July, 2010

Building a Programmers Blog: Markdown

Submitted by Bevan on Sat, 31 Jul 2010 - 8:00am

Out of the box, Drupal supports both partial and full HTML as input formats. Writing HTML markup for your blog isn't that difficult - but it does take both care and time.

Markdown, as popularized by the StackOverflow family of websites, is a simple text based way of writing for the web.

See you at CodeCamp!

Submitted by Bevan on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 - 4:41pm

Every year, just before the Microsoft TechEd conference, a Code Camp is held in Auckland.

In past years I've always forgotten about this Code Camp until too late. This year, not only have I managed to arrange my flights and accommodation so I can come along, I've also volunteered to give a presentation.

Building a Programmers Blog: Friendly URLs

Submitted by Bevan on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 - 8:00am

According to the experts in search engine optimization (SEO), it is quite important that your site URLs are informative and well structured. The Drupal defaults leave something to be desired in this area. Fortunately, Drupal provides easy support for improving your URL structure.

SLAMD this week: MVVM from the Trenches

Submitted by Bevan on Wed, 21 Jul 2010 - 12:50pm

This week at the Wellington SiverLight And Mobile Development (SLAMD) usergroup:

Part II of our MVVM presentations: MVVM From the Trenches

Last session we had Andrew Tokeley give a presentation on the theories behind MVVM, why it's the appropriate pattern for Silverlight apps, hence why Microsoft has made it an integral part of Blend, etc.

This session, upon that solid, almost scholastic, foundation, we have Chris Klug chaffing at the bite to report from the trenches how to use MVVM to address real world projects.

He's coming with examples, useful code libraries, experience, and most of all, hard-earned pragmatism.

Chris is a great speaker with a laid back style that belies his depth of knowledge. This promises to be an enjoyable session with plenty to learn - useful for anyone working with Silverlight or WPF.

Time: Thursday 22 July @ 5.45 pm
Location: Xero, Level 1, 98 Customhouse Quay

Please RSVP to skysigal [at] xact-solutions.com for numbers.

Building a Programmers Blog: Enabling Blog Posts

Submitted by Bevan on Sat, 17 Jul 2010 - 8:00am

By default, Drupal comes with just two different node types - pages and stories. These two node types are useful in most cases - but not sufficient for all. In this post we'll look at how to use these two types, and how to activate the Blog module is supplied with Drupal core.

Building a Programmers Blog: Module Installation

Submitted by Bevan on Fri, 9 Jul 2010 - 8:00am

This post is less of a tutorial and more of a reference that you'll find useful as you read future posts.

Expansion of Drupal - adding new features and capabilities - is primarily done by adding new modules. Installing a Drupal module is a relatively simple procedure, but there are a few issues of which you should be aware.

Series Content

Build Automation with NAnt

Submitted by Bevan on Thu, 8 Jul 2010 - 2:02pm

I've published my slides and scripts from last nights Build Automation with NAnt presentation. In addition to the actual NAnt script we wrote on the night, I've included my draft that I used while preparing the talk.

Building a Programmers Blog: Installing Drupal

Submitted by Bevan on Fri, 2 Jul 2010 - 8:00am

Having decided to use Drupal for our Programmers Blog, our first task is to get Drupal itself installed - after all, without it up and running, nothing else can happen.

Series Content

I'm assuming that you're installing Drupal for your own use on a server you control - the typical situation for a test server on which you can "try out" ideas and changes. The steps necessary for installation of Drupal at hosting company for a public website will be different, with the exact steps dependant on the systems in use by your host.