Mass testing website updates
As a web developer we spend a lot of time installing updates. With applications we use testing frameworks to ensure the system behaves properly after an update. But these testing frameworks don’t exist for simple websites running content management frameworks like Drupal, Joomla or WordPress. We’re expected to check each page before and after an [...]
Drupal summit in Portland
It’s been a whole year since the Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit in Vancouver. This year it was held in Portland, Oregon at the Portland State University. It was great to see everyone, specifically the crew from ImageXMedia, OpenSourcery, and all my fellow freelancers. Of the handful of sessions I caught, I really enjoyed the two [...]
Down with the old phone system
I have been waiting years for Skype to get their act together. They still don’t have Canadian phone numbers. The idea of having my phone on my computer is priceless to me. In our digital age, I’m at a loss as to why the concept of “long distance” calling even exists. I’ve worked on hundreds [...]
First Drupal Consulting Client
It’s an exciting day as I’ve been hired for my first Drupal consulting contract. A Calgary mobile company with some in hour technical expertise is looking to use Drupal on a project. It’s a very smart approach to bring me in for technical guidance and I enjoy the opportunity to collaborate with another technical firm.
Mobile Apps for all devices
I recently had the pleasure of working with jQuery’s new mobile framework. It’s not very often that I work with a framework that will so clearly change the playing field for developers. Prior to this framework, developing an application for the mobile world meant expensive development costs for each platform. On top of that, each [...]
iPhone Plus 15 map
The City of Calgary recently released a KMZ of it’s Plus 15 network. The Plus 15 is a network of interconnected elevated walkways throughout the core for when it gets REALLY cold. But navigating this network can sometimes be difficult as maps are randomly placed throughout. Using Appcelerator Titanium, a mobile development framework for iOS [...]
Collaborative Consumption
I work in a world where everything I use has been created by people with the intention of sharing their talents. We call this Open Source. It represents the freedom of code, ideas, and solutions. And just to be clear, this doesn’t necessarily mean free of monetary gain. Some would be surprised to know that [...]
Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit Session
It was a big scary day today. In an amazingly large auditorium at the PNW Drupal Summit in Vancouver I presented on Server Optimization for Drupal web sites. I was trying a new approach to my sessions by proposing some basic findings and instigating discussion. It worked out really well thanks to such a great group of [...]
Drupal Camp Alberta Session
It was a delight to have the opportunity to speak in Calgary at the 4th annual Drupal Camp Alberta. The University of Calgary provided an excellent venue with two large conference rooms allowing for back to back sessions for two solid days. My session in particular was focused on the Apache Solr search capabilities and specifically [...]
Network Solutions gets sticky hands with your domain names
Every great business idea needs a great domain name. It’s the basics of the 3 most important business decisions “location, location and location”. But beware how you go about finding the ultimate domain name for you may lose the chance quickly. Years ago, Network Solutions was the only option for registering a domain name with [...]