While checking my site logs, as should be standard practice for everyone, I discovered an unintentional honeytrap.

Q. What is the point of trying to hack an rss feed and is it possible?

To show how bad some of these hack attempts are a quick view over the logs of your site  should highlight some of the basic hacking attempts on vulnerable extensions.

This site has a feed to content using the great feedgator tool that will take the VEL list and insert it into a content item/article/post. Obviously this eventually turns up into a search engine somewhere.

My name is Gary Brooks and I am an addict... to Joomla!

Iphone App

Last announcement: Joomla! Day Chicago is also the first Joomla! Day event to be sharing an awesome iPhone app dedicated to our event.  The app was donated by one of the sponsors at iJoomer.com.  We are thankful for their contribution and beautiful tool they have designed for the attendees of this conference.  

Download it today: 

Register now!

Twitter, Facebook, and People.joomla.org - Get Social 

@garyjaybrooks

Joomla! Community Volunteer

@joomlashowroom

Joomla! Community Volunteer

@Philip DeKoker

Joomla! Community Volunteer

Several Joomla User Groups (JUG) have reports of around a hundred people attending, joomladays might have 3-400 people attend. So why in some cases do JUGs only have 4 or 5 attend their meetings and 100 at a national event?

How do you make a JUG successful, is it food? beer? or dancing penguins and a late night disco?

Several JUGs have on an average membership of 40 people, but few ever turn up. Here is an example of trying to get one JUG off the ground. (this is not a JUG I have attended!)

I was recently asked via twitter

@mandville how do u cope with the volume @ joomla forums?

My response was priority vs speed. decent docs and cut and paste helps! But let me explain that a bit more.

My first trip into the forums is usually the areas I moderate, mainly the Security (both 1.5 & 1.0) and Showcase. After sifting the reports, I look into the new posts checking for anything breaking the forum rules/community guidelines eg: signatures, self promotion or the latest host-any-file links. Obviously there will be somewhere a hacker kudos  or "contains sensitive info" post that will need to be edited out.

The new vulnerable extensions list has been released into the wild today. Based at the http://docs.joomla.org/Vulnerable_Extensions_List

The announcement has been made in both the extensions forum and the documentation forum for maximum exposure.

Why has this list been produced?

We find that most users "install and forget" They may upgrade the latest Joomla! version, but dont always update the extensions.

This has replaced the old, seldom updated list that has now been archived.
Reports of vulnerable extensions can be reported to the JED http://extensions.joomla.org/ or posted in a security topic clearly showing a vulnerable extension report.

How to use this list

• All known extensions are the listed in the first column.
• "Alert Advisory" details in the centre column (the date is in American format mm/dd/yyyy).
• The link to the advisory notice.
• Finally a link to the notice about any update or Not Known where none is known.

Any developer who has cleared the vulnerability or discontinued the extension should let us know so that we can mark it on the list. Preferably in the extensions forum topic.

Users, after checking the version of the extension they have installed, please check with the extension publisher in case of any questions over the security of their product if no update link is provided.

This list is compiled from found information and may not be an up to date accurate list. following feedback from people, items will be removed after a suitable period and not on resolution of the vulnerability as some people may still be using old extensions years beyond their shelf life.

Remember, just because its fixed, doesnt mean its not out there or we know about it!

Thank you.

It is often asked if a site should be made for the user or the designers benefit.

What if you spend hours/weeks/months on your site only for people to get lost!

• Several sites I have worked with are doing very well with the minimum of features and fuss.

• Does your site really need the latest content video flashes, scrolling facebook and bouncing twitter birds?

Most of the support questions I deal with are to do with paid extensions. If you have a paid for extension, the most obvious choice would be to go to the supplier first, they have your money. Unless of course you have obtained the template or extension from a dubious; unprofessional source.

Once you have found a decent template, do you really need to rip it apart then rebuild it to make it look "good" when you can build one using a good template construction kit?

For most new users to Joomla, and experienced ones, you can get a decent looking, easy to navigate site using free templates and tools.

The community site bristolestate.org.uk shows such an example of using the milky way template with a replaced logo and an extension for the top menu module. There is also a download, gallery and video player extension. All free, all easy to use and very user friendly for the target audience (50+ years old) who do most of the updates themselves.

If you look at this site. mandyhost.co.uk/ You will see it is a straight forward template, with only a couple of extensions. An image gallery and a drop down menu extension. it is visited by several hundred people a week and syndicated to around 30 different community websites.

The services and news it supplies are what people are after along with a simple navigation without being just another blog.

For the more complex community news site that has just been relaunched is whitehawk.uk.net which is currently running a design a logo competition. It uses a standard free template, with a free image gallery and forum. The versatile template woks well, and a few other extras such as the sobi links extension, shows how a functioning community site can be built without whistles. It does use K2 to provide a more social networking site. The target audience is 14-30 years and all migrated from a 5 page html site, with a free hosted forum and a cant be bothered site admin.

Yes there are other sites that I could mention with more features and flashy templates but this article is just to show that you don't need to have all the bells and whistles, templates that look very futuristic and have every extension that you can get hold of. Remember, only one component can run at any one time, and a barrel load of modules will slow your site down.

Design your site for your target audience, people will respect you more for keeping something easy and simple than overloading them with scrolling banners and zooming menus. If you want to build a facebook or youtube clone, then go ahead. Expect about 50 people to sign up at the start, your bandwidth to be hit like a steam train and don't bother renewing the domain at the end of year.

My clients come to me for build straightforward sites they can handle. If I build a "personal pastime" site, then I can fill it up with what I want, but I wont pay myself for the added features I may use once because they are to complex.

Think simple, think professional, think use ability. Get repeat visitors and pleasure, not repeat pain.