Several years ago now I switched from a windows/linux computer to a Mac and since then I've always been using MAMP as my local development web server.
MAMP is great as it lets me do all the initial development of a web site on my laptop before ever going near a live server.
The one thing I've really been missing is that it is not possible to send emails so any functionality that requires that, such as user registration, contact forms or notifications, can't be tested until I upload the site to a live server.
In the middle of 2012 I was invited to speak at the Joomladay in Melbourne Australia in January 2013. I've tried the virtual presenter thing before and I really didn't enjoy the experience. A Joomladay is not just about the sessions that you attend but also the people that you meet. You just can't do that properly in a virtual world, at the very least no one can really buy me a beer (cold or not) over skype.
So on January 14 I will be boarding a flight for the rediculously long flight to Melbourne. At a little over 21,500 miles (34,700 km) it will take my air miles for the preceding 12 months over the 100,000 miles (160,000 km) barrier. It is truly amazing how many bad movies you can watch on a tiny screen when you are trapped insode a flying tin can.
Over the years I have written many blog posts about Joomla! websites being hacked. But that is nothing compared to the number of websites that I've been employed to fix.
Several years ago I came to the conclusion that it would not matter how diligent you are at ensuring that your server is correctly configured and your extensions are always up-to-date there is still the possibility that your site could be hacked.
After all there will always be a time between a vulnerability being discovered and a fix being released. In fact I coined a phrase "exploited yesterday, hacked tomorrow".
