I am currently developing a Joomla! 1.6 extension to check your Joomla! site and installed extensions for basic security.

As of now, this is the list of security checks it will make:

• Joomla! site check for an index.html file in every directory under the Joomla! root path.
• Joomla! site check for ownership and permissions for every directory and file under the Joomla! root path.
• Joomla! site check for the existence of JExec or die in every .php file under the Joomla! root path.
• Extension check for an index.html file in every directory under both the site and admin extension path.
• Extension check for ownership and permissions for every directory and file under both the site and admin extension path.
• Extension check for the existence of JExec or die in every .php file under both the site and admin extension path.

The extension will keep a record of every test it makes and you will be able to view the history of each test to make it easy to see if you are making progress or not.

Also, planned for this extension in the future is:

• A directory of Joomla! extensions and a rating of how well they perform on each test.
• Publicly available user comments and critiques
• A desktop application that connects to JCheckSecurity and runs tests from outside Joomla!

I will have version 1 of this extension available by the end of August (2010).

The "Google Maps Restaurant Local Search" Joomla 1.5 extension uses the Google Maps API (v2) and Google Local Search API's to make searching for a good restaurant close to you (or anywhere in the world) very easy and fairly intuitive. You can view it in action at here. This component is not publicly available yet, but we will slightly rewrite it to make it more generic so it can be used by any Joomla 1.5 web master to integrate Google Maps, Google Local Search, and their own content and categories and release it when we have time.

 

The version of it running on the Bistro Blurb website is not written as an extension, but the same code was used to create the extension. We have also completed the Joomla 1.6 version of this extension, but don't have a public website to run it on yet..... still waiting for the Joomla 1.6 BETA version to be released.

 

Our "Google Maps Restaurant Local Search" component works by using the Google Maps API. We hide the Google Local Search box in favour of our own search setup, and feed the Google Local Search API using a combination of JavaScript and AJAX. The search is fed to our server, which makes up to 4 calls to the Google Local Search API, consolidates the results, adds a few fields from our own database, and passes it back to the web browser where our JavaScript code inserts it into the web page. This approach makes the page very responsive to the user, as they don't have to wait for page reloads when trying different searches to find the restaurant they want. You can also view our "Business Reviews" extension if you use this page, and click in the View Details link for one of the restaurants.

The Country State Extension for Joomla allows websites to add drop down select boxes to their user interfaces for entering countries, states or provinces. Not using Joomla? Registered users can generate and download the SQL statements to insert the countries and states into their own databases and use it with any website.

Users registered with this website can freely download the Country State Extension or MySQL, MSSQL compatible SQL code and it is always free to use for test or development websites. Use of the extension or the SQL code for a public website is only $2 per website.

The Country State extension is in use on bistroblurb.com right now. You can view it on the top right of almost every page on the site. We have not packaged it for general public release yet, but if you are looking for this functionality please register with our website, and send me a private message from your profile page. I'll put you on the list to be notified when I have installation ready. Thank you.