Birmingham Lord Mayor’s Comedy Evening

What a great night we had last night at the Birmingham Lord Mayor’s Comedy Evening. Held Thursday 19th March 2015 at the Venue | Extraordinary Event Space previously known as “The Centennial Centre” at 100 Icknield Port Road, Birmingham, West Midlands B16 0AA.

The night was organised to raise funds for the Lord Mayors Charity, this year supporting Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Focus Birmingham, SIFA Fireside and Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The event will also raise money in support of the Birmingham China Town Lions Club (David Cox Heath and Care Awareness Appeal).

The event organiser Clive Stone is a long-servicing member of the Lord Mayor’s Charity Committee and he certainly did an amazing job. The event started with a Fun Casino (hosted by the Grovesnor Casino) and Reception followed by a superb 3 course meal which was lovely.

Comedy entertainer Mike Farrell kicked everything off then a charity auction was held followed by acts from Dave Bryon and Paul Zerdin. There was also a raffle and at the end of the night it was announced that over £10,000 was raised.

Birmingham Lord Mayors Comedy Night

Birmingham Lord Mayor

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lord mayors comedy night page 6-2

Grovesnor Casino Birmingham

The Venue Edgbaston

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Opencart Redirect “index.php?route=common/home” to main page

We thought we would share with you a nice way to clean up your home page URL when using Opencart.

For example the standard Opencart home page is defined as:-

http://www.chameleonwebservices.co.uk/index.php?route=common/home

For SEO reasons and to look nice and clean, it is good to set up a 301 redirect to the main domain name which would make the home:-

http://www.chameleonwebservices.co.uk/

To do this you can use .htacess and simply add the following:-

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^route=common/home$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !^POST$
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}? [R=301,L]

Opencart system/library/encryption.php on line 8

We discovered this today and thought we would share it to help others find a solution quicker.

We have moved a client using OpenCart from a shared hosting server to a new VPS server.

Moving OpenCart Installation To New Server

  1. Backup current site files to local machine using FTP.
  2. Upload site files to new hosting server using FTP.
  3. Copy Database of current site.
  4. Create a new database on the new server.
  5. Import the database from the backup.
  6. Change the config files to ensure you have the correct information.
    1. DB_HOSTNAME
    2. DB_USERNAME
    3. DB_PASSWORD
    4. DB_DATABASE
  7. Change the config files directory structure information.
    1. DIR_APPLICATION
    2. DIR_SYSTEM
    3. DIR_DATABASE
    4. DIR_LANGUAGE
    5. DIR_TEMPLATE
    6. DIR_CONFIG
    7. DIR_IMAGE
    8. DIR_CACHE
    9. DIR_DOWNLOAD
    10. DIR_LOGS
  8. Edit you local DNS to check the site is working forcing your PC to view the website domain name at the new server.
    1. Edit Hostfile “C:\windows\system 32\drivers\etc\hosts
    2. add server IP ADDRESS ***.***.***.*** and then the domain name with and without www.

Example:-

127.0.0.1 chameleonwebservices.co.uk

127.0.0.1 www.chameleonwebservices.co.uk

Now test the site and hopefully all works.

Error: Opencart system/library/encryption.php on line 8

We got the following error “Fatal error: Call to undefined function mcrypt_create_iv() in /var/www/vhosts/#######/httpdocs/system/library/encryption.php on line 8”

We took a look at the line of code:-

$this->iv = mcrypt_create_iv(32, MCRYPT_RAND);

We then realised the new server had not go mcrypt so we needed to install this.

To do this you will need to login to the server via a program like PUTTY and run the following:-

yum update
yum install php-mcrypt*

We got:-
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, security
Setting up Install Process
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* base: mirror.bytemark.co.uk
* extras: mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net
* updates: mirrors.coreix.net
No package php-mcrypt available.

This did not work due to the package not being available so we had to use:-

wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/php-mcrypt-5.3.3-3.el6.x86_64.rpm
yum local install php-mcrypt-5.3.3-3.el6.x86_64.rpm

Now we get:-

Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, security
Setting up Local Package Process
Examining php-mcrypt-5.3.3-3.el6.x86_64.rpm: php-mcrypt-5.3.3-3.el6.x86_64
Marking php-mcrypt-5.3.3-3.el6.x86_64.rpm to be installed
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* base: mirror.bytemark.co.uk
* extras: mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net
* updates: mirrors.coreix.net
Resolving Dependencies
–> Running transaction check
—> Package php-mcrypt.x86_64 0:5.3.3-3.el6 will be installed
–> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================================================
Installing:
php-mcrypt x86_64 5.3.3-3.el6 /php-mcrypt-5.3.3-3.el6.x86_64 46 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install 1 Package(s)

Total size: 46 k
Installed size: 46 k
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing : php-mcrypt-5.3.3-3.el6.x86_64 1/1
Verifying : php-mcrypt-5.3.3-3.el6.x86_64 1/1

Installed:
php-mcrypt.x86_64 0:5.3.3-3.el6

Complete!

You will then need to restart your server:

service httpd restart

Now check the website and it should be up and running.

LV= and Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube Partnership

LV= decided to partner with Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube to drive brand awareness and consideration. They launched a series of how-to videos and distributed them through TrueView and roadblocked main Food Tube channel.

LV= and Jamie Oliver's Food Tube Partnership

Basics of a mobile website for SMBs

[Basics of a mobile website for SMBs] 1. Learn the tools: PageSpeed Insights, Mobile-Friendly Te...

Streamed live on 12 Mar 2015

*1. Learn the tools: PageSpeed Insights, Mobile-Friendly Test and Mobile-Usability*

Join us for a 4-part web series on making great mobile sites for your small and medium businesses. Learn the correct configurations, go-to tools and optimization strategies to make a big impact on both your customers and search engines. Invite your company’s web developers, webmasters, decision-makers and marketers. We’ll see you soon!

*——— Full Schedule ———*

1. Learn the tools: PageSpeed Insights, Mobile-Friendly Test and Mobile-Usability
→ http://goo.gl/qpDvR7

2. Bring it in: Viewports, zoom and plugins
→ http://goo.gl/dWHqQq

3. Focus on the user: Tap targets, margins and font sizes
→ http://goo.gl/tQYS7w

4. Set it right: Redirects and canonicals
→ http://goo.gl/6y7Twi