Webformatique Blog

Joomla

Jan 15

2010

My Development Tools

Posted by Rob Locke in Tips and Tricks, Template Design, PHP, New Product: RM2, Joomla, Javascript, Development

Since we started the ResMania project I have collected some great tools, which most of our team now use. I feel these are really vital to development and producing bug free, quality web-app's and hope by sharing my findings it will help anyone working on web development or even with the ResMania framework!

I'm a Mac user but most of these tools are cross platform and available on Windows and Linux with the exception of CSSEdit.

Netbeans
This is a fantastic IDE and when used with Xdebug it provides a superb PHP development environment with line-by-line debugging and all that the competition (Zend Studio) offers but it's free!. BTW I am a fan of Zend Studio just not the price tag.

This brings me onto Xdebug. This is a great php module/addon that when used with Netbeans provided great debugging facilities.

More information on netbeans can be found here: http://netbeans.org

Information on installing Xdebug and for working versions I recommend: http://aspn.ActiveState.com/ASPN/Downloads/Komodo/RemoteDebugging

CVSDude
What's that dude? CVSDude.com! this is a really great SVN hosting solution. We tried running our own SVN we tried other SVN providers and finally started using CVSDude.com for our Subversion Requirements. Most developers will know how important SVN is for team collaboration and without SVN it's pretty much impossible to collaborate with a team working on a large project.

CVSDude offer a cost effective SVN project hosting solution with many extras such as integrated Trac and Bugzilla. Support is great and it can all be managed via their web-based console.

More information: http://cvsdude.com

SyncroSVNClient
So this brings me onto Subversion clients, there's allot out there but my favorite is SyncroSVNClient, easy to use, cost effective and reliable.

More information: http://www.syncrosvnclient.com

Safari and Web Inspector
I have experience of Firefox and Firebug and these are excellent tools but if you are a JS developer and have a Mac take a look at Safari's JS debugger. On my Mac I found it took much less memory resources than Firebug and offers syntax highlighting in the JS code than makes it easier to ready and instantly see bugs in the code. While Firefox and Firebug do a great job Safari and Web Inspector do a top notch job at JS debugging.

To enable the Safari Develop menu and Web Inspector, just close Safari and type (or copy/paste) the following command into Terminal.app (/Applications/Utilities):

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true

CSSEdit
Unfortunately only available on the Mac CSSEdit is a top notch CSS tool. Firebug for Firefox and Safari Web Inspector do a great job of CSS debugging class inspection and style over-riding so they are great for finding a CSS issue. However a tool I have found priceless on many occasions is CSSEdit by MacRabbit. This CSS editor allows you to browse any styles and override these much the same as FB and Web Inspector but with much more ease. The controls and interface are easy to use. New style attributes can be easily defined by using the GUI without the need to remember the syntax or have to go off hunting for a sample on Google.

More information can be found here: http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/

I hope this information helps. There are many development tools out there and it's never a case of one tool does all but my collection of tools certainly seem to be pretty definitive for building a large web-based application.

Rob Locke - Founder and Developer

Jul 20

2009

10 Ways to Protect Your Joomla Site

Posted by Rob Locke in Tips and Tricks, Security, Joomla

I've been using Joomla for a long time now right back to the days of Mambo and have learn't a couple of times the hard way about securing Joomla. While I don't confess to being a security expert here's my top-ten list that I've picked up over the years that should help if you are looking to secure your site and all the work you've put into it.

Make sure your server is patched with the latest bug and security fixes.
Check your file and directory permissions (Chmod 644 for files and 755 for folders), Joomla provides a facility to set file permissions to the required setting in the configuration panel. Don't forget that some files and folders need to be writable by Joomla.
Make sure your Administrator password is strong (Upper and Lower case characters and difficult to remember are best).
Create separate accounts for each Super Administrator.
Always add a default .htaccess in the root of your site and a really good idea is a .htaccess and .htpasswd files in the administrator folder on your site. More info on .htaccess/.htpasswd protection can be found here: http://www.panix.com/web/faq/htaccess.html
Read the Joomla Administrators Security Checklist http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_Administrators_Security_Checklist
Don't give out access to people that don't need it.
Look at the JUGA for Joomla http://www.dioscouri.com/ this is a great extension for more granular access permissions in Joomla.

If you can afford it, employ a security checking company such as McAffee ScanAlert who will scan your site regularly for vulnerabilities.
Backup your site regularly, there is no replacement for this. Never assume your installation is secure, if you follow all these points it may still be breached so make sure you have a Backup!

I hope this helps!

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