Before you even think about reading this you should familiarize yourself with the primary migration document.

Issue 1

The problem

The latest migrator release wouldn’t upload to my site. I tried this throught the Joomla! 1.o admin uploader numerous times. With every attempt the had to manually remove the files from my server (the physical upload worked – it just showed as failing in admin).

The solution

As a last ditch attempt I tried to upload the first stable release of the migrator (I was trying to upload the latest – 1.4). It worked perfectly!

Issue 2

The problem

After I ran the migration script I couldn’t download the MySQL database dump. The download button simply didn’t work in Safari and in Firefox it downloaded an empty file.

The solution

I figured that the dump had to be on my server somewhere and went hunting for it. Here is where it was for me…

/public_html/administrator/components/com_migrator/dumps

Issue 3

The problem

I actually had a few issues after I ran the Joomla! 1.5 installer but the most persistent had to do with the front page. For some reason it used the default Joomla! template while the rest of the site used the new template I had uploaded and chosen in the template manager.

The solution

Almost at my wits end I decided to have a look at the database. I went into my cpanel’s phpMyAdmin and navigated to my database. Under ‘jos_templates_menu’ I noticed that there was an entry for the default template. Deleting it gave me control over my Joomla! front page again!

I hope these humble tips may help you in some way. The upgrade process took me about 3 full days of rouble shooting. In all fairness, I was also switching hosts to BlueHost at the time and that may have caused some of the issue.

Please feel free to leave your comments or questions below. If this tutorial did help you in any way, why not give devDisko a quick linkback?!

I have a natural aversion to most email clients and you will never catch me using Outlook, AOL, Postini etc. So, when I found out that I could manage my email through Gmail, while using my domain name (the end result looked like this… zwj@devdisko.com), I immediately set up an email for each of my websites.

Here is a basic run down of what you will need to do.

1. Go to the sign up page for your free Google Apps account.

2. Follow all of the prompts. You will be asked to upload an file to your domain root.

3. Log into your server. The particulars at this point may vary somewhat. Google has a detailed list of instructions by server. As I use cPanel I added the new email address under Email Accounts.

4. Also under the Mail heading click MX Entry. You’ll see a list of email accounts associated with your account. You will need to add ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM to each email account you’ve created with Google Apps.

That’s it!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Raquo or » or » is as loved as it is hated. On Wordpress, it is often the default symbol set in the theme of your installation. Let’s look at how we can remove or replace it.

1. Have a look in the header.php file of whatever theme you are using. You should see something like this within the code.

<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?><br /> » <?php<br />
foreach((get_the_category()) as $cat) {<br /> echo $cat->cat_name . ‘ ‘;<br /> }
 ?> <?php } ?></p> <p><?php wp_title(); ?>

2. Look for either » or ». Replace it with a | or whatever you like.

3. We also put a | in this line of code to give us a | after the title. Have a look below to see what we did on phauxshow.com

<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> |<br /> <?php<br />
foreach((get_the_category()) as $cat) {<br /> echo $cat->cat_name . ‘ ‘;<br />
} ?> <?php } ?></p> <p><?php wp_title(’ | ‘); ?>

The effect is a | between our site name, page, category or archive. We think ‘Phauxshow | Artists | Elizabeth West’ looks a little better than ‘Phauxshow » Artists » Elizabeth West’, don’t you?

For more information on raquo check out raquo.net

Let us know if you have any questions!

This tutorial will explain how to take your live site and make a fully functional local backup – a backup on your computer. I use WordPress and a Mac, however these steps should work for any platform and operating system. Some of the particulars may be slightly different.

At a minimum the tools you will need are…

• A FTP tool such as FileZilla or Cyberduck. I use Transmit on my Mac
• Administrative access to your server
• A local server utility such as Wamp or Mamp
• A code editor

Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the tools. And FTP is simply a method for transfering files. The local server utility allows you to run a CMS such as WordPress or Jomla! on your computer. Most of the tools I mentioned are free and run on either Mac or Windows. So, let’s get started!

Getting the files and folders onto your computer

1. Log into your server through the FTP and navigate to your File Manager. Download the entire root folder of your site. If you have loads of images and videos it may take a while.

2. Log on to your actual server account and navigate to phpMyAdmin.

3. Chose the database you want to back up. From the navigation bar at the top select Export.

4. Under Export select SLQ

5. Under Options select Structure, Add DROP TABLE / VIEW / PROCEDURE / FUNCTION, Add AUTO_INCREMENT value, Enclose table and field names with backquotes, Data

6. Finally, under Save as file, select Zipped and click GO!

Congratulations! You’ve made a full backup of your site! Now lets get it working on your computer.

Running your site on your computer

1. Get your local server up and running. Go into your local phpMyAdmin and create a database using your site’s name. Make note of your local url. It will most likely look something like… http://localhost:8888/yoursitename. Place the site folder you downloaded to the location specified by your local server application.

2. Open the SQL file you downloaded and replace any occurrences of your live url with your local url. Save the file.

3. Navigate to the database you created in your local phpMyAdmin and click Import. Choose your file, make sure SQL is clicked and hit GO. It may take a while. Be patient. Don’t refresh.

4. Open the config.php file within your site folder. Make the appropriate changes to the database info. In my case I changed the live database name to the local database name, the password to root and the username to root.

5. In the past I’ve had problems with the .htaccess file not being included in the root folder download. I just created a new one, copied the info from the live one and made any changes to reflect the live setup.

6. Navigate to your local url (http://localhost:8888/yoursitename). You shouldn’t have to run the CMS setup. Everything should be in order. Login as you normally would by appending the login part of your live url to your new local url. You may have to adjust plugins and posts to reflect the changes.

Thats it! Let me know how everything went.