announcement

These are articles relating to announcements I feel are worth announcing such as new games or websites

New Dr who is Matt Smith

Jan
03
2009
Matt Smith as Dr Who

The new Dr Who appears to be Matt Smith!

Whoa! He is so young! Almost depressingly, he is only 11 days younger than ME. Yes… The new Dr Who is younger than me.

I think he could be good. When the replaced Christopher Ecclestone with David Tennant I was a little wary and wondered if he could pull it off - which he obviously did. This guy looks (from the clips) like he should fit the character perfectly!

Relevant Content gets some love

Sep
25
2008
Drupal Icon

I while ago (almost a year!) I released a module called Relevant Content to the community. This module executes a relatively lightweight SQL query which pulls up other nodes and sorts them by how many terms they have in common with the current node you're looking at. This provides a rudimentary method of suggesting other content to visitors to the page. It also provides a way of teaching search engines about other potentially relevant content.

Abessive For Drupal 6

Sep
16
2008

My first theme, Abessive, gets a new release today for Drupal 6. Turns out to be a pretty easy upgrade!

In case nobody caught onto what Abessive was the first time; it is an (almost) image free theme with flexible 1, 2 or 3 column layout (depending on where/if you place any blocks). Each block/section has rounded corners and slight top & bottom gradient which is achieved using only CSS techniques involving margins, padding and background colours. This makes the theme very lightweight and elegant at the same time.

Abessive Screenshot

Node Quick Find

Apr
06
2008
Node Quick Find

I've just committed another module - Node Quick Find. That brings my projects to a nice round 10!

This module is a pretty basic one though. It simply provides a block which has an autocomplete field. This field is linked to the Node Title field. You start typing the Node Title and it will start suggesting possible nodes you might be interested in - sort of like a primitive search box.

It features primitive configuration, allowing an administrator to easil configure the title of the prompt, the size and the types of nodes returned in the autocomplete list (eg, you may want to limit the list to blogs only).

A2B2 launch shared hosting service

Jan
07
2008
A2B2XS Shared Hosting

I currently host this Drupal blog using a VPS with a company called A2B2 (they have a new website coming soon) and in the past 12 months have been nothing but impressed by them… so impressed, in fact, that I've given out many personal recommendations and I've even recommended a friend who has transferred all his main sites over!

To add to their arsenal, A2B2 launched a sister company a few months back called CheapVPS.co.uk which aims at a slightly lower-end market to that targeted by A2B2. Basically A2B2 use slightly higher-end hardware whereas CheapVPS offer lower prices - but on marginally less-capable hardware.

On top of A2B2's VPS server & CheapVPS offering a more budget VPS, A2B2 have now launched A2B2XS - a Shared Hosting service. They currently offer 1Gb space + 25Gb Bandwidth for under £20 per year - that's less than £1.70 a month!

Call to arms (for Windows Drupal Developers)!

Jan
01
2008
Global Redirect Logo

It has come to my attention, thanks to Hass, that GlobalRedirect apears to have issues when running under Windows web server, IIS. Unfortunately, I do not use IIS but I am aware that a few members of the community do.

Cubalaya integrates with Drupal

Jul
28
2007
Tagged in &
Cubalaya Logo

Not many people have heard of Cubalaya. I know I hadn't a few months back when they contacted me about potential advertising on my site. Now Cubalaya isn't a shop - its not like Amazon or even eBay. Its more like Kelkoo or Pricerunner - its a Price Comparison Site really. Well now you can easily integrate this PPC (Pay Per Click) advertiser onto your site and provide your own category sensitive products.

New Blog: Beginners guide to photography

Jul
21
2007
Kate Harris

Ever wanted to start taking good photo's? Ever wondered what the ISO setting, Exposure Time or that little symbol of a flower on your camera meant? This great new photography blog has just opened to help out new photographers with these kinds of questions. It is run by my Girlfriend who recently just got a Canon EOS 400D and wanted to learn how to use the camera.

New Drupal Site - Codebase

Jun
06
2007

Today I officially launch a new Codebase for Dark Basic Pro. I'm a big fan of Dark Basic Pro and this Codebase is one of the ways I'd like to help the community back. There is a codebase which The Games Creators provide and it is a good codebase with a LOT of content. This codebase, however, offers more  "Web 2.0" features such as free tagging, comments and rating (and I've only just got started - more to come!).

Codebase Large Banner

Social Statistics module released

May
11
2007
Social Stats

I've been working on it for a few days now, but its finally released. Social Statistics is being used on this site and can be found on any page on an enabled site in a block. It provides pluggable statistics for (currently) 3 major Social Networking websites; Del.icio.us, Digg and Ma.gnolia. It currently boasts caching of statistics for a configurable amount of time, AHAH retrieval of statistics which are not cached (thus not slowing down page loads) and an API to make the project extendible to anybody who cares to add a Social Network to the mixture!

The core module consists, mostly, of a few menu callbacks and an API. This API allows the user to enable any number of enabled modules to add their contribution to the block. The 3 enabled sites all have an XML based API, but each does things slightly differently - hence my choice in using them as examples of the module as a whole.

You can find this module over in the Drupal Projects section.

Drupal gets a $100,000 injection thanks to Google!

Apr
12
2007

Google announced today that it will be sponsoring 20 - yes twenty - projects for its Google Summer of Code program this year. From what I've seen, Drupal is one of the top "winners" if you use project quantity as a metric, with only Apache and KDE beating us (I couldn't see any others with any more at a glance). We got more than Joomla, PHP & The Mozilla Foundation and I believe this is a real achievement.

I'm also thrilled that Konstantin Käfer and I am mentoring one of the projects this year - the Taxonomy Manager.

Thingy Ma Jig finally moved to Drupal 5

Mar
30
2007

It's taken me long enough to get around to, but finally Thingy Ma Jig has been upgraded to the latest and greatest in all things Drupal.

All in all, I'd say it was a fairly (and surprisingly) painless experience. There were a few minor glitches along the way though…

Pongis - a new game I made!

Feb
20
2007
Pongis Screenshot

I've just released a new game - its a VERY simple adaptation of the classic, pong, but it has a twist in the form of tennis. You must rally the ball back and forth - the ball gaining speed slightly on every return. Players win points (and serve) by knocking the ball past their opponent, either through a cunning move or by making them lose out in a game of reactions.

Checkout the game here - Pongis - Where Pong Meets Tennis

I have my own page!

Feb
11
2007
NT Logo

I bought the domain a while ago but haven't had time to set anything up - well this is a start. Its not much to shout about yet (and probably never will be) but I'm pleased with the design and think that its good to have a kind of "CV" site.

Kasha has a new site, and its Drupal!

Jan
27
2007

I've been working with a good friend on a website to promote his up and coming artist, Kasha and label, Vivid Imagery.

Drupal 5.0 Out & 6th Birthday

Jan
15
2007

Drupal 5.0 is out!

Get yourself over to…

http://drupal.org/drupal-5.0

What a fantastic coincidence - releasing Drupal 5.0 on its 6th birthday... Its like it was planned or something!

Awesome Drupal 5 release candidate 2

Jan
11
2007

Drupal RC2 Released!

The day of Drupal 5.0 is getting close and I personally cannot wait!

Christmas Coding Challenge

Dec
22
2006

Find it at The Games Creators

As many of you may know, I'm a BIG fan of Dark Basic Pro and this christmas the coding challenges are doing something a little different - a challenge that's allowed to use MEDIA an also has a prize other than setting the next challenge… A custom bitmap designed by a professional designer!

The only media that you're allowed to use is this festive smily…

Festive Smily

Site Launch: Teaching Expertise

Nov
30
2006

Teaching Expertise Logo

Electric Word Plc have just launched a fantastic new site. Teaching Expertise has aspirations to become a (if not THE) central hub for everything a teacher would need. It will have articles on topics such as SEN, Bullying and Assemblies, a jobs section, publications and plenty more…

Site updates

Nov
14
2006

The site has recently had a few updates…

  • Tagadelic - A Tag Cloud which shows all the tags used on this site but sized and weighted to show how often they are used. More cool than practicle :-)
  • Design - The headers have had a slight design change - I quite like the gradient/line/drop-shaddo look they have now
  • Photo's and projects added... You can see more and more content coming onto the site!

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