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Our thoughts, perspectives, and musings on Technology


We share knowledge, ideas and ambitions openly, constantly improving and critiquing our ideas in the larger community.

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Blog - drupal

Drupal to Ember without Saving

Running headless Drupal with a separate javascript framework on the front-end can provide amazing user experiences and easy theming. Although, working with content editors with this separation can prove to be a tricky situation.

Running headless Drupal with a separate javascript framework on the front-end can provide amazing user experiences and easy theming. Although, working...

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Blog - digital-marketing

Websites Aren't Just Supposed to be Cool

If you were driving around looking for a place to eat lunch, would you stop somewhere that looked old, dirty, and run-down? Or how about a place that didn’t have any signage, somewhere that you weren’t quite sure was even a restaurant? I can almost guarantee that you wouldn’t bother with either situation.

If you were driving around looking for a place to eat lunch, would you stop somewhere that looked old, dirty, and run-down? Or how about a place that ...

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Blog - devops

Setting up a Docker development environment with Vagrant - Part 3

This post is part 3 in the series ["Hashing out a docker workflow"]({% post_url 2015-06-04-hashing-out-docker-workflow %}). For background, checkout my previous posts. Now that I've laid the ground work for the approach that I want to take with local environment development with Docker, it's time to explore how to make the local environment "workable". In this post we will we will build on top of what we did in my last post, [Docker and Vagrant]({% post_url 2015-07-19-docker-with-vagrant %}), and create a working local copy that automatically updates the code inside the container running Drupal.

This post is part 3 in the series ["Hashing out a docker workflow"]({% post_url 2015-06-04-hashing-out-docker-workflow %}). For background, checkout m...

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Blog - development

Asynchronous PHP with message queues

PHP is without a doubt the most popular language used for programming server-side applications for the Web. However, despite its popularity, it is not the best-optimized of them all. In order to satisfy more modern requirements for web applications, we need to turn to other technologies to patch up some of PHP inadequacies. An example of such techologies are message queues. This blog post will give you an overview of what message queues are about, its capabilities and what type of problems they address, and how you can use them in PHP.

PHP is without a doubt the most popular language used for programming server-side applications for the Web. However, despite its popularity, it is not...

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Blog - video production

Quick Tips to Create Better Videos - Tip 2: The DSLR Difference

2007 was a big year for me. Not only was I starting college, but I had decided to make a big investment and purchase my own professional video camera. Nearly $4,000 later I was the proud owner of a Canon XH A1 camcorder. At that time it was a great camcorder, especially for those who were serious about video production. That camera truly served me well and helped me book some of my first freelance jobs, including one in Africa to film an event with the President of Rwanda. Fast-forward to 2010, I remember browsing Vimeo and stumbling across a video by Vincent Laforet, called “The Cabbie.” That three and a half minute video would completely change my view on camcorders, and eventually lead me to post my beloved XH A1 on Craigslist for sale.

2007 was a big year for me. Not only was I starting college, but I had decided to make a big investment and purchase my own professional video camera....

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Blog - drupal

Drupal 8 - First Experiences

I recently had time to install and take a look at Drupal 8. I am going to share my first take on Drupal 8 and some of the hang-ups that I came across. I read a few other blog posts that mentioned not to rely too heavily on one source for D8 documentation with the rapid changing pace of D8 the information has become outdated rather quickly.

I recently had time to install and take a look at Drupal 8. I am going to share my first take on Drupal 8 and some of the hang-ups that I came across....

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Blog - digital-marketing

Digital Strategy - The Evolution of Your Work Day

Back in 2008 while working for the local newspaper selling print advertising, I was sent to a digital marketing conference to learn all about advertising on the web. That was my introduction to a world that I am now extremely passionate about. The digital world! We have come a long way technologically since 2008, but I am learning that a lot of small business owners in my area still have little to no knowledge of the options they have for improving their business model and marketing with all of this great new technology.

Back in 2008 while working for the local newspaper selling print advertising, I was sent to a digital marketing conference to learn all about advertis...

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Blog - development

Where's waldo?

Maintaining a quality website is a tricky task for both developers and QA engineers. With constant changes coming out every single day and features requests comes in bulk, a website can evolve in every little detail. It takes a meticulous hand to catch all of these changes and it takes extreme control to not allow these changes to snowball the work-pile. The task is slightly reminiscent of the game “Where’s Waldo”. QA Engineers look at the most minute details of every project. They execute plans and tests which help the detail sifting, but in the end, it falls under the watchful eye of the engineer to catch the smallest of the bugs.

Maintaining a quality website is a tricky task for both developers and QA engineers. With constant changes coming out every single day and features re...

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Blog - culture

ActiveLAMP and JIRA -- A Thriving, Efficient, and Productive Relationship

Last year, ActiveLAMP began to feel the natural growing pains that a company starts to feel when it begins to transcend into its next degree of awesomeness. As the number of projects increased, so did our need to upgrade our system to a hardier one. One that lended itself to scalability beyond what we had at that time. Hence, the search for this unknown system began.

Last year, ActiveLAMP began to feel the natural growing pains that a company starts to feel when it begins to transcend into its next degree of awesom...

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Blog - devops

Docker with Vagrant - Part 2

This post is part 2 in a series of Docker posts hashing out a new docker workflow for our team. To gain background of what I want to accomplish with docker, checkout my previous post [hashing out a docker workflow]({% post_url 2015-06-04-hashing-out-docker-workflow %}). In this post, we will venture into setting up docker locally, in the same repeatable way from developer to developer, by using Vagrant. By the end of this post, we'll have Drupal running in a container, using Docker.

This post is part 2 in a series of Docker posts hashing out a new docker workflow for our team. To gain background of what I want to accomplish with d...

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Blog - video production

Quick Tips to Create Better Videos - Tip 1: Focus on Audio

"The eyes are forgiving, but the ears are not." I'm unsure where, or from whom, I first heard this quote, but it has stuck with me throughout the years. In my experience, viewers are more likely to sit through and watch a poorly shot video, rather than one they can hardly hear. Many times people get caught up with wanting to have the newest and best camera, but when it comes to audio, I see many people settling for cheap solutions. This is the reason why I decided to start off this series by focusing on audio.

"The eyes are forgiving, but the ears are not." I'm unsure where, or from whom, I first heard this quote, but it has stuck with me throughout the year...

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Blog - drupal

How to Use Picture and Image Replace for Drupal 7

The Picture module is a backport of Drupal 8 Responsive Image module. It allows you to select different images to be loaded for different devices and resolutions using media queries and Drupal’s image styles. You can also use the Image Replace module to specify a different image to load at certain breakpoints.

The Picture module is a backport of Drupal 8 Responsive Image module. It allows you to select different images to be loaded for different devices and ...

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