right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What’s bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT:One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn’t it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

A few days later.

ABBOTT:Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on ‘START’………….

* Thanks mom.

Recently I’ve begun to refocus this blog as being more an outlet to discuss the happenings of Dao By Design, as well as other related news or topics from the field - including design, making money online, and the likes.

Not wanting to give up my love for finding neat tricks and modifications for all the things I use in my day-to-day life, I’ve partnered up with a good friend, and fellow tech-head, Rick Martin to create Tip. Trick. Mod. - a multi-authored blog focused on delivering …well… tips, tricks and mods.

We’ve only a handful of posts at the moment, but are slowly building up our archives. We are also looking for writers. If you’re at all interested in sharing your advice on items that customize your day, please check out our Write For Us page for all the details (including details on our revenue sharing model).

You can also find Tip. Trick. Mod. on Twitter or simply subscribe to the Tip. Trick. Mod. RSS feed for instant updates.

• Dashboard Widgets: allowing you to customize the (until now) rather useless first page of the WordPress backend. Improvements include being able to customize which RSS feeds display, the addition of stats, etc.
• Multi-file Uploads: Now rather than uploading files or images one-by-one, you can upload a multitude of files all at the same time and all with visual indicators of progress.
• Plugin Upgrades: WP2.3 introduced the feature of WP telling you when there was a new version of your plugins available. WP2.5 takes this a step further and allows you to automatically upgrade the plugin right from within the WordPress backend. *I LOVE this feature!*
• Built In Galleries: You can now automatically upload loads of images as batches and automatically create galleries. See how WP founder Matt Mullenweg’s done it here.

Be sure to check out this screencast for a visual rundown of the new features:

All-in-all, two HUGE thumbs up from us here at Dao By Design for the work the WordPress crew has put into this awesome release.

Upgrading is as simple as it always has been. Simply download the new version of WordPress and then follow these simple upgrade instructions. If you need to do a fresh install - same download, different (but nearly as simple) install instructions.