The blog
Notes on building
things for the web.
Articles on web development, Jekyll, Git, DevOps, and keeping sites fast, secure, and beautiful.
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Career
Portfolio Projects That Signal Architecture Thinking to Hiring Managers
Most developer portfolios demonstrate the same things: a React app, a REST API, maybe a deployed project with a custom...
5 min read
Enterprise Architecture
Architecture Tradeoffs: Speed, Safety, and Scale
Every significant architecture decision is a negotiation between competing forces. The more explicitly you can name those forces, the better...
6 min read
Career
The Communication Skills That Separate Senior Developers from Architects
The most technically skilled person in a room is rarely the most influential architect in that room. This is not...
4 min read
Enterprise Architecture
The Three Horizons Model: Shipping Today While Designing for Three Years Out
One of the most disorienting parts of growing into an architecture role is learning to hold multiple time frames in...
4 min read
Industry News
Adobe Experience Manager and the Modern DXP Stack: What Enterprise Architects Need to Know
If you work at any organization with a meaningful digital presence, you have almost certainly run into Adobe’s enterprise platform...
6 min read
Career
What Junior Developers Should Learn First: Design, Ops, or Security?
Ask ten senior developers what a junior should focus on first and you will get ten different answers. Some say...
5 min read
Enterprise Architecture
How to Think in Systems, Not Tickets
Most developers are trained to think in tickets. A ticket arrives, you understand the requirement, you write the code, you...
4 min read
Career
Developer to Architect: A 24-Month Skill Roadmap
There is no single moment when a developer becomes an architect. It is a gradual accumulation of breadth, judgment, and...
6 min read
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture for Developers: What It Is and What It Is Not
Enterprise architecture gets a bad reputation in developer circles. It conjures images of slides no one reads, acronyms no one...
3 min read
github
Getting Started with GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions automates software workflows directly in your repository. You can run tests, build artifacts, deploy apps, and handle repetitive...
3 min read
wordpress
Common Misconceptions About WordPress
WordPress is undoubtedly one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) on the internet today. With its user-friendly interface...
3 min read
git
Private Email Address via Git Config
I’m constantly learning new things and most recently learned a little tidbit about a feature about Git, allowing for private...
3 min read
David Auble, Manager
It’s been no secret that I’ve been working towards finishing my MBA in Finance. I am on track to graduate...
3 min read
css
Targeting Internet Explorer with CSS Media Queries
I’ve been using CSS Grid and Flexbox for a little while now for different parts of websites. They work in...
2 min read
wordpress
Common WordPress Helper Functions
I’ve used WordPress almost daily for the past six years and thought it’d be time to share some of my...
2 min read
jekyll
Getting Jekyll Running on Windows 10 x64
I use a Mac and a PC equally and want to be able to work on projects regardless of development...
1 min read
wordpress
Edit Robots.txt with WordPress and Yoast
An interesting project came my way this week at work and took some digging to resolve. Each website utilizes a...
2 min read
blog
2020 Blog Update
It’s been nearly a year since I’ve had any updates to this site other than a couple of logos here...
3 min read
wordpress
Improving WordPress Search Results with Relevanssi
I’ve been managing 17 WordPress sites for the past few years and one thing I’ve noticed is the default search...
3 min read
wordpress
How to Change the WordPress Admin Login Logo
Over the years I’ve had to search for tons of small snippets for WordPress to do simple tasks. This is...
1 min read
php
Using PHP to Determine Server Protocol
For various projects I build, I always have three environments: local, staging and production. On my staging and production environments,...
1 min read
git
Fixing 'Another git process seems to be running in this repository' Error in Git
I sometimes come across a unique error when using Git and always have to look up how to fix the...
1 min read
wordpress
Stop WordPress from adding 10px padding to Images
For quite some time now I’ve been struggling with WordPress adding an additional 10px of padding to images that are...
1 min read
arduino
Parking Assistant: An Arduino-based Program to Help You Park
For Christmas this past year I finally got something I’ve been wanting for a little while: an Arduino controller and...
2 min read
wordpress
Custom Pagination in WordPress
A while ago I was having troubles with the built-in pagination in WordPress and started looking for alternative solutions. I...
2 min read
css
Why Click Events Don't Work in Safari
Over the last few months I’ve been working on a weather dashboard with the goal of developing it into my...
1 min read
sql server
Displaying Dates as Strings with PHP's sqlsrv_connect()
Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on a web application that allows me to track how website leads...
2 min read
chrome
Chrome 63 Update: HTTPS Redirect on localhost
I ran into something frustrating yesterday and after extensive research, figured out the problem. With one of Chrome’s latest updates,...
1 min read
wordpress
Run WordPress Multi-Site On localhost
This is something I have wanted to write about for quite some time. Part of my process involves three environments:...
2 min read
wordpress
Adding Related Posts in WordPress Without a Plugin
This past week I had yet another challenge: add related posts to a blog entry and make it match a...
2 min read
javascript
Get Page URL via JavaScript
I come across this problem frequently and yet for some reason, can never remember how to get the URL of...
2 min read
google
Embedding Google Maps: 'X-Frame-Options' to 'sameorigin'
This past week, I came across something odd. I was building a real-estate website for a client and the client...
1 min read
wordpress
How to Fix Common WordPress Errors
WordPress sites are usually straight-forward and not too complicated to build. However, when you start building your own themes and...
2 min read
wordpress
Get WordPress Multisite Table Prefix
A while ago I wrote my first plugin for WordPress. It requires the creation of a table, encrypting some data,...
1 min read
wordpress
Reference WordPress Dashicons in CSS
Recently I had an issue where I needed to remove a mega menu plugin in order to improve a site’s...
1 min read
wordpress
How To: Remove Extra Tags from WordPress WYSIWYG Editor
From time to time, I find WordPress’ built-in WYSIWYG editor annoying. If you’ve dealt with it much, you know it...
1 min read
fontawesome
How To: Use FontAwesome Fonts in Your CSS :before & :after
I’ve been a fan of FontAwesome for a long time. I admire their work and appreciate everything they do for...
1 min read
wordpress
Solution: wp_nav_menu Not Appearing on Category Template
Today while working on a site I came across a problem that seemed weird to me. The wp_nav_menu() was working fine on...
1 min read
git
My Git Workflow: Introduction to Version Control
Git: What is it?
4 min read
carousel
Three Reasons You Should Ditch Image Sliders
Carousels, sliders and rotating banners – chances are you’ve heard one or more of these terms before. Image carousels can...
3 min read
rwd
Why It's Time to Update Your Browser
This is the excerpt
3 min read
seo
The Panda Effect
By now, most businesses are implementing some form of basic SEO. Whether it’s optimizing page titles and structure, or optimizing...
3 min read
javascript
Increase Page Views with jQuery Tabs and Google Analytics
If you’re not in e-commerce, I’m sure most of you have seen a decrease in website traffic, due to the...
1 min read