About Web Development by Activo » CMS http://www.activoinc.com/blog Web Development in a Web 2.0 World Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:25:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 2009, the year of Open Source Software http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/01/07/2009-the-year-of-open-source-software/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/01/07/2009-the-year-of-open-source-software/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:15:23 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=176 We are lucky to live in our times. No, it is not fun going through (steep) downturn economy. But it is exciting to see the changes that such a recession will bring. One of the exciting changes that I predict for 2009 is a general boost to open source projects: increased usage and adoption by corporations while communities and ecosystems grow. Perhaps even to a point of competition with commercial products (in some cases). This is another question by itself: Can an open source project compete with a commercial product?

This year, 2009, we will see how open source projects will make huge strides and erase the gap with commercial projects, if not gain an advantage over them. Here is why:

1. Unbeatable Price: free! I know, it is not entirely true, you still need services around open source products and arguably more than in commercial products. But as the market learns to adopt more and more open source products the TCO can be lower with open source than commercial products, especially if you have the right team on your side.

2. Gain from the ‘wisdom of the crowd’, instead of wisdom of one as is often the case with commercial products. We see examples of this all over, in particular in the web development industry: Umbraco is gaining huge marketing share compared with Ektron. Magento Commerce is gaining huge market share over any other open source ecommerce platform and some of the low and mid-level commercial products in the ecommerce industry. Similar thing is happening with ASP.NET: the framework is now adopting the MVC design pattern mostly due to the fact that other platforms like Zend Framework and Ruby are free and product amazing websites. Top it off by the adoption of jQuery in almost any commercial web product today including ASP.NET framework which dumped AJAX.NET in favour of jQuery.

3. This is the sad-but-true part: developers are being laid off and hence join open source projects. It is known that the IT industry lags about 6 months after the indicators have come in, in other words, hi-tech layoffs will continue to come. In any case, more developers will be out of a job and will have plenty of time to collaborate and volunteer in open source projects – a great way to polish a resume…

To summarize, in 2009 we will see a great boost in open source adoption. Now, I am not saying that commercial products will not see any upside this year, but the competition will certainly be tougher then ever before. I am excited to see how it plays out. We certainly are going to focus our energies and our client’s energies on the leaders of each industry. You?

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/01/07/2009-the-year-of-open-source-software/feed/ 0 A list of CMS and eCommerce systems that officially support jQuery http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2008/12/07/a-list-of-cms-ecommerce-and-blogging-systems-that-officially-support-jquery/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2008/12/07/a-list-of-cms-ecommerce-and-blogging-systems-that-officially-support-jquery/#comments Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:49:48 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=155 Last updated: December 7th, 2008.

Recently, jQuery – the agile JavaScript Library – has reached a tipping point. Here is a list of CMS and eCommerce systems that our clients are most interested in and their status with regard to jQuery.

Systems where jQuery is officially supported:

1. Microsoft has adopted jQuery and will offer intellisense support in its dominant IDE: Visual Studio 2008.

2. Umbraco - an open source CMS now offers jQuery by default and using jQueryin Umbraco is a matter of adding a simple call in order to include the jQuery files in the page.

3. Drupal - is an open source CMS and Framework CMS, as of version 5 it offers jQuery streight from its core. There are plans to build a centralized jQuery plugin in Drupal version 7.

4. Typo3 - is an open source CMS Framework. Typo3 has a jQuery extension that allows advanced integration with jQuery.

5. DotNetNuke - an open source ASP.NET CMS. Since October 2008 DotNetNuke offers built in jQuery support beginning with version 5.

Systems where jQuery is not supported:

1. Joomla - seems to favor Mootools over jQuery. Here is an article on how to support jQuery within Joomla and avoid conflicts with other libraries.

2. Zend Framework – the leading PHP Framework following the MVC design pattern. A press release was issued in May 2008 announcing Zend Framework and Dojo partnership.

3. Magento Commerce – an open source eCommerce platform that is gaining huge market share in the eCommerce industry. Currently Magento Commerce supports prototype JS library instead of jQuery, but offers ways to integrate jQuery easily.

4. Zen-Cart - an open source eCommerce (competing with Magento). At the moment Zen-Cart is not supporting any JavaScript library in its core.

Other systems and their relationship to jQuery:

1. WordPress - an open source blogging software. Uses jQuery for its core functionality and is avilable for any third party plugin.

2. Ektron CMS400 – Ektron has an enterprise level CMS with advanced content editing features. Oddly enough, Ektron seems to have embedded their own version of jQuery in their code.

While jQuery seems to be favored the favored JavaScript library by many developers, it has yet to be declared as the default one for many projects and systems. I’ll be keeping this list updated in the following months. Let me know if there is a system that interests you and I did not list it here.

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2008/12/07/a-list-of-cms-ecommerce-and-blogging-systems-that-officially-support-jquery/feed/ 2 Securing Joomla! CMS based sites http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2008/12/03/securing-joomla-cms-based-sites/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2008/12/03/securing-joomla-cms-based-sites/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:00:58 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=149 Looks like turbulent water in the Joomla Security Forums, again. Let’s ignore this and focus on securing a Joomla installation:

1. Set the right file and folder permissions according to the Joomla guide:

Once your site is configured and stable, write-protect critical directories and files by changing directory permissions to 755, and file permissions to 644. There is a feature in Site –> Global Configuration –> Server to set all folder and file permissions at once. Test third party extensions afterwards, and carefully review the code of any extension that has trouble with such settings. Note: Depending on your server’s permissions, you may need to temporarily reset to more open permissions when installing more extensions with the Joomla! installer.

2. Think twice before installing an extension – do you really need it? Most security vulnerabilities come from third party extensions. Especially ones that are pre-release or ones that have not been updated lately.
3. Upgrade to the latest stable version of Joomla. The core team is hard at work for the community partly addressing security bugs and issues found. If you run a site based on an old version of Joomla – you are at risk because the security issues are well documented and available for anyone by exploring the tracker.
4. Change your admin username. Very basic security tip that is recommended for almost every server out there.
5. Avoid shared servers. Virtual hosting is great if you are not in a position to afford a VPS or a full dedicated server, but it is not secure.
6. Protect your DB. Use a user other than the root, and do not allow connections from outside the machine. Even better, block the MySQL port completely.
7. Use an SSL. Simple, when you login and submit your username and password without an SSL, the information is not encrypted between you and the server. Potentially dangerous for packet sniffing exploits or in todays world, if you decide to work from a WiFi/Hot Spot.
8. Separate your development from the production server. Avoid unclean code or left overs that may leave a back door.

9. Remove unnecessary files from the site: remove the XML RPC server part of Joomla if you are not planning on using it. This service allows desktop applications to post directly to the site. Essentially providing access via this protocol. And if you just moved the site from another server delete the zipped files, since they contain your passwords in an unencrypted form!

10. Monitor the logs for hack attempts. Who is trying to login to the administrator section when I was eating my turkey? :) you get the idea…

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