Applies to:

• Joomla CMS v3.2.3 (Joomla.org)
• jComments v3.0.0 (JoomlaTune.com)
• PlayThru v1.1.8 (AreYouAHuman.com)

What?
This article is a follow on from my article JComments 2.3 with PlayThru (Joomla 2.5.x) but this is for a later version of the components using the alternative called PlayThru by AreYouAHuman.Com.

Why?
The kCaptcha used by the jComments extension is easily automated and no longer blocks spam comments. Google's ReCaptcha is overrun by click farms and is unable to authenticate engaging visitors.

How?
So I have come up with what I consider a pretty stable solution. I adapted it from various legacy solutions when using Google's ReCaptcha.

Thought I'd add the migration script I've been using to test my JComments migration from my Joomla CMS site version 1.5.20 to Joomla CMS site version 2.5.6.

DISCLAIMER

1. I do not work for either Joomla or JoomlaTune (Jcomments)
2. This script is provided as is without warranty
3. If you do not understand what this script is doing, let someone who does run it instead

INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS

1. Install JComments on your upgraded website (at time of print: Jcomments v2.3.0 on Joomla v2.5.4)
2. Copy the below script to a text file
   1. Change the database names to match your setup
   2. Change the table name prefixes to match your setup
3. Run the modified SQL script against your database.

Note: It is not advisable to run this on a production website!

What?
During a site upgrade, the commenting extension for Joomla called JComments would return errors when using PHP version 7. This is a quick article to document what needed doing to fix the errors.

How?

What?
This article is a quick note on how to change your Joomla CMS "Read More" to "Register to Read More" all without hacking away at the Joomla core.

Why?
Well a few hacks may be necessary because not only do we want to restrict read more content (full text) and just show intro texts to public but the default Joomla instructions do not include the search engine. I need the Joomla built-in search engine to also ignore permissions so that the article can still be indexed in global search engines such as Google.

How?
It's been difficult to search for the right words but heres the method to restrict the introtext to the public and fulltext (read more) to the registered users:

Applies to

• Joomla! CMS v3.5.x

What?
This is a short article on how to remove the ID numbers from your Joomla website addresses for search engine friendly URLs.

// What I have
www.joellipman.com/index.php?option=com_content&category_id=4&article_id=123-article-alias

// With URL rewriting enabled
www.joellipman.com/index.php/4-category-alias/123-article-alias.html

// What I want
www.joellipman.com/category-alias/article-alias.html

How?
You could buy an SEF extension that does this for you or spend time tweaking your .htaccess file.  Or you can take advantage of a Joomla update and do this without any coding...

What?
This is a quick article to remind me how to move a Joomla administration section and to lock it down to a specific IP address. The below does not involve installing any third-party extensions and will remain in place even if you update your Joomla CMS.

Why?
When checking audit logs, I sometimes see that my administrator url is accessed more than my front-end. The below has worked for me on Joomla websites in general and prevents the administrator URL showing up at all in the stats (unless you were using it).

Leaving this unchecked means that the crackers/hackers will get through ultimately whether it be by brute-force, DoS, Injection, etc. I'm not saying these are silver bullets, but they will slow down some people.

How?
The below will a) change the /administrator location and b) limit access to a single IP address. Note that you will need to ensure you have a static IP (most ISPs now assign static IPs to home broadband users as well as larger corporations). But just in case you don't have one, let me do this in two stages.

What?
A quick article to remind me about this issue. Not sure whether it is specific to the Joomla Content Management System, but within the Joomla! CMS, an error 1054 comes up if you use the above statement.

Why?
The MySQL statement SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT name) FROM table is valid but I get what you mean and it's sometimes difficult to explain why you want to use it.

How?
Method #1: Add an alias to the field:

What?
This is a quick article on what I change the error page for Joomla websites to. I like a clean error page, for a demo visit http://www.joellipman.com/my_error_page.

• Applies to Joomla 1.6.x, 1.7.x, 2.5.x

How?

1. Backup the file \templates\system\error.php
2. Create a replacement file called error.php including the below code
3. Change the message "The Page you are looking for..." to what you want.
4. Change the link "www.joellipman.com" to the "www.yoursitename.com".
5. [Optional] If you want the image that creates the shadow you can download it here. I put it in the folder \templates\system\images.