Not online for a few days – sorry
Dear all.
Due to the quickness of quite a few changes in my life I have not been online much the last two days and will now not be online and stable again until at least Tuesday next week.
I have agreed to undertake some contract work for a private client on a full time basis in London, starting on Monday and therefore have been in meetings and seeking accommodation in London for a few days, and this weekend I will be moving from Tewkesbury to London and thus will be manic busy packing and moving and will have limited time online.
Once I have moved and am settled again early next week normal support will resume (Nick though is still around and doing a GREAT job in my absence, but things that need ME will be delayed – sorry.
Phil.
Joomla 1.6 Beta 1 released – do not install…
..on a live site.
Thats right I really did say don’t install Joomla 1.6 Beta 1 
and I encourage everyone else not to as well.
How can I say that?
Am I mad?
Am I saying it’s rubbish?
No of course not.
Just please do not install this early beta release on a live server, that’s not what it’s for.
When Joomla! releases beta versions it means “for testing” unlike Google which is happy to let you use software for years whilst keeping the beta tag e.g.googlemail
So what am I supposed to do with it?
Install on a local server, test, find bugs and report the bugs
That’s exactly what a Beta release is for
Testing, testing and more testing.
Finding bugs and fixing them
And then in a few weeks there will be another Beta release
But you still can’t install it on a live server as this version is so that you can test to ensure that the bugs found in the previous release have been resolved.
Then you have to carry on the tests and the bug reports and the bug fixes.
There may be several Beta releases before a Release Candidate
Until eventually a release candidate will appear which hopefully will have fixed all known bugs and just needs testing to ensure that no new bugs have been introduced. With luck there will be only one of these before the final release of Joomla 1.6
And then you can decide if you are going to go through the process of migrating your web sites to Joomla! 1.6 and not before then
Ask me for help installing Joomla 1.6 on a live site and you will get a very short answer
New Demo Site Now Available
We have now consolidated our four demo sites into just one. You can now view all our extensions at
http://demos.phil-taylor.com/administrator/
Take a look around! The demo resets its blank state every 60 mins, you are auto logged in as a super admin so you dont even need a password! 
*Some functions have been disabled.
Demo site availability
Over the next few days we will be moving the demo sites for our products to a new server (hosted by the most excellent redstation.com in the UK)
During this time the demo sites will be up and down as you may see the old server or the new server.
This is phase one of a new launch we will be doing soon – watch this space!
Software I use: Sequal Pro: just like phpMyAdmin but better!
E
very now and then an app comes along that simply changes the way you do your job – Sequal Pro is one of those apps.
Those of us that develop PHP/MySql applications are so used to using phpMyAdmin for manipulating databases that we almost forget that its not the only way to interact with a mysql database. phpMyAdmin has been the tool of choice for so long…
However, if you own a Mac, then Sequal Pro is about to blow your mind! With all the normal features (querying) and some great advanced features (inline editing, previewing, quicklook, SSH tunneling) Sequal Pro is now my main app of choice for interacting with my databases.
I love the fact that with SSH tunnels you can export/backup a database to a sql file with just two clicks! and importing a db is just as easy.
Dont take my word for it – download it for yourself - its FREE and GPL Licensed!
UPDATE: ARGHHHHHHHHH
Thanks to those that noticed that as I wrote this article at 01:30am I mispelt “Sequel Pro” everytime!!! I’ll not change it now but please note the correct spelling is Sequel Pro
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated
It appears that some computers in Googles Datacenter think I’m dead haha
I’m NOT dead – but very very busy on new projects, which are taking a lot of my time
New version of Joomla KB released
I’m pleased to announce a new version of Joomla Knowledgebase has just been released, this new version addresses the WYSIWYG Editor issues previously reported and also now provides full PHP 5.3 compatibility
new bfforms version available, PHP 5.3 Compatible!
Hi All.
Lets start the new year with a new site and new features eh?
I have just uploaded the latest version of bfForms which is now (fingers crossed) 100% compatible with PHP 5.3 (for all you bleeding edge people!)
The new version of bfForms for Joomla 1.5.x also now includes the great ixEdit jQuery designer and also a wonderful multipage form solution thanks to janko. This solution will not suit everyone, but it is small and simple and will work for the majority of cases to split up longer forms into more manageable sections.
I’ll be posting videos/tutorials on how to use these two new features shortly.
The new bfForms website is also live, and I’m busy populating it with yet more FAQ’s and more helpful videos…
Existing customers can get this version for FREE from their downloads page at myJoomla.com
Have fun…
Available for Joomla Work
Hi All, well today I walked away from renewing my Government contract, I could no longer work with the management I had and felt I had no other choice but to get out.
So if you have any Joomla Projects you would like me to look at, or problems with your Joomla site, then I’m available for short term consultancy and contracting.
If you have a realistic budget and timescale anything is possible
Please contact me through our contact form, and lets see where it goes.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots
This error message seams to be popular again at the moment, so I guess its time to reeducate Joomla users and administrators on the cause of it:
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots
If you get this message, then you are probably using a third party extension (like bfForms) and you see this message as an error. The solution is very simple. Joomla has a built in (a very basic!) plugin that replaces any email address in Joomla output with a snazzy javascript hiding technique to hide email addresses from spam bots.
All you need to do to resolve the error – is to disable this Joomla Plugin.