Gilbert Pellegrom

Announcing Fitimg

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Fitimg is a jQuery plugin to make images "fit" to their containers. It has always annoyed me that this isn't possible in pure CSS. So I built a jQuery plugin to do it. It's responsive and works in IE8+.

Check out Fitimg on Github

4 Stages of Competence

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

With the upcoming launch of Ghost on the horizon I decided it was about time I learned some node.js. The process of learning a new platform reminded me recently of the "4 Stages of Competence":

Unconscious incompetence - The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit.
Conscious incompetence - Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit.
Conscious competence - The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.
Unconscious competence - The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task.

I'm probably only just at stage 3 with node.js but I find the experience of going through this process again exhilarating as I haven't learned something new for quite some time.

I think sometimes once we get to stage 4 we are tempted to become complacent and can't be bothered to go through stages 1, 2 and 3 again. I think it's good for us to do this every so often to test our brains and remind us what it is like to be a newbie at something.

JavaScript Date.toMysql()

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This just came in handy for me. It extends JavaScript's Date() object and adds a toMysql() function for when you need to convert a JavaScript Date object to a MySQL Datetime format (in UTC).

Date.prototype.toMysql = function(){
    var date = this;
    date = date.getUTCFullYear() + '-' +
        ('00' + (date.getUTCMonth()+1)).slice(-2) + '-' +
        ('00' + date.getUTCDate()).slice(-2) + ' ' + 
        ('00' + date.getUTCHours()).slice(-2) + ':' + 
        ('00' + date.getUTCMinutes()).slice(-2) + ':' + 
        ('00' + date.getUTCSeconds()).slice(-2);
    return date;
};

// Usage
new Date().toMysql();
// Output: 2013-05-16 11:13:19

Simplified Blogging

Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

With the sudden flurry of activity in the world of CMS's and the increase of "non-database", markdown powered blogging platforms, I decided it was time to dig out Pico and give it a fresh lick of paint. Not only did I redesign the site but I cleaned up the code, merged some pull requests and basically got the project going again.

It's great working on open source projects, and there is no better way to test your own work by using it yourself. So as of today I've decided to ditch my WordPress powered blog in favor of Pico (nothing quite like eating your own dog food). Pico is seriously lightweight, fast and it means I can blog by simply uploading mardown files straight to my server.

So far it's actually been pretty nice to work with, and I hope having this site running on Pico will encourage me to keep up the development of the project. So here is to lightweight, markdown blogging!

CodeIgniter Authme

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Over the weekend I pulled together some of the custom authentication library that I had created for Dunked and released my attempt at an authentication library for CodeIgniter called Authme.

Authme is a lightweight, flexible and secure CodeIgniter authentication library. It uses PHPass for secure password hashing and aims to be a solid base on which to build an authentication system for your CodeIgniter project. It comes packaged with an example Auth class and related views so that you can get your CI project up and running in minutes.

I’ve never been overly impressed with other CodeIgniter auth libraries which are either over engineered, or missing features, hence the creation of Authme.

Check out CodeIgniter Authme

Devtrepreneur

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I always feel a bit guilty calling myself an “entrepreneur”. I mean I do run a successful company which I’ve bootstrapped myself (“successful” here meaning that it is a profitable lifestyle business where I can afford to hire a few extra folks to help spread the load). But I don’t think I’m an entrepreneur in the traditional sense of the word. I’m not a hustler, I’m not a business wiz, I have minimal marketing skills and I’m not really that interested if riches or fame.

I do, however, love to build stuff. Not surprising really given my Software Engineering/Web Development background. And I think I’m pretty good at building stuff. If I sell some of my work and people want to pay me for it, then that’s cool. I also think it’s pretty important to know exactly what you are, and what you aren’t.

So as of today I’m officially changing my title to “Devtrepreneur”. Someone who loves to build stuff and sell it. I’m not sure if “Devtrepreneur” is a coined phrase yet, but if not I’m coining it today.

Our Development Workflow on Trello

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Over at Dev7studios we use Trello to keep track of all the different things we are working on at any one time. Trello is an awesome bit of project management software (not to mention it is completely free to use) because of its unique design and flexibility to create your own workflow. So I thought I’d share a bit of how we use Trello in our development workflow at Dev7studios.

Every product has a board

This might sound like an obvious one, but when you have as many products on the go as we do, its important to make sure you can quickly get an overview of the state of a project at a glance. So by having each of our products in separate boards, we can easily see not only where each project is at, but also what has been happening to it recently.

Bugs, Features and Resources

Every board we have has at least three global lists: Bugs, Features and Resources. We don’t use an external bug tracker so any bug that get reported to us go on the “Bugs” list. Similarly the “Features” board is where we keep track of any features that we want to add to a project. “Resources” is more of a generic list of stuff that may contain things like setup guides, deployment guides, marketing plans etc. Basically any (small) internal documentation goes in here.

Labelling

We use Trello’s labels to signify the status of a card. We generally just use green, yellow and orange (orange = in progress, yellow = testing, green = complete). This gives us an easy way to see the exact status of each card in our lists. This is maybe a different approach to others as most people I’ve seen use lists to separate card statuses. But this works for us.

Assignment and Archiving

We operate a simple system where, if you have started working on a card, you assign yourself to that card. Once you have finished working on that card you can un-assign yourself from the card. If you are passing the card on, to someone else to test for example, you can assign them to the card and update the label as required. Once a card is completed and has been deployed, the project leader can archive the card. This keeps the board clean and organised.

So that is a quick rundown of how we use Trello in our development workflow over at Dev7studios.

New Dev7studios is live!

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Just thought I’d let you folks now that the new Dev7studios site went live last week. You can read all about the new site and some of the process that went into making it over on the blog.

Awesome Image Borders using CSS3

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve come up with an awesome way to do subtle inset image borders using CSS pseudo classes and rgba.

Check out this Pen!

2012 Year in Review

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s that time of year again to look back, take stock and generally be thankful for another year. This year has been very mixed for me with up’s and down’s, however the one thing that has stuck out for me this year is how busy I’ve been.

ThemeZilla & Dev7studios

So I’ve done just over a year now working for ZillaMedia (ThemeZilla). Working from home is great and working for Orman and the team is still an awesome experience. The first thing I did was rebuild the ZillaFramework for scratch which is used in the latest six themes we have released, two of which I was the lead developer on. I also built four of the five free WordPress plugins we released this year. Currently I’m working on a fairly big project which is not a WordPress theme or plugin, but more on that to come in 2013.

It also been a pretty busy year for my own company Dev7studios. In June we completed our first year of trading and I was thoroughly pleased with the $100k+ in profits we made in the first year. This year also saw the addition of a new team member in the form of Iain Poulson. Iain brings some web development muscle to the team which has allowed us release Showcase, Closed Beta, WP Updates and get Sellwire out of beta. All within the last twelve months! We also made our first acquisition this year (carouFredSel) and one of our oldest projects (MakeSomeTime) was acquired. 2013 will continue to bring lot’s of busyness and good stuff from Dev7studios, include a huge new redesign, but more on that in 2013.

This year was also the first time I did some public speaking at the WordUp Inverness conference in October. It was a great experience and my talk was fairly well received.

Personal Life

So work wise 2012 was a busy year. In my personal life there has been much busyness as well, but not always the good sort. January started off with my wife losing her Grandfather, which was an emotional time for the whole family. Then from February till about July my IBS, which I’ve had for the last two years now, flared up and I was unwell for quite a while. My health over these months really was a huge challenge as I’ve never had to deal with any kind of long-term health issues before. So that took its toll.

However things aren’t all bad. We had a Romanian student who came to our church for a few months and it was a blessing getting to know him and a bit of Romanian culture. My cousin got married in July which was a great celebration. My wee sister turned 18 and my wee brother graduated from University which kept the summer eventful. I played lots of football this year which was great to get back into playing a sport. I’ve also lost 3.5 stone in weight over the last year, not intentionally unfortunately (see IBS above), but I’m pleased to say I’m far healthier now for it.

To round off the year on a good note we managed to buy a house which, given the state of the economy/banks/recession here, was no easy task. We are very excited though to be moving into our first house in January. The last 2.5 years in our flat has been great and we will miss it, but it’s good to finally be on the property ladder.

Looking Ahead to 2013

So 2013 will start with a bang as we move house in January. I’m sure work will continue to be busy and there is plenty of awesomeness in the Dev7studios pipeline to keep me busy next year. I’m thankful to God for his leading a guiding in 2012 and pray that 2013 will be no different. I wish you all a happy new year when it comes and best wishes for 2013.