web development

Using Amazon S3 as a Nette Service

Nette is a popular web application framework for PHP. It is mostly pretty well documented and easy to use. Recently, I needed to upload media from a Nette application to Amazon S3. This is how I created an S3 service for my Nette application. You will need to be familiar with Nette and have an existing Nette application to follow along.
… Read more

Alternate Ways to Call wp-cron

WordPress includes a job scheduling system called wp-cron. The default method for scheduled jobs is for wp-cron to be checked on each page load, which has the potential to slow down your website while background jobs are run. Check out these other options that help maintain the user experience on your WordPress site while still running important tasks in the background.
… Read more

Pono Rez WordPress Plugin

Together with Commerce Collective,1 we have built a WordPress plugin to allow Activities & Attractions Association of Hawaii (A3H) to quickly and easily integrate activity bookings and sales into their WordPress websites.

We still have more features to add to the plugin, but it’s a solid start that will save A3H members a lot of time. It is written in PHP2 and JavaScript, and uses the Pono Rez SOAP interface to integrate activity data into a WordPress page.

Check out the plugin page here!

  1. I started working with them last year, remember? ↩

  2. Like all WordPress plugins, of course. ↩

CenturyLink AppFog Tutorial

Recently I wrote a tutorial with Word Lions for CenturyLink Cloud that teaches how to build and deploy a Node.js application to CenturyLink AppFog. The tutorial and application were really fun to build and write. It was my first Node.js project, and my first experience with CloudFoundry. The tutorial uses the following CenturyLink Cloud products:

AppFog is CenturyLink Cloud’s CloudFoundry system. It is really powerful, and it appears to be more flexible than Google App Engine.

Read the Tutorial

The tutorial walks you through building a document storage system with a built-in PDF reader and comment storage. It also includes user authentication and some other neat Node.js tricks. You can follow the tutorial from the following links, which will include all of the information needed to get you up and running on AppFog with Node.js. Enjoy!

  1. Deploy an App With User Login
  2. Using CenturyLink Cloud for Object Storage
  3. Add Search Capabilities with Orchestrate
  4. Building a PDF Viewer and Comment System

Now Working with CommerceCollective!

I am now working with my good friends at CommerceCollective! CommerceCollective is a web presence management company located here in Portland, Oregon, and they are great at SEO and social media stuff. They also are really talented web designers. If you’re looking for a full website solution, from design down to the nuts and bolts, we are the place to go.

I’ll be supplementing their services with full-stack web development, IT consulting, and a little bit of copy writing. Read more about our team here!

Good, solid SSL

I’m in the middle of some major migrations and upgrades on the Arnesonium servers. So far, the results have been positive. For instance, the SSL/TLS configuration on my webserver is finally awesome. I’ve also got MaxCDN configured properly, so the entire website is now served via SSL/TLS only!

Here’s what the Qualys SSL Labs checker had to say:

Screenshot from 2015-05-23 19:02:27

Should WordPress Encrypt All Email?

Enigma PlugboardWordPress sends out email sometimes, and it doesn’t encrypt any of them by default. Integration of WordPress and OpenPGP for a better security is a case study by PaweÅ‚ Bulwan that examines the security implications of all of these emails. Are they leaking important information? Should WordPress site owners worry about them?
… Read more