The Moon

The moon a week before full moon. Photographed using a basic consumer telescope as the lens, but the scarred surface of the moon is clearly visible.

Full Moon

The moon at it's fullest. Taken using a basic consumer telescope the pitted surface of our moon is clearly visible including the fallout surrounding larger craters.

There are small, bright points of light visible in some places. These are due to asteroid and debris impacts creating glass which then reflects the suns light.

AutoAuth Plugin

AutoAuth is a plugin designed to display a form button alongside retrieved credentials so
that a user can click a single button to login to the specified system.

It uses POST data, so only currently works with systems that use a webform for login, and
won't work with any system requiring a unique form token to be specified (such as Joomla!)

Full documentation available at

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/documentation/phpcredlocker/plugins/167-autoauth

Linux For Business People

Linux for Business People is intended to introduce Linux to those involved in selecting systems for businesses to use. It is not, per se, aimed at IT staff instead at the decision makers above them.

The first section of the book provides practical experience of using Linux based systems, whilst the final half examines the experiences of companies already using Linux.

The two sections of the book have been kept completely distinct (i.e. you need not read the practical section to understand the Business Case sections), and are (hopefully) written in a way that will be understandable to even the most tech-illiterate of mangers.

Also available on Amazon Kindle.

2021: You can access the book here.

 

 

A Linux SysAdmins Guide to Mischief

This book is designed to give Sysadmins some entertainment in the form of winding users up (in a non-destructive manner). The book contains tricks ranging from puerile to annoying, all designed for those administering Linux workstations to play on those using Linux workstations!

All are achievable remotely, allowing the Sysadmin to sit back and listen for the sounds of frustration safely out of range of flying staplers. Intended as an exercise in humour, it should provide Sysadmins with some entertainment. Don't expect it to beat a Friday afternoon read of Bootnotes and Odd's n Sod's though!

It's a pretty short book, hence the low price.

 

2021: You can access the book here.

Joomshopping OBRSS plugin

JoomShopping for ObRSS is a plugin for the latest versions of ObRSS allowing you to create an RSS feed containing product information.

 

The documentation details use and configuration of the plugin, however the basic feature list is as follows

  • Filter by one or more categories
  • Filter by one or more manufacturers
  • Filter by one or more Labels (e.g. 'New')
  • Display short or long description
  • Display (or hide) Price, SKU, Manufacturer
  • Include a button linking straight to the product
  • Include an Add-to-Cart button

This product is no longer under active development (or support), however, as of May 2017, you can now download the plugin from Github

mod_BGithubfeed


Mod_BGithub is a simple module allowing you to embed commit details in a Joomla! site. It uses the GitHub API to retrieve repository information including commits and issues. It can also retrieve user information and display a (very) basic user profile, including a list of the user's public repositories.

The module supports both Joomla! 2.5 and Joomla 3.x and allows for filtering of all displayed information.

There are three pre-configured styles: Chromed, Light and Dark. The latter two are very simple but provide a good starting point for those who want to style the module themselves.

This module is available for free on Github, however the free version comes with no support. Purchase includes 12 months support

The full feature list is below, (configuration options are detailed in the documentation

General

  • All layouts can be loaded individually, or all-in-one
  • 3 Preconfigured CSS styles
  • Limit displayed entries
  • Customisable date display format

 

Commits

  • Display of a commit authors Gravatar
  • Link back to the commit and the code tree
  • Link back to Commit author's profile
  • Displays the commit comment

 

Issues

  • Overview of issue displayed in a tooltip
  • Issue label (bug/enhancement etc displayed)
  • Link back to author's GitHub profile
  • Filtering by issue status (Can display all issues, open issue or closed issues)
  • Issue status displayed in front-end

 

User

  • Display user's Gravatar
  • Link back to user's blog
  • Display a link of the users repositories (including the primary language)
  • Exclude Repos by name

 

Mod_BTwitter

NOTE: V2 includes an update to implement support for V1.1 of the Twitter API

 


Mod_BTwitter is, by design, an incredibly simple Twitter feed module - Designed for Joomla 2.5 and Joomla 3.x The idea is that it contains sufficient to display tweets on a Joomla based site, without adversely affecting page load speed or insisting on lot's of un-necessary chrome. The three key aims when creating this module were to create a module that

  • Doesn't slow page loads
  • Doesn't contain un-necessary chrome
  • Displayed a users timeline, linking to all URLs, mentions and hashtags

The documentation contains a far better description of what can be configured, however as a brief summary, mod_BTwitter supports

  • Light and Dark Styles
  • Use (or expansion) of t.co URLs
  • Customisable date formats
  • Display of Profile Pic (can be disabled)
  • Direct link to Status Update
  • Display of a 'follow' button
  • Multi-lingual support (partially implemented, no back-end support at this time)
  • Support for caching

This module allows you to display your Twitter feed anywhere on your site, as inline HTML (although the follow button does require an iframe) allowing Search Engines to include that information when they crawl your site.

Mod_CatImplode for Joomla


Mod_CatImplode is a Joomla module designed to display all articles within a com_content category as one indexed article. It was designed to increase the manageability of API documentation, as it allows each section to be maintained as a separate article (with the added benefit that users can choose to view a specific section, or the entire documentation).


The documentation details the use and configuration of the module, however the basic feature list is;

  • Auto creation of a Table of Contents, including H3's within article content
  • Auto creation of named anchors for easy navigation of large documents
  • Inclusion of basic Schema.org microdata
  • Ability to add custom Schema.org markup through meta tags

You can view mod_CatImplode in use on Vehicle Fuel Tracker

Mod_GoogPlus Feed


Mod_GoogPlusFeed is a simple module designed to embed your (public) Google+ posts into a Joomla! site. It allows visitors and search-engines to see your latest posts.


The core principles when building the module were

  • Shouldn't slow page loads
  • Shouldn't contain un-necessary chrome
  • Should display posts to Google+

The documentation details the use and configuration of the module in more depth, however as a summary the module supports

  • Light and Dark themes
  • Customisable Date display formats
  • Direct link to Post
  • Direct link to Google+ profile
  • Support for caching
  • Display of posts within a Google Community

The module comes with a pre-configured Google+ API key, however it is recommended that you follow the steps in the documentation to create your own.

You can view Mod_GoogPlusFeed on my About Me page.

 

New in Version 1.4

  • Version 1.4 merges the Joomla! 2.5 and Joomla! 3.x versions, so the same package works on either version
  • The module can now send a RPC Pingback to Google whenever your Google+ feed changes (see documentation for more information)

 

mod_livingstreets for Joomla 1.5 (Free)

LivingStreets is a national (UK) charity that "stands up for pedestrians", working to create safe attractive and enjoyable streets.

This free module interfaces with the Living Streets Site to capture walking statistics for display on a Joomla website. Stats for individuals are not currently available, though they are planned for a future release.

All that's required is to set your Company name as it appears on LivingStreets.org.uk and to set how you want your company name to appear on your site.

 

To download the Joomla 1.5 Version click here.

mod_livingstreets V1.1 for Joomla 2.x and 3.x (Free)

LivingStreets is a national (UK) charity that "stands up for pedestrians", working to create safe attractive and enjoyable streets.

This free module interfaces with the Living Streets Site to capture walking statistics for display on a Joomla website. Stats for individuals are not currently available, though they are planned for a future release.

All that's required is to set your Company name as it appears on LivingStreets.org.uk and to set how you want your company name to appear on your site.

 

To download the Joomla 2.5 Version click here.

To download the Joomla 3.x Version click here.

mod_lotto

Mod_lotto is a Joomla module (also known as LottoPredict) designed to display and check results from the UK's National Lottery and Thunderball games. 

Uses the Public API key for LottoPredict, but supports personal keys too.

Supports Joomla 2.5, does not support 1.5.

 

Features

  • Main Lotto Draw Results
  • Euromillions Results
  • Thunderball Results
  • Lucky Dip Generation
  • Check Results against last 6 months of draws

Mod_yourData

Mod_yourData is a simple module designed to show visitors exactly what data your Joomla! 2.5 or 3.x site is storing in their browser.

It can be assigned to a custom module position and embedded into your privacy policy using loadposition, or used as you would any other Joomla! module.

The module includes support for displaying the name and value of

  • Cookies
  • Session Storage Objects
  • Locally Stored Objects

The user is able to click displayed objects to delete them from their browser (Note: some cookies aren't accessible with Javascript and so can't be deleted - these are assigned a specific CSS class).

The module configuration options allow you to specify some text to display before the items are listed, as well as to disable any element of the module (including the ability to click and remove).

By default, the module displays a 'Powered By' notice, however this can be disabled in the module configuration.

Summary of features

  • Support for cookies, Session and Local Storage objects
  • Support for one-click removal of displayed items
  • Ability to easily disable the 'Powered By' notice

Send Custom Headers

Send Custom Headers is a plugin for Joomla 2.5 and Joomla 3 allowing you to conditionally send custom HTTP Headers and cookies. Its primary design is to allow easy implementation of Reverse Proxy Caching with caching of certain pages disabled.

The plugin has the following features;

  • Rule based processing
    • Send Header(s)/Cookie(s) only when a user is (or isn't) logged in
    • Only send on Front-end, or back-end or both
    • Force enable/disable when connection is SSL
    • Force enable/disable for certain URLs
    • Force enable/disable for certain components
  • Support for multiple headers
  • Support for multiple cookies
  • Easy Debug mode

You should read the documentation (and the warnings within) before enabling the plugin on your site. However the plugin will install in an unpublished state, giving you the opportunity to correctly configure it before enabling

This plugin is no longer actively supported, and so can now be obtained (for free) from my Public Repos

Sitemap Update Ping

Sitemap Update Ping is a plugin for Joomla 2.5 and Joomla 3.x. It sends a ping to various search engines, notifying them that your sitemap has been updated and should be refreshed (leading to the new content being crawled).

You can view the plugin documentation here

You can configure whether pings are sent for modifications, or only for new content.

Currently supported are

  • Google
  • Bing
  • Moreover Technologies

As of XMLRPCPLG-4, Sitemap Update Ping is considered EOL, and no support is offered. However, the codebase is made available here and here for those who want to install it.