all

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/upcoming.json

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

Year in Review Stats

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

Scheduled Posts

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

Notes

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

Gigs i've attended

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/what-makes-this-site/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/vpn/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/ssh-passphrase/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/serverless-how-to/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/resize-xen-image/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/renovate/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/programming language order/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/gitlab-ci-group-envrionment-variables/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/get-playwright-running-with-framework/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/emails/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/behind-the-source-podcast-learnings/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/drafts/bastion/ Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

drafts Draft

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

Diary

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

Contact Mike Street

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

all

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

Blog

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/web.config

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/sw.js

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/sitemap.xml

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/site.webmanifest

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/rss.xml

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/rss-notes.xml

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/rss-notes-plain.xml

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/rss-all.xml

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/robots.txt

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

There appears to be an issue

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/browserconfig.xml

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

/_redirects

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

Page not found

2025-01-10T20:38:01.000Z 10th January 2025

About Mike Street

2025-01-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th January 2025

Set up Xdebug with DDEV and VS Code

Straight-forward config for beginning PHP debugging in VS Code and DDEV

2025-01-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th January 2025

Use local filesystem for Gitlab CI cache

Whether it be a mounted drive or just a local filesystem - how do you store your global runner caches locally?

2024-12-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd December 2024

2024 Quiz of the Year

A Christmas quiz for (nearly) all ages

2024-12-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th December 2024

Slow upload speed with Apple MacOS - how to debug and what to check

Recently the upload speed on my MacOS devices suddenly dropped - debugging was a nightmare

2024-11-14T00:00:00.000Z 14th November 2024

thisisunsafe - how to bypass Chrome's ERR_CERT_INVALID warning Draft

During development or pre-launch, you may be faced with a ERR_CERT_INVALID - how do you bypass it?

2024-11-14T00:00:00.000Z 14th November 2024

thisisunsafe - how to bypass Chrome's ERR_CERT_INVALID warning

During development or pre-launch, you may be faced with a ERR_CERT_INVALID - how do you bypass it?

2024-10-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th October 2024

Bulk create populated Google Docs from a Google Spreadsheet

How to create Google Docs from a single Google Spreadsheet with variables for mail-merge style creation.

2024-09-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd September 2024

Fixing a failing Docker layer

I was experiencing a failing Docker push with one layer constantly timing out and retrying

2024-08-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th August 2024

A summary of TYPO3 Developer Days 2024

My thoughts about TYPO3 Developer Days 2024

2024-08-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd August 2024

TYPO3 Developer Days 2024: Day 3 - 3rd August 2024

T3DD in Karlsruhe, Germany - day 3. Points of interest and tidbits

2024-08-02T00:00:00.000Z 2nd August 2024

TYPO3 Developer Days 2024: Day 2 - 2nd August 2024

Day two of T3DD in Karlsruhe, Germany - notes, points and useful links

2024-08-01T00:00:00.000Z 1st August 2024

TYPO3 Developer Days 2024: Day 1 - 1st August 2024

Notes, bullet points and links from the first day of T3DD in Karlsruhe, Germany

2024-07-19T18:01:07.000Z 19th July 2024

For a Great Time, Make it a DateTime

2024-05-09T18:03:24.000Z 9th May 2024

Detect JavaScript Support in CSS

2024-05-08T00:00:00.000Z 8th May 2024

Run unit tests in Playwright

Using your existing testing framework to run unit tests

2024-04-17T19:28:20.000Z 17th April 2024

Front-end development’s identity crisis

2024-03-28T00:00:00.000Z 28th March 2024

How to install only NPM dev dependencies

There may be times where you only want to install the devDependencies listed in your package.json file

2024-03-27T00:00:00.000Z 27th March 2024

Scanning your code with Bearer; a Gitlab compatible SAST

Set up Bearer to scan for vulnerabilities in your code, available for use with the free tier

2024-03-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th March 2024

Validate a JSON API with Playwright & JSON Schema

Learn how to validate a JSON API with Playwright

2024-03-10T11:36:54.000Z 10th March 2024

Links with Tips and Advice for Public Speaking

2024-03-06T06:09:32.000Z 6th March 2024

RsS iS dEaD LOL

2024-02-28T23:09:40.000Z 28th February 2024

The Perfect Storm

2024-02-28T08:01:07.000Z 28th February 2024

On Tech Opinions

2024-02-13T09:39:44.000Z 13th February 2024

Compiiile

2024-02-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th February 2024

Testing the frontend of a TYPO3 project

Playwright can help you test the front-end of your website in real browsers. This post walks through using our meta-framework and includes tips and tricks

2024-02-11T18:43:28.000Z 11th February 2024

Eleventy Excellent

2024-02-09T00:00:00.000Z 9th February 2024

Tweetback

I set up a self-hosted read-only archive of my tweets

2024-02-07T21:29:37.000Z 7th February 2024

Lost in Translation: Tips for Multilingual Web Accessibility

2024-02-07T08:55:04.000Z 7th February 2024

jQuery 4.0.0 BETA!

2024-02-04T15:01:36.000Z 4th February 2024

Comparing Static Site Hosts; Which Is The Best Host For A Static Site?

2024-02-04T14:58:32.000Z 4th February 2024

INP meets Puppeteer

2024-02-04T14:57:12.000Z 4th February 2024

The Web Component Success Story

2024-02-04T14:56:09.000Z 4th February 2024

From Headers to Footers: Creating Accessible Experience with Landmarks

2024-02-04T14:54:14.000Z 4th February 2024

Accessibility testing spreadsheet version 2

2024-02-04T14:53:33.000Z 4th February 2024

Accessibility Focus: Links and Text

2024-02-04T14:51:20.000Z 4th February 2024

carouscroll Web Component

2024-02-04T14:50:06.000Z 4th February 2024

Screen Reader Guides

2024-02-04T14:48:52.000Z 4th February 2024

spider-pig

2024-02-04T14:48:18.000Z 4th February 2024

Feed Canary

2024-02-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th February 2024

Composer Best Practices for TYPO3

This post runs through the composer conventions and best practices we use for our TYPO3 based websites

2024-01-30T21:58:00.000Z 30th January 2024

Boomerang.js

2024-01-30T12:00:41.000Z 30th January 2024

Atuin

2024-01-24T22:28:32.000Z 24th January 2024

Mastofeed

2024-01-24T08:07:11.000Z 24th January 2024

Feedle

2024-01-23T22:29:05.000Z 23rd January 2024

The Web is Fantastic

2024-01-15T10:59:44.000Z 15th January 2024

Designing better target sizes

2024-01-12T11:33:35.000Z 12th January 2024

Git Bug

2023-12-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st December 2023

2023 In Review

2023 had more miles and physical activities (including puzzles), but I struggled to get into side-projects & Geocaching

2023-12-14T00:00:00.000Z 14th December 2023

Frameworks, Tools and Utility meta-packages for quicker configuration

An overview on some meta-packages I've created to speed up deployment of some tools

2023-12-05T12:28:54.000Z 5th December 2023

unrot∙link

2023-11-29T00:00:00.000Z 29th November 2023

Accessing iframe content and JavaScript variables from Puppeteer

Access the contents of an iframe including any JavaScript variables set

2023-11-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd November 2023

Login with Puppeteer and re-use cookies for another window

Using Puppeteer, login to a website and store the cookies for use with another session or script

2023-10-20T18:11:04.000Z 20th October 2023

T3ll

2023-10-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd October 2023

Get your Pocket Casts data using the unofficial API and PHP

Learn how to get your Pocket Casts data using PHP and the undocumented API

2023-10-02T14:39:10.000Z 2nd October 2023

Introducing SelectorHound

2023-10-01T19:46:56.000Z 1st October 2023

I find AI so uninteresting

2023-10-01T00:00:00.000Z 1st October 2023

A release process for our NPM and Composer packages

A post outlining our process and workflow for releasing packages and extensions

2023-09-28T21:13:11.000Z 28th September 2023

dbdiagram

2023-09-23T07:12:04.000Z 23rd September 2023

The new iPhone paradox

2023-09-17T21:13:37.000Z 17th September 2023

Expanding your touch targets

2023-09-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th September 2023

Building and Pushing Docker images using Github Actions

How you build a Docker image with Github actions and push to the Github Package registry

2023-08-21T12:26:49.000Z 21st August 2023

The ideal viewport doesn't exist

2023-08-19T07:46:22.000Z 19th August 2023

Everyone has JavaScript, right?

2023-08-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th August 2023

PHP Ternary and null coalescing operators

What's the difference between a ternary and null coalescing operators? Do they give different results?

2023-08-06T00:00:00.000Z 6th August 2023

Build different images with multi-stage Docker builds

Using multi-stage Docker builds you can create incremental images allowing you to keep the ones you need small

2023-08-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd August 2023

Install private composer packages with CI and Deployer

Using environment variables you can install private composer packages in Gitlab CI and pass them through to Deployer

2023-07-22T07:45:50.000Z 22nd July 2023

NativePHP

2023-07-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th July 2023

Open Door Meetings - How I can bother my colleagues without interrupting them

Appointments help us arrange meetings with other staff members without forcing them to context switch.

2023-07-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th July 2023

Docker image with Node, PHP and Composer

Using Alpine, you can build a lightweight Docker image which contains all the tech you need to deploy your LAMP stack

2023-06-28T14:34:52.000Z 28th June 2023

Advanced macOS Command-Line Tools

2023-06-22T09:10:52.000Z 22nd June 2023

Face Cutout

2023-06-20T14:09:59.000Z 20th June 2023

Social & Search Previews

2023-06-17T12:13:21.000Z 17th June 2023

WhoCanUse

2023-06-17T09:04:55.000Z 17th June 2023

esm.sh

2023-06-16T10:25:58.000Z 16th June 2023

Yellow Lab Tools

2023-05-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th May 2023

The UPCOMING.md file in our packages and extensions

We keep a file in our package repositories which creates the CHANGELOG with each release

2023-05-09T11:25:52.000Z 9th May 2023

Move Over, Dockerfiles! The New Way to Craft Containers

2023-05-09T00:00:00.000Z 9th May 2023

NPM Install without modifying the package-lock.json

Running an npm install can be known to modify the lock file, but you can set some options to stop that

2023-05-06T00:00:00.000Z 6th May 2023

The End of the Social Network School Year

Twitter has gone down the drain and, with it, the sense of community I used to have

2023-05-05T19:28:24.000Z 5th May 2023

Web accessibility checklist

2023-05-04T07:44:07.000Z 4th May 2023

Just Simply

2023-04-26T10:15:51.000Z 26th April 2023

Mastodon is doomed

2023-04-24T18:50:24.000Z 24th April 2023

OrbStack

2023-04-11T13:52:55.000Z 11th April 2023

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names

2023-04-10T14:57:41.000Z 10th April 2023

Ddev vscode

2023-04-09T09:13:00.000Z 9th April 2023

Emojinator

2023-04-06T05:18:49.000Z 6th April 2023

AssitivLabs

2023-04-05T08:56:47.000Z 5th April 2023

Keep a blag document

2023-04-03T22:06:50.000Z 3rd April 2023

Trurl

2023-04-03T13:38:44.000Z 3rd April 2023

Runme

2023-03-24T09:43:34.000Z 24th March 2023

Github updated their RSA Key

2023-03-24T00:00:00.000Z 24th March 2023

Post to Slack from Gitlab CI

Posting a customised message to Slack via a bash script

2023-03-22T17:47:43.000Z 22nd March 2023

Fig

2023-03-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th March 2023

Setting up Gitlab Advanced search

Using Advanced search in Gitlab premium requires an Elasticsearch server setting up

2023-03-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th March 2023

Migrating Gitlab packages from object store to local

How to migrate your packages from using the remote object store back to using the Gitlab server

2023-03-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th March 2023

Find a troublesome commit with Git Bisect

Work out which commit introducted a bug with Git Bisect

2023-03-02T21:03:08.000Z 2nd March 2023

1 dataset 100 visualisations

2023-03-01T00:00:00.000Z 1st March 2023

Deploying a Docker image to a remote private registry with Gitlab CI

Deploying an image to a remote Docker registry can be achieved with Gitlab CI

2023-02-27T22:28:01.000Z 27th February 2023

Scribble Diffusion

2023-02-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd February 2023

Reset a git repository back to origin

Short of deleting the repo and cloning again, sometimes you need to reset your repository back to how it should be

2023-02-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th February 2023

Writing more evergreen blog post topics is hard

Writing evergreen content is the golden egg, but it's not as easy as one might think

2023-02-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th February 2023

Take your 11ty build from 1 second to 2 minutes by generating OG images

I tried to generate OG images during build and it ended up taking a long time

2023-02-15T18:27:26.000Z 15th February 2023

What a difference a couple of weeks makes

2023-02-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th February 2023

Server tools - htop and apache server status

As a starting point with the server tool debugging, this blog post explores htop and setting up a server status page with Apache

2023-02-06T19:11:39.000Z 6th February 2023

Summarise any web content

2023-02-06T16:43:51.000Z 6th February 2023

Limit SSH access by username and IP

2023-02-01T15:27:43.000Z 1st February 2023

Super Useful CSS Resources

2023-01-31T22:46:23.000Z 31st January 2023

11ty webmention plugin

2023-01-31T18:34:30.000Z 31st January 2023

11ty custom OG images

2023-01-30T07:55:09.000Z 30th January 2023

Shot-scraper

2023-01-29T19:43:14.000Z 29th January 2023

Technical Writing Resources

2023-01-29T13:17:07.000Z 29th January 2023

Indiekit

2023-01-26T15:24:00.000Z 26th January 2023

Crontab Guru

2023-01-26T11:26:36.000Z 26th January 2023

A Guide To Getting Data Visualization Right

2023-01-24T18:02:51.000Z 24th January 2023

RSS feeds of your Twitter followings

2023-01-23T17:50:47.000Z 23rd January 2023

Punctuation test

2023-01-23T14:12:48.000Z 23rd January 2023

Git Commands You Probably Do Not Need

2023-01-22T22:07:28.000Z 22nd January 2023

The page with no code

2023-01-19T22:54:15.000Z 19th January 2023

Navigate Project Folders with Pick

2023-01-19T19:28:35.000Z 19th January 2023

Comparing Manual and Free Automated WCAG Reviews

2023-01-18T11:29:34.000Z 18th January 2023

Creating ED25519 SSH keys

2023-01-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th January 2023

Why I miss the limitations of CD players

Spotify is vast, but I miss the stack of CDs adorning my walls

2023-01-16T22:35:44.000Z 16th January 2023

Elk - Mastodon Client

2023-01-16T09:39:04.000Z 16th January 2023

Topwire - Turbo for TYPO3

2023-01-15T22:41:14.000Z 15th January 2023

Workbox - service worker library and tooling

2023-01-14T23:13:56.000Z 14th January 2023

Kosmos Adventure Games

2023-01-14T16:09:28.000Z 14th January 2023

Frontend Update

2023-01-14T12:07:44.000Z 14th January 2023

Tina CMS to Mastodon

2023-01-14T00:00:00.000Z 14th January 2023

Adding Tina CMS to 11ty

Looking for a NetlifyCMS alternative to commit changes to the same repo, I stumbled upon TinaCMS

2023-01-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th January 2023

This Talk is Under Construction - talk by Sophie Koonin

2023-01-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th January 2023

Pocket casts is now open source

2023-01-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th January 2023

A perfect CI process

2023-01-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th January 2023

This site now uses Tina CMS

2023-01-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th January 2023

Lovers Magazine

2023-01-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th January 2023

Fake TV Shows and Films in TV Shows and Films

2023-01-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th January 2023

Automate Posting to Mastodon via Web Requests

2023-01-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th January 2023

Updating NPM packages

2023-01-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th January 2023

Be Code Agnostic

Let code be code and your content be content. Don't get tied into a single system for hosting your site

2022-12-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st December 2022

2022 In Review

2022 saw bikes and side-projects increase, while blog posts & instagram declined

2022-12-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th December 2022

Turn any page into a JSON API with Cloudflare Workers

Using the HTMLRewriter and Cloudflare workers, you can turn any webpage into a JSON endpoint

2022-11-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th November 2022

How to delete a Git branch

Make sure you keep your branches tidy by deleting old ones

2022-11-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th November 2022

Use MinIO to cache Gitlab assets and leverage distributed runner caching

Gitlab can utilise MinIO (S3 replacement) for caching built images, packages, uploads and for runner caches

2022-11-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th November 2022

Build and push a Docker image to a private registry with Gitlab CI

Gitlab can host your Docker images with the container registry, this blog post walks through building and pushing your image

2022-10-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th October 2022

Creating Backend Layouts with TYPO3 CMS to build better looking pages

Written For Liquid Light

This blog post walks through creating, selecting and using Backend Layouts in TYPO3.

2022-10-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th October 2022

Notes: #17

2022-09-25T00:00:00.000Z 25th September 2022

Return a Zip file in Node with a Netlify function

Use a Netlify function to return a Zip file using jszip

2022-09-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd September 2022

Merge request conventions for less cognitive load

Adding categories/prefixes to your merge request comments help the author identify and compartmentalise comments and feedback

2022-08-27T00:00:00.000Z 27th August 2022

Programmatically Commit to Gitlab via Node.js

Committing to a Gitlab repository programmatically, can be achieved with a NPM package and a few lines of Javascript

2022-08-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th August 2022

Love Film & Cinema

Gone are the times where you would get a film in the post - how do we remove choice paralysis and actually watch a film?

2022-07-29T00:00:00.000Z 29th July 2022

Add Netlify CMS to an existing 11ty site

Learn to add Netlify CMS to an existing 11ty site to make editing your posts easier

2022-07-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd July 2022

Version constraints in JSON files

NPM and Composer have different syntax for version constraints which tripped me up recently

2022-06-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th June 2022

Upgrading 11ty from 0.12 to 1.0

This blog has been running on 11ty for 2 years. With version 1.0 being released at the beginning of 2022, I thought it about time I upgraded

2022-06-08T00:00:00.000Z 8th June 2022

How I improved the speed of Docker builds in Gitlab CI

I reduced our Gitlab CI powered Docker build by 80% - taking it more than 15 minutes to around 3 minutes to build and push with these steps

2022-05-30T00:00:00.000Z 30th May 2022

Creating a Docusaurus docker image for consistent rendering of your documentation

Sharing configuration for a documentation framework keeps a lot of noise out of your project repository. This blog explains how we use a Docker image to reduce the friction in writing and displaying documentation

2022-05-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th May 2022

New Apple computer set up

What steps do I go through when setting up a new computer?

2022-05-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th May 2022

Add custom repositories for composer to pull from

This post covers several main types of custom composer repositories and how to use them

2022-05-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th May 2022

Notes: #16

2022-02-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th February 2022

Creating a multi-stage Docker build to make your images smaller

During the build of a Docker image you may need to step through several stages. Using a multi-build helps keep the end result smaller in size.

2022-02-09T00:00:00.000Z 9th February 2022

Notes: #15

2021-12-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st December 2021

2021 In Review

2021 was the year everything just carried on being a bit rubbish in the world. There were, however, some excellent highlights in the year

2021-12-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th December 2021

Using a private Docker registry with Gitlab CI

You may wish to use your own private registry when building Docker images in a Gitlab CI pipeline - this blog shows how to access your private registry

2021-10-21T00:00:00.000Z 21st October 2021

Use env files and variables to keep sensitive information out of your TYPO3 project

Written For Liquid Light

Environment variables are a great way of keeping sensitive information, such as passwords and API keys out of your project and git repository. Thos blog walks through setting them up with TYPO3

2021-10-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th October 2021

Notes: #14

2021-09-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th September 2021

Build and release Composer packages using a self-hosted Gitlab

When developing with Composer, you may wish to create private packages and host them with Gitlab

2021-08-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd August 2021

Upload an image to Cloudinary using the Node SDK

Using the Cloudinary Node SDK, we can upload an image in a Javascript application - such as a Netlify function

2021-08-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd August 2021

Notes: #13

2021-08-09T00:00:00.000Z 9th August 2021

Quickly clone a git repository without the history

Sometimes you want to git clone a repository without needing the full log. Not only does this save space it speeds up the clone too

2021-07-26T00:00:00.000Z 26th July 2021

Making an 11ty collection from a remote XML file

RSS is XML with a specification, however not all RSS feeds follow the spec. In this post, we process the feed as an XML document meaning we can access the extra attributes and values

2021-07-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th July 2021

Create an 11ty collection from any RSS feed

Using 11ty global data files, we create an 11ty collection from an RSS feed. As an example, we show the latest YouTube videos on our website

2021-06-28T00:00:00.000Z 28th June 2021

Incremental updates don't win awards

Written For Liquid Light

The web industry thrives on “the big reveal” of new designs and websites but we don't believe that should ever be the case.

2021-06-28T00:00:00.000Z 28th June 2021

Creating an 11ty collection from a JSON API

Using 11ty Global data files, you can make collections from JSON APIs, allowing you to make whole websites from one endpoint

2021-06-21T00:00:00.000Z 21st June 2021

The cleanest way of handling user authentication with Nuxt.js

Rather than client-side user authentication, this blog post works through how to catch a user authentication error with Nuxt

2021-05-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st May 2021

Building Ale House Rock with 11ty

I rebuilt my beer review website using a JSON API and 11ty. This is a rundown of how I tackled it

2021-05-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th May 2021

Accessing 11ty filters within data files to keep your code DRY

11ty filters can exist as JS functions inside the declared filters directory - these can be accessed by other files not processed by 11ty

2021-05-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd May 2021

Using a few lines of PHP to programmatically upload an image to Cloudinary

This quick block post shows how to upload an image to Cloudinary using PHP, using their provided SDK

2021-04-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th April 2021

Get your Eleventy Site into the real world using a hosting provider like Netlify or Git pages

There are plenty of ways to get your 11ty site live depending on preferences and skill set, this blog walks through a few of the popular ones including Gitlab pages, Vercel, Netlify and Cloudflare pages

2021-04-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th April 2021

Using the TYPO3 redirects module to ensure your visitors don't end up at a dead-end

Written For Liquid Light

With version 9, TYPO3 introduced a native redirects module - not only does it give you a place to centrally manage your redirects, it gracefully handles page renaming

2021-04-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th April 2021

11ty Utils - an NPM Package

I published an NPN package the other day which contains some everyday 11ty utils

2021-04-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th April 2021

Build an 11ty calendar to list all your posts

List all of your posts (or other collection items) in a calendar/diary format to give a timeline of your past

2021-04-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th April 2021

Notes: #12

2021-04-06T00:00:00.000Z 6th April 2021

My 2021 writing schedule

Since 2021, I have stuck to a writing schedule - not only has it helped write more posts, it prevents the flurry of inactivity

2021-04-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th April 2021

Using Cloudflare workers to publish your scheduled 11ty posts

Learn how to schedule blog posts and other items to go live with your static site generator without having to rebuild the whole site. Get all the benefits of a dynamic CSS with static files

2021-04-02T00:00:00.000Z 2nd April 2021

Side Project Imposter Syndrome

What is a side project, if not a safe place to get imposter syndrome?

2021-03-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd March 2021

Notes: #11

2021-03-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd March 2021

Automatically deploying your Lumen App with PHP Deployer (and zero downtime) so you don't have to manually do it

PHP Deployer is a great little utility for deploying your PHP app via command line. It doesn't force you to use any specific tech stack and simplifies the process of getting your app live.

2021-03-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th March 2021

Notes: #10

2021-03-08T00:00:00.000Z 8th March 2021

How to migrate your Gitlab instance to a new server

I recently migrated our Gitlab server install from one server to another. With the help of a few tutorials it was fairly painless, however I thought I would outline the steps here

2021-02-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd February 2021

Notes: #9

2021-02-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd February 2021

Socket RSS - The Gleefreshing answer to your Doomscrolling habits

I have recently made a side project called "Socket RSS". The idea is it becomes a place for Gleefreshing, not Doomscrolling.

2021-02-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th February 2021

Compiling your front-end assets with Laravel Mix while your 11ty site builds, so you don't have to switch between processes

Laravel Mix is a great asset compiler from the creators of Laravel - but you don't have to be using their framework to benefit from it. This blog walks through setting it up to run with 11ty.

2021-02-01T00:00:00.000Z 1st February 2021

How to set up and use Laravel Mix with your project

Despite the name, Laravel Mix isn't just for Laravel. It is a tidy, succinct task runner with understandable syntax and a single config file. This tutorial will run through setting it up with your project

2021-01-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th January 2021

Setting up a custom domain with Netlify with Cloudflare SSL

In this post we are going to set up a custom domain in Netlify using Cloudflare. We will also install a self signed Cloudflare certificate on Netlify to ensure end-to-end encryption.

2021-01-14T00:00:00.000Z 14th January 2021

Making sure you're not doing everything at work

Delegation is hard for people who find themselves in management roles. The trick is to be the overflow, not the gatekeeper.

2020-12-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st December 2020

2020 In Review

2020 brought the first pandemic of my lifetime, but plenty of good things too

2020-11-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th November 2020

What is a server?

Written For Liquid Light

Servers power the internet and have done since the creation of it. All the websites in the world run on servers (with varying levels of web interfaces & logins). So what are they, how do they work and what do Liquid Light typically use?

2020-10-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th October 2020

Converting Behind the Source to 11ty

I spent the week converting Behind the Source from Craft to Eleventy (a static site generator). Will I use it again?

2020-10-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th October 2020

Setting up Homebrew, NPM and Eleventy on a fresh mac

Walking through setting up Homebrew on your Mac, so you can install NPM and Eleventy.

2020-09-24T00:00:00.000Z 24th September 2020

Notes #8

2020-09-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th September 2020

Notes #7

2020-09-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th September 2020

Composer - creating a private package to include your own PHP class

I am currently in the midst of developing a new side-project and wanted to use the same class as a base for two separate elements of the project.

2020-09-08T00:00:00.000Z 8th September 2020

Tidying up a git repo Draft

git clone --bare --mirror [path] du -h [folder] 10 largest commits ` git verify-pack -v objects/pack/[file].idx | sort -k 3 -n | tail -10 ` `git rev-list --objects --all | grep [hash]` - find ...

2020-07-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd July 2020

Getting a Slack helper running with Netlify: Part 2

Part 2 of the Slack status updater with Netlify. This walks through using dotenv and locking the function down to "local" use. There is also a crude UI that has been made

2020-07-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th July 2020

Getting a Slack helper running with Netlify: Part 1

So I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to web stacks - I'm all about LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). I had an idea for a small little web app and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to give Netlify a go.

2020-07-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th July 2020

Notes #6

2020-07-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th July 2020

Useful command line MySQL commands

It seems I have been doing a lot of command line work on Debian with MySQL recently and have been having to search the internet (or my bash history) every time I need to do something. Here is a collection of commands I have been using

2020-06-08T00:00:00.000Z 8th June 2020

Fixing an IP address on a Raspberry Pi (and Debian in General) Draft

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ip a 1: lo: mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000 link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00 inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever inet6 ::1/128 scope host valid_...

2020-06-06T00:00:00.000Z 6th June 2020

Notes #5

2020-05-28T00:00:00.000Z 28th May 2020

The Git Commit Hash

The magic 40 character string that is attached to every commit you do. What is it, where does it come from and will understanding it help you with Git in the future?

2020-05-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th May 2020

Notes #4

2020-05-01T00:00:00.000Z 1st May 2020

Notes #3

2020-04-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th April 2020

Generating a Lets Encrypt SSL certificate with Cloudflare Draft

This blog post walks through generating an SSL certificate with `certbot` from Let's Encrypt, specifically, when your DNS is with Cloudflare. For those on Cloudflare wondering why you would want ...

2020-04-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th April 2020

Why should you consider Cloudflare for your website?

Written For Liquid Light

Cloudflare is a service which, among other things, provides a CDN (Content Delivery Network), firewall, and performance layer for your website. It has plenty of paid upgrades and features and ...

2020-04-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th April 2020

Notes #2

2020-04-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th April 2020

What are the different SSL modes on Cloudflare?

Cloudflare has a few different options when it comes to selecting which TLS/SSL mode you should choose?

2020-04-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th April 2020

Setting up Tiny Tiny RSS to collate feeds

I set up Tiny Tiny RSS as a self-hosted feed reader, but it wasn't clear how get the application to fetch RSS feeds in the background. This blog post gives a walkthrough

2020-04-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th April 2020

Mikestreety's New Clothes

For regular readers, you will notice a fresh new face on the old dog (my first blog post that made the many migrations was from 2009!).

2020-04-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th April 2020

Notes #1

2020-03-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th March 2020

Using Cloudflare Workers to set a cookie based on a GET parameter or path

An example of how to use Cloudflare Workers to set a cookie on your page without modifying code on your server. This Worker can set a cookie based on either a GET parameter in the URL or a particular file path

2020-02-26T00:00:00.000Z 26th February 2020

What are Cloud Functions, Cloudflare Workers and Serverless?

Serverless & Cloudflare workers have been cropping up a lot recently. I try to organise my thoughts into what they are and how you can use them

2019-12-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st December 2019

2019 In Review

2019 was a strange year, new kitchen, bathroom car and bike. But overall it was good. I enjoyed it.

2019-12-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th December 2019

How do you deal with designers who design without any thought?

Written For Liquid Light

As a developer, dealing with designers and their creations can sometimes be challenging. At Liquid Light we've honed our process to ensure minimum friction between both developers and designers.

2019-11-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th November 2019

Notes: #0

2019-11-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th November 2019

How to become device agnostic and what it means for your data

Written For Liquid Light

All too often you hear about people losing their phones and, along with it, their data. This blog post explores how you can become "device agnostic", freeing the tether between your device and your memories.

2019-08-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd August 2019

email.subscribeto - a newsletter database

I've always been keen to discover new newsletters and have always kept my eye out for recommendations. I decided to collate these recommendations and build a directory.

2019-07-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st July 2019

The Real World of Web Development

I read "The Real Dark Web", a blog post from @whalecoiner and within a few paragraphs it really hit home. There are a few noisy web developers who are innovating, ...

2019-06-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th June 2019

Linux Debian user commands

To save me Googling, I have collated all the user-related commands I often use - particularly useful when setting up a new VM!

2019-06-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th June 2019

Getting started with Xen - setting up virtual machines

Xen is a basic but powerful package for linux which allows you to create virtual machines, A rival to Vagrant, Xen has less configuration (but is potentially less "agile")

2019-05-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd May 2019

Build your own "share this" component

Using a Share This plugin (or similar) or the native sharing widgets from social networks can really bloat your page and look ugly. This code is how we, at Liquid Light, implement social sharing widgets

2019-04-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th April 2019

How to use fetch in JavaScript to GET or POST data

Fetch is a fantastic JavaScript function which allows you to natively get and post data from the browser. This post includes some examples of how to use it.

2019-03-28T00:00:00.000Z 28th March 2019

Using a post-merge git hook to clean up old branches

Written For Liquid Light

When you've been working on a project for a while, you might find you have a few stale branches hanging around. At Liquid Light we have a git hook which tidies up after a merge

2019-02-14T00:00:00.000Z 14th February 2019

Developing websites locally with Docker

Docker allows you to host websites locally, which allows you can develop them within an environment which can be an exact replica of the live one. This blog post explores my first experience with Docker.

2019-02-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th February 2019

Newsletters for Front-end Developers - 2019 edition

Newsletters that I, as a front-end developer, have found extremely useful and insightful. This is a new list compared to the original from 2016!

2018-12-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st December 2018

2018 in review

2018 was a big year for me, in all sorts of ways. This blog post summarises one of the most life-changing years of my life.

2018-11-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th November 2018

Xbox One vs PlayStation 4

I recently sold my Xbox One S and bout a PlayStation 4 Pro. Why did I do this and what are the differences? This post outlines my thoughts from an "everyday consumer".

2018-10-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th October 2018

Using Vue.js with a Lumen powered API

Written For Liquid Light

Lumen is a micro-framework from the creators of Laravel. Using Laravel methodology, Lumen offers a leaner, cut-down version of the framework. By including less code, Lumen is able to offer ...

2018-10-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th October 2018

Music obsessions

The table below details what I've been listening to, what I am listening to, or albums I've discovered. There is no shame in this list

2018-08-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th August 2018

Uses

I've had a few questions regarding what apps I use with which themes and settings. This is an up-to-date blog post with the answers.

2018-08-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th August 2018

How to filter an array of objects based on a secondary array in JavaScript

Sounds confusing, but there is a use-case, honest! Imagine you have an array with a set number of items in and you wanted to filter another array of objects based on that in your JavaScript. The post explains more!

2018-04-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th April 2018

Mike builds a bike

Progress of a bike build

2018-03-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th March 2018

Why we're not dropping Slack for Google Hangouts Chat...yet.

Written For Liquid Light

At the beginning of this month, Google announced they were rolling out Hangouts Chat to all users of Google Suite over a week or so. Our suite was finally updated ...

2018-03-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th March 2018

Backup Gitlab data locally

I've recently moved all of my git repositories to Gitlab, this blog post walks through a script I have written to clone all of my repositories locally as a backup.

2018-03-08T00:00:00.000Z 8th March 2018

How I wrote a book; the writing process from one of our Developers

Written For Liquid Light

In 2017, one of our front-end developers wrote and released a book about the JavaScript library; Vue.js. This blog post explains the process he went through to get the book from his mind to print.

2017-12-31T00:00:00.000Z 31st December 2017

2017 in review

It seems to be the done thing to do a "year in review" post. I initially scoffed at the idea, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought about how keeping track of accomplishments can be a little encouragement and ego boost. So here goes!

2017-12-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th December 2017

Introduction to Vuex Part 1 - managing state, storage and sharing data between components

This blog post covers the initialisation and basic usage of Vuex - a central store for your Vue applications. It covers the basics of the four main components of Vuex: the state, mutations, actions and getters.

2017-12-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th December 2017

Introduction to Vuex Part 2 - implementation (video)

In the second part of this series, we cover implementing a Vuex Store into a Vue.js application

2017-11-08T00:00:00.000Z 8th November 2017

Filters in Vue.js: What are they, how do you use them, and how do you make them? (video)

There are many ways to manipulate a value to make it user-friendly using Vue.js. In this tutorial, I show you how you can use Vue filters to alter the appearance of a variable without affecting its data.

2017-10-26T00:00:00.000Z 26th October 2017

Vue.js: Using dynamic and static attributes and props with components and HTML elements (video)

This Vue.js tutorial explains the difference between dynamic and static attributes and props. It shows how you can pass variables to components or other HTML elements to display dynamic contents.

2017-10-25T00:00:00.000Z 25th October 2017

Schema - what is it and how do I use it?

Written For Liquid Light

Schema is a way of structuring your code to make your content available in a "richer" format.

2017-10-21T00:00:00.000Z 21st October 2017

Using props for accessing URL parameters within components with Vue Router (video)

This quick video walkthrough shows how you can replace any URL parameters in your components with props and how to pass them through from vue router to access them within your component

2017-10-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th October 2017

Vue: Using localStorage with Vuex store

Using the browser's localStorage we can create a Vue app which has its Vuex store cached. This allows the user to navigate away from the app and not lose their preferences.

2017-09-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th September 2017

How can I verify my Google Event Tracking is working?

Written For Liquid Light

Validating your Google Event tracking is working can be a tricky business. This blog post walks you through checking the data being sent to Google Analytics, so you can verify the information is correct.

2017-09-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th September 2017

Change ownership of all folders and subfolders or files

Changing permissions on files and folders can be tedious, so why not do it in one fell swoop?

2017-08-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th August 2017

Navigation drop-downs. Should they be hover or click?

Written For Liquid Light

Navigation drop-downs, or mega menus as they are sometimes dubbed, are becoming more and more common on the web. A drop-down menu is a navigation block which appears when a ...

2017-08-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th August 2017

Damaged version of macOS

I was recently trying to install a copy of macOS from a USB stick I'd made and kept getting an error saying the OS was damaged. I created the stick using both the command line and the OSX Install Disk Creator and whatever I did I got the error.

2017-07-26T00:00:00.000Z 26th July 2017

People are cyclists - a community hub

I’m not sure if this is a thing or just a pipe-dream but bear with me.

2017-07-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd July 2017

Don't require password for sudo commands as non-root user

Sometimes you don't want to have to enter your password every time you run a sudo command - this blog post walks you through disabling that.

2017-07-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd July 2017

SCSS Reverse direction

There may be a point in your CSS coding that you want to know the opposite of a direction (e.g. up, down). This function allows you to pass it a direction and get the opposite back!

2017-06-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd June 2017

How I kicked a millennial habit

Changing habits is hard - especially when it's being part of your lifestyle for so long. After watching a video, I decided to address my reliance on social media and mobile phones.

2017-06-14T00:00:00.000Z 14th June 2017

The Digital Bucket List for People in the Web

Last September I gave a talk at Bytes 2016, a mini-conference for people in the web about my digital bucket list for people who work with the internet.

2017-05-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th May 2017

Find folders on a linux server that do not have a file

I needed to locate any folder following a particular pattern that did not have a particular file. The command allows you to locate the folders and perform actions on them.

2017-05-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th May 2017

Render Conf 30th March 2017 - A review

Written For Liquid Light

On 30th March, I took the many trains over the many hours required to get to Oxford from Brighton and attended Render Conf. In it’s second year, this conference ...

2017-05-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th May 2017

Rarely handy Git commands

There are rare times when you need a slightly obscure git command. You spent several minutes googling, crafting and constructing your command only to run it once and not need it again for a while. This blog post will serve as my dumping ground for those odd commands I seldom need, but when I do I can then copy and paste. Feel free to get in touch with your favourite curve-ball command and I'll do my best to add it to the list!

2017-05-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th May 2017

HTML 5 collapsable information - works in a Github/Gitlab issue

It may be that you wish to include a lot of information in a Github issue (or anywhere else on the web that allows HTML) but don't want the code/error to fill out the page. Luckily, there is a way to collapse it using latest HTML tags.

2017-05-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd May 2017

Multiple transition delays

Being able to animate with CSS transitions is great, although there are a few gotchas when using them. This one with transition-delay had me scratching my head for a while.

2017-04-26T00:00:00.000Z 26th April 2017

CSS Custom Properties - everyday applications

CSS Custom properties are now supported in Edge, meaning you can use them nearly everywhere. However, there are some cases where further browser support is required. Using PostCSS we can use CSS custom properties in development while still maintaining cross browser support.

2017-03-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th March 2017

How can I score 100 on Google PageSpeed Insights?

Written For Liquid Light

PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a tool developed by Google to rank the speed of your website. There are a few things it doesn’t look out for, such as code validation or usability but it’s a good starting point at getting your site up to scratch.

2016-12-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th December 2016

What's new in Feefo v3?

Written For Liquid Light

Feefo, the customer feedback and review website, launched version 3 of their product at the end of September. Although customers had no choice to be updated to version 3, what does this ...

2016-12-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th December 2016

"HD" cheap action cam - you get what you pay for

Recently, a friend and I purchased a cheap action camera from eBay to see what quality you get for £14

2016-11-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th November 2016

Find and remove vendor prefixes in your CSS using Regex

I recently set out to remove all of the vendor prefixes from the CSS for all of our clients at work. This is because we use Gulp with Autoprefixer - which means we have up-to-date prefixes and cleaner SCSS. One way of doing this would be to open every CSS file, search for `-moz`, then search for `-webkit` etc. Some of the CSS I was searching through is well over 5 years old and is rife with vendor prefixes.

2016-11-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd November 2016

Building a Vue v2 JS app using Vue-router

Written For Liquid Light

Vue JS is a javascript framework which has recently released version 2. Allowing you to display, manipulate and navigate data, Vue is a React, Knockout and Angular competitor. This blog post walks through building a web app with Vue Router.

2016-10-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd October 2016

Set up a new Virtual Private Server (VPS)

How to set up a new VPS with all the expected features and functionality

2016-08-02T00:00:00.000Z 2nd August 2016

How we use Trello to keep track of our marketing schedule

Written For Liquid Light

Trello is a great tool which lets you easily manage projects. Ranging from websites to weddings, Trello helps you create tag and move cards. At Liquid Light, we use Trello to keep track of our marketing output - this blog explains how.

2016-07-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th July 2016

Using lego to build a device lab

Written For Liquid Light

2016-05-27T00:00:00.000Z 27th May 2016

12 favourite atom tips and shortcuts to improve your workflow

Written For Sitepoint

Atom is a fantastic IDE and is hugely powerful. I share my favourite, time-saving tips, packages and shortcuts for GitHub's Atom code editor.

2016-05-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th May 2016

CSS frameworks and why you should make one

With recent front-end twitter conversation turning to CSS frameworks, I went on a roller coaster of emotions but eventually settled on the above to sum up how I felt about the ordeal. Before we settle once more, let me take you on the journey I travelled.

2016-05-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th May 2016

Small code snippets for Alligator.io

I have recently been writing some small code snippets and examples for alligator.io. It's a great little website which takes front-end code and breaks them down into bitesize ...

2016-05-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th May 2016

Creating a custom Mailchimp template with layout variations

Written For Liquid Light

Creating a responsive, HTML email template is not as easy as it first appears. Email clients are still behind with web standards and supporting latest web technologies, so HTML emails need to be built using the table element and inline styles. This blog will walk you through creating a custom template while still using Mailchimp's WYSIWYG and Image editor

2016-04-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th April 2016

Making Craft CMS work with Prism JS using pre and code blocks

You may (or may not) have noticed that my site had a massive overhaul. With that overhaul, I changed CMS from Anchor to Craft.

2016-04-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th April 2016

Newsletters for Front-end developers

There is so much information on the web these days about development, that I often miss out on things on twitter. For that reason, I find HTML newsletters amazingly simple but wonderfully nutritional for my front-end developer brain.

2016-03-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd March 2016

How do I update to Gulp 4?

Written For Liquid Light

Gulp is a task runner used for compiling SCSS to CSS, minifying JS and creating SVG sprites. Version 4 is about to be released and this blog post runs you through how to update and use the new features of gulp.

2016-03-06T00:00:00.000Z 6th March 2016

Download files via command line

I recently purchased a Western Digital EX2 NAS box for my home storage. This device is a low powered file server which is on all the time - perfect for taking care of those hefty downloads and long running tasks so I don't need to keep my laptop on.

2016-03-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th March 2016

Get background image information if element has a one in jQuery

Recently I need to loop through elements on a page and, if the element had a background image apply a jQuery plugin. The plugin required the background image path & dimensions to function

2016-02-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th February 2016

Raspberry Pi: what is it and why do i need one?

Written For Liquid Light

The Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized computer which has taken the technical world by storm. Originally developed to encourage children and schools to get into programming - the cheap device has been picked up by the development and hacking industries and has been the central device in projects no-one would have dreamed of while it was being developed.

2016-01-29T00:00:00.000Z 29th January 2016

My Dream: Multi-room audio with Chromecast and central music server

I have been searching for a solution to my problem for a while now and I have had no luck - so i'm putting it out to the masses to ...

2016-01-25T00:00:00.000Z 25th January 2016

YouTube videos vs self-hosted: Which one is better for you?

Written For Liquid Light

We are often asked whether videos for your website should be uploaded and hosted on your own website and server or if they should be uploaded to a social website ...

2015-12-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th December 2015

Building a 3D printer - tips, hints and links

Recently a friend, Chris, and I have embarked on the journey of building our own 3D printer. This is something I hugely recommend if you are into that kind of thing. It's taught me many things already and is amazing to see something moving that you've built.

2015-12-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd December 2015

Let's drop IE8

Written For Liquid Light

For website creators, making sure a website looks good across device and browsers is our biggest challenge. Websites don’t have to look the same, but they do have to ...

2015-11-02T00:00:00.000Z 2nd November 2015

Responsive Typography in SCSS

Written For Liquid Light

Making sure your typography is readable on every display is arguably one of the most important aspects of front-end development. If your users can’t read the content on the ...

2015-10-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th October 2015

Use a Raspberry Pi with multiple WiFi networks

I have recently been carrying my Raspberry Pi back and forth between my home and my local hack space - BuildBrighton. Both places have WiFi and with a Raspberry Pi ...

2015-09-25T00:00:00.000Z 25th September 2015

Making a filming, photographing, auto-tweeting bot

At Liquid Light, we often have hack days - a day where we down client work and hack something together for a day.

2015-06-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th June 2015

Raspberry Pi Timelapse

I recently acquired a Raspberry Pi camera and the first thing I wanted to do was set up a timelapse. The brains behind this is a slight modification of the standard camera code that the clever Raspberry Pi people give you. Its a python script which is then fired at regular intervals using a cron job.

2015-06-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th June 2015

Export Locko to 1Password

Getting your passwords out of Locko into something else can be tricky due to their unique export format. This post helps with PHP

2015-06-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th June 2015

The Arduino Uno and a Mac

I finally managed to get my hands on an Arduino board a couple of days ago and have been playing around with it this evening. Arduinos run one bit of ...

2015-04-30T00:00:00.000Z 30th April 2015

Using Slack to Improve Team Communication

Written For Liquid Light

Slack is a hugely popular communication team tool which has grown from strength to strength over the last year. It was publicly released in February 2014 and has recently been valued ...

2015-04-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th April 2015

Setting Up Your Raspberry Pi for Input and Output

Make sure you read the introduction to this series So you want the start hacking with your Raspberry Pi? There are a few things you need to do before you ...

2015-04-01T00:00:00.000Z 1st April 2015

Hacking with a Raspberry Pi: An Introduction

I've recently been playing around with Raspberry Pi and some hardware - seeing what else can be done with the tiny computer.

2015-03-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th March 2015

Git for Beginners: An Overview and Basic Workflow

Written For Liquid Light

Git is a tricky subject to get your head around. Knowing the commands is one thing, but knowing how to use them is another. This article will walk you through a simple, single developer Git workflow - covering the commands that you would use at each stage.

2015-02-12T00:00:00.000Z 12th February 2015

Filtering Tables with jQuery

I was recently asked by a friend how you would make a table filterable by using a select box & jQuery - for example "show me films made just in 2014.

2014-12-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th December 2014

HTML Newsletters - Design Considerations

Written For Liquid Light

HTML emails are a great way of keeping your customers up-to-date, but are not as versatile as web pages. Here's our list of things to consider when designing and building HTML emails.

2014-12-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd December 2014

PHP Classes - Explained

To put it very simply, a PHP class is a way of grouping a set of functions and variables into entities,allowing them to be used as self-contained instances.

2014-11-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th November 2014

Creating SVG Sprites using Gulp and Sass

Written For Liquid Light

Following on from our recent blog post about SVG Sprites which gave an introduction and overview to using SVGs in a sprite, this post will outline the processes and tools ...

2014-09-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd September 2014

My Local Bike Shop in Brighton

Living in Brighton, there is a huge array of bike shops to choose from. Ask any local cyclist and the phrase "Support your local bike shop" is often muttered

2014-08-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th August 2014

Working with SVGs in Sprites

Written For Liquid Light

This article will explain how and why you would want to use SVGs and what advantages using them in a sprite can bring. It will also cover scaling the images ...

2014-07-25T00:00:00.000Z 25th July 2014

Hovélo - a new Hove-based cycling group

Posts round here have been a bit quite because my time has been taken up by starting a new cycling club - Hovélo

2014-06-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th June 2014

10 moments I hate about cycling

Evans Cycles blogged "10 Moments Every Cyclist Hates" and before I had even read the blog, plenty of moments popped into my head - these are my top 10

2014-06-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th June 2014

Remaking the Sass News Newsletter

With the weekly golden nectar of Sass News winging its way into my inbox every week, I decided to take on the challenge of giving the newsletter a facelift

2014-06-06T00:00:00.000Z 6th June 2014

Make Anchor CMS work with its files elsewhere

Recently I wanted to tidy up my public_html directory - as the folders were getting too much and I like a clean directory.

2014-05-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd May 2014

Advanced Gulp File

With gulp starting to find itself into my everyday workflow - I've started to understand its quirks and twists, and how to get along with it. This is an advancement on my original gulpfile from a few months ago

2014-05-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th May 2014

Ignoring libraries in git

Far too often recently I've noticed people committing libraries and packages to their main application (website) repository.

2014-05-08T00:00:00.000Z 8th May 2014

Bower

I have recently discovered the power of Bower - a front end package manager. Rather than having to go and find the hosted jquery link, or download the files for fancybox and copy them into my application (website), I can download them off bower.

2014-03-24T00:00:00.000Z 24th March 2014

An Introduction to CSS Preprocessors

Writing and updating CSS can be a repetitive, tedious and arduous task - especially for big projects. CSS preprocessors can help with that - amalgamating related styles and helping you make your style sheets more DRY

2014-03-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th March 2014

A basic SCSS compilation gulpfile.js

This post introduces how to compile SCSS with Gulp along with some core concepts

2014-02-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd February 2014

Sass Rule Layout

We've been going through a bit of a reshuffle at work with regards to our front-end conventions and layout.

2014-02-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th February 2014

Be a Better Road User

I've been cycling since I can remember, and driving since 2009. Over the last few years, I've believed something more and more and I would like to make a bold statement - Cyclists make better drivers, drivers make better cyclists

2014-02-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th February 2014

From Less to Sass

Recently we've decided a change in preprocessor to help optimise our workflow. Within this blog post, I am going to type Sass, but really I mean Scss.

2013-10-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd October 2013

A placeholder mixin - for Less and Scss

Creating a Less mixin to style input placeholders without using an autoprefixer

2013-10-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th October 2013

Git tab autocomplete

A quick tip on how to enable git autocompletion on the command line

2013-10-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th October 2013

Compiling Less on the Command Line

We have been using LESS for a while now, but our process involved including the less.js in the header during development, compiling the LESS using an app before launch and then maintaining the site using the css.

2013-07-29T00:00:00.000Z 29th July 2013

Trailwalker 2013

The Trailwalker event is something I've had my eye on for a while. 100km over 30 hours seemed like a sporting challenge I could do. I was 16 when a friend started ...

2013-06-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd June 2013

My Media Centre Solution

About a year ago, my nerdiness got upgraded. I purchased a second hand NAS.

2013-05-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd May 2013

Forget-me-not

Frank Turner, a wonderfully talented musician with whom I have recently embarked a music-man crush upon, has sung some beautiful songs on his recent album.

2013-05-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th May 2013

Wordpress - Pulling An Archive

As I mentioned in my first post I have made an archive of my previous Wordpress blog posts into a static page. This is done through some SQL and ...

2013-05-13T00:00:00.000Z 13th May 2013

Points

This week I announced that I was closing the curtain on my mini-conference Points Brighton. Points has been my baby, my creation. I feel, now it has found its end.

2013-02-21T00:00:00.000Z 21st February 2013

A world without the web

For those of you that know me, you would be aware that I have recently moved house. For those of you that don't, I have recently moved house.

2013-02-15T00:00:00.000Z 15th February 2013

Starting Afresh, Starting Anew

So like my good friends Anthony and Kris, I've realised how little i've blogged over the last year. Looking at my archive the last 6 months of 2012 played host to just 1 ...

2013-01-03T00:00:00.000Z 3rd January 2013

Setting up a local development server

Written For 12 Devs of Christmas

There are plenty of articles on the web about how to become a web designer, how to build sites and how to sell them. What this article opens up, is ...

2012-11-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th November 2012

Sass - Hidden Gems

I've recently been getting into pre-processors for CSS and I have been using LESS for sometime - getting to grips with the nesting and variables while keeping a library of my own mixins.

2012-08-29T00:00:00.000Z 29th August 2012

Start Your Own Event

Written For .net magazine

This article first appeared in issue 230 of .net magazine – the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Conferences are great. You get to meet fantastic people, you learn ...

2012-07-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th July 2012

I hate road cycling

Road cycling. Its boring. Its rubbish. Most road cyclists just go round in circles. Up to the top of a hill, turn round and back again - wash, rinse, repeat.

2012-07-11T00:00:00.000Z 11th July 2012

Future of Web Design - May 2012 - Day 1

In the middle of May, I attended my first big web conference – the Future of Web Design. I’ve been to a few small-scale conferences before, but never one but never one of the big boys

2012-06-30T00:00:00.000Z 30th June 2012

ratio - a mikestreety app

An app for working out ratios

2012-06-23T00:00:00.000Z 23rd June 2012

Domains - Pitfalls and Propagation

Many a times I have dealt with various companies and agencies about pointing different domains at our servers - what shocked me is the basic level of understanding, most of the time, is 0. I thought I would dump my brain about domains and whatnot, because then even if everyone has a basic understanding, life will be good.

2012-05-18T00:00:00.000Z 18th May 2012

#PHPFED - Variables

Before you continue - make sure you understand the story. The next thing is that php lines always need to end with a semi-colon (;). This tells php that the line ...

2012-05-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th May 2012

I bloody love twitter

I bloody love twitter. It's great. Now, I'm not some twitter addict or nerd, well I am, but that's by the by.

2012-05-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th May 2012

#PHPFED - Includes

When developing static sites (i.e. sites without any sort of CMS - be it Wordpress, Drupal etc.) the PHP I find the most valuable is the include.

2012-05-09T00:00:00.000Z 9th May 2012

Points Brighton - The Aftermath

Last night was the second of my mini-conferences, Points Brighton. It featured speakers and keynotes of all different varieties, and the infamous Points Bazaar (the raffle) was, once more, a hit

2012-05-06T00:00:00.000Z 6th May 2012

PHP for Front-End Devs; The Story

Recently, a few friends of mine have been asking questions about PHP and want to learn the basics. I am a front-end developer for a web design agency. i.e. I mainly stick to HTML/CSS and have colleagues who do the heavy PHP stuff

2012-05-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th May 2012

Github for PC and setting up a local testing environment

2012-02-29T00:00:00.000Z 29th February 2012

Points mean Pixels

Points. A simple, barely-a-conference conference. For ease of reading, this post will follow a traditional approach with a modern twist: Who, What, How Much, Where, When, Speakers, Sponsors Why.

2012-02-26T00:00:00.000Z 26th February 2012

Dahon Vitesse Speed D7

Whenever I am thinking about making a significant purchase, I always hunt around for reviews, check out blogs and generally search the web for word, be it good or bad.

2012-02-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th February 2012

My Favourite 5 Books - A smashing story

Recently I've been going through a fad of buying web related books. I love the feel of books, I love reading books.

2012-02-07T00:00:00.000Z 7th February 2012

HTML5 - Explained. Briefly

After reading the aforementioned HTML5 & CSS3 for the Real World book, I have come to realise that there are loads of changes included with HTML5.

2012-02-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th February 2012

The Commute: The Rant

I’ve been commuting for nearly a year now. Proper commuting that is. Getting up at some unearthly hour to sit on a train for a bit. Living in a ...

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000Z 24th January 2012

It's My Way or the Highway. Not.

Recently with the spate of CSS3 and media queries, there has been a few debates over how development should be done.

2011-05-19T00:00:00.000Z 19th May 2011

Chilly's Dip

I found this in an old recipe book I found in a charity shop. Not quite sure what happened to it, but I've tweaked the recipe and named it after my wife!

2011-03-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th March 2011

Public Relations

Sometimes I wish we lived in a musical. Not not necessarily with all the singing but just with all that general happiness.

2011-03-10T00:00:00.000Z 10th March 2011

Limit Items (e.g. News posts)

If you would like to limit the amount of items coming out of an array (for example the first 5 news items)

2011-02-21T00:00:00.000Z 21st February 2011

Redirect to one central domain - htaccess

If you would like to 'redirect' all your users to a central domain (for example if you would like all users to browse your site with the www or you have several parked domains)

2011-02-16T00:00:00.000Z 16th February 2011

Get an 'Even' Class

This PHP statement applies class="even" to every other element when in a loop.

2011-02-14T00:00:00.000Z 14th February 2011

Giving something a 'Last' Class

If you want to apply a different class to the last item in a list generated by PHP, start off with Setting the $lastOne variable to the end of your list

2011-02-04T00:00:00.000Z 4th February 2011

Using PHP to get the dimensions of an image

The following code will get the dimensions of an image: <?php list($width, $height, $type, $attr) = getimagesize(PATH_TO_IMAGE); I found this useful when using a lightbox to ...

2010-11-17T00:00:00.000Z 17th November 2010

Creating a HTML Email

Creating a HTML email is like going back to the nineties with web design – you have to go against all your natural instincts as a web designer.

2010-10-05T00:00:00.000Z 5th October 2010

Designing for Mobile

Recently I was tasked to transform a full website into a stripped down mobile version for those visiting on their i-whatsits.

2010-06-25T00:00:00.000Z 25th June 2010

Wiitar: Combining the Wiimote, MAX/MSP and Mainstage

For the final year of my degree, I was required to create an Experimental System Design. At the time, I was heavily involved with a live version of The ...

2010-06-02T00:00:00.000Z 2nd June 2010

The next step...

So you've got a brand new website that you want to promote? Recently I finished a website for Frag Records. Once completed they asked me for some hints and tips ...

2010-04-22T00:00:00.000Z 22nd April 2010

Twitter; Twettle

Just a short note on my Twitter series of posts! I thought i'd let you know about this tweeting kettle...or Twettle (seeing as it is on the title..). I ...

2010-04-21T00:00:00.000Z 21st April 2010

Twitter; Twintergration

Twitter, Twitter Twitter. How you have taken over the world? (And my life?) I have recently properly got into Twitter. Before it was just a laborious update to show I ...

2010-04-20T00:00:00.000Z 20th April 2010

Covers and Remixes

I have always been a music fan. Playing violin from the age of 7 and progressing onto guitar, the musical world has always intrigued me.

2009-01-29T00:00:00.000Z 29th January 2009

Geeks

I feel geeks are somewhat underestimated in the continuum of time and space. But, in reality, they are amazing. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a geek.

2009-01-28T00:00:00.000Z 28th January 2009

To Know or Not To Know

Knowledge is a powerful thing. I can turn worlds into war, it can turn people to power, and it can turn children to critics, humans into inhabitants. Its one of ...

2009-01-27T00:00:00.000Z 27th January 2009

Thoughts...

Thoughts are someone’s heart, someone’s soul, someone’s hero trapped inside the body of their worshiper, their disciple, and their devotee. Thoughts can make someone’s day, someone ...

2009-01-25T00:00:00.000Z 25th January 2009

CSS - The basics

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets are the easiest, cleanest and most accessible way of styling a website. Tables were previously used to position objects on the page and CSS used just to make the text look pretty. Now CSS is being relied more and more to position images, text, add spacing to websites and bring the whole site together.