Thursday, September 28, 2023

Best WordPress Backup Solution – Akeeba

20 June 2018
Grimey
No comments
Categories: Akeeba, WAMP, Web Hosting, WordPress

I have used Akeeba for years for Joomla and made moving and backup up sites so easy. I started purchasing the Pro version so I could exclude various directories and back up to Amazon Web Services. With the use of a Cron Job my sites were taking care of themselves.

I was so glad to see Akeeba make their backup solution for WordPress. The best part was the way it ran the 3 SQL statements you need for updating the permalinks automatically. Although this was best solution I had used for backing up and moving a WordPress site it didn’t always work. Sometimes it would never finish running the SQL permalink updates and the site wouldn’t complete the move. In addition, the plugin would tell me I had an update available, but when I tried to automatically update it the site was breaking. I would end up with a blank white website.

Well this latest version of Akeeba Backup / Kickstart software is working really well. When ever I have moved a site the Permalinks update works well, and the latest version updates through the plugin manager without a hitch. I would highly recommend this software to anyone. The pro version is totally worth it.

I hope this helps someone else out there…

 

Free QR Code Generator

19 June 2018
Grimey
No comments
Categories: QR Code

As trivial as it sounds there is a quickness to QR Codes that make them so handy. While hiking in Italy we didn’t know where we were exactly but we came across an old sign which told about the area; however, it was too worn out to read. In the corner was a QR Code that we able to scan and get a ton of information about where we were.

Here is a link to a site I used to generate some QR Codes for my companies various division contacts.

https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/

I hope this helps someone else out there….

 

Joomla Site Clean Up Tools

12 June 2018
Grimey
No comments
Categories: Filezilla, Joomla, MySQL, Security, Web Hosting

Here is a list of “Tools of the Trade” according to Ben Martin at Sucuri Security.

  • Filezilla (FTP Client)
  • NoScript (Script Blocker)
  • VirtualBox (Virtualization Tool)
  • ublock Origin (Ad Blocker)
  • PHPMyAdmin or Adminer (Database Management)
  • User Agent Switcher
  • Support Forums (ie: https://forum.joomla.org)
  • OSSEC HIDS (Server Monitoring)
  • SSH / BASH connection

I hope this helps someone else out there…

 

DIVI Blurb and Button Not Matching Width

5 June 2018
Grimey
No comments
Categories: Divi, Divi, WordPress

Working with a blurb and button below it I was getting the mismatched width at full screen or over 1900 pixels.

The CSS for the button was:

.et_pb_button_alignment_center {
width: 92%;
background: #FFF;
margin: auto !important;
}

I needed to get rid of the margin:auto !important;

The width was set with this CSS.

.et_pb_button_alignment_center {
width: 95%;
background: #FFF;
}

The blurb container was set;

.et_pb_blurb.et_pb_text_align_left .et_pb_blurb_content .et_pb_blurb_container {
text-align: left;
width: 100%;
height: 300px;
background: #FFF;
margin: auto;
}

 

The blurb content was this:

.et_pb_blurb_content {
position: relative;
max-width: 550px;
margin: 0 auto;
text-align: center;
}

Part of the issue is I had the “Advanced tab” and “Main Element” set with a width, but the child-theme stylesheet had different width. I also had the “Additional CSS” in the theme customerize setting the blurb to another width.

DIVI has a lot of options and perhaps too many.  When your working with DIVI try to not set the styles in more than one place.

I hope this helps someone else out there…

 

 

 

 

Using An Image For Joomla Search Button

3 June 2018
Grimey
No comments
Categories: Gantry, Joomla

This should be a really simple thing, but does seem to be. I wanted to use an icon for my search button. In the module I set “Use an Image” to yes, but this did nothing. My first search lead me to this page.

https://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=282140

This did not work for me.

This page finally got me closer to what I needed; however, I really don’t like using a .gif file. The format is not as smooth as other formats.

https://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=728841

I am using Gantry 5 Hydrogen theme and simply adding the “searchButton.gif” to the “/g5_hydrogen/images” folder got things working quickly.

I hope this helps someone else out there….

 

Joomla – Fabrik – 0 Unable to connect to the Database:

16 May 2018
Grimey
No comments
Categories: Fabrik, Joomla, Joomla Extension, Joomla Update, MySQL

I had a Fabrik project that I wanted so show someone and when I got there I saw this message.

0 Unable to connect to the Database: This driver is unsupported in PHP 7, please use the MySQLi or PDO MySQL driver instead.

My Joomla was version Joomla! 3.8.6. I had recently upgraded the server to PHP 7, so I found what broke it. I found this article to get me started.

http://fabrikar.com/forums/index.php?threads/if-in-joomla-3-5-you-get-this-driver-is-unsupported-in-php-7-try.43721/

I needed my Joomla! version and I found in the backend >>  System >> System information.

The solution was to change the SQL driver in Administrator side to “MySQLI(PDO)”. You get there by going to Global Configuration >> Server, and it will be in the upper right.

I hope this helps someone else out there…

 

Screen Ruler In Firefox

7 May 2018
Grimey
No comments
Categories: browser, Firefox

I often need to know the viewport or screen size when developing the style sheet for a site. It took a little bit to understand where to find the built in screen ruler in Firefox. Here are steps.

  1. Hit f12 to bring up the developer tools.
  2. Click on the gear to bring up the settings
  3. Scroll down till you find “Toggle rulers for the page”.
  4. Once that is checked you will see the ruler icon at the top of the toolbar.

  5. Clicking on the ruler icon will display the ruler on the page.

 

I hope this helps someone else out there…

 

Joomla Kickstart Restore – Blank White Page

19 April 2018
Grimey
No comments
Categories: Chronoforms, Godaddy, Hosting, Joomla, Joomla Extension, Uncategorized

Moved site from Localhost to Godaddy hosting and after I restored the site I got a completely blank screen in both the front end and backend. The source was completely blank.

I found this on OSTraining.com that let me see the errors by editing the “configuration.php” file in the CPanel. I changed “public $error_reporting = ‘development’;”.

https://www.ostraining.com/blog/joomla/white-screen-of-death/

I was now getting an error.

Error:
/home/myaccount/public_html/plugins/system/chronoengine_gcore2/chronoengine_gcore2.php on line 65

I recently upgraded the Chronoforms from version 5 to 6 while keeping 5 around. Their website said this was okay to do.

The site was working fine and this error seem to happen because of the restore. The restore was done through Akeeba Kickstart.

https://www.akeebabackup.com/support/akeeba-backup-3x/Ticket/27368-fatal-error-when-restoring-website.html

The end results was file permissions. My hosting account wouldn’t let me select a different PHP version. I had to contact tech support and they were surprised and had to go up to teir 3 to get it resolved. They determined it my CPanel account that was having permission issues to allow me to change the PHP version.

Once that was changed I was still unable to access the sites. I could put a HTML file there but couldn’t run any PHP. The folder permissions on the public folder needed to be reset to “750”. My sub-domain directories needed to be set to “755”. Godaddy said if I right-click on the folder I could change the permissions myself.

 

I hope this helps someone else out there….

 

Theme cannot be used Gantry Hydrogen WordPress Site

18 April 2018
Grimey
1 Comment
Categories: Gantry, WordPress

I love blogging in WordPress, but often like Joomla to build sites. I have been playing around with Gantry’s Hydrogen template in Joomla and have been using it to build a new site for myself. My blog is in WordPress and would like the two site to look a like.  Gantry’s Hydrogen is totally free and works for both systems.

I installed it on my new test WordPress site that I had already installed Divi and got some administration error, so I uninstalled it and tried it on a  fresh copy and got the same “Theme cannot be used. For more information, please see the notice in administration.” I knew it wasn’t just Divi being installed on the other site.

If I would have read the install directions on the following page I would have installed the theme properly. Instead I watched the video on the page and it was installing in a Joomla site so I blew it off.  There was a button for “wordpress”.

http://docs.gantry.org/gantry5/basics/installation

  • First install the plugin from the WordPress dashboard plug-ins by searching for “Gantry”. I installed Gantry 5.
  • Then move the theme into the themes folder and activate it.

I hope this helps someone else out there….