May 162012
 
openoffice-org-3-4-0-latest-news

Latest News: Finally Openoffice has released the long awaited stable version 3.4.0. You also have a choice of downloading LibreOffice which is designed in a very similar format to OpenOffice org.

OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 has been released. It is an open source office package just like Microsoft Office. The huge differences between both are the price tag. OpenOffice.org is free and Microsoft Office cost you an amount of dollars. You can’t compare both packages as Microsoft has a great reputation with it’s office package but if you can’t afford to spend the money buying Microsoft Office then I suggest that you try OpenOffice.org, you have noting to loose.

Just click OpenOffice.org if you wish to download the package. Also it is developed in many languages, so I am sure you can find it in your language. Best of all it can be used entirely free of any licence fees. OpenOffice.org is released under the LGPL licence. This means you may use it for any purpose – domestic, commercial, educational, public administration.

Another interesting factor is that you can also download the package in portable format from portableapps.com. If you have any questions in regards to OpenOffice.org, simply leave a comment here.

Mar 142012
 
fix-joomla-common-errors

The following are some of the most common errors you might come accross. This list will grow more so keep coming back.

 

  • I updated or created a new article, when I view it on my browser it has not changed. Some common solutions is to clear the cache on your broswer and the cache in the back-end of joomla Site >> Maintenance >> Global check in, Clear Cache and Purge Expired Cache. Have a look at the following image. Clear option 1, 2 and 3. Most of the time just clearing the cache in option 2 is more than enough.

 

Joomla Clear Cache

 

  • Running Joomla locally using xampp. Here is a great article that will help you and guide to troubleshoot some common errors that occur using xampp. Have a look at the following link setting up your work station for joomla development.
  • Infinite loop detected in jerror joomla 1.7, there are few reasons this could occur one of them being the tmp folder’s path is not set correctly and another could be the password is not type correctly in the configuration.php file. The following post tmp folder issue  is in regards to the tmp folder’s path being typed incorrectly in the joomla forum and the following link password issue is in regards to the password issue in the configuration.php file.
  • How to move your local joomla to a server, I came across this tutorial and I felt it would be great to add it here. The author shows you how to move your joomla installed locally in your computer to a live server. Click on hte following link move joomla from local to an online server.
  • Joomla 2.5.2 corrupted the editor and does not allow you to format articles. The solution is to change the admin textfilter tab in Global configuration page from “standard blacklist” to “no filtering”. That solves the problem.
Feb 222011
 

This is going to be a very simple tutorial teaching you, how to create a banner using Gimp. Simply follow these steps and you will gain knowledge in creating banners, editing or simply modifying using Gimp.

Step 1

Download the latest version of Gimp if you don’t already have it. By the way Gimp is open source and free. Please click on the following link http://www.gimp.org/ .

Step 2

Down load the following banner template. Open Gimp and locate your hotel-banner-template.png. The dimensions are 342 x 86 pixels and 5.88 kb in size. See image below.

Step 3

The next step is to remove the alpha channel so that we can see some white background, which makes it easy to add and edit. See image below.

Once the alpha channel has been removed you will see a white background. See image below.

Step 4

We are now going to open our image or photo, the one that will be inserted to the left hand side of the banner. See image  below.

Locate your image or photo and open it. I have opened the gimp banner image and placed it side by side with the banner template for you to see. You can use any image you like.  See image below.

Step 5

We are going to re-size the image so that we can insert it into the banner. Remember to keep in mind the height of the banner, which is 86 pixels. We will re-size the image to 82 pixels because we also have to compensate for the width of the border around the banner. In Gimp this is called Scale Image. See image below.

The image has been scaled to Width 97 and Height 82 pixels. See image below.

Step 6

We are going to select the image and paste it into the template image. See images below.

We select the image.

We paste the image and as you can see it is in the centre of the template image.

Step 7

We are going to select the image and use the move tool to move it to the left side of the banner. You have an option to round the image corners before you move it; this will allow the image to sit nice on the already round corners on the template. I have added round corners. See image below.

Step 8

Now we will add some text using the Text tool. See image below.

This is very important especially when you are describing what the banner is all about. In this case I am designing a banner for Gimp. Please notice that I have added the text and the settings on the right hand side for you to see. The text is aligned on the centre, the font size is 9 pixels, font type is Sans Bold and the colour is red. See image below.

Step 9

The banner is completed, the book now is for the pretend seminar coming up :) . See image below.