My Blog

I try and blog about things that pique my interest, something I’ve had difficulty with, or just anything in general that I either want to keep at hand or think may be useful for others to know.

You can therefore find posts covering diverse subjects such as software development/programming, writing and all things Disney.

Solid Tools for Developers June 2021 update

It’s been almost 18 months – and a global pandemic – since the last update to Solid Tools for Developers, my suite of free online debugging tools for software developers and system administrators.

Today I’ve released a new update to Solid Tools which, unlike the previous update, is more evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

This post details all the changes; you can check them out for yourself now at soliddevtools.com.

Software Development , Solid Tools for Developers Read more


Upgrading an application from Bootstrap 4 to 5

Over the past few weeks I’ve migrated my website to a new content management system – ExpressionEngine.

I took the opportunity to upgrade my website’s front-end technologies to their latest releases – Bootstrap 5 and VueJS 3, for example.

This post documents some of the changes I came across migrating Bootstrap 4 to 5.

Software Development Read more


Apple release macOS Big Sur... but can you get it?

Apple today released the biggest update to macOS in recent years.

It’s so big in fact, it no longer carries the OS X (version 10) moniker it has carried since the early 2000s. No sur; Big Sur carries an all-new version 11.

Miscellaneous Read more


Microsoft releases new Edge browser based on Chrome

Announced around a year ago, Microsoft today released their brand-new version of Edge – the default web browser since the Windows 10 release.

The new Edge browser is based on Google’s Chromium project. Chromium is the “base” software that Google builds the Chrome browser on.

Software Development Read more


Solid Tools for Developers gets a refresh

It’s been over a year since the last update to Solid Tools for Developers – my suite of online tools for developers, system admins and network managers.

Yesterday I published my latest release to soliddevtools.com which gives the suite a fresh makeover and a few improvements to the tools.

DevOps , Software Development Read more


Please don’t let my kids and I cross the road

For my first blog post of 2020, I thought I’d share one of my challenges of being a parent to the boys and a 5-year old Labrador called Mickey: crossing the road.

Our local estate is generally quiet for traffic, so crossing the road is usually uneventful. As you’d expect, there are times we have to wait for a passing car before we can cross. I’m constantly re-enforcing to the boys that they must wait until the road is clear of cars before they cross.

Which means when someone stops and waves us across the road in front of them, whilst it is a kind act, it does irritate me.

Reflections Read more


Announcing the launch of Blue Twilight Cloud

It’s 3 years to the day since I made the first commit to what would become Blue Twilight – my open-source PHP photo gallery.

Today I’m delighted to announce the availability of Blue Twilight Cloud.

Blue Twilight , Software Development Read more


Developers – score yourself a .dev domain today

Google is the registry behind the new .dev TLD – the ultimate vanity domain for developers.

The .dev extension has historically been used by developers fudging their host files to create realistic-looking development environments. Now, .dev is open in Early Access Preview to allow the world to register their .dev domains.

DevOps , Software Development Read more


Deploying PHP applications with RunCloud on UpCloud

My first post of 2019 is a tutorial that’s all about the cloud.

I’m going to show you how to deploy a PHP application with a MySQL database on a cloud server from UpCloud. I’ll be using the brilliant RunCloud control panel to deploy my PHP photo gallery – Blue Twilight – to an UpCloud server.

My friends over at UpCloud have provided an awesome promo-code for free credit to try out their service. Details at the end of the article.

DevOps , Software Development Read more


Variable declaration can be inlined – C#

It’s almost two years since I published the post on the Visual Studio IDE information message: “delegate invocation can be simplified.”

While reviewing some error messages in a new MVC project, I recently learnt something equally as simple and eye-opening.

Software Development Read more