Implementing Joomla’s Cache Callback API

Continuing with our movement to truly collaborate with as many Joomla developers as possible, we were sent a test copy of corePHP's WordPress MU for Joomla! For the unacquainted, this is a full version of WordPress INSIDE Joomla! for those who want the best blog software inside the most versatile CMS.

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Installation
I tested on a local MAMP install and the install process was timing out, so I checked the filesize - 2.5mb :) That'll do it. This makes sense, since the component contains WordPress (duh). So I just unpacked in the tmp directory and installed from a directory and bam, the install worked in a snap.

At the end of the installed, you're instructed to move a couple of key files for WordPress to work properly. I wish there was a link, but that's just because I'm lazy. I like that it wasn't automated, because I like to know when files are being moved into these particular directories.

I think clicked the link to Start Blogging, and pow, I'm in the WordPress admin. I fully expected this, but it's still crazy at first. As a side note and time for a plug, using our AdminPraise2 Joomla! admin template with the WordPress inspired theme would really provide a seamless admin experience.



First Impressions
I clicked the link to preview my blog, and was taken to my Joomla! site, with a fully functional, fully integrated WordPress blog, and I'm severely impressed. I created a Joomla! menu item, where you can enter the ID of which blog you'd like displayed (since you can have multiple in WordPress MU), and there's my site's blog!

You can quickly add a new blog for a new user, as the Joomla! users are synced with WordPress.

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Additional Extensions
corePHP gives you an entire slew of modules including tags, latest, and several others. They also included every native WordPress plugin you could possibly need. Lastly, they've included JomSocial plugins that will give your community the ability to have their own WordPress powered blog, sweet! I didn't get to test the JomSocial plugins, but I'm sure it shows latest blog activity on the users' JomSocial profile, and adds blog activity into the JomSocial activity stream.

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Issues
I can't give a perfect review of anything, it's just not genuine (or in my nature). The only conflict I found was that the frontend layout for WordPress MU for Joomla! shares some common IDs used in Joomla! templates, such as "content" and "navigation". These are commonly used in any layout from any CMS, so I'm sure they're included as they would be in any WordPress layout, but to work well inside Joomla! they'd need names like "wp-content" and "wp-navigation". This would take 2 seconds for the end user to fix, so it's certainly not a show-stopper, but I could see a customer getting stumped and possibly confused for a moment.SuperBlog
With about 5 minutes of CSS love, I was able to get WordPress MU by corePHP working with our SuperBlog template. Not bad if I do say so myself.



Pricing
$79.95 for Single Blog, $99.95 for MU (as tested), $420.95 for 6 Site License

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Rating

• Best blog software inside the best CMS


• Superb integration (frontend and backend)


• All the extensions you'll need


• Price point may be high for some


• Possible (tiny) template conflicts

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Update - New WordPress MU Quick Icons Admin Module!
We enjoyed our testing so much, we've gone ahead and created a new WP Icons admin module, with quicklinks to all the pages in the WordPress admin. Just like the AP Icons in AdminPraise2, it contains all the links with the ability to hide, or display to Manager & above, Administrator & above, or only Super Admins. Look for lots more of these types of modules from us soon!

Here's a couple of screenshots of WP Icons in AdminPraise2 (WordPress theme) and the default admin template:

iPhone application development and outsourcing

The complete potential of iPhone, the multimedia gadget, can be utilized by developing ingenious applications for it. The launch of the SDK (software development kit) by Apple in 2008 boosted iPhone application developer worldwide to come up with unique and customized applications for iPhone users.

The SDK, also known as the ‘tool chain’ includes:

Xcode: It is the integrated development environment (IDE), wherein iPhone applications are developed. It is the integral part of the iPhone application development kit and consists of a graphical debugger and a powerful source editor too. Interface builder: It helps in the designing and testing of user interfaces. The graphical editing environment of the interface builder is utilized by the iPhone application developer to design user interfaces and seamlessly integrate the applications to the 3G environment of iPhone. Instruments: The instrument retrieves data, analyzes and compares performance and displays the results graphically in real-time. It plays a pivotal role in the real-time optimization of iPhone applications.

An iPhone application developer should have a sound knowledge about using the SDK. The SDK uses the objective C language and runs only on the MAC OS X 1.5 platform (the OS of iPhone). The applications developed needs to be approved by Apple and can be distributed solely through App Store.

iPhone website development

There are various categories catering to which, iPhone applications are developed. Many companies specialize in a particular category. For example, a company may specialize in the domain of iPhone website development. An iPhone mobile development domain includes useful web 2.0 applications designed exclusively for iPhone, like:

Search tools. Web utilities. Social networking. Ecommerce websites. Travel, sports and entertainment and so on.

Outsourcing of iPhone application development

Outsource of iPhone application development has several advantages which mainly includes:

Firstly, it is cost effective. Outsourcing of IPhone applications gets the job done in lower costs. Customized applications can be developed without much investment which was otherwise necessary for the technical manpower and training. The rigmaroles of the iPhone applications- approval by Apple, guidelines etc are taken care by the companies.

iPhone Cool Projects

41gNRqHs6qL. SL160 iPhone application development and outsourcing

I am the webmaster at www.synapse.co.in – a iPhone website development company in India offering numerous services, such as flash web development, flash scripting, customized applications for the iPhone,and website maintenance services

ISBN13: 9781430223573
Condition: USED – Very Good

Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The iPhone and iPod touch have provided all software developers with a level playing field—developers working alone have the same access to consumers as multinational software publishers. Very cool indeed! To make your application stand out from the crowd, though, it has to have that something extra. You must learn the skills to take your apps from being App Store filler to download chart-topping blockbusters.

Developers with years of experience helped write this book. Spend some time understanding their code and why they took the approach they did. You will find the writing, illustrations, code, and sample applications second to none. No matter what type of application you are writing, you will find something in this book to help you make your app that little bit cooler.

The book opens with Wolfgang Ante, the developer behind the Frenzic puzzle game, showing how timers, animation, and intelligence are used to make game play engaging. It moves on to Rogue Amoeba’s Mike Ash explaining how to design a network protocol using UDP, and demonstrating its use in a peer-to-peer application—a topic not normally for the faint of heart, but explained here in a way that makes sense to mere mortals. Gary Bennett then covers the important task of multithreading. Multithreading can be used to keep the user interface responsive while working on other tasks in the background. Gary demonstrates how to do this and highlights traps to avoid along the way.

Next up, Canis Lupus (aka Matthew Rosenfeld) describes the development of the Keynote-controlling application Stage Hand, how the user interface has evolved, and the lessons he has learned from that experience. Benjamin Jackson then introduces two open source libraries: cocos2d, for 2D gaming; and Chipmunk, for rigid body physics (think “collisions”). He describes the development of Arcade Hockey, an air hockey game, and explains some of the code used for this.

Neil Mix of Pandora Radio reveals the science behind processing streaming audio. How do you debug what you can’t see? Neil guides you through the toughest challenges, sharing his experience of what works and what to watch out for when working with audio. Finally, Steven Peterson demonstrates a comprehensive integration of iPhone technologies. He weaves Core Location, networking, XML, XPath, and SQLite into a solid and very useful application.

Software development can be hard work. Introductory books lay the foundation, but it can be challenging to understand where to go next. This book shows some of the pieces that can be brought together to make complete, cool applications.



You can find original post here : http://www.theoutsourceblog.com/2010/08/iphone-application-development-and-outsourcing/

Virus Cleaning and Prevention in osCommerce

What virus do?
In an osCommerce site a virus malware do the following:
- Create a form ask unnecessary to fill confidential data like order
detail or paypal detail. Once someone fills these details, those details
will be emailed to third party for misused.
- Creating link of website for creating traffic for those link.
- Using redirector for redirecting the customer to other site.
- Using iframe to display some unauthorized detail with a link to wesite.
So basically there are two objectives
- Steal data.
- Divert traffic to another website.

Different ways in which hackings are achieved.
1) SQL injection
2) Modify .htaccess and writing the error 404 rules or rewrite rules.
3) Place some javascript.
4) Placing .php or other files to execute and modify other files.

How to make out what is wrong?
Downloade all the code and check for,
- External links.
- javascript code having eval in it.
- check your .htaccess file.
- checking image folder and other folder.
- check permission is 777 or writing permission.
- use some scanning references to check for valueval pass and
analyze code.
- check your error log.
- check your access log.

Preventions:
Prevention basically includes three things.
• Your site itself
• Password of software used to upload content on site.
• And your Computer from where content is being upload.

How does one protect its site?
- Ensuring that all third party scripts or tools used on site should have
latest security updates or should be asked to hosting company to do
so.
- Delete unwanted folders, files, scripts and services those are no
more in use.
- Occasionally change the password of the software used to upload
content to the site.
Use strong password.
- Appropriate file permissions to be given.
- Disable file manager from admin.
- Site admin should be password (.htaccess) protected.
- Keep the computer used for site’s upload and download activities
should be up-to-date with all necessary operating system updates
and a strong antivirus with all latest updates.

Recommendations:
- It is always recommended, not to keep a soft copy of site
access details on computer.
- A regular code and database backup should be taken.
- There is few security add-ons are available in osCommerce that
should be installed on the site.




You can find original post here : http://www.oscprofessionals.com/blog/

Configuring a mobile Drupal site and making your theme mobile friendly

In this tutorial I'll explain how to setup your Drupal site to be mobile friendly. Before you begin, it's helpful to consider the following: 1) which mobile devices to support; 2) using a different theme for mobile; 3) which hostnames will be used; 4) multi-site configuration options; and 5) any site alterations to simplify the mobile experience.

For my site, I decided on the following:
1) iPhones (to start)
2) Use a more clean theme for my mobile site: DevSeed's Singular
3) redirect mobile traffic to a new subdomain (mobile.thedrupalblog.com)
4) I was using sites/default for my blog, so hosting another hostname on the same filesystem was not an issue
5) I decided to remove some items in my primary navigation, and add some jQuery (accordion effect) to collapse node content on my front page.

I added the new DNS for my subdomain to point to the same IP address of my main site. In a standard Apache vhosts configuration, you can add a ServerAlias directive to ensure the mobile hostname is handled by the main site's vhost. For example:


ServerName thedrupalblog.com
ServerAlias mobile.thedrupalblog.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/thedrupalblog.com/httpdocs


I installed and enabled the Singular theme in sites/all/theme/singular.

I added some mobile specific configurations in my settings.php file (sites/default/settings.php):



Now, if someone visits my site using an iPhone, the user would be redirected to my specified mobile address, AND a new mobile theme would be used!



In addition, I decided to make some alterations to my mobile theme to simplify the interface. I created a module and added a hook_preprocess_page() implementation:

$value) {
if (in_array(strtolower($value['href']), $href_remove)) {
unset($vars['primary_links'][$key]);
}
}
}

}
?>

By added the above module code and jQuery, I removed some items from my primary navigation and added an accordion-like interface for the front page:



NOTE: If you're using a Mac, the iPhone Simulator application (which comes with Xcode + iPhone SDK) is a great way to development and test mobile configurations.


You can find original post here : http://thedrupalblog.com/

Controlling Joomla! templates depending on menu you use

We have been working on building a multi-school Joomla! website and there have been many hurdles to overcome since Joomla! isn’t a multi-site CMS. After searching for anything that’s common across each school, I realized the menu for each school could be used as a common denominator. If I could set a variable depending on which menu is loaded on the page then I can do just about anything I want, such as change the logo, set a unique CSS class, etc. After meeting with our developers we figured out how to do this and I’ll share it with all of you in case you ever need to do the same.

To start we need to pull in the information of which menus are being used on the page. Place this code in the head of your template:

jimport('joomla.application.menu');
$menus = JSite::getMenu();
$m = $menus->getActive();

This checks for the active menus on the page and sets it into the variable $m so we can manipulate it. Next, you need to look at the menutype in the administrator Menu Manager (under Type). This is what we will use to determine which school is being viewed. I want to take this information and set a new variable named $school:

if($m->menutype == 'district-information') { $school = 'district-info'; }
if($m->menutype == 'cityname-elementary-school') { $school = 'cityname-elementary'; }
if($m->menutype == 'cityname-middle-school') { $school = 'cityname-middle'; }
if($m->menutype == 'cityname-high-school') { $school = 'cityname-high'; }

The first thing I did was echo the variable $school into an ID on the body tag.

body id="< ?php echo $school; ?>"

This allows me to style the CSS uniquely according to the school being viewed which gives you a lot of style control. To change the logo I can just call it by the school.

#cityname-high .logo {background: url(../images/logo-highschool.jpg);}

Another thing I did was load a unique module position according to the school so I could publish modules in all pages the menu shows up on. I did this by doing the following:

if($school == 'district-info') {
echo '';
};
if($school == 'cityname-elementary') {
echo '';
};
if($school == 'cityname-middle') {
echo '';
};
if($school == 'cityname-high') {
echo '';
};

As you can see this can give you the ability to do things you may not have been able to do before in Joomla!. I know it saved me from a major headache!




You can find original post here : http://www.corephp.com/blog/controlling-joomla-templates-depending-on-the-menu-you-use/

Reverse engineering an "encrypted" Joomla! plugin

On extensions.joomla.org a lot of extensions are offered worthwhile using. Most of them are released under the GNU/GPL and free to use, others are offered under a commercial license - I don't have a problem with this, because for me the functionality is more important than the amount of money I have to pay.

Open source or not

But one thing which I find very important is the openess of the PHP-code. If an extension is GPL-ed, the code is open source which enables me as programmer to fix problems myself instead of relying on other people to fix it for me. It allows me to solve problems much quicker.

With commercial extensions however there are two variations: Extensions which are both commercial as open source and extensions which are both commercial as closed source. I prefer the open source extensions, but sometimes you're just stuck with closed source because of the functionality it sometimes offers. I always cross my fingers and hope that I don't bump into a problem that makes me call some helpdesk-guy that doesn't understand a bit of the problem.
The website is down

Now something happened which made me reconsider my point on closed source extensions (for the worse): The website was down. I have full access to the webserver, so I logged in through SSH to have a look at the Apache error-log. There I quickly discovered the problem. Some kind of Joomla! plugin gave a huge timeout.

The Joomla! plugin in question was a system plugin and depended on a helper-file. Somehow this helper-file tried to reach another remote site. And because this other remote site was down as well, the Joomla! plugin was waiting indefinitely for a response and so did my website. No timeout was being given.

I quickly logged into the Joomla! Administrator, navigated to the Plugin Manager and disabled the plugin. Hmm, the website was still down. Appearently disabling the plugin from within the Joomla! backend did not actually disable the plugin itself. With a steady hand I removed the plugin-files. The website was up again.

Next, I deciced to do a full audit on this plugin. What was causing the problem? And more importantly, why did it not give a timeout when trying to reach the remote site - for a proper PHP-script it seemed to be the most responsible thing to do.
A first glance at the evil Joomla! plugin

At a first glance the plugin looked very cool. The backend did not have any parameters, it showed an HTML description which was displayed just as plain text and not as HTML, and the plugin title did not follow the plugin naming conventions ("System - My Plugin"). But sometimes I'm just too picky about these things. Instead of becoming to frustrated I had a look at the code instead.

The main PHP-script is written following the JPlugin-class standard, which is a clear way of writing your own plugin. However the main file included a helper file, even when the plugin itself was disabled. That was a big mistake: The helper tried to fetch content from a remote site, which was down. But it tried to do this, regardless of the state of the plugin. If the plugin would be disabled, there was no need for this action anyway.

...
include_once( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/evil.helper.php' );
...
class plgSystemEvilplugin extends JPlugin
...

License and reverse engineering

The Joomla! plugin was mentioning (in the source code) a copyright but not a license. On the website I could not find any word of the license under which the source code was distributed. Now, Joomla! is released under the GNU/GPL and officially all extensions that extend Joomla! should fall under the GPL as well, and thus make it open source. I took the liberty to assume that the GPL was applied to this plugin as well and began reading the code.

The main plugin-file did not do much, except include a helper-file and call a function within this helper-file. So I opened up the helper-file to discover that it did not contain readable code but something encrypted instead. Looking at the GPL it is absolutely legal to decrypt this encrypted code, so I started decoding it.

BFkWUEZsfUtbXj9YS1gqIC47dzdzUBpQLQlaBQ9KUxgPA1g4XBZdGxwHUzZXVBYyFl1LZ
wkRSRlHDgddQx8KHQEODRUNGA4dXwRXBgBDGR9jF10UcgATSRxaVR1HS11BAVphQh0Wa2
lfFhgKHzxEAB0cTw0aBgMKFg1vHxYLHxcSRlxHTgBUEAJjQhocGgA7BFQCR1IKRwAH


Decrypting the base64 file

The file was encoded with base64 encryption, and any PHP-programmer should know that there is a PHP-function "base64_decode()" to help you with this. The difficult part was that after base64-decryption I ended up with again a base64 encryption. So again I decrypted it, but now I ended up with a base64-encryption locked with a specific encoding key.

$codelock_decrypter["t"] = base64_decode("LlJpagxUIiZLXmc3Ijk5PzUaMCM
pKStbKikEHm48W0FZISlwKSQiVz8jLidnTz8jXxdqGExfWTExNTg+NF4MdzstNRRtHUFe
LSJWTl0NYSYrOWY ...
...
$codelock_decrypter["z"] = substr($codelock_decrypter["license"], $codelock_decrypter["x"] % strlen($codelock_decrypter["license"]), 1);

This CodeLock-encryption is however not impossible to crack. Still this is not real closed source like ionCube or Zend Encryptor - it just takes some good knowledge of PHP to turn the base64-encryption into regular PHP-code. After 15 minutes of good hacking I succeeded in breaking the full encryption and store the PHP-code as a readable content.

There I found the root of the whole problem: The PHP-scripts themselves did not contain any logic by themselves. Instead the PHP-script was encrypted with CodeLock but still able to decrypt itself. After this a request was made to the remote site to get again encryted text which was then decrypted and then executed as PHP. And what was all the fuzz about? About 400 lines of code that I could write easily in one evening.
So what's bad about this Joomla! plugin

Though the functionality of the plugin was very useful, the downtime of the remote site brought a very weak architecture into the light. This is the list:

* The plugin is not clear on the license needed to redistribute the PHP-code. I assumed the code to be GPL, which is probably legally the right assumption.
* The plugin called a helper-file even when the plugin was disabled, which shows that the manufacturor did not actually test things properly.
* The code is encrypted with encryption software written in a manner, which I have seen only with script-kiddies. It contained PHP Notices and even PHP Warnings which were manually oppressed, which is a bad habit.
* The whole functionality depends fully on a remote site. If this site is down, the plugin doesn't work.
* They ask money for this type of software.

How could you know?

You don't, unless you are an experienced PHP-programmer like me. It takes a lot of knowledge to find out what an extension is doing exactly and things get even more complicated with things like base64-encryption. But you can now for sure that with closed source less people are making sure that the PHP-code is of a high quality.


You can find the original post here : http://blog.opensourcenetwork.eu/blog/programming/reverse-engineering-an-qencryptedq-joomla-plugin

Setting up a symfony project with PHPUnit on Hudson

We are using Hudson now for several months as Continous Integration System. This short article describes how we have configured a hudson project for a symfony 1.4 project. I am assuming that the reader is already used to Hudson and knows how a normal project has to be configured.

PHPUnit is the test framework of our choice (surprise, surprise) and we are using the sfPHPUnit2Plugin for all our projects. If you do not now this plugin you may first read another post where the usage and features are described in detail.

All requirements in short:

* Hudson has to be installed
* Hudson plugin xUnit Plugin has to be installed
* the symfony project needs the sfPHPUnit2Plugin
* PHPUnit has to be installed on your test server

Ok, here the configuration steps of the hudson project:

1. Configure your project

Configure standard settings for a hudson project like source-code management settings or email notifications. Please check the official docs if you do not know how to handle this.

2. Add a shell build step

Building a symfony project in a test environment is pretty easy. With the help of some shell commands the project is completely configured and ready for testing. Those shell commands may be entered in the build step section of the hudson project. Defining the correct commands is the main part during the configuration process.

Our configuration looks like this:

1. cd $WORKSPACE/trunk
2. sh _deployment/install_test.sh
3. php symfony cc
4. php symfony phpunit:test-all --configuration --options="--log-
5. junit=build/testresult_$BUILD_NUMBER.xml" cd build
6. ln -s -f testresult_$BUILD_NUMBER.xml currentTestResult.xml

1. Jump in the project root of the project
2. Install the project on the test server with the help of a internal shell script. This step includes for example the generation of the databases.yml.
3. Clear the symfony cache (always a good choice)
4. Run all PHPUnit tests including unit and functional tests. The test result is written in a jUnit compatible logfile (needed for the xUnit Plugin).
5. Jump in the build directory, which is internally used by Hudson
6. Symlink the latest testresult

3. Configure Post-Build-Action

After the xUnit Plugin is installed correctly, an additional PHPUnit Pattern field should be displayed in the post build action section. In this field has to be entered:

1 trunk/build/currentTestResult.xml

The options “Fail the build if test results were not updated this run” and “Delete temporary JUnit file” should be both checked.

The xUnit Plugin takes the currentTestResult.xml file, which was previously created with the help of the sfPHPUnit2Plugin and analyzes it. When everything works fine, you should be able to review the created test reports.

Here some screenshots how this result could look like.

Build history:


Trend graph of the test results:




You can find the original post here : http://dev.esl.eu/blog/category/symfony/