Drupal 7 module integration testing

The information below is available in other places, but I figured I would bring it together as a sort of note-to-self, because this had me stumped for a day. Suppose you have a Drupal contrib module A that you are writing tests for. Contrib module B is optionally extending the functionality of module A, and … Read More

Google’s featured snippets algorithm is quite smart, at times

As a I was trawling through the statistics for this site, I noticed how popular my post about creating rounded corners with The Gimp is. I mean, I knew it was popular, it is the post with by far the most comments on this blog, but I did not know it outperformed other posts by … Read More

State of the CMS in 2018

After predicting in 2004 (without naming names) that tools like Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla might become popular CMSes … they did! In 2010 and 2014 I followed up with articles exploring which of these tools had become popular and how they described themselves over time respectively. Re-reading these articles makes me realise how quaint the … Read More

An anecdotal look at Facebook page reach

Here is one for the books. This is a graph of the so-called ‘reach’ that my roller derby photography page has on Facebook. Reach means: how many people have been exposed to my photos. (In an earlier blog post I explained why I have a Facebook page in the first place.) Every dot represents the … Read More

Facebook Location Spam

If you check in at a location on Facebook or enter the location for a photo, there is a chance that you will end up linking to spam. The main reason for this is that Facebook is crap and the people who make Facebook are idiots, but I say this in anger after hacking spam … Read More

Design pattern: event calendar (focussing on WordPress)

Event calendars tell users about interesting events that are about to happen. They can also help create an impression of how busy the near future will be. Furthermore, calendars may double as a navigation or filter tool. Events as blog posts in WordPress I’ve helped build a number of event calendars for websites in the … Read More

Ads for something you’ve already bought

Lately this happens a lot to me: 1) I search the web for a product. 2) I settle on product X. 3) The ad network remembers my choice. 4) I buy product X. 5) The next two weeks, the web inundates me with ads for product X, even though I have already been sated with … Read More

Default browser cookie settings in 2014

(TL/DR? Skip to results.) Yesterday I wrote that even though social networks currently combine targeted advertising and private user data collection, doing them both is not a requirement for running a profitable social network. The networks can just focus on the former, that is focus on the harvesting and selling of user data, and dispose … Read More

Dealing with the Dutch cookie law as a web developer

This post is partially outdated because of recent developments. See the notes at the bottom. This note about how to comply with the Dutch cookie law is mostly a memo to self, but I believe the information past the fold is also useful to anyone who runs their own website and needs to ensure the … Read More

Notes from the Responsive Design trenches

Lately a lot of companies have been asking for websites built along the principles of ‘Responsive Design’. I had to give up on building a responsive website in early 2012 due to lack of time, but in January 2013 I got another chance. (Side-note: both websites are on intranets, so I cannot show them to … Read More