I’ve started learning Python (the hard way)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by dean

For a while now I’ve wanted to learn a new language. I had been aiming to learn something new each month but unfortunately I just haven’t had the time. PHP is getting old and barely a day goes by without a Hacker News story popping up to take a pop at it.

After recently reading a post by Eevee entitled PHP: a fractal of bad design, I found myself agreeing with a the majority what was said. This was all the motivation I needed to learn something new.

I’ve always wanted to get started with Python, and I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, so I decided to learn it, the hard way.
Continue reading →

Back on WordPress

Posted on January 11, 2012 by dean

This site is now finally back on a self-hosted WordPress install after six months or so on Posterous. Here’s how I did it.

First things first, setup hosting

This time I decided to skip shared hosting and go straight to a VPS. I picked BHost’s Bronze package, it’s a great price and provides more than enough resources for the time being.

I did the usual setup which involved installing and configuring nginx, php5-fpm, mysql etc. From that, I loaded a fresh install of WordPress 3.3.1 with the nginx Compatibility plugin so everything played nicely. Continue reading →

A New Year, A New Start At Blogging

Posted on January 7, 2012 by dean

For the past six months or so I haven’t posted very much, this has been for a number of reasons, but mainly due to lack of time, and being busy on other projects.
A new year brings a fresh start and new motivation to be more proactive with the site.

First things first.. Continue reading →

WordPress Teardown: How I created Japtalk.com

Posted on November 22, 2011 by dean

A couple of months back, I set myself the challenge of creating Japtalk, a Japanese car enthusiasts site. I chose WordPress as my CMS due to it’s simplicity, widespread community, and the fact that I had played around with a few WordPress sites in the past.

I found the whole process very interesting and was amazed by the sheer amount of awesome open source plugins, support, and infomation there was available.

This post will detail how I created the site, which plugins I used, and what I’m doing with them.

Let’s get started… Continue reading →

Installing Gnome on Ubuntu 11.10

Posted on October 16, 2011 by dean

Ubuntu prompted me to upgrade to 11.10 yesterday so naturally I did.

Once this completed and following a restart, I found Gnome was gone, and Unity sat in it’s place.

I’ve never been a fan of Unity so the first thing I did was reinstall Gnome. Here’s how:

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Now the next time you log in you can select ‘Gnome Classic’ to restore order to your Ubuntu desktop.

Hacking Together My First Video Advert

Posted on July 27, 2011 by dean

When you first encounter a website whose aim is to get you to sign up to something, you want to see a video right? I know I do.
Screenshots can only explain so much, your visitors might need a little more motivation to sign up. That’s how I felt about Affililink, so I decided to create my first video advert. I’ve played with video editors before but only very basic stuff, this time I had to step up my game. Continue reading →

From WordPress to Posterous whilst retaining your links

Posted on July 5, 2011 by dean

The Issue

I recently transferred my blog from a self hosted WordPress install to here, Posterous. The import went perfectly minus a few formatting issues, but when I went to transfer my domain, I found all my links (search engine/backlinks) didn’t work.

After a quick email to support, it became clear that Posterous doesn’t offer a 301 redirect service to ensure all links point to the right places. Continue reading →

A Little Feedback Goes A Long Way

Posted on July 3, 2011 by dean

Last Friday, I released the first working version of Affililink. Before going all out and advertising wherever I could, I decided to ask Hacker Newsfor a little feedback.
Although the response wasn’t huge, it provided some great feedback which lead to some major changes to the ease of use of Affililink.

Whilst readying the initial release, I made a few last minute changes, one being changing the ‘how it works’ page to ‘getting started’. I had updated most of the links to it but missed a couple of important ones. Whilst I should have spotted this during testing, a quick heads from HN up was very handy. Continue reading →

Introducing Affililink – An Automated Way To Monetise Your Site

Posted on July 2, 2011 by dean

For the past month I’ve been working on a new project, Affililink. Affililink offers a way for blog and forum owners to monetise their site without ruining the look by displaying adverts. With a small javascript snippet, Affililink will scan all outbound links and where possible, add your affiliate code, effectively automating your affiliate scheme. Continue reading →

Simple Twitter PHP OAuth Login System

Posted on May 4, 2011 by dean

As part of a new project, I have created a quick and simple Twitter OAuth login system which can protect sensitive content with very little fuss.

Hosted on github, Twitter-PHP-Login will give your PHP site Twitter login functionality with only a few lines of code.
First you must register an app on Twitter at http://dev.twitter.com/apps to get your consumer key and secret. Continue reading →

Dean Barrow

Tech things I've been upto