Web Hosting Blog From Pixel Internet » Hosting Tutorials

Change Magento admin folder name

Steve — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 08:00:41 +0000

Those of you who use Magento will know that the admin folder is located at /admin. Because this location is so ‘obvious’, it can invite potential attacks from people wanted to gain access to your administration panel.

Because of this we advise all Magento customers to rename their admin folder to something a little less obvious. Its very easy to do and below I will explain just how to do it.

Renaming Magento Admin Folder

Using your favorite HTML editor open the file app/etc/local.xml

Scroll down to around line 57 and you will see “[CDATA[admin]”

Change ‘admin‘ to the new name you want to use for your admin location. In this exmple I am going to call it hiddenadmin, so it should then look like this:

[CDATA[hiddenadmin]

Now re-upload the file to your server space.

To see the change you will need to clear your Magento cache, to do that go to var/cache/ and delete everything in it.

Your done, good times…

Installing Magento, Magento Installation

Doug — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:12:02 +0000

Installing Magento on your Pixel Internet web hosting space is straight forward, however there are a few simple processes you need to follow for a successful install. This tutorial demonstrates how to install Magento to your root folder.

1) Download the latest version of Magento from http://www.magentocommerce.com/download .

2) Check system requirements – we have all the relevant versions and extensions installed so no problem there.

3) Upload the zip file to your web space. Transfer the zip file to your site, making sure you place the zip file within your public_html folder. We recommend using an FTP client software such as Core FTP (You can download this from download.com) or our own File Manager via your host control panel (you can access you FTP settings via your host control panel or your welcome email which you would have received when opening your account).

4) Download this handy script, unzip the file and upload the two files to your public_html folder. Navigate to ‘yoursite.com/index.php’ in your browser. You will be prompted to create a user name and password, you will then be able to unzip the Magento zip file (an alternative is to unzip the files on your PC then upload them, but it will take a lot longer to upload all the files).

4) Create a brand new mySQL database. Within the Host control panel, to access this area login to your CP and select ‘manage hosting’, then your domain. This will open the host control panel, from there you can select ‘MySQL Databases’ and follow the on screen instructions. When you create your database make note of the settings (during the Magento install wizard you’ll need the host (localhost), user id, password and db name).

5) Contact our support team and ask to ask to allow ‘CREATE TEMP TABLE’ permissions on the database (we turn this off by default for security reasons)

6) Set the permissions. In Core FTP or via the File Manager you can right click on the file and change the permissions of each file or directory (other ftp programs will be similar and may refer to is as CHMOD).

755
/public_html/var/.htaccess,
/public_html/app/etc
/public_html/var,
/public_html/media (and all folders under media)
/public_html/index.php
/public_html/

7) Edit the file /public_html/.htaccess and add the following:

################
php_flag short_open_tag on

################

Create a new text file within /public_html/ called php.ini
put the following in this file:
php_flag short_open_tag on

(more information on creating a custom php.ini file can be found here – create a custom php.ini file)

9) Double check everything then go to your website, eg. http://www.yoursite.com/ and you should see the installation wizard.

You will need to skip domain authentication and turn on SEO friendly URL rewriting in the wizard on the page where you enter the mySQL information.

10) When your done you should then download this file upload the script to the directory where you installed Magento and then navigate in your browser to: yourwebsite/magento-cleanup.php

This will re-set the permissions for your admin area (which fixes a lot of issues people have).

Note: You may sometimes see an error on the first page but press F5 and it will continue.

Note: If you haven’t already, you will need to delete our default holding page (index.html)

If you still have issues installing Magento, simply raise a support ticket and we’ll be happy to help.

Don’t forget if you get stuck along the way, just contact our support team who will be more than happy to help!

Website Builder Plus Tutorial – How to use Site Builder

Doug — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:43:16 +0000

Our Website Builder Plus software is now more popular that ever!

Even though the web builder software is extremely easy to use and designed for beginners / people with little or now experience, we still want to ensure that those of you who want to get the most out of the software…. can!

That’s why we are encouranging anyone who purchases our fantastic Web Site Builder software, downloads and reads our PDF Website Builder User Guide.

If you haven’t seen or heard about this fantastic web builder software, find out more and even try our online web builder demo!

Click here to download the website builder users guide

Website Builder Plus

How do I query a MySQL database from a PHP script?

Doug — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:25:51 +0000

In todays web hosting tutorial we are going to cover :

How do I query a MySQL database from a PHP script?

Use the following outline to connect and begin querying the MySQL server from within your PHP scripts. Remember if you are a Pixel Internet customer you cannot connect to your databases remotely for security reasons; you can only connect from localhost.

1. Connect to the MySQL Server

Use the following statement to connect to the database server. Substitute the ‘username’ and ‘password’ for those that have been created in your control panel and have given adequate permissions to this database.

mysql_connect(‘localhost’,'USERNAME’,'PASSWORD’);

2. Select Your Database

Use the following statement to select the database you wish to connect to. Make sure you substitute your database name.

mysql_select_db(“DATABASENAME”);

3. Executing A Query

You are now ready to execute your queries. Most problems that arise with your scripts will be caused by incorrect permission settings or syntax errors within the code.

Thats it!

Setting “register_globals” to ON in PHP

Doug — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:41:42 +0000

You can create your own php.ini file inside whatever sub-directory your script is in. You can then determine the exact behaviour for your PHP scripts yourself.

There’s a lot of documentation on how to use the various configuration features inside php.ini online at .

In this case, to set “register globals” on, you can just create a file called “php.ini” in the subdirectory of your website that the script is in, simply saying:

register_globals = on

How to create a custom php.ini file

Doug — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:11:21 +0000

There are some variables in the php.ini file that can be overwritten, a common request is how to change the PHP file upload limit.

You can do this by creating a custom php.ini file in the directory you want to use (where your script resides).

Here is an example;

On your computer open a new document in Notepad, inside enter the command;

upload_max_filesize = 5M
post_max_size = 5M

(this example shows the limit being set to 5MB, you can change this to your required max file/post size.

Then save the file and name it php.ini and upload it to the directory where your scripts reside.

For PHP5, use php5.ini instead of php.ini.

Clearing your browser cache in Internet Explorer

Doug — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:13:46 +0000

This tutorial shows you how to clear your browser cache in Internet Explorer. This is particularly useful if you have noticed your PC become ‘sluggish’ when browsing the internet – a clear indication that your PC is storing too many files.

This is because the browser cache serves to store a copy of each web page you visit on your PC’s hard drive, it does this to speed up page loading times by not having to download each element every time you visit the page. This feature is very useful, but over time can cause your computer to slow down.

Open Microsoft Internet Explorer, click ‘Tools‘ in the top left corner, then click ‘Internet Options‘.

A window will pop open. First select the ‘Delete Cookies‘ button.

Another little window will pop up. Select ‘OK‘.

Then select ‘Delete Files’.

Another window will pop up, make sure you have ‘Delete all offline content‘ ticked.
Select ‘OK‘.

Then click the ‘OK‘ button near the bottom. This may take a few minutes to complete, so be patient.

Your browser cache has now been cleared. It is good practice at this point to reboot your computer.

If you use a different method or you’re having difficulties following this tutorial, please feel free to add your comments.

Publishing your website via FTP using Frontpage 2003

Doug — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:16:29 +0000

We are pleased to present another Pixel Internet video tutorials. In this tutorial we show you how to publish your website via FTP using Frontpage 2003.

Open the ‘Publishing your website via FTP using Frontpage 2003‘ tutorial.

Please note: The tutorial will open in a new window and requires a Flash plugin to be viewed. If you cannot view the tutorial, follow this link to download the Flash plugin.

Website Builder Plus

Setting up email accounts in Outlook Express

Doug — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:23:29 +0000

Probably one of our most frequently asked questions is “how do I configure my email using Outlook Express?”

So here is the Pixel Internet tutorial!

To setup Outlook Express to work with your mail account please follow these instructions.

Start Outlook Express and select the Tools menu. From here select ‘Accounts’.

In the window that appears press the ‘Add’ button and then select ‘Mail…’

Enter your name as you would like it to appear to people who receive emails from you. Then click ‘Next’.

Enter the email address that you want to use and that you have setup with your domain. Then click ‘Next’.

Now you need to enter your incoming and outgoing servers. For the incoming server you should enter mail.’yourdomain.com’ – substituting your own domain name for yourdomain.com. For the outgoing mail you should also enter mail.’yourdomain.com’ as before. Then click Next.

To finish you need to enter your username (which is your full email address) and password for your mail account. You can view your username and password in your piXel control panel. Once entered please click Next and then Finish.

To allow you to send mail through our mail server you now need to make a small change to the properties of the account. Select ‘properties from the Accounts’ window:

You need to click the tick-box that says ‘My server requires authentication‘ and then click the ‘OK’ and ‘Close’.

You can now send and receive emails!

Remember if you experience any problems you can contact our support team via your control panel.