Ruby, Productivity, and SEO articles

This page lists everything we've written on the site. We've written a lot over the years and we try to revisit articles to make sure the information in them is current.

If you want to read about specific topics, you may find these interesting.

If you have an idea for an article you would like to see us write, then please get in touch.

Forcing a Rails database column to be not null How you can force a table column to always have something in it with Rails
We've deleted an article's worth of unhelpful words We've improved several pages across our site by removing words that add no value, and often detract from the article.
Configure VS code to only format changed lines I used to format an entire file on save, but now I just format my changes, VS Code makes this easy.
Why we have ads We run ads on the site, this article talks about how we try and make them not terrible and why we monetise in the first place
Writing accessible hashtags Write accessible hashtags by camel casing them. Because ThisReadsBetter thanthisdoes.
Database Consistency Gem The database consistency gem was new to me but it is fast becoming a must-install tool
What are Rails Migrations A beginner friendly guide to Ruby on Rails migrations. What they are and why they are awesome, complete with examples and explanations.
We've removed the reading time from articles We've removed the reading time from all our articles, this is why
My Experience with the Disneyland Paris Priority Card The Disneyland Paris Priority Card helps people with accessibility considerations get the most out of Disneyland Paris. Here are my experiences with it.
Iterate over indexed params in Rails When your API isn't Rails-shaped, sometimes you need to handle input differently
Running Jekyll from inside VS Code How to set up your VS Code to run Jekyll without needing extra extensions
Reducing Noisy JavaScript Errors with Rollbar The docs didn't make it very clear exactly what I should do so here is my fix
Creating a product file for Merchant Center in Rails How to create a product file for Google's Merchant Center in Rails, without any additional gems
Michelle from (Extra)ordinary Tech Stories gets the web Revising old content to improve an aspect of it is always a good thing
Improving the line length of our articles We've reduced the amount of characters that appear on any given line, helping to improve readability
Render's Support I'm really happy with Render's support and will be recommending them for people to consider
Free tools to improve your website There are lots of freely available tools to help get a sense check on how your website is doing and recommend improvements
Rails route to catch non-GET requests to root path We needed to add a specific line into our routes.rb file to cover non-GET requests going to the root path.
Pros and cons of hiring freelance ruby developers The decision to go with hiring an employee, hiring a freelancer, or going with an agency is a hard one, we talk through some pros and cons for each
Make time to address low-hanging technical debt Making the time to address smaller bits of tech debt has been great for several of our projects.
We helped Niice get their ISO certification We're so happy to share that Niice achieved their ISO certification, we played a small part of it.
Avoid forking dependencies A common pattern is to fork a dependency to make a minor change, this should be a last resort, I will explain why
Upgrading Ruby - Steps to follow Here are the steps you should follow to upgrade Ruby as stress free as possible
Meeting Agendas (and why you should have them) Please, please, please add meeting agendas to your meeting invites
How many disabled folk use this site The excuse of not needing accessibility just doesn't fly
Minimum Viable Secure Product The MVSP website is a great starting point when considering how secure your product is.
Using CSV files with Postgres on Heroku How we can use CSV files to import and export data to Postgres databases hosted on Heroku.
Fixing USB disconnects on sleep on MacOS Ventura How I avoided having to unplug and replug my keyboard each time my Mac went to sleep
Creating Docker images with M1 Macs I ran into an issue with my Dockerfile when using it on a Linux machine, setting a platform fixed the issue
What does --no-owner mean in Postgres? You have read a guide to doing Postgres exports or imports and seen --no-owner, this is what it means
What does --no-acl mean in Postgres? You have read a guide to doing Postgres exports or imports and seen --no-acl, this is what it means
Restart the CodeDeploy agent after changing IAM profiles The CodeDeploy Agent needs to restart to see new IAM profiles
Fixing Issues with GitHub Actions and Rails How I went about fixing some issues with a first push of GitHub Actions on a Rails project
How to add HTML into an iframe Using srcdoc to add inline HTML into an iframe
Setting rel attributes in Markdown Markdown can't do everything, including rel attributes. Use HTML for these links instead.
Replacing Sidekiq with GoodJob We recently moved a client to GoodJob, and would do it again!
Where is everything? - Keeping track of project details Quickly find where everything lives for a project with a little proactive documenting
Use to_sql without slashes Do you hate slashes in your to_sql output? Then this post is for you!
Using the paranoia gem when joining tables Something I learned today about joining two tables that both use acts_as_paranoid
Setting up a dedicated Sidekiq queue If you want one type of queue to always be processed, a dedicated Sidekiq process is the answer
What I use SetApp for A rundown of the applications I use SetApp for, and why I'm happy to continue using it
Changing colours in Rails Admin How to change up the colours in Rails Admin
SetApp: Learn what SetApp is and how to use SetApp The first in a series all about the SetApp service and some of the applications within it.
Adding timestamps to join tables in Rails How to go about adding timestamps to your Rails join tables
Ignore empty nested attributes when using Rails Admin How to resolve issues that arise with saving models if you have empty nested attributes using reject_if
Git commands we use most often Some basic Git commands that we frequently use here at Tosbourn Ltd.
Auto reloading Rails Admin How to avoid restarting your server when making Rails Admin changes
Using nginx args helper to search for a URL param Using nginx args helper to quickly check for a param in a request
Getting sign out link_tos to work with Rails 7 How to get your sign out link_tos to work with Rails 7
OmniFocus to Reminders Why I moved from OmniFocus to Reminders
Getting Obsidian word count on iOS How to quickly see how many words you have written in Obsidian
What is the Aptfile Do you use an Aptfile in your project? This is what it does
Getting vips to work with Rails on Heroku As of Rails 7, vips is the default way to manipulate images. This is how we got vips working on Heroku
We are dropping our rates We are dropping our rates for our friends in the charity and third sector
What are the square brackets in my Rails migrations? Let's look at what these little square brackets are doing in our Rails migration files
Setting a minimum TLS version with CloudFlare How to set a minimum TLS version on CloudFlare and why you should consider it
Rebasing in Git - A Basic Guide Some of the more basic commands I use when rebasing in Git
Setting up Permissions Policy with Rails How to set up Permissions Policy HTTP header in your Rails app
Basic guide to Content Security Policy with Rails The basics of setting up CSP with your Rails app
Previewing Markdown files with VScode How to quickly see if your Markdown files are formatted correctly
Postico: How to install and use Postico to connect to a database The basics of using Postico
Rails migrations - add default value to existing column Here's how to update an existing column to use a default value
Optionally creating or removing a column or table with Rails migrations Here's how to go about creating or removing a column optionally using Rails migrations
Using Faker with Rails A guide to setting up Faker to work within Rails and why you'd want to
Things our micro business does Here are some of the things that we do as a micro business
Using Shoulda Matchers with RSpec A guide to setting up Shoulda Matchers to work with RSpec
How to turn on invisible characters in VScode A quick guide to turning on invisible characters in VScode
Saving time with TextExpander and URLs How I save time jumping between URLs on various browsers
How to turn on invisible characters in TextMate A quick guide to turning on invisible characters in TextMate
Cut and Paste in Vim A quick and easy guide on how to cut and paste using Vim
Upgrading WordPress plugins on Lightsail with wp-cli How we update WordPress plugins on a Lightsail/Bitnami install using wp-cli
Testing Routes with RSpec Testing routes can give you more confidence and help drive application development; here is how to do it with RSpec
How to ignore Bullet in RSpec tests Using Bullet during a test can pick up mistakes but also has false negatives; here is an easy way to ignore them
How we used Nokogiri to fix a sizing issue in YouTube's oEmbed At some point, one of our calls to YouTube's oEmbed endpoint was returning videos way too small; we fixed in in our Rails application by using Nokogiri
How to comment Rails migrations We recently learned how you could apply comments to your migrations in Rails
Action Text Sanitizer update to more inclusive language How I went about updating my Action Text allowed tags/attributes
Four tools I use to keep projects on track Incomplete projects are the worst; here I discuss my workflow and tools to try and complete a project as soon as possible
Adding a service worker to Jekyll Here is how we added a service worker to this very site
Running Rails migrations automatically on Heroku How you can tell Heroku to automatically run your Rails migration (and how to do it manually if you need)
SEO for Ruby on Rails projects How to do technical SEO with your Ruby on Rails application
Converting images to use Google's webp format A quick guide to using Google's command line tool to convert images to webp format
Recent News Coverage We did our first bit of PR, here is how it went
Speed up pasting text into Rails console Recently we had to copy and paste large amounts of text into a ruby console and we found a pretty quick way to do it
A quick tip to speed up bundle installs Use more computing power to install gems faster
Getting Turbolinks to work with Webpack How to re-add Turbolinks back into a Rails app when moving to Webpack
How to add Tailwind UI to a Rails project The steps we went through to set Tailwind UI up on an existing Rails project
What I look for in a CTO There are eight things I always look for when deciding if someone would make a good CTO
Running Commands On Heroku How to run commands on Heroku locally and from their web interface
5 ways to speed up your software development I love feeling like I am speeding through development tasks, here are five things that can help speed up your software development
The main reasons why we shouldn't use click here as link text There are many reasons why we shouldn't use click here or similar as link text, let's go through them
Blog posts are projects not action items Get more blog posts written by treating them as projects instead of action items
Removing fields with a Rails migration Ruby on Rails gives you powerful tools to make removing old fields easy, lets walk through how we can do this
Calculating Instagram Velocity From Your Browser A small script that lets you quickly work out the velocity for posts within a hashtag
Firefox Printing Issue for Grid CSS If your body using a layout of grid is causing issues when printing, here is a fix
The two snippets that cover 90% of my LinkedIn messages These are the two snippets of text that can end up answering 90% of my messages on LinkedIn
Testing Arrays In RSpec Three patterns for testing ruby arrays in RSpec, pick the one most appropriate for your use case
6 things I do to respond to support queries quickly Here are some of the things we do to make sure we're responding to support queries as quickly as possible
Prolonging your laptop's battery Some short and long term solutions to extending your laptop's battery life
Working when travelling by plane/train Some tips and tricks for maximising working whilst travelling
Using RSpec to test meta descriptions A little code snippet to show you how to test meta descriptions in RSpec
Rails Admin - only display field on edit Conditionally displaying fields only if they are present in the database
Jekyll admin and frontmatter setup Quick article creation with Jekyll Admin and frontmatter config
Generating Open Graph social media images A Ruby Open Graph image generator using Tinify and RMagick
Fixing an issue with Sprockets and feature tests A fix we found for issues with the asset pipeline on CircleCI
Getting photo orientation data with JavaScript How we can use exif-js to get image orientation information
Essential non-programming skills for engineers How soft skills benefited my career and can help your career too
Quickly create gifs from movs in the command line How to quickly take your .mov files and turn them into .gif
Removing unused Trix Editor buttons How to quickly remove unused Trix Editor buttons from your site
Quick and dirty initial avatars A quick guide to adding initial avatars using the Avatarly gem
Creating a SagePay Encryption in Ruby A SagePay encryption for Ruby that some folk might find useful
Setting SEO titles in Jekyll What titles work best for SEO and for your readers sometimes differ, let's see how we can have the best of both
Wildcard A Records Wildcard A records are a big no-no unless you know what you are doing (I didn't)
Active Storage - resizing images on upload Our fix for app timeouts due to upload of large images when Active Storage was used
iOS simulator battery level I have always enjoyed this feature I noticed on the iOS simulator
Google Search Console and S3 Hosting your sitemap somewhere other than your main domain requires some additional steps in Google Search Console
TextExpander Usage Statistics I was curious about how TextExpander calculated usage across different apps, here is what I've found
Making your Trix toolbar sticky Editing long sections of text can be cumbersome with the Trix editor. Let's make it better
Tools I Use When Blogging A summary of the tools I use when blogging, updated for 2019
How to completely remove the Zoom client from MacOS How to completely remove Zoom from your Mac, including some of the stuff it leaves behind
Testing ActionText without JavaScript I needed JS to get out of the way so I could do basic testing
Exit Interviews Why exit interviews are important and how to go about doing one
Getting wireless printing working on Virgin Media Hub 3 A guide on how to get wireless printing working on Virgin Media if yours has suddenly stopped working
TextExpander Review In this TextExpander review, I cover what it is and why I have been using it for years to be more productive, updated for 2021
How to install a beta version of Rails This article will show you how using the gem command you can install beta versions of Rails
The Welcome to Rails image is more inclusive When playing with the new beta of Rails I noticed a more inclusive image
Ruby Conferences Ruby conferences are a chance for the Ruby community to come together and share what we have learned recently
TextExpander snippets I like These are some of my favourite Text Expander snippets that help me do my work and have some fun
Cocoon Development Training We'd highly recommend Cocoon for Apple development and Apple training
Adding issues from other organisations into Github Projects Let's talk about how you can add issues from other organisations into your Github Project
Integrating RSS feeds to Slack (including YouTube) How to add an RSS feed to a Slack channel to automatically post new content from the feed
Our hardware and software setup Here is a writeup of the hardware and software we use on a daily basis. Updated for 2021.
How to fix problem installing Charlock Holmes Gem My fix for installing 0.7.6 of the Charlock Holmes gem on macOS
Rubocop CircleCI Config How to fix issues with Rubocop running on your entire code base
Testing DNS Speeds Here are some quick scripts for testing DNS speeds and comparing the results
Compilers - Let's understand compilers a bit better Let's learn about Compilers, what they are and how they work
Adding an integration to a Slack room How to add an integration to a Slack room. Part of our Slack mini series
Abstract Syntax Trees Let's learn about Abstract Syntax Trees, what they are and why we need them
FrontEnders - Web Performance Sharing some of my thoughts on a FrontEnders meetup on the topic of Web Performance
Tips for how to ask for time off to attend conferences Asking for time off to attend a conference can be nerve-racking, these tips will get you closer to attending the conferences you're interested in
Using the 'it' Gem to add links to translations How to can use the 'it' Gem to add links to your translations
Custom Startup Messages on Slack How to set a custom start up message on your team's Slack channel. Part of our Slack mini series
Reducing PDF image size on OS X How you can greatly reduce the size of PDF files using stock applications that come with OS X
Creating a download button for Wistia videos Here is how you can quickly add an external download button for Wistia videos
Post Holiday Checklist What we as freelance developers do after a break to try and quickly get back into the swing of things
Companies House First Time Director Seminar My thoughts on the Companies House First Time Director Seminar
Fixing Elixir issues after installing High Sierra If you experience segfaults after updating to High Sierra, here is how to fix it
Setting up Rails to use PostgreSQL A short guide to setting up your Rails project to use the PostgreSQL database
Hiding Secrets in Terraform Let's discuss how you can hide secrets in Terraform. There are several methods, some more dangerous than others
Jekyll Raw Code Block Syntax A guide to formatting code blocks using the Jekyll raw syntax
How to escape backticks in Markdown How to escape backticks when you're trying to write inline code blocks with Markdown
Thank You – We've survived a year! We’ve a lot to be thankful for in our first year in business
Syntax Highlighting on Slack How to do syntax highlighting on Slack. Part of our Slack mini series
Making a Channel on Slack How to make a new Slack channel. Part of our Slack mini series
How to use the howTo Schema type How to use the howTo Schema Type to mark up How To articles
Formatting on Slack How to do formatting on your Slack messages to improve their readability
The Hiring Book Review This is my review of The Hiring Book, a book on hiring web developers by Happy Bear Software
Using Formspree to add Contact Forms to Static Sites An guide to adding Formspree to your static site for a contact form
Rebuttal- How to get devs to implement SEO recommendations An article by Search Engine Land was really off the mark in my opinion, here is why
Using QuickTime to make Screen Recordings from iPhone An guide to making a screen recording of your iPhone using OSx and QuickTime
Shrugging on Slack How you can go about adding a shrug to a message in Slack
Setting Your Status on Slack How to set your status on Slack to give people an idea of what you're doing
Making Custom Emojis on Slack A guide on how to make custom emojis for your Slack team to enjoy
Adding Semantic UI to Phoenix 1.3 A short post on what you need to do to add Semantic UI to a Phoenix 1.3 application
Accessibility Options on Slack A short guide to some of the accessibility options available on Slack
Setting Reminders on Slack A comprehensive guide to everything you can do with reminders in Slack
Generating Comments on Static Sites with Staticman A beginners guide to creating a Jekyll site and using Staticman to allow commenting
Keeping Elixir Packages Updated How to check that your mix.exs file is giving you the latest and greatest
Simple Postgres Commands I always forget Here are some simple Postgres commands that I almost always forget
Elixir Default Params Learn how to assign a default parameter or argument to your Elixir functions
Quick and Easy CSS Minification Using Atom A guide to quick and easy CSS manual minification using Atom. Sometimes you don't need a build step
Adding Author to Jekyll Posts This is how I added the notion of an author to my Jekyll posts. Author information helps people who who wrote the post they are reading
Testing Absinthe with ExUnit This is how I tested some GraphQL endpoints using ExUnit
How to add content grouping for Google Analytics in Jekyll How to add content grouping for Google Analytics to a Jekyll website
How to change the column type with Rails migrate How to change the column type with a Rails migration. Lets find out how to do this common Rails task
Jeremy Keith Interview Today I interview Jeremy Keith about all things related to Print CSS
JavaScript 30 Review JavaScript 30 is a free JavaScript fundamentals video course, this is my review of it
Could charities open source their websites? Could and should charities open source their websites? Would developers get involved more if they did?
Andy Croll Interview In my interview with Andy Croll we talk about how he is finding freelancing amongst other subjects
Live Dictation Review I live review the inbuilt dictation software on Mac OSx
Orphans and Widows in CSS What are orphans and widows in CSS and how can we use them the best?
How to get spoken to at conferences Speaking to people is over-rated, let people speak to you
Andreas Jung Interview I interview Andreas Jung about print based CSS and his work on print-css.rocks
Interview with Håkon Wium Lie Håkon Wium Lie talks about CSS printing, its history, and Prince
When to include irb in Ruby 2.4.0 When should you include irb into your scripts and when you don't need to in Ruby 2.4.0
The Settlers Packaging I recently found the packaging for The Settlers, I’m sure some of you will appreciate
BuzzSumo Review I’ve been trialling BuzzSumo for a while, here is my review
How I Started a UK Business I am often asked how I started my UK business, so here it is
Working when you want is amazing & challenging Some of the unique challenges and perks that come with being able to work when you like
ActiveJob Vs ApplicationJob A very quick clarification on ActiveJob and ApplicationJob
Doubling Down on Recurring Revenue A short article on why I am going to double down on recurring revenue as ways to make money
Some stats from frontend focus I wanted to play with some array manipulations in JavaScript to compiled some interesting stats
Removing Kadira from Meteor How to remove Kadira from your Meteor Project (since it is going away)
My first thoughts of Alexa My first thoughts of Amazon’s Alexa service, not a review but does contain a fun video
What I’ve learned from looking through my old posts Here are some things I’ve learned from looking through lots of old posts of mine
A guide to writing up conference talks A short guide on how to write up conference talks, written by someone who loves to write up conference talks
Reducing Image Size for better page load times The ultimate guide to reducing image sizes for more performant web pages
Eric Brantner Freelancing Interview I interview Eric Brantner about Freelancing and find out how he has been being so successful all these years
Daniel Miller Freelancing Interview I interview Daniel Miller about Freelancing as a Conference Organiser
Getting OS X to trust self-signed SSL certificates Here is a quick trick you can use to make sure your browsers accept self-generated SSL certificates on OS X
Why Centralise Email Functionality Why should you look to consolidate your transactional and marketing emails into one system
Judson Lester Freelancing Interview I interview Judson Lester about Freelancing, we talk about his background and what he is working on now
Tom Hirst Freelancing Interview I interview Tom Hirst about Freelancing, what he loves about freelance WordPress development and what he has learned along the way
Conor O'Neill Freelancing Interview I interview Conor O'Neill about how he started freelancing and what he loves about it
Najaf Ali Freelancing Interview I interview Najaf Ali about freelancing, things he has learned and what advice he has on freelancing
Gina Charles Freelancing Interview I interview Gina Charles about what she loves about Freelancing and what she has had to do that she didn't think she would
Freelancer Interviews I’ve been interviewing freelancers about their experiences
Owning the conversation about your company Why it is important to own the conversation about your site and how you can do it
Going Freelance I am going freelance! Learn what I will be doing and why I have decided to take the plunge
How I try and accelerate my learning How I try and accelerate my learning by setting projects for myself and focusing on concrete tasks
Spring and Foreman complaining about secret_key not being set Spring and Foreman when freshly set up can complain about secret_key not being set when it is, I will show you how to fix this
API - Application Programming Interface. APIs explained simply The term API described in really simple terms. You don't need a Computer Science degree to understand
Dealing with team culture and an employees depression What to do if your employee is worried about team culture and their depression
Rust (explained simply) The Rust programming language described in really simple terms
Slack Shortcuts Here are some of my most used Slack shortcuts, using these will improve your Slack experience, making it quicker to get to the conversations that matter
LRUG (London Ruby User Group) writeup from July 2016's meetup My writeup of the July 2016 LRUG, a monthly Ruby User Group meetup in London, England
Brighton Ruby 2016 My writeup of Brighton Ruby 2016, an annual Ruby conference in Brighton, England
AWS Summit - A conference in London about AWS services I attended the AWS Summit in London in 2016, here is my writeup of it
Lead Developer Conference Reading List My Reading list have the Lead Developer Conference in London recently
Some notes on my last Out of Office message Some notes on my last Out of Office message which I think you will find useful if you need to write an out of office message yourself
Captioning at Conferences Captioning at Conferences is a fantastic idea that really helps a lot of people
Code Review My thoughts on Code Review, when code review should happen and what to review during it
Nginx Cache Busting Rewrite Rule Following on from an excellent guide on cache busting, we see how you can accomplish this in nginx
List of Countries without a Postcode If Stripe doesn’t always expect a postcode, it is because some countries don’t have them – here is a list of countries that don't
Fixing No Default Alternative Specified error in rails If you spot an error saying No default alternative specified when starting up rails, we can fix that
GitKraken Review GitKraken is a great GUI for interacting with Git. This is my review of it
Posting to Slack with PHP Posting to Slack with PHP is incredibly quick and easy, here is how you can
Quickly tidy up old git branches How to quickly tidy up your local and remote git branches
Tracking AdWords Conversions within JavaScript How you can track Adwords Conversions from JavaScript callbacks, AJAX requests etc.
Fueling Hyper Growth – A Salesforce Event My writeup of a set of talks around the subject of hyper growth
Close proximity leads to ideas being shared too soon Does sharing a close proximity with someone lead to ideas being shared too soon? I think so
Complete list of custom icon properties for Bootstrap 3 Datepicker Complete list of custom icon properties for Bootstrap 3 Datepicker
Getting access to Channel 13 on a Raspberry Pi 3 Getting access to Channel 13 on a Raspberry Pi 3. In some countries you need to change these channels, I can show you how
My takeaways from the Productive Habits email course My takeaways from the Productive Habits email course, a course by Belle Beth Cooper
Open iTerm2 links in Vim A quick tip on how you can open iTerm2 links in Vim (or any text editor you can access from the command line)
Fix for OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError on RestForce / Faraday Fix for OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError on RestForce / Faraday. Hopefully this will save you some time if you see this RestForce error
S3 – A guide to Simple Storage Service from Amazon. S3 described in really simple terms. By the end of this guide you should understand what S3 is and why we use it
What to do when things go wrong Steps to take when something goes horribly wrong with a website or app that you are building
The EU Cookie Law A backup of the EU cookie law website which used to live at theeucookielaw.com, the content is hosted here instead
Using Slack as part of the GTD capture stage Using Slack as part of the GTD capture stage to make sure you have all your tasks down in Omnifocus
Recursion Explained in simple terms Recursion described in really simple terms, this guide assumes no knowledge of computer science topics and by the end of it you should understand recursion
Introducing Simple CS Introducing a project to explain computer science concepts in an easy to understand way
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets - Understanding CSS CSS described in really simple terms. This article assumes no prior knowledge and by the end of it you should understand what CSS means
Stopping your wireless from turning off on your Raspberry PI How to stop your wireless from turning off on your Raspberry Pi
Loading a specific file into Dotenv Loading a specific file into Dotenv. A quick guide for when you want to run Ruby files from outside of a document root
Steps for replacing an SSL certificate Some basic steps for replacing an SSL certificate on a certificate. Always defer to the issuers instructions though
See what disk space is left on your Linux web server How to find out how much disk space is left on your Linux web server
Review Pibow Zero My review of the Pibow Zero – a case for the Raspberry Pi Zero which I love and I think you will too
The SSH Command A beginners guide to the SSH command, what it is and how you use it during normal web development
Grep flags that I like Here are some grep flags that I use often, almost to the point of automatically appending them regardless of the search
How to overcome thinking that no one will find your posts useful How to overcome thinking that no one will find your posts useful
Viewing what is running on the server Here is how to view what is running on the server along with the resources each process is using
How does Capistrano work? How does Capistrano work? There is nothing magic, there is nothing to be scared of
Debriefing Development Teams 11 Best Practices and Tips I borrowed from an article aimed at intensive care situations
Art & Math & Science, Oh My! My writeup of Amy Wibowo’s recent talk on the intersection of art and science
Setting up Moat and DFP Setting up Moat and DFP isn't as straightforward as I would like. Here is a guide to getting it done
Omnifocus Custom Columns I love seeing Estimated Duration using Omnifocus Custom Columns
My notes from November 2015's LRUG My notes from the London Ruby User Group that happened in November 2015
Pictures from LRUG Nov ‘15 Some pictures from November 2015’s London Ruby User Group
What I have learned about roadmaps What I have learned about roadmaps and the process of roadmapping
Speeding up accessing Safari’s URL bar on El Capitan Tonight, my friends, I have found what I believe to be a fix to interacting with the URL bar in Safari
Meteor @dev was not detected Why do you see @dev was not detected in test output when running cucumber tests for Meteor
The steps I take before a large backup on the Mac Here are the steps I take before doing a large backup on the Mac
Setting up the Windows 200 Wired keyboard on the Mac How to setup your mac to work well with the Windows 200 Wired keyboard
Why a cold email from Udemy didn't hit the mark and what to do better Udemy sent me some crappy marketing to try and get me to promote a crappy page of theirs (spoiler, it didn't happen)
Adding Alt tags to images using image_tag in Rails Rails makes it easy to add alt tags to images using a handy helper method
Breathing new life into an older Mac Find out some tips on how to breath life into an older Mac
Review: BubbleSort – How do Calculators Even A enjoyable and cute intro to Computer Science by Amy Wibowo
What is a Gemfile What is a Gemfile? Here is my detailed explanation of what a Gemfile is and what it does, enjoy
Finding the List ID for the Marketo API Here is how you find the LIst ID when using the Marketo API
Adding skip_after_filter to Rails Admin How I added a skip_after_filter to rails_admin, which is something I recently had to do to extend the functionality of Rails Admin
6 Months in and bowing out I am stopping my writing project early. I wanted to write daily for a year but couldn't quite manage it
Checking for both versions of Google Analytics with JavaScript Here is how I check for both versions of Google Analytics
Tracking Ctrl+F events in Google Analytics How I decided to track Ctrl+F events in Google Analytics
Key code for Command on OS X There are a couple of key codes for the OS X Command Key
Join the Anthony Nolan Register I joined the Anthony Nolan Register and I think you should too
Uploading files with Capybara in RSpec tests You can easily upload files with Capybara when testing with RSpec
An experiment in highlighting words An experiment in highlighting words using only some CSS and JavaScript
The difference between Render and Redirect in Rails Find out the difference between Render and Redirect in Rails
Quality of your Input and Output I try and prune my inputs as much as possible to keep the quality high
Mastering Your Tools I need to get better at mastering my tools, I feel like I knew much more about my tools years ago than I do today
The iPhone is my main content creation computer The iPhone is my main content creation computer, I do lots of stuff on it given how portable and powerful they have become
Let's talk vasectomies So let's get personal and talk about a super intimate procedure
Mac Apps I use to stay productive Here is a list of useful apps I use for Mac which help my productivity
Some of my favourite Mac shortcuts Here are some of my favourite Mac shortcuts - hope you find them useful
Up the tracking speed on your mouse How you can go about upping the tracking speed of your mouse
Hiding the dock for fun and profit OS X doesn't need the honking great dock that you get with a stock install. Kill it
What is a Proc? Here I explain what a proc is in Ruby and some of the nuances
Raspberry Pi for Secret Agents Here are some fun activities that you can do with your Raspberry Pi
Getting HTTP Status Codes from the Command Line How you can go about getting HTTP status codes from your terminal
Custom Routing of Github emails You can update your email preferences on a per organisation basis in Github
HTTP Status Codes for SEO Let us learn what the important status codes are for SEO
Some of my favourite iTerm2 preferences and shortcuts Some of my favourite iTerm2 tips and tricks. A mixture of useful and fun tips for iTerm2
Deleting Attachments with rails_admin How you can go about deleting attachments using Rails Admin
Scrutiny 5 review I really like Scrutiny 5, there's a free trial so you can try it out
Never assume your wage is safe. Unfortunately you can never assume your pay is safe, you need to take steps to protect yourself.
Adding Descriptions to Pages with Jekyll What is a page description and how to add one with Jekyll
Speeding up the internet on OSx Yosemite How you can go about speeding up the internet when using OSx Yosemite
Come play Codewars with me Codewars is a great tool for learning fundamentals, you should try it out
What a Developer can take away from SEO Now 2015 Here is what I think a developer can take away from SEO Now 2015
I love programming Here are some of the things that I truly love about programming
My first screencast I made my first screencast, here's how I did it and what I would improve in future
Good Habits for Student Developers – Documentation Here is some information about why documentation is important
A Pragmatic Approach to adding Schema Adding Schema to your website doesn't have to be daunting, here is a pragmatic approach
Updating a Slug on a live Rails System How you can go about updating slugs and dealing with redirects
Katrina Owen – Here be Dragons My thoughts on Katrina Owen's talk at Pivotal Labs London
Robert Wint – Using Content to Improve the Customer Journey My thoughts on Robert Wint's talk at Chief Digital Officer Forum
Re-building the Marketing Department to be Fit for the Future A talk from Patrick Jubb at the Chief Digital Officer Forum in London
Martin Trickey – Do we Tell Stories Differently Now? My thoughts on Martin Trickey's talk at Chief Digital Officer Forum
Mark Elkins – From Passion to Purchase My thoughts on Mark Elkins' talk at Chief Digital Officer Forum
Kerensa Samanidis – Breaking in to the online video market My thoughts on Kerensa Samanidis' talk at Chief Digital Officer Forum
Chief Digital Officer Summit London - Day 1 Morning My thoughts on the first day of the CDO summit in London
Ana Serrano – Digital Transformation & Continuous Innovation My thoughts on the talk Ana Serrano gave at the Chief Digital Officer Forum
Amanda Neylon – The Importance of Focusing on Social Strategy My thoughts on Amanda Neylon's talk at the Chief Digital Officer Forum
Ruby’s Partition for Enumerables Something new I learned about partitioning on enumerables in Ruby
POODIR On Testing I've been re-reading Sandi Metz' POODIR and here are my thoughts on testing
Good habits for student developers – Time Keeping Here I talk about good time keeping, how to do it and why it's important
Creating an iOS application in 5 minutes using Meteor How you can quickly and easily create an iOS app using Meteor
What to do when refactoring a large codebase without tests Some things that can make refactoring easier when you have no tests
What I would look for in a junior developer Some things which I think are good qualities in a junior developer, if I seen these shine through in a portfolio or CV, I'd be happy!
How the technical direction of a project can be influenced How outside and internal influences can change project direction
Squash br inside contenteditable A fun CSS hack I recently discovered that I thought I'd share
Good Habits for Student Developers - Backups Here is an overview of backups, how to do them and why to care
CSS last-of-type as a fix for last-child in Ember applications A fix for last-child with CSS in Ember applications and others
Rails Migrations for Beginners An overview of Rails migrations, what they are and how to use them
A beginners guide to ARIA Help to get yourself some quick semantic wins with ARIA
Set Intersection in Ruby How to see commonalities between two data sets using Ruby
Hearthstone APIs Here is an overview of Hearthstone and some of the APIs available
Some useful resources for generating content ideas Here is a list of resources I found for generating content ideas
My time at Buffer wasn't great How things just didn't work out between me and my job at Buffer
Divs still have their place Despite being abused by some folks they do have their uses
Making an app in just over an hour with Meteor and Heroku Here's how you can quickly get an app together with these tools
My highlights from On the Shortness of Life by Seneca Here are some of the highlights I got from reading this book
View Markdown Files in your Terminal How you can view Markdown files in your terminal easily
The correct way to markup an image and caption in HTML How to use figure and figcaption for semantic HTML gains
Some stumbling blocks I hit following my first Swift tutorial Here I detail some difficulties I encountered with my first go at Swift
Quick Semantic Wins Here's a list of things that can quickly give you some semantic wins
Accessibility and SEO are tightly linked How both these things are tightly linked and how accessibility benefits SEO
How I am using Omnifocus Here's an overview on how I use Omnifocus day to day for to-dos
What the header element can be used for A conversation with Derek Johnson got me thinking about the header element
Review: A Web for Everyone A great book to learn about designing accessible websites
Gender Neutral Swear Words We use too many gendered swears - here are some which aren't so bad
Every developer makes mistakes all the time We all make mistakes no matter the level and that's okay
A rough guide I am going to try and follow for blog posts Here's my thoughts on how I'm going to form my posts from now on
Backblaze is part of a great backup solution My thoughts on Backblaze and how it's really helped me out
Imagine your RAM was erroring How this analogy relates to me and my life and how you can fix it
365 Articles in 2015 My attempt at averaging writing an article per day in 2015
My Wedding Speech Here's an online backup of the speech I gave at my wedding
Backup of Making Your Website Pay for Itself A backup of an ebook I wrote on making your website pay for itself
Some notes and links on WebSockets with Rails Here's some useful points on using WebSockets with Rails
Please stop using features by testing for browser An issue that I encountered and why it shouldn't have been
Great content has no shelf life A great example of evergreen content from over 50 years ago
Kill off any process on a particular port - An explanation I've written about this before but felt it needed a little explanation
Space Invaders and the fun reason it gets progressively harder This is one of my favourite examples of something that starts life as a bug but becomes a feature
Nokogiri won't install? Check that you have accepted Xcode's EULA An non obvious reason for being unable to install updates to Nokogiri
WhiteHat Aviator Phoning Home? A concerned email and the response from WhiteHat and why Aviator phones home
Converting numbers to hex using to_s in Ruby How you can use the Ruby to_s method to convert numbers to hex
Backing up an s3 bucket to another s3 bucket How you can go about backing up your s3 bucket to another one
Force a CSV download from a WordPress Plugin How you can go about forcing a CSV download from a WordPress Plugin
Nav Elements, not just ul wrappers A great tip shared by Derek Johnson to make my site more accessible
The ways I have made Sites Pay for Themselves Some things I've done to allow sites to pay for themselves
Review: PiFace Control and Display My thoughts on the PiFace Control and Display LCD screen
How Much Does Your Website Cost You? It's a good idea to know just how much your website costs you
Review: Raspberry Pi Camera Board My review of the Raspberry Pi Camera Board, a useful camera for the Raspberry Pi
VimR - A first look My first impressions on the new VimR and a quick install guide
Running VimR From the Command Line How you can go about running VimR from your command line
Turning off the PiFace Control and Display Here's how to go about making sure the LCD screen cleans up after itself
Derek Johnson talking about Modern Web Design Here I talk to Derek Johnson all about design on the modern web
Review: HTML5 Game Development Hotshot Ever wanted to make HTML5 games? This could be the book for you
Review: Penetration Testing with the Bash Shell Here's my thoughts on Penetration Testing with the Bash Shell
Review: Node.js Blueprints Here's my thoughts on Node.js Blueprints by Krasimir Tsonev
Kali Linux 32 bit mini ISO getting stuck on samba Here's an issue I had with installing the Kali Linux 64 bit mini ISO
Get the name of a Ruby class Here's how you can go about getting the name of a class in Ruby
Belfast Bloggers 3rd Meetup My thoughts and feelings on the third Belfast Bloggers Meetup
Review: Raspberry Pi Server Essentials Here's my review of Raspberry Pi Server Essentials by Piotr Kula
Review: Raspberry Pi Robotic Projects Here is my thoughts on Raspberry Pi Robotic Projects by Richard Grimmett
Packt Publishing Here is a bit of an overview on my dealings with Packt Publishing
Why thinking small helps create software that lasts. Why thinking small helps create software that lasts. Some thoughts and notes from the Dublin Web Summit
Removing Protected and Private from WordPress posts By default WP will prepend Protected to any post title that is protected by a password and will prepend Private to any that is set as private, let's fix that
Copy and Rename multiple files in Linux How you can go about copying and renaming files in Linux
The worst thing you can do for your productivity Here's one of the biggest time sinks I've come across for me
Resources for making your website pay for itself Here are a list of resources which will help when getting your website to pay for itself
Not able to cd or ls into drive mounted by s3fs An issue I encountered with not being able to move into a drive mounted by s3fs
Using Ember's App.reset() to kill off any local data How I resolved an issue with data persisting on the front end
What App.reset() does in Ember An in-depth line by line look at what App.reset() does in Ember
Quitting Postgres psql I've just started using psql and had no idea how to quit - here's how
The safest way to track goal URLs in Google Analytics How you can go about tracking your goal URLs in Google Analytics
Research has shown a case for closing down Vim for a while How a research paper has made me reconsider my use of Vim
Review: Raspberry Pi Projects for Kids Here are my thoughts on Raspberry Pi Projects for Kids by Daniel Bates
Disable a button component with Ember How to enable or disable a button in realtime using Ember
Setting I changed to up my Chromebook's internet speed How I went about speeding up the internet on my Chromebook
Review: Understanding the 4 Rules of Simple Design Here are my thoughts on Understanding the 4 Rules of Simple Design by Corey Haines
Programmatically finding the size of the retry queue with Sidekiq How to use Sidekiq's API for querying the state of queues
Problems with Evergreen Content Here are some of the problems that I can see with creating evergreen content
My Chromecast Setup Here I run through how I've gone about setting up my Chromecast
Using Ruby to get access to Google Keywords Here's a guide on how you can use Ruby to get access to Google Keywords
Font Faces for Dyslexic Folk Some font faces that can make it easier for dyslexic folk
David Stewart thinks it is OK to creep on women on LinkedIn This creep thinks it's okay to approach women on LinkedIn
Review: Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practice Here's my thoughts and feeling on this book to learn Backbone.js
Generating migrations with couchrest_model How you can go about generating migrations with couchrest_model
CouchRest Rails Setup - Blank username/password issues Setting a blank username/password is not the same as not setting a username/password
An introduction to Ruby/Rails/Git - Belfast Ruby Here's a writeup of an event that I attended in Belfast
When testing the datasift ruby gem locally be sure to turn SSL off Here's how to go about not getting caught out with this
Review: Work - How to find joy and meaning in each hour of the day I love this book, it really helps me to focus day to day
Tools & principles I am most passionate about What tools / technologies / ideas / principles / things I am most passionate about
A case for writing unit tests for your blog posts Here's some thoughts on writing blog posts and how it relates to code
Hacker News follow up post I recently wrote about the problems I faced setting my own work hours -here's the feedback
Some HipChat Tips and Tricks Here are some HitChat tips that I think may help you out
CodeIgniter - when to use get_instance() How I learned when to use get_instance with CodeIgniter
Resources for getting up to speed with Redis Here's a list of resources that will help you get up to speed with Redis
How to install the latest version of Redis on Ubuntu A quick guide to installing the latest version of Redis on Ubuntu
My first week at Buffer Here's an overview about how my first week at my new job with Buffer
I get very ill if I mix Citalopram and Green Tea So here's something unpleasant that I discovered about green tea
Newbie Programming Resources Here are some useful resources for folk new to programming
Values returned to ActiveMerchant by SagePayGateway during 3d secure How to tie back values returned to ActiveMerchant by SagePayGateway
Soon I will be joining the Buffer team! I'll be starting a new job soon with the Buffer team - exciting
Some Interview Tips for Junior Developers Some tips for helping you through a software engineering interview
You should serve up assets without a protocol Why and how you can go about serving up assets without a protocol
Review: Whitehat Aviator Some of my thoughts on the new web browser available for Mac OSx
Things to remember to do before any video conference / online call How to get set up for a conference call so you can have the optimal experience
Keep your CV fresh Here's how I go about keeping my CV fresh and how you should too
Looking for Bootstrap's popover-inner? Missing some of your popovers? Here's how to go about displaying them
Good things happen to those that blog Some good things that come from blogging about your work
Indenting Text using Vim How you can go about indenting your text in the Vim text editor
GitGutter – A Sublime Text plugin for seeing changes in git A short overview of GitGutter and how you go about getting it
Copy and Paste in Vim A quick and easy guide on how to copy and paste using Vim
Belfast Ruby: Talks on Elixir, Tmux and Jekyll A quick write up on a few different talks given at Belfast Ruby
A quick post about depression and software development Some things that have helped me deal with my mental health and my job
Interview with Trevor Orsztynowicz about Caliper We get chatting to Trevor Orsztynowicz about Caliper. A performance monitor for Single Page Web apps
Using Devise to verify an email address and password How to go about using Devise to do verification on user credentials
Barry Gordon talks about Vagrant - Belfast Ruby A short writeup on a talk given at Belfast Ruby by Barry Gordon
Accessing Popover Data with Bootstrap 3 How I solved this issue with access popover data with Bootstrap 3
Right clicking inside Linux on your Chromebook You might have issues right clicking in Linux, here's how I dealt with it
Getting Debian to recognise your UK Chromebook How you can go about getting Debian to recognise your UK Chromebook
Automation is a lot like your windscreen wipers Here's an analogy on how I think automation is a lot like windscreen wipers
Upgrading from Bootstrap's Typeahead to Typeahead.js A guide for swapping from Bootstrap Typeahead to Typeahead.js
A fix for window.location.origin in Internet Explorer A straightforward fix for this issue in Internet Explorer
Transliteration with Typeahead.js How to deal with special characters when using typeahead.js
Typeahead.js The Book! I wrote a book about typeahead.js, here's an overview of it
Setting a minimum length for your search in Typeahead.js How you can set a minimum length for your search in Typeahead.js
Getting the flot-rails gem to play nicely with IE8 How to go about getting this Gem working nicely with IE8
Refreshing local data with typeahead.js Here's the three step process to follow to refresh local data with typeahead.js
Rspec's be_an_instance_of is pretty useful A handy little method I found when testing my application with RSpec
Passing a day of the week into Ruby's Date.parse How you can go about passing a day into Ruby's Date.parse
Some things I have learned about Ruby's fetch method Here are some things that I have learned about 'fetch' that you may find useful
Nobody Will Train You But You - A talk by Zach Briggs Here are some thoughts on a talk I watched by Zach Briggs
The quickest way to get from nothing to Ruby and Rails How to get Ruby on Rails set up easily and quickly on your Mac
Getting rid of text selection at the bottom of Sublime Text docs Getting rid of annoying text selection at the bottom of Sublime Text documents
Killing all instances of Ruby on Rails running on a certain port How to find and stop all instances of Rails running on a specific port
Bad example of how to do unsubscribe pages Here's an example of how Game have a terrible unsubscribe page
Using Loops in Jasmine How to call tests numerous times when testing with Jasmine
Stacking the founder chips in your favour Here's some thoughts on a recent podcast and how you could apply them
MySQLslap - A quickstart guide How you can set up MySQLslap quickly and easily - a guide
Unboxing the Firefox OS Developer Preview Phone I recently got a Firefox OS Developer preview phone, here's my thoughts on the hardware
Review: jQuery HotShot Here's what I think is a great book for getting better at jQuery
Location, Location, Location How I have found a central working location great after working out of town
Web Developer Equipment Here's some of my thoughts on how your equipment may or may not affect your work
BornInBlood I've recently taken one of first websites off the net, here's a memorial
Using Dropdowns in Watir Webdriver How you can go about using dropdowns using the Watir Webdriver
Controlling a jQuery datepicker with Watir Using a jQuery datepicker with the Watir Webdriver - example code
Write simple rspec tests on one line for fun and profit How you can change your simple RSpec tests to one liners
Using Bootstrap's typeahead from inside a modal window How you can go about using Bootstrap's typeahead in a modal window
Stack Exchange is winning the internet and this is not a good thing Stack Exchange results tend to be the first ones on Google and this isn't always a good thing
Adding Data Attributes using haml_tag A guide to using haml_tag to add data attributes - dealing with hyphens
Sublime Text reading SASS files as HAML A fix for when Sublime Text is reading SASS files incorrectly
Getting the rmagick 2.12.2 gem working on Mac OS X How you can go about getting RMagick working on Mac OSx
Safari on Windows doesn't like outline inside of :after Here's a weird edgecase and a little detail on how this issue breaks down
Turn Off the built in apache on OSx How to turn off and turn back on the built in apache on OSx
Review: Wunderlist My thoughts on using Wunderlist for managing my to-do items
My immediate impressions of the Samsung Chromebook My first thoughts on unboxing and using my new Chromebook
Only Firefox honours !important in CSS animations A recent inconsistency I came across while working with CSS animations
Review: Mastering Redmine If you need to get better at using Redmine, this is the book for you
Open all your browsers at once in OSx Here's how to go about opening all your browsers at once
Validation Helpers Here are some of the common validation helpers in Ruby on Rails
Some Notes on SSL Certificates Here are some notes about SSL certificates you may find useful
Different ways to undo in Git Several different ways that you can undo things in Git and why you should or shouldn't
Big Wet Fish Get Marketing How Big Wet Fish did a little gesture which got a lot of us round Belfast talking about them
Some command line tips for the web developer Here are some command line tips that we think you may find useful
Insert Gists without JavaScript How to insert GitHub Gists into your blog posts without JavaScript
How to turn on invisible characters in Sublime Text 2 A quick guide to turning on invisible characters in Sublime Text 2
Update your Git install You should really keep Git up to date and here's how I done it
Installing PEAR for PHP on OSx A guide on how you can go about installing PEAR for PHP on OSx
Google Translate tracking in Analytics How to go about recording translations inside of Google Analytics
What you need to make Firefox OS applications A checklist of things you will need to learn to make Firefox OS applications
Using Mozilla's Mortar and App stub for Firefox OS apps How to use Mozilla Mortar and App stub for bootstrapping
If you store WP code on Github consider your wp-config.php Something to think about if you store WordPress code on GitHub
Secure your Redmine install by patching Ruby on Rails How to go about securing your Redmine install on Ruby on Rails
Using Stack Exchange to be better at what you do Some tips on how to get the most out of yourself on StackExchange
Added some non-js social share buttons An update on a previous blog post I had written on non-JS social share buttons
Dealing with interruptions whilst you are developing A pragmatic approach to dealing with interruptions whilst you are developing
Replacing Social Media Buttons with non-JS counterparts How to avoid using JavaScript when adding social media sharing buttons
Quick email tip to clear out your inbox Here's a quick tip on how you can go about clearing out your inbox
Finding email to delete if you are over quota in mail.app on OSx A quick way to clear out some space on your mail app on OSx
Editing remote files locally in OSx A quick guide to how you can edit remote files locally in OSx
Git branches seem to be case insensitive A weird quirk with casing and Git and how to resolve it
People who care will always get my business That extra level of customer service that made me very happy
Changing the font-style of placeholder text CSS How to go about simply changing the font-style of placeholder CSS
Apache and PHP webserver version Finding out what version of Apache and PHP a webserver is running when you have little access
Commit Driven Development What I believe could be a precursor for Test Driven Development
Entering your email at the inbox is a bad idea Why this is and what you can do to avoid having to do it
Setting up Apache on OSx Mountain Lion A quick guide to setting up Apache in OSx Mountain Lion
Parallels: Learning to drive & learning to code Things about learning to drive I wish I knew when I was learning to program
CakePHP and htaccess caching funtimes An issue I had with CakePHP and htaccess and how I fixed it
What is the RAILS_GEM_VERSION Where to find it and what it actually does in your application
Styling Scroll Bars How to go about styling scroll bars with CSS
An interview with Umut Muhaddisoglu from Uptime Robot We catch up with Umut Muhaddisoglu from Uptime Robot about his involvement with the project
Zoe Bogner: What would you like to see more of on the web? We follow up with Zoe Bogner about what she would like to see more of on the net
The EU Cookie Law website I made a site which details what the EU Cookie Law website is
Review: CodeLobster Here's my thoughts and feelings on using the CodeLobster software
What Meteor does when you install it A quick overview of what Meteor does when you install it
Interview with Stephen Kinkaid from Big Wet Fish Stephen is the owner and Founder of the Northern Irish based hosting company Big Wet Fish
Copying a CakePHP Project from Linux to Windows A guide on moving a CakePHP project from Linux onto Windows
PHP - Turn UK Date into US Date How to go about changing UK date to US date when using PHP
Review: The CSS3 Anthology An excellent CSS3 guide by someone who writes wonderfully
Interview with Derek Johnson An interview with frontend developer Derek Johnson. We cover all things, well, frontend
Things to check for in your htaccess file Here is a list of things you should check before you go live
Hit Tail - What was it and what I used it for This was a keyword tool that analysed your traffic and generated keywords relevant to your audience
Printing on the web A quick overview of some of the biggest sites on the web and how they fail at Print CSS
Validation in CakePHP 1.3 How to go about doing validation when using CakePHP 1.3
Deleting Magento Session Files How you can go about deleting your Magento session files
Reducing Google Contacts storage on Android devices How you can go about reducing storage on your Android device
CakePHP 2.0 Read Recursive Something that caught me out when I was using CakePHP at first
CSS Vendor Prefixes - A potential use case A nice fix that I found that I thought you'd like to know about
Canonical and Base URLs A guide to canonical and base URLs and why you should care about them
What can The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo teach us Important lessons that we can learn from Stieg Larsson's book about web design
Ruby Fizz Buzz Solution My Ruby Fizz Buzz solution - I've been trying to get to know the language better
Having FTP in your IDE is part of a broken model My thoughts on why having FTP in your IDE is not a good thing
Useful Web Developer Bookmarklets Here are some bookmarklets I use on a regular basis that you may find useful
Ruby Testing and Documenting best practice A little learning project with Ruby and how it manages testing
Interview with Patrick McKenzie and Keith Perhac We speak to Patrick McKenzie and Keith Perhac about the Kalzumeus podcast
Get rid of var $name in CakePHP How you can go about getting rid of var $name in CakePHP
Keeping on top of my to-do list How I manage tasks that I need to get done/handling my to-dos
Proposal: Companies get your employees on Stack Exchange Get your employees to answer questions on Stack Exchange and contribute to the community
A recipe for creating a great workshop Here are some of the things which I think makes a great workshop
Interview with Shiela Dixon We ask Shiela Dixon about the applications she is building
Testing if your domain is accessible from China How to find out if your domain is accessible to folk in China
An open letter to EUKHost Here's some thoughts on the difficulties moving between providers
Less Than Vs Less Than or Equal To - which is more efficient? How to know the difference between Less Than and Less Than or Equal To
Netbeans Private Key Authorisation Problem An issue that I encountered with key based authentication
MySQLTuner - An excellent free MySQL tool Some thoughts on MySQLTuner and how to go about setting it up
Apache - [notice] cannot use a full URL in a 401 [notice] cannot use a full URL in a 401 ErrorDocument directive --- ignoring!
Accessing PHP variables from within JavaScript under WordPress How you can access PHP variables in JavaScript in WordPress
What I would change about the Computer Science degree course Some of my thoughts on what I would've liked on my Computer Science course
IsTwitterUp? Nope I've removed the IsTwitterUp website as it's become a lot more stable
W3C Web Application Privacy Best Practices - A Guide The W3C have released Web Application Privacy Best Practices - What do we do with it?
Disqus showing bullets How I went about fixing an issue I had with Disqus showing bullets
The importance of using the ellipsis character The semantics of using the ellipsis character versus a full stop
Using Git to create an archive of changed files A guide to creating an archive of changed files using Git
Interview: Your take on the rise of e-learning sites We ask Matt Johnston, Paul Synnott, and Toby Osbourn about the rise of e-learning websites
IE7 td colspan width 'issue' A thing which I believe IE7 have actually usefully gotten right
Git command to show files changed in a commit How to see exactly which files have changed in a single commit
The importance of supporting OWASP Security of the web is important and you should support it
Edit an option of a select menu using jQuery How to edit an individual option of a select menu using jQuery
Interview: What would you like to see more of on the web We ask Matt Johnson, Simon Staton, and Zoe Bogner what they would like to see more of on the web
Got an article printed in the IEEE software journal I am very excited to be published in an industry journal
Getting my Dublin Core on A tool to facilitate the finding, sharing and management of information
Howto: Email A Support Request The best way to go about emailing an effective support request
Getting the most out of StackExchange Some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of StackExchange sites
Quick way to switch between folders in the terminal How to move and forward between your present and previous directories
Importing a backup file from another MS SQL machine How to safely import a backup file with no loss of data
Possible issue when using parseInt function How to force integers not to be octals in PHP applications
PHP Security - General PHP setup Gotchas My first post in a series dealing with security in PHP apps
MySQL snippet - Selecting from table a items that aren't in table b How I found items that were present in one table but not another
Finding your SQL Server Version How I went about finding out what my current SQL server version was
PHP - Quick Is Not Set Replace An issue that I encountered when I updated PHP and how I fixed it
IE Cannot Open The Internet Site - Operation Aborted An issue that I encountered when adding JavaScript into a page
What you actually do when you untar something What actually happens when you untar something when you're using Linux
Find out which version of Ubuntu I am on How I went about finding out which version of Ubuntu I was running
Allowing your own From header with sSMTP How to go about setting your own From header using sSMTP
Useful Git Links A useful list of resources for learning how to best use Git
Using Open Source - Some Legal Considerations An event I attended on the legal concerns of software houses using open source
Robin Christopherson - Accessibility in Web Design A talk I attended at this years Future of Web Apps conference
Eoghan McCabe and Des Traynor - Sexy or Meaningful Five Lessons We've Learned Sexy or Meaningful talk 2010
Skipfish - No such file or directory A play around with Skipfish to see if I can automate security scans
Owen DeLong - Content Providers must lead the way to IPv6 A talk I attended at the Future of Web Apps conference 2010
Martha Rotter - Too Much Information [University Session] A talk I attended at the Future of Web Apps conference 2010
Renier Lemmens - The future of Mobile Apps A talk I attended at the Future of Web Apps conference 2010
Simon Wardley - What is the cloud? A talk I attended at the Future of Web Apps conference 2010
Raffi Krikorian - How to use Geolocation in your web app Some thoughts I had on a talk at the Future of Web Apps 2010
Replace ereg with preg_match How to update to using preg_match on newer versions of PHP
Switching between full screen modes in PuTTY How to quickly change between full screen modes when using PuTTY
Exploring Built In Functions My thoughts on the pros and cons of using built in functions
JavaScript KeyCodes Some JavaScript KeyCodes that I find useful to have around
Clean out your links! Some of my thoughts on how you should sort out link building
Acronym and Abbreviation Tags What they are and how they are useful for your folk using your sites
Internet Explorer 8 Checkbox Issues Here I detail some of the issues with checkboxes in IE8
About Pages - Are they totally necessary? My thoughts on whether about pages are necessary or not
Out of the box design Some of the thoughts I went through prior to setting up this site

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