Martin Joiner's Blog Writing about software development, climbing and life.
14 October 2016

A noun for users who write in only uppercase letters

Recently, while administrating some user-generated content I had to twent some aggression at yet another user who had input their event details in all uppercase letters. It's ugly and inaccessible so as a responsible site owner I'm obligated to correct the casing which is an unnecessary waste of my time. You're wasting my time! Can we have […]… Read more »
Filed under: The Web Tagged as:
14 October 2016

Fun with Drupal 8 and RaspberryPi

I have recently been working on a project for a local charitable organisation. I am building them a user-generated content site (in Drupal 8) that will receive it's content from a hand-held scanner (running on a RaspberryPi). The user stories are this: The Consumer: Ethically minded, tech-savvy individual is about to buy a second hand book […]… Read more »
Filed under: The Web Tagged as:
1 June 2016

HTTPS

The first time you install an SSL certificate is very much like the first time you make love to a woman...… Read more »
Filed under: The Web
6 May 2016

Run build tasks inside your VM or on the host?

I build websites working on a Windows (or Mac for some clients) computer with a Linux virtual machine (spun up by Vagrant) running inside that contains the actual website files. Most web developers do something like this. But until last week I hadn't thought of running my NodeJS dev build tasks such as Grunt and Gulp […]… Read more »
Filed under: The Web Tagged as:
1 March 2016

The most hipster Github repo possible

I've challenged myself to make the most hipster repo possible! Tell me if you think my hipster tech stack can be improved?… Read more »
Filed under: The Web Tagged as:
26 February 2016

FITC Amsterdam 2016

I just attended FITC Amsterdam for the 2nd time.  Here's my personal highlights: Jessica Rosenkrante presenting her algorithmically-generated and 3D-printed fabric dresses. That kind of fashion-meets-code stuff is right up my street and I suggest you check out her Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/nervous_jessica PAK, a short philosophical coder (with impressively long hair platted into an […]… Read more »
Filed under: Art, The Web
1 February 2016

Shout app launched

I do improvisation theatre and the improv community is quite small. You tend to see the same regulars making up the cast and audience at most shows. Over the course of several years I have observed a kind of collective consciousness that exists in the community that means certain concepts persist for extended periods of time. […]… Read more »
Filed under: The Web
5 January 2016

Book: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink sucked me in with the opening paragraphs telling whimsical tales about the psychology of art forgery and gambling. Then - just when I'd settled into the mindset of a glamourous George Clooney heist movie - I suddenly found myself neck-deep in military tactics, autism, police shootings, subconscious gender and racial bias and I actually felt a bid sad by the end.… Read more »
Filed under: Life Tagged as:
14 December 2015

Security and accessibility both get lost in over-specialisation

When I say "over-specialise" I do not mean professionals becoming too good at their specialism but instead becoming too not-good at everyone else's! More and more of the big wins in building the web are solvable by a holistic approach which will require less divergent minds and less specific job titles.… Read more »
Filed under: The Web Tagged as:
11 December 2015

I gave some objectivity to Matt

In response to my offer of free help, Matt from Bristol-based CPD for Teachers got in touch wanting a phone call with a fresh pair of eyes on his website. It was part usability testing, part expert evaluation and if you're someone who builds sites, I suggest you do the same for your local network. […]… Read more »
Filed under: The Web Tagged as: