If you want to share a spreadsheet, use Google Docs. Microsoft Live Office has nothing to do with being able to edit Excel (or any other Office) document.

http://www.tantek.com.au/

Tantek does Minfos pharmacy computer support.

So far the feedback I’ve had suggests:

• The girl has nothing to do with the business
• It needs a few images to spice it up

I don’t think it’s normal to act like this.

I’m not sure if I’m worried more for the employees or for poor Steve.

David from Insight Indonesia (site?)

John Insight Media

Tony from Inlight Media

Martin from Magnetic Websites

Joomla Plugins discussed or presented

Ignite Gallery -    Presented as a flexible image gallery (Commercial)

Andrew Eddie’s Admin component Advanced Admin Menu

Andrew Eddie’s Content Manager component which works with

JX Control for access control

Joomla Works Ultimate Content Display some very impressive examples and demos, can display any content anywhere

Smooth Gallery but it seems a bit half baked

Phoka for commenting on articles – can’t find the link?

JomComment for commenting

JCE Image Manger Can supposedly do multiple uploads.  Bah so can the MCE commercial plugin.

Joomla’s inbuilt Custom HTML module – Need to create a new module to see it, but it is inbuilt already.

InLight are using in a project of theirs:

Wordpress Integration

DT Register for registrations (Matt not sure re quality)

DT Donate for donations

Phil Taylors Joomla Tags (Allows automatic tagging of content I think) Hmm I hate it, it uses jQuery and the comments are 50% negative.  Why use it?

Capistrano for deployment

Little Snitch for ??

FishEye Menu (uses jQuery) – nice but have to dig around for the menu

Donation Plugin http://hybing.com/

Extras I found while browsing:

Phoca download plugin I will use it soon!

Joomla Themes discussed

Mynxx – A flexible theme.  I think this is the right link, it’s a commercial Rocket Theme.

Hive Mind from Rocket Theme (in built tabs plugin)

Themes developer http://www.gavick.com/

Hints and Tips

Lightbox, to close it you can hit Esc.

Java ftp uploaders for clients to upload files – but then they need Java.  Might work for one or two clients or corporate environements.

Joomla’s inbuilt Content – Load Module for loading any module in a content item

Invoicing software/website revolvehq.com (Australian company used by InLight) (link?)

Project Tracking software www.redmine.org

RSS Feeds to Joomla

Use feed2js.org to format the feed for the content item, and then read the content item.

Wordpress Plugins

The WordPress ecommerce bible http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/

Other Stuff

Radmind Loadsets for software deployment of multiple application builds (on Windows, Mac, etc)

ZFS File system, Bill Moore, Sun Engineer, Video, Interesting.

www.iCyte.com internet research tool

The example in the LQM forum post isn’t really correct because it only checks the name field, which isn’t part of the jos_users table primary key.  In fact the only part of the primary key is the ID field, which is kind of useless.  I guess the question then is “what is the natural key”?  I’d say the keys to really check for are username, and email address.

In the next part of this article I show the SQL I used to create a user and confirm it will create correctly without errors.

So we get the username and the email address as input, and we first confirm that neither already exists in the database.  Apart from these two checks my version is the same as the one posted at the LQM forum.

The MQE SQL to create a user in Joomla using SQL from LQM 3.02 is:

<query abort="results" error="A record with that username exists">

SELECT id

FROM jos_users

WHERE username= '<input name="username" title="Username" />'

</query>

<query abort="results" error="A record with that email exists">

SELECT id

FROM jos_users

WHERE email= '<input name="email" title="Primary Email" data="email" required="y" />'

</query>

<query expect="no">

INSERT INTO jos_users (name, username, email, password , usertype, block, sendEmail, gid, registerDate, lastvisitDate,activation,params)

VALUES (

 '<input name="name" title="Name" required="y" size="30" ordering="1" />'

,'<input name="username" title="Username" required="y" allowed="a-zA-Z0-9." size="30" ordering="2" />'

,'<input name="email" title="Primary Email" data="email" required="y" ordering="3" />'

, md5('<input name="password" title="Password" required="y" size="30" allowed="a-zA-Z0-9" ordering="4" />')

, 'Registered'

, '0'

, '0'

, '18'

, NOW()

,'0000-00-00 00:00:00'

,''

,'editor=jce')

</query>

<query expect="no">

INSERT INTO jos_core_acl_aro (section_value , value , order_value , name , hidden)

VALUES ('users', last_insert_id(), '0', '<input name="name" />', '0')

</query>

<query expect="no">

INSERT INTO jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map (group_id , section_value , aro_id)

VALUES ('18', '',last_insert_id())

</query>

Most importantly since I’ve ditched my TV I’ve discovered visualisers. These are the programs (plugins to iTunes) that create pretty screen patterns that move in time to the music. Lights out, big screen, wow pretty!

For the record I currently really like the standard visualisers that come with RythmBox on Ubuntu, but G-Streamer for iTunes isn’t too bad. G-Streamer is programmable so you can adjust the colours and patterns in real time. You can even script it so your favourite mix has it’s own patterns.

RythmBox on Ubuntu just looks cooler, more dynamic, prettier… not sure why. (I rip the CD with iTunes, then I boot to Ubuntu and play the tunes with RythmBox on the NTFS drive. You need to install additional codecs to play the iTunes AAC files but it’s easy.)

That said, it seems like I don’t know nearly enough about the in built iTunes visualisers. Ah well, more to learn.

This crazy chick is by far the best thing I’ve ever found on You Tube.

A perfect balance of irony sarcasm sex and humour. Her ratings are through the roof, she’s #1 Most Subscribed of All Time in Australia (by a loooong margin), and #18 Most Subscribed of ALL TIME WORLD WIDE.

That means this girl is (just about) one of the most successful things on You Tube. This is without a budget, no marketing, no advertisers, a teeny script and most likely a $300 video camera. And most definitely NO TV GUIDE.

If the TV execs aren’t quaking in their boots, they should be because Their Mum Rates Natalie.

So now I’m making an effort to pay these dedicated people for their work, I mean why not? I’m using their software, it’s good stuff, and it’s easy to donate.

If we donate then the software will be better. Your computer will have good karma, you will feel great, the software developer has a good day and decides all their hard work is worthwhile. And then a magical thing happens: They improve the software, making a good tool even BETTER. The project survives, the programmer fixes the bugs, it’s a perfect world!!!

And that makes everyone happy. Especially ME.

Oh, and YOU too of course! Donate 10 bucks to your favourite free software tool today, you’ll feel like a million dollars

Open source / Free Products I’ve donated or paid for (and recommend you do too):
Spy Bot Search and Destroy (Anti Malware)
Camstudio (Screen Recording Software)
Arras theme (Wordpress Theme)
CCleaner (Windows XP Disk Cleanup)

This list is continually updated as I spend my money…

You MUST set expect=”no” on the first query. Otherwise LQM uses it in place of Query3.