brandondawson.org

I’ve constantly had this problem, as I’ll often want to replace the “Joomla default” feeds with Feedburner. I finally came across a solution on the Joomla forums that worked really well, and I wanted to share it here for posterity, as it involves simply applying an SQL query to suppress display of the feed functionality across all menu items.

Therefore, it requires no hacking of core files or adding any new modules or components. I’ve extended the version on the J! forums by adding instructions for doing this from the command line on a LAMP server.

How to globally suppress or disable the core RSS in Joomla 1.5

1.) Edit your template and include a link to your Feedburner or other alternative RSS feed.
From here, I’ll provide two sets of instructions: One for those with phpMyAdmin, one for those with only shell access.

phpMyAdmin

2.) Open your database within the phpMyAdmin application.
3.) Export your database so that you have a backup.
4.) Click on the SQL tab, and insert the following query:
update jos_menu set params = replace(params, 'show_feed_link=1', 'show_feed_link=0')
5.) Click “Go”.

CLI method

2.) Open your shell.
3.) Dump your database so you have a backup in case things go sideways.
mysqldump -u your_database_username_here -p your_database_name_here > your_database_name.sql
4.) Run this command to run the appropriate query:
mysql -u your_database_username_here -p your_database_name_here -e "update jos_menu set params = replace(params, 'show_feed_link=1', 'show_feed_link=0')"

My man Mike Seril, a renowned, award-winning Los Angeles based personal trainer, is starting his “Don’t Doubt Me!” Boot Camp, which provides a group-oriented approach to fitness training, bringing folks together to form a support structure while undergoing group training.

Mike’s a former NCSA Personal Trainer of the Year, so he knows his stuff.

If you’re still trying to get rid of 2005’s holiday pounds, Mike’s the man you want to call.

Nobody should be wondering what is wrong with Western Civilization, and why it seems to be failing, when the entire world drops what it is doing to listen to a golfer apologize for cheating on his wife.

The massive amount of coverage given this silly matter tells us that Tiger Woods’ relationship with his wife and his almighty corporate sponsors is more important to people than:

• In America, the question of whether 100% of people will be provided some form of medical coverage
• The question of what would drive a man to completely snap and fly a plane into a building –and what we should do or think about it.
• The question of whether war with Iran is inevitable
• The question of whether the US is treating its Marines to cancer-causing water
• What to do about our looming housing crisis (which is inexplicable, considering the glut in supply)

To say nothing of more mundane concerns, such as kids’ education, what to do about corroding local tax bases that are making infrastructure improvements impossible without massive federal funding, how to bring government budgets under control….you name it, our society deems a golfer’s staged mea culpa more important.

Sometimes, this society we live in really disgusts me.

Athena Internet’s Promo Code Sherlock contest is still in full swing, but now two out of the top three prizes have been awarded. Zach R. of Ann Arbor Michigan scored 1 year free website hosting with the promo code IMSORRYDAVE.

And it’s interesting that both the runners-up come from the two epicenters of College Football’s biggest rivalry, Ohio State vs. Michigan!

In other news, we’ve revealed all the 15% discount promo codes, so that folks know if they’ve got a code that isn’t listed, it’s of a higher value. Combined with our automatic 25-percent-off 6THBIRTHDAY code, that means without even looking for bigger codes, customers can save 40% right now on our hosting packages!

And of course, our Grand Prize Winner, who will receive 5 FULL YEARS of FREE PREMIUM WEBSITE HOSTING, is still yet-to-be-determined! So, if you’re holding out on winning free hosting, your time is running out!

Congratulations to Zach, and our thanks to one and all who have participated in the promotion.

It might not be Cincinnati Reds GM Walk Jocketty to whom the credit accrues for the coup of the offseason: the Reds’ signing of left-handed Cuban wunderkind Aroldis Chapman.

But, you’ve gotta hand it to Jocketty, nonetheless: all winter long, Reds fans –as well as the rest of the baseball world– had been quietly wondering about the complete, total, and utter absence of transaction activity on the Reds’ part.

And now we know why. So basically, that weird sense of calm Jocketty had been exuding now makes sense: why get hot-and-bothered about the free agent market –populated mainly by aging stars with outsized asking prices or by no-name journeymen– when you can sign a left-handed kid with a triple-digit fastball?

6 hours in, we have our first winner for Athena Internet’s Promo Code Sherlock promotion.

Congratulations to Kevin P. of Columbus, Ohio, tracked down JOSHUASGHOST and takes the 1st Runner Up, which is 2 years of our Premium Personal Website Hosting.

Congrats, Kevin!

For those keeping score, there’s still 2 grand prizes, as well as TONS of promotional codes good for discounts of 10-50%!

We’ve launched our first big promotional campaign for consumer-level website hosting in our company’s history today!

We’re calling it “Promo Code Sherlock“, and it works like this:

Throughout our site, we’ve hidden promotional codes worth between 10% and 50% off on our website hosting services. These codes vary considerably in how hard they are to find, and they expire after a set number of uses in each case.

In addition, we’ve hidden three special codes that unlock one, two, and FIVE years of free Premium Personal website hosting service, respectively. These codes will require some additional sleuthing to figure out, even after you’ve found them!

We hope that it ends up being a fun thing for everyone involved! Be sure to spread the word!

(And yes, I was painfully self-conscious at blowing my own trumpet so ostentatiously here!)

A little tip here: If you’re getting this message when trying to log into Plesk Billing via Plesk:

Warning: fopen(/var/log/sso/sso.log) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /usr/local/sso/lib/Log.php on line 24 FATAL ERROR: Can not open log file ‘/var/log/sso/sso.log’ (CWD is /usr/local/sso)

This would seem to be being caused by changing the hostname, for which Plesk Billing generates an automatic self-signed SSL certificate for. Attempting to re-register the hostname using the /usr/local/psa/bin/sso utility is useless in this context, as it keeps beating up against the entrenched cert.

To remedy, simply:
1.) Back up your Plesk Billing database
2.) command: yum remove plesk-billing
3.) Re-add Plesk Billing via the Plesk Updater

I’m not blind to the benefits of drones, and I’m not blind to the sobering realities of aerial survivability in the early moments of a conflict with a modern military. But, as this Wired article demonstrates, we can’t let ourselves think that we can rely entirely on joystick-wielding Nintendo jockeys either.

I think this will be revealed as only the tip of the iceberg with regards to the way these drones can be exploited. Security pro-tip, kids: if you can access and control something from remote, so can the other guy, it’s just a matter of how long it takes him to figure out how to do it.

So, it seems to me that maybe drones are like anti-biotics: the more you use them, and the more the enemy gets to learn about them, the less effective and more dangerous they become.