Brian Teeman

As you will have gathered by my blog posts here, here and here I take the security of my joomla sites very seriously it even prompted another blogger "realise I needed to get smarter about passwords".

Even if you follow all the advice in those posts and the excellent advice in the Joomla Administrators Security Checklist you can never be too careful.

So it is no surprise that when a new security extension popped up in JED it picqued my interest.

Today Andrew Eddie posted a useful explanation of the new ACL (Access Control) he is building for Joomla 1.6.

Whilst Andrew has tried to explain a difficult concept it was still written by a developer for developers.

So I thought I would have a go at translating it into "normal" speak.

How often have you struggled to remember the wierd and wonderful syntax of a plugin?

How often have you wondered how you tricked Joomla into doing something?

How often have cursed yourself for not making notes?

Despite claims to the contrary Joomla 1.5 does have an ACL system. It may be rudimentary but when fully understood can be very useful.

To help you I've created a simple table with an overview of who can do what.

It should be obvious but it seems that people need a reminder.

You should only ever download files from their original source!! If you don't how will you ever be certain that what you are downloading is the real deal and doesnt have some hidden backdoor.

Not long ago a new version of wordpress was released at www.wordpresz.org which wasn't actually the real deal.

Don't fall into the same trap!.

The greatest strength of Joomla is the wide range of extra components, modules, plugins and tools that are available.

But sadly for so many web masters this is also Joomla's greatest weakness. Just because they are there doesn't mean you have to use them.

Please think twice before installing any extension and ask yourself this question.

"Is this extension of benefit to my site, does it offer something extra that my users would benefit from. Or am I just installing it because I can."

I mean, come on people, who needs a clock on a website there is already a clock on the screen without you adding one.

Where is joomla based? Where is the top secret bunker that holds all the joomla secrets? Is it on Tracy Island, Isla Nubar, Gilligan's Island or perhaps the mystery island of Lost.

Spot the difference was one of my favourite games when I was a child.

(No Wii or Playstations when I was a child, and only 3 television stations - how did we ever survive such a primitive lifestyle).

I always struggled to find all the differences, my sister was so much better at this game than me.

But I bet everyone can spot the differences in the next picture - a screenshot of the Joomla administrator interface.

A new version of the Joomla 1.5 series was released today, which is possibly the last release before 1.6.

Its code name is "wohnaiki" and the only reference I can find to that is in

"The Holy Dividing Line: Inscription and Resistance in Yaqui Culture"

and the establishment of the Wohnaiki Pueplom, the Eight Pueblos which are the backbone of Yaqui social, cultural, and political life....

Today I found a new book for Joomla! that aims to be a

"beginner's visual step-by-step guide to setting up useful websites using Joomla! in a few hours!"

Released under a Creative Commons Atrribution 2.5 India License.