Last W2
When I began this blog I was self-employed, although not entirely in an occupational area I wanted to stay in. I thought I would leave a digital paper trail toward my goal of doing for a living what I really wanted to do. Too long I have been doing what I do just for the pay check and not for the satisfaction of doing something because I actually enjoy doing it.
Ironically, I now have a real job with a real W2. I am now a teacher at a Technical College. It’s all doing about the same things, except now I have really good insurance and a much steadier paycheck. However as most of you will no doubt point out, it’s still not doing the things that I would really enjoy doing with my work day.
On the positive note, this should give extra negative motivation to break out of career I’m in and get into something I want to be in. For once in life I would like to do, think, ponder, and act about only one thing during my day.
So, in a way this is starting over in the quest for the REAL last W2.
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Joomla Admin Password Reset
Went to show off a Joomla based affiliate site to a client yesterday and found some jack-ass person had defaced it. I haven’t had a hacker in several months, so I figured I was due.
His work wasn’t very extensive. It was just a bunch of gibberish on the home page article. I didn’t see any other mischief so I went to log in and clean it up. It had been a long time since I’d logged into this site and autocomplete didn’t budge. I dug my password out of my Password Corral and entered it to no avail. What’s up now? I had a hard time believing a hacker would gain access, change my password, and then only put up a gibberish article on the front page with no links anywhere. Must have changed it myself and then just not entered it into Corral. No matter.
I then started the task of searching out how to reset the admin password in Joomla. Of course Wordpress has a link on the login page to send you a new password when you forget your keys and lock yourself out. I am not sure why this feature hasn’t found it’s way into Joomla. To complicate matters the password handling procedure somehow changed between versions way back so you have to find the right article to get help.
Conventional Wisdom
In a nutshell, the process is simple. The password is in the database all hashed up in MD5, I think. It is ‘unhashable’ but most articles suggest that it is way easier to just insert a known hashed password into the database and change it that way.
That had been my preferred method, however since it has been a while since I have a.) used Joomla much and therefore, b.) locked myself out, I couldn’t find my list of known hashed passwords that I had complied for just such emergencies.
Generic hashed passwords can be found in the Joomla help forums or you can Google up MD5 Hash generators like the one at Miracle Salad. Put in your intended password and it generates the hash you will need for the database.
For Example:
password 5f4dcc3b5aa765d61d8327deb882cf99
ninja 3899dcbab79f92af727c2190bbd8abc5
Very good, now what?
Most will tell you that now the database for your Joomla site has to be modified a bit by pasting the known hash into your database to get your locked-out self back in. This assumes you have access to your database and can navigate around phpMyAdmin.
Easier Approach
There is, however, a much easier and much faster approach to this problem.
Disclaimer. If you totally destroy your database and therefore your site, by poking around the database then don’t blame me. Like with messing around with the Windows Registry, back the stupid thing up before you start.
Log into you control panel and fire up phpMyAdmin. On the left is a list of all your databases assuming there are more than one. Click on the one your Joomla site uses. On the left again is now a list of tables in the selected database. Look for jos_users or whatever prefix you had Joomla use when you installed. Click on users and in the right side of phpMyAdmin, click on the browse tab. The screen should then have a list of the site users, one being ‘administrator’. Click the little pencil near administrator.
Then next screen you see should have tables with the admin name and password hash amongst many other things. On the line called user_pass, in the field under Value, simply enter the password you want to use in plain language. Then in the dropdown to the left under Function click MD5. Click Go to save your work.
Go Try It Out
Now open up a new tab and try your log in with the password you just entered. Should work great. phpMyAdmin should have automatically hashed it for you. Mine did last night. No messing with hash generators and no searching for notes of the generic password hashes you saved from last time. Now, exit phpMyAdmin before you bump something and kill it all.
How To Really Enable The WPMU Theme Editor
Call me a n00b, but I like to use the theme editor in WordPress to get the themes to suits me. I can move around all the different files needed to make changes to the sidebars and tweak the CSS files fairly quickly and when you use the Find box in the status bar of Firefox, locating a particular spot in the code is very fast.
When you do your first WordPress MU install one of the first nuisances you run into is the lack of a theme editor “out of the box”. A quick trip around Google will inform you that it is a huge security hole to enable an editor in WPMU.
Being a fairly unpopular fellow, my WPMU installs have an amazing lack of real users, so I really don’t have many security fears. So, dang it, give me my editor back.
Several blogs offer the answer. Simply open admin/includes/mu.php and get yourself down to line 530 (in PSPad anyway) to find:
unset( $submenu['themes.php'][10] ); // always remove the themes editor
This line prevents the editor from being loaded. Either comment or delete this line. Save and re-upload.
You’re supposed to now be in business. However, on my sites, I find that, yes I do now have a link in the backend for the Editor, but when I click it, the next page says ‘Disabled’.
I quizzed my code guru buddies in IRC and found no one n00b enough like me to use the theme editor.
Anyway, to get to the point, I noticed the file returning the ‘Disabled’ message was theme-editor.php. The WordPress powers that be are pretty much opposed to theme editing and yet they ship with this file. I poked around it a bit and noticed this:
require_once(’admin.php’);
wp_die( ‘Disabled’ );
$title = __(”Edit Themes”);
$parent_file = ‘themes.php’;
Either comment or delete the “wp_die( ‘Disabled’ );” at line 11 or so. This will allow the editor to load up and you’re then on your way.
Good luck with it.
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Susan Boyle and the Power of Social Media
The world was stunned this week by Susan Boyle, the dusty old miracle voice from Scotland. Yes, her voice was incredible. Yes, the audience and judges were rude to her. The judges probably had more reason to be because it is sort of their show. The audience was following mob mentality.
The fascinating thing here is not Susan’s bushing eyebrows or nice voice or peoples inherent rudeness these days. The really fascinating thing is the speed at which here fame and demand exploded.
A few years ago a hot new talent ot emerge on a British talent show may have gained world attention after a few weeks or months or maybe years. When I first became aware of Charlotte Church she was maybe 14. That was several years after her big ‘debut’. When Susan Boyle hit the stage, Susan Boyle also hit Youtube and the social networks. It’s now been a week since her performance and the video on Youtube now has over 31 million views. Thats one version of it. There are others on you tube. That’s 31 million views in a week. That’s what you call VIRAL.
Gary Vaynerchuk put it best in the keynote address at Affiliate Summit West in Vegas back in January, when he said the gate keepers of media have now been removed. There doesn’t have to be some high and mighty person across the desk who decides if your stuff is good enough for the world to want. Now can put your own stuff out there and let the world decide it it is what it wants.
The world is wanting more of Susan Boyle. Yes, her demand may be short lived, as some predict, but she will undoubtedly retain a cult following for many, many years to come. It’s the power of Social Media. The world decides what it wants and what it is willing to pay for.
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