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» SEO tip for joomla 1.5
Joomla default installation is not search-engine friendly regarding to how URL's are constructed. Pages of the website will look as follows:
http://www.oursite.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2
But we can improve this setting within a few minutes as an administrator, in 2 steps. First we need to rename a file named htaccess.txt to .htaccess. This file is included in the Joomla installation and it is at the home directory of Joomla.
Secondly, we need to change 2 flags in the Global Configuration screen. At the admin home page, we click Global Configuration. At the section of SEO Settings, we change Search Engine Friendly URLs and Use Apached mod_rewrite to Yes.
The click Save. Then we can visit a page of the website, we should see its URL as
http://www.oursite.com/for-your-information
For more information, we can read this tutorial on Siteground.com or search Google with Joomla SEO tutorial.
» Free bootable antivirus rescue CDs
Recently, I went over a lecture about security issues of business information systems in our classes at CSULB.edu. Then I got a call from a customer, who is a friend. This client’s laptop was hijacked by malware/viruses totally and no work can be done on this machine. The Task Manager and software utilities could not be started because the malware took full control of the machine’s CPU and the task manager. There are one particular file that the client did not want to lose, so re-installing the windows XP is not a good choice.
So I got on google.com and start some searches about removing virus from a Windows computer using a Linux live CD, since the OS of this laptop was controlled by malware. After reading content of various web pages, I revised the search to “bootable antivirus rescue CD” and found a few good comments about Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Avira rescue CDs. These CD’s can be booted and can be run to scan the hard drive of a computer and remove viruses. Furthermore, they are free to download. So we downloaded the ISO image of these CD’s, (Definition of ISO image on Wikipedia.com: An ISO image is an archive file (also known as a disc image) of an optical disc in a format defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO))
We booted the laptop with the Bitdefender rescue CD but it could not go through the boot completely. We did not have time to investigate the reason why; so we booted the laptop with Kaspersky rescue CD.Here is a screen shot of Kaspersky rescue CD on softpedia.com
Next, we updated the virus database using the Update button, and this took about 1 minutes. Note that we connected the laptop to the Internet via a wired network because we did not want to deal with wireless connection. Then we started to scan the machine. It took 30 minutes to the scan to be completed and Kaspersky found 4 malware, (a combination of Trojan horse and Worm).
Then we boot the laptop with Avira rescue CD and do a scan. Avira found 1 more virus. The scan also took around 25 minutes. At this time we started the machine with its Windows XP system and it ran normally. To be sure that the machine is virus-free, we installed the Clamwin open source software and scan the machine 1 more time. The scan found not virus so we concluded this repair task.
Afterward I surfed the net a little bit more and found a few more free and not free rescue CD. One free CD is Trinity and it seems to be quite powerful. I plan to use test this one in the near future.
What to read for more about Bootable rescue CDs?
I found the following pages useful:
How can we burn an ISO image to a CD?
Many software programs can be used: Nero, Roxio and so on. Our favorite one is an open source software program called Infrarecorder: http://infrarecorder.org/.
» What are our contribution to Open Source Software community?
We regularly create free themes/templates for open source software systems like Xoops, Joomla, ZenCart.
We are pleased to announce the free themes of Grass and Sand.
Please click and visit our free themes website.
We also have low-priced themes/templates for these OSS systems as well.
Visit our store for more information.
» Do you know what "blended shore" outsourcing is?
Jim Hoen, a VP of Sales and Marketing from Techteam.com, defined blended shore outsourcing as
Blended-shore outsourcing requires selecting one partner that can leverage its multiple locations to deliver a full spectrum of scale, services and savings.
In a way, blended shore outsourcing refers to using a team that has onshore and offshore talent. One main reason of this type of outsourcing is to reduce cost while keeping the development agile.
For example, for a software development project that takes 6 person months, a ratio of 25/75 blended shore approach can present a tremendous saving compared to an onsite development approach. Assuming that $120/hour is the onshore rate and $30/hour is the offshore rate, we can tabulate a summary as follows:
| Blended shore – 25%/75% |
$54,600 |
| 100% onshore |
$124,800 |
| Saving |
$70,200 |
| Saving % |
56% |
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We have provided blended-shore development to our customers and the blend ranges between 10/90 to 30/70 ratios.
Here are a few links that discuss the blend of shores:
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