Category: Web Development

How to remove the “Welcome to the Frontpage” title in Joomla 1.5

If you install a new installation of Joomla! 1.5 on your server, you will see the “Welcome to the Frontpage” title on your Frontpage. It took me awhile to figure out how to change this. Here is how you do it:

Go to your Joomla! 1.5 Administration site and login. In your administration site go to:

  • Menus – Main Menu (now you are in: Menu Item Manager: mainmenu).
  • Click on ‘Home’ link to edit this link (you are now in: Menu Item: Edit).
  • Click on Parameters System and change or delete the Page title.
    • If you change the Page title, the changed title will be displayed on your Frontpage as a title.
    • If you delete the Page title, the menu link name will be displayed on your Frontpage as a title (in the this case “Home” will be displayed as title, because “Home” is the name of the link to the Frontpage).
    • If you don’t want to display any title, set Show Page Title below Page title parameter to “No”.
  • Don’t forget to save the changes.

Screenshot of Joomla frontpage title setting

How to Change the Favicon For a Joomla 1.5 Website

The favicon used for a Joomla 1.5 web page is located in the directory for the template which the web page is currently using. For example, if the website template you are using is named “foo” then the favicon.ico file will be located at “/templates/foo/favicon.ico”. Simply replace that favicon.ico file with your custom favicon.ico file and any page that uses the template will display your new favicon. If your website uses multiple templates, then be sure to replace the favicon.ico file for each template your website uses.

If you change your favicon and it doesn’t immediately change when you refresh your web page, try deleting your web browser’s cache. You can also try loading the favicon.ico file directly in your browser to “force” your browser to update it’s cached copy of the image. To load the favicon file directly use the URL http://www.yourwebsite.com/templates/foo/favicon.ico. Change the template directory name to whatever template you are using on your website.

If you need help generating a new favicon.ico file there is a great website which allows you to upload a picture and the website will convert the picture to a favicon.ico file for you. Here is a link to the website.

Joomla logo

Free Computer Programming Training From Google Code University

Google Code University offers free training for computer programming. The training consists of a website which contains training materials such as slide shows, videos, and problem solving sets. Here is an excerpt from the Google training website which describes the training offered:

This website provides tutorials and sample course content so CS students and educators can learn more about current computing technologies and paradigms. In particular, this content is Creative Commons licensed which makes it easy for CS educators to use in their own classes.

The Courses section contains tutorials, lecture slides, and problem sets for a variety of topic areas:

  • AJAX Programming
  • Distributed Systems
  • Web Security
  • Languages

In the Tools 101 section, you will find a set of introductions to some common tools used in Computer Science such as version control systems and databases.

The CS Curriculum Search will help you find teaching materials that have been published to the web by faculty from CS departments around the world. You can refine your search to display just lectures, assignments or reference materials for a set of courses.

Here is a link to the Google Code University website: Link

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PHP – Code to Display Request and Post Variables

Sometimes while debugging a PHP application it is handy to display request and post variables. Here is the code that will do that:

foreach($_POST as $var=>$val)
{
 echo "$var=$val";
}

Replace POST with SESSION and it’ll work for the session variables. You can do the same with GET, but probably don’t need it.