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Gmail as SMTP Host in Joomla 3.6.5

Make sure you have Google 2-Step Verification turned on: https://www.google.com/landing/2step/

As explained in this article: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833?hl=en, create an application specific password, "App Password", 'my-app-password' below, for your SMTP connection: https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords

Now you can use the following mail settings:

Mailer SMTP
SMTP Host smtp.gmail.com
SMTP Port 587
SMTP Security STARTTLS
SMTP Authentication Yes
SMTP Username This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
SMTP Password my-app-password

Details: Written by: Toivo Talikka; Category: Joomla; Published: 16 December 2016; Hits: 11011

Troubleshooting SMTP connection in Joomla 3.x

If your Joomla! site has issues in connecting to your SMTP mail server, it is possible to get a detailed log of all the messages exchanged between your Joomla site and the SMTP server. Inspecting this low level transaction log allows you to see what is going wrong between the two servers and then get your IT department or hosting provider to resolve any connectivity issues.

Go to Extensions - Plugins and configure the system plugin 'System - Debug' with the following settings:

Allowed Groups: Super Users
Log Priorities: All
Log Categories: mail
Log Almost Everything

Go to Global Configuration and turn on the debug option in the System tab - Debug Settings - Debug System.

20180425 debug settings

Go to the Server tab - Mail Settings and click the button Send Test Mail.

20180425 mail settings

The test result, success or failure, will then get displayed as a system message, but you can download the detailed log file 'everything.php' from the Joomla log folder, usually administrator/logs, or, if your site was installed much earlier, from the /logs folder in the main Joomla folder.

20180425 everything example

And this is the email we would like to receive from the website:

20180415 test mail

More about logging from the Joomla! Documentation at https://docs.joomla.org/Using_JLog

Details: Written by: Toivo Talikka; Category: Joomla; Published: 26 April 2018; Hits: 11869

Adding Time to Logged-In Users

The Joomla 3.x Control Panel shows a list of users who were active at the site, at the front end or the back end.

logged in before

The data is displayed by a module called Logged-in Users. In previous versions of Joomla the time of the last activity was also displayed for each user, which was useful. In version 3.x only the date is included. If you want to add the time back to the listing, it can be done easily in a template override. Here are brief instructions how to do that in Joomla 3.4.3, using the Isis administration template.

Copy the file administrator/modules/mod_logged/tmpl/default.php to administrator/templates/isis/html/mod_logged and edit line 44 there:

<span class="icon-calendar"></span> <?php echo JHtml::_('date', $user->time, JText::_('DATE_FORMAT_LC4')); ?>

Replace with this version:

If you do not want to hard code the date & time format into the layout, you can define your own format as a language constant in the Language Manager - Overrides.

Subsequent Joomla updates will not overwrite the override code but you need to maintain it, should something change in the core code.

Details: Written by: Toivo Talikka; Category: Joomla; Published: 10 July 2015; Hits: 13616

joomla

Viking Way - Part 2

Note: click the image to see a larger version of the photo in a popup.

Barnetby le Wold

The second part of The Viking Way starts from Barnetby le Wold, near the railway bridge. There is a car park next the station but it is reserved for staff and therefore street parking can be quite congested. Selfie time.

From Marsh Lane through wet fields

We thought that we took the direction the Viking Way sign was pointing to but that happened to be a wrong road. We walked over a mile all the way to the water treatment facility, Barnetby Sewage Works, before we decided to turn back towards Marsh Lane. A friendly farmer pointed us to the right direction and we started on the track through the fields.

This part proved to be most challenging because we wanted to keep our hiking boots dry and it had been raining a few days before.

However, an encounter with a friendly local made up for all the hardships with the wet track.

Village names ending in 'by'

In this region many villages have names ending in 'by'. This naming practice started during the rule of the Danes about a thousand years ago. Danelaw or the laws of the Danes were followed in the northern and eastern parts of England from the 9^th century until the 11^th century:

Bigby, Somerby, Searby, Grasby, Clixby

We continue walking on bridleways and public rights of way through fields. Some parts are still wet and some quite muddy at this time of the year.

Bigby

Somerby

Nettleton and The Salutation Inn

The second section of The Viking Way ends in Caistor, but we continue a couple of kilometres further to Nettleton, knowing that it will give us a chance to have a meal at The Solution Inn. As far as we had been able to find out, there was no practical bus connection we could have used from Caistor or Nettleton back to Barnetby le Wold Saturday afternoons, not even by changing to another bus or train. The pub in Nettleton would be the best place from where to organise a cab back to Barnetby. Both the meal and getting a cab turned out to be a great success.

Details: Written by: Toivo Talikka; Category: Viking Way; Published: 21 May 2018; Hits: 7113

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