While working on a WordPress website which is hosted on Yahoo, we encountered a strange bug where the SlideDeck function which generates the PATH of SlideDeck style sheet replaces the “/” with the actual WordPress absolute path or site url.

It happens (very rare) because the stylesheet output path does not generate correctly.

Below is the solution you can apply to debug the issue. It should solve the issue. Please let us know if you have additional question regarding this.

We have been working through this and think we have found a solution. If you would be as kind as to replace line 488 in your slidedeck.php file:

$skin_url = str_replace( “\\”, “/”, str_replace( substr( ABSPATH, 0, -1), site_url(), $skin_folder ) );

with the following:

$skin_url = site_url( str_replace( ABSPATH, “”, $skin_folder ) );

With the advent of CMS like WordPress and Drupal, webmasters can now manage websites with little or no web development expertise. These two content management systems are among the best in the industry, but which one is the favorite?

In terms of popularity, WordPress seems to be the best choice above all competitors. Originally designed as a blogging platform, WordPress has grown into an extremely useful content management system over the past few years. One of the strong point of WordPress is the large quantity of plugins available that have been designed by independent developers. These plugins are basically additions to the CMS, which enhance the functionality of the user interface.

Drupal is a unique advanced content management system that gives the user complete control over the development of a site. Unlike other CMS which utilize WYSIWYG editors and simplified interfaces, Drupal is made specifically for web developers. In fact, it is commonly said that Drupal is actually more of a development platform than just a simple CMS. Even though Drupal is not very user-friendly, it is perfect for professional web developers that need full control over scripting and advanced site design.

Both content management systems have their own pros and cons; however WordPress is generally seen as being the best choice for beginners. More advanced web developers should consider Drupal, as it offers freedom and control not seen in any other CMS.

In the past, building websites required very advanced skills in web technology and different programming languages. Webmasters were supposed to be well-versed in HTML, PHP, CSS, and many other programs, in order to create even a simple website.

Website owners would have to pay a heavy fee to set up their website to the web development companies, and even today in many cases. However, as internet has become more user-friendly, and with the arrival of web 2.0, website owners can now use CMS (Content Management Systems) to build, organize and maintain their websites. Some of these content management system let users upload preset themes that can be customized easily within a user-friendly interface. One of the most popular & powerful content management systems available today is WordPress.

Although WordPress is actually a blogging platform, it is commonly used to create static web pages and complete websites. WordPress is basically a website administrative interface that lets you control every part of the website using tools that even a beginner can utilize. These tools let you post text, images and any other media easily without having any programming knowledge. WordPress is updated on a regular basis you don’t have to worry about it becoming outdated at all. WordPress can be installed even by a beginner using tools provided by your web host such as Fantastico.

One of the most popular reasons which make WordPress expandable and powerful is using an immense array of plugins. New plugins are being created every day, and they can be installed very easily. Using plugins like the All-in-One SEO pack, you can even automatically optimize your site’s pages for the search engines.

WordPress is a content management system or CMS. You can manage, store and retrieve data through a computer based manual which is designed to be used for blog publishing application. The system works through a collaborative approach which uses the hypertext Preprocessor scripting language or PHP as well as multi-user data management system, the MySQL. It was first issued as a fork of b2/cafelog by Matt Mullenweg in May 2003. By September 2009, it was used by millions of users worldwide for website development.

WordPress Features

WordPress happens to be the most popular software in blog publication. It has the following key features:

• Plug in
• Template system
• Widgets which can be edited through HTML and PHP codes
• Themes which can be arrange or rearranged or installed and also edited from time to time.
• Integrated link Management which allows users to enjoy a clean permalink design
• Search friendly design
• Nesting multiple articles at the same time
• Supporting post and tags to each of the articles.
• Styling and formatting the article text
• Automatic filters

Besides the above key features WordPress also supports automatic pingbacks and trackback of different links. This key feature enables the author of the respective articles in the blog to keep a track of the other authors who are referring their articles and linking them for further use. Over and above the normal plug in feature, WordPress supports other functionality in the plug-in structural design. This functionality allows the user to develop any key feature in the plug-in according to their choice.

WordPress Use

WordPress is used in different hosting background. Any user who wishes to use WordPress can download it from the official site of WordPress called WordPress.org. They can then upload the current version of WordPress to their hosting site. This allows the user to work with the original source code of the WordPress.  The user also does not require installing the code manually if they have a Turn Key WordPress appliance. This allows the user to install the WordPress system via a package system. You can also install WordPress via the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. This allows the user to install the WordPress application on the IIS and on Windows. If you have Web PI you can distinguish different management system like PHP and My SQL which is omitted. You can install them separately or you can configure them based on your blog utility.

Other than the above user benefits, the advanced users of WordPress has certain added benefits which they can enjoy. First they can directly host the WordPress application on their server. Secondly, they can update and configure them according to their requirement by using SVN.

Versions

Initially when it was released at the market in May 27, 2003, it had the structure and design similar to its predecessor the B2/cafelog. Through each passing year WordPress has undergone a change in its various applications, plug-ins, template, theme, tools and different interfaces. The recent version is 3.0, which has a code name of Thelonious. It was released in 17^th June 2010.

From time to time you may want to update your WordPress installation to the latest version. You might want to do this because you’ve seen a message at the top of your Dashboard telling you that a new release is available, because you’ve been made aware of some useful new functionality, or because a security fix has been released.

Check Requirements

Whatever the reason for updating, before getting started it is best to check the current minimum requirements page first to make sure that your web host has the required versions of PHP and MySQL. (If you are not sure, then your hosting provider should be able to tell you.)

Take a Backup

The next thing to do is to take a backup of your database. All your posts and Pages are held in the database, so you will need to have a copy of it in case, for whatever reason, you change your mind after upgrading and need to go back. If you are not sure how to backup your database, then complete instructions can be found in the WordPress Backups section of the Codex.

Disable Plugins

The final preperation step is to disable plugins. Now, you don’t have to do this, but every now and again a plugin hasn’t been updated to work with the latest version of WordPress, and causes a problem after the upgrade. So, it’s best to try and avoid that, yes? You can easily disable your plugins by heading to the Manage Plugins page in the Dashboard, changing the “Bulk Actions” pull down menu to “Deactivate” and clicking “Apply”.

Ready to Update

Now that you’ve checked that you’re ready to update, you’ve turned off your plugins and you’ve got your backup, it’s time to get started.

Magento is comparatively new open source web application. It was first launched on 31st march 2008. While building the different components of Zend Framework, Magento was created as an ecommerce web application by Varien.

The version 1.1.7 was licensed under the Academic Free License version. It is also available in 3.0-version under the Open Software License. The paid version of Magento was launched in 15^th April 2009. It provides service agreement with its developer Varien.

Magento Features

Magento has the following standard features:

• Site Management: This allows the user the ability to share information through a common administration panel to multiple websites. Magento is also available in user friendly multi-lingual support and localization. A company can access the data easily and different companies can use the system because it supports multiple currencies. Other features in site management include:

• Web Services
• Flexible tax rate management
• 100% customizable design
• One-Click Upgrades
• Content Management

• Magento is also mobile optimized configuration and has flexible coupons and pricing tools for marketing promotion. It has the ability to restrict few of the stores and customer groups.

• Apart from the above benefits, through Magento one can also catalog the different pricing options, landing campaigns, shopping cart, cross sell pages and RSS feeds for the new products.

• Search Engine Optimization: Magento is friendlier to SEO and it gives full control to the user to rewrite the URLs and store the information through different meta-tag information system. A user can also auto generate the site map and the popular search term on the page.
• Check out features in the Magento include:

• Checkout of One-Page
• Support for SSL security
• Maintaining shipping addresses
• Account/Guest Checkout
• Shopping Cart estimates
• Accepting donation messages
• Saved Shopping Carts with configurable expiration time

• Shipping feature include:

• Account rates of UPS, UPS XML, Account rates FedEx, USPS and DHL
• Maintaining the shipping addresses
• Tracking onsite orders from customer accounts
• Maintaining multiple shipments against every order
• Specify the destination according to the countries n every method
• Shipping flat rate per order
• Shipping flat rate per item
• Free shipping facilities
• Offering table rates for destination and weights
• Offering table rates for destination and subtotals for products
• Offering table rates for destination and items

Payment Options

Magento is an e-commerce interface which can be configured to charge and authorize to create invoices as well as can be integrated along with different kinds of PayPal gateways such as PayPal PayFlow Pro, Website Payments Standard and others. Although Magento can be integrated with a lot of other devices, it is also compatible with Google Checkout.

Order Management

As far as order management is concerned, Magento can be used to view, create, edit as well as fulfill orders from the admin panel. It can also help create multiple invoices, shipments and credit memos to allow split fulfillment. It can also help in packing slips and print invoices.

VirtueMart can use both a private SSL certificate and a shared SSL certificate. Below you will find guidelines how to configure it depending on the certificate you want to use.

VirtueMart and Private SSL certificate

In the following article we assume that you have already purchased an ssl certificate. Now in order to configure VirtueMart to use Private SSL you should follow the instructions below:

1. Log in your VirtueMart site with the administrator’s username and pass

2. Enter the VirtueMart admin area by clicking on Admin link in the left menu

3. Click on Admin link in the top menu of the admin area and choose Configuration from the drop down menu

4. Click Path & URL tab

5. Change the SECUREURL setting from http://yourdomain.com to https://yourdomain.com

VirtueMart and shared SSL certificate

To configure VirtueMart to use the shared SSL certificate, please follow the steps 1 through 4 above. You just need to change the SECUREURL setting from http://yourdomain.com to https://serverip/~user, where the server IP is the IP of your host server and the user is the username you use to login to your CPanel. You can find your server IP and your cpanel user in Customer Area->Manage Accounts section-> Manage page of the account in question.

Please note that the shared SSL will result in warning pop-ups for the people checking out through your VirtueMart.

There are three basic forms of interfaces or platforms on which Joomla can be used. One is the intranet and the other two is the World Wide Web and Model-view-controller. Intranet is basically used to share information between different employees in the organization. People can transfer data and share information through internet protocol technologies. World Wide Web on the other hand allows publishing information through series of interlinked hypertext document. This interface is public where information is present as a cohesive model. Model-view-controller allows publishing, testing, maintenance and input of data through an independent data.

Joomla is a content management system which is used to retrieve edit and publish, and view data structuring on all the three above mentioned interfaces. It is an open source CMS. The scripting language of Joomla is mainly PHP while it allows to store the data in MySQL.

Joomla Features

A user can enjoy the following key features in Joomla. They can:

Content Management: Joomla is extensible and allows the user to configure their personal preferences through a registered system of nine user groups. On each of the nine user group configuration system, the user can access, publish, edit and administer. One of the chief protocols of using Joomla is authentication. It supports LDAP, Gmail and OpenID.

Media Management: Joomla has separate tool for accessing media fles and folders. You can handle any basic type of file and MIME type setting through Joomla.

Language Management: In Joomla you can access your information in multiple languages. You can even encode the system to publish information in one language while access in another i.e. the website language and the administrator panel language can be different.

Banner Management: Joomla allows the user to add as many banners as possible. They can also set up and create the client profile with different impressions, numbers and special URLs.

Contact Management: Joomla has a separate setting to access the contact information of the client or any customer. It also supports multiple contact forms

Web Link and Content Management: Apart from search management you can also manage weblinks through Joomla. Articles within Joomla can be arranged as a three tier system where you can organize the data and the content according to the basic necessity and use.

Apart from the above basic features Joomla allows the user to load the page with high speed and with a possible cache, module cache and GZIP compression of the page. You can also debug or troubleshoot the system interfaces in Joomla through FTP layer file operation system. This increases the security of the site.

Use of Joomla

Joomla can be installed into the host server manually. It supports PHP applications and requires experience as well as proper time to configure the basic applications of Joomla CMS. If a user as TunKey Joomla Appliance, they can install the package as a ready to use system. Joomla can also be installed through the Microsoft Platform installer or the Web PI. Numerous web hosting companies allows the user to automatically install Joomla into their domain.

What is Ajax?

Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a technology that allows a web page to perform actions or update dynamically, without completely reloading. By using Ajax technology, a web site can be more responsive and interactive than a non-Ajax site. For instance, without Ajax, Google Maps might require you to click a link on the left side of the map and wait for the page to reload in order to scroll the map to the left. With Ajax, you can instead simply drag the map to scroll, and while there might be a small delay, it is a much shorter delay and less disruptive process than if you had to wait for the entire page to load.

If you already know about Ajax, and want to use it in a plug-in you are developing, skip to AJAX in Plugins.

How does Ajax work?

Ajax technology is actually fairly simple to describe. Basically, the web programmer connects a link, button, or some other type of user interface element on the web page to a JavaScript program. When the user activates the interface (clicks on the link, drags the mouse, etc.), the JavaScript program sends some information or a request for data to a URL on the web server. Next, a program on the web server (probably also created by the web programmer) processes the request and sends back a response or some data. Typically the data is in XML format, but that is not actually required. When the data or response arrives in the browser, the JavaScript program receives an “asynchronous” notification, so that it can be processed or displayed appropriately.

Today, Ajax is supported in some form by most visual web browsers (though only if the user has JavaScript turned on). Of course, like most complex JavaScript, there are differences between how browsers implement JavaScript. However, these are not too difficult to overcome. The only real restriction on Ajax is that the URL you send the information has to be on the same web site as the URL the JavaScript came from. Other than that, the uses for the technology are only limited to what you can figure out how to program.

Because of its responsiveness, Ajax technology is being adopted by all sorts of web sites — and WordPress is no exception. Currently, the core of WordPress uses Ajax only in the administration screens. For instance, Ajax is used for instant updates when you are doing comment moderation, and when you are adding and deleting items from lists such as categories, blogroll, and posts; Ajax is also the technology behind the auto-save functionality on post and page editing screens.

Several themes and plugins also use Ajax; for instance, some post rating plugins use Ajax to store the visitor’s rating in the database and then display an updated average rating.