Shallow cloning with Git
Sometimes when you clone a Git repository, you just want a snapshot of the code without all the history associated with it. This is known as a shallow clone and…
Akismet 2.6.0
A new version of Akismet, the WordPress plugin which protects your site from spam comments, has been released. This is a relatively mature plugin so the fixes are minor, but…
Configuration file options
For quackjson (a Python implementation of a BBS client) I needed to create a configuration file which allows the user to specify their login credentials and how they want the client…
The BSD family
If you're a regular reader of this blog, chances are that you have at least heard of Linux, even if you don't use it directly on a daily basis. However,…
Writing schedule
One of my goals for this year is to create and stick to a writing schedule for all of my non-personal blogs - currently PHP Developer, Politics Geek and Insurance…
Introduction to nginx
By far and away the most popular web server is the Apache HTTP Server (usually just 'Apache') - the A in LAMP. However, Apache is by no means the only web server available,…
Raspberry Pi essential components
I purchased my first Raspberry Pi six months ago, primarily so that I could play around with it in preparation for a job interview at the University of Manchester, where…
How to respond to patches
A couple of weeks ago I made a pull request to the documentation of the Symfony framework entitled: Remove reference to copying parameters.yml from Git cookbook (does pretty much what it…
Bootstrap 3.1.1
Hot on the heels of the new minor version release, Bootstrap has pushed out the first patch release for the 3.1.x series. Most of the changes are minor CSS fixes,…
Automatically populating PDF form fields
At a previous job I needed to automatically populate form fields in a PDF template and then 'flatten' the PDF so that users could make no further changes. After asking…