I'm an advocate of #ProgressiveWebApp and launched for @RippleAquaplast last week. I was .... see full tweet.

it might be an old one and we'll put it right back but I'd prefer; 1) not to 2) if you pointed out the real fire ex .... see full tweet.

"You can add custom #JavaScript to your HTML document by using #React 's dangerouslySetInnerHTML attribute." .... see full tweet.

This week I'm starting to learn Gatsby JS which I plan on using with the WP Gatsby and WP GraphQL WordPress plugins. So far I've got a Gatsby dev environment started and I've set up a WordPress site on an AWS Lightsail. Next step is to get my dev site to request posts from the GraphQL and use them to build a page.

this morning I triggered sending an email using #AWS SNS for the first time

CodeWith is coming ... @CodeWithGroup #soon #learntocode https://t.co/AfePWOk1MG

Today I watched some of WordCamp Europe 2020 online. - https://2020.europe.wordcamp.org/ Zeev Suraski gave a PHP talk. Mentioned PHP 8 improvements and that WordPress was the go-to software they test new PHP features on. Matt Mullenweg and Matías Ventura gave the final talk of the day, much of which talked about the evolving core WordPress editor (aka Gutenberg). Matías demoed the editor in WordPress 5.5 Matt actually mentioned moving blocks 'still drives me crazy'. Matías then demonstrated the drag and drop is improving and that whole blocks will be cut/copy and pasteable. On the subject of pasting, Matt went on to say "Gutenberg's one of the nicest places to paste something on the internet", talking about how pasting content will convert it to blocks. That's something I like too. I also like that it'll recognise HTML - paste ul and li html content and it's instantly converted to a list block. Overall it looks like the editor is becoming much smoother and more polished. Little coming features like a button above each block's icon to select parent are all good to see. Matt mentioned the core Gutenberg blocks are coming to the Android and iOS WordPress apps. To me, that's going to be a very good reason to embrace Gutenberg over other page editors. During the Q and A .... Matt suggested people could hire "Gutenbergers" in future. Maybe I should list that on my CV. I'll be watching some more tomorrow. I just noticed a talk on headless WordPress, which is an interest of mine.

#Cookie banners are not magical protection. https://t.co/LnWWE01Hvk

I've been getting paid to make websites. This has meant I don't create much new content for the Shiny Grey website and social media. I'd like keep doing so, though I think I want a different approach. For now, I'll post the following little update and then get back to work - Today I tried https://jestjs.io for the first time.

This morning, looking for placeholder images, I discovered https://t.co/iRyGEgqQgR and https://t.co/4dglmYZfll

It's been a wet weekend so here in Skelmersdale I decided to make friends with some web development tools and do some experiments with Composer. I must admit, I've been a little nervous of package managers in the past. I think part of it is a territorial instinct. I don't like a program dumping files I don't understand in my project. As a result of this territorialism I like to keep composer.phar above my web directory. ``` php ../composer.phar install ``` forgot the composer.json ... ``` { "require": {} } ``` I start with a blank composer.json and add what I need. It's not so intimidating when I think of it that way. I can require vendor/autoload.php and Composer does the rest for me.

No more #ebook reading in edge ... nooo! I liked the #edge #epub reader. It was the first time I'd had a reason t .... see full tweet.

We're half way through September! Already!! Hope everyone's well out there. Here's some things I'm doing recently: I'm about to finish week 2 of an online programming course - https://coursera.org/learn/programming-languages I'd very much like to break in to programming, however as my background is in Mechanical Engineering, I'm still figuring out how I'm going to achieve it. I'm enjoying learning about Standard ML right now though I'm undecided about paying for an actual certificate. Do employers truly value this kind of credential? I'm sceptical. I'm helping with a local charity shop website. A situation I've seen many times is that a small organisation or business will setup something with WordPress, Weebly or Wix, sold on the idea that these systems are easy to use. And they are. Until you think of something that you can't quite do. Right now I've coded my own WordPress plugin with php, in order to add some features to the website which I intent to improve. I'm working with an engineering company on their document handling. Another familiar scene is where management of product data such as drawings has become painful for a company. I believe sometimes an outside perspective can be exactly what's needed and I've been spending some of my time looking at how agile engineering practices can help.

Picked up some more #businesscards Decided to stay with a minimalist design but with slightly more information. T .... see full tweet.

I'm experiencing another #clojure relapse tonight. I decided to try the @CursiveIDE plugin for #intellij.

Today i created #ShinyGreyLtd on . No idea why I didn't do this sooner .... suppose I'm fi .... see full tweet.

Now all I need is a #solarpanel and I can work anywhere. #ShinyDay #firstWorldProblems @ Skelmersdale https://t.co/HP8vkr56sn

I still enjoy wandering my home town of #skelmersdale ... though I wish I could find a way to keep direct sunlight .... see full tweet.

I had next to no ability with Git before a year ago. I had dabbled a little with GitHub but my knowledge could be summed up with xkcd.com/1597 Today, I decided it was time to get the hang of Git Submodules; https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Submodules I'd had a vision of sorts a little while back when I was learning Asp.net - Put together a C#.net portfolio as an Asp.net MVC site. Include modular programs and code. One possible solution was 'Areas' ... this didn't quite fit what I wanted. I didn't want sub Asp.net sites. More like sub models that could be plugged into a local .net program just as easily as an Asp.net site. That's part of what being object orientated is about isn't it? I didn't want one mega Asp.net site with everything divided into Models, Views and Controllers. More like programs that would sit within or underneath the Model layer. I already knew a little about the App_Code Folder within Asp.net so I decided to make use of that. I created a little test program to serve as my first module and an App_Code/HelloWorld folder within my project. And so the trial and error began. ``` cd App_Code/HelloWorld git submodule init cd ../../ git submodule add ../../cSharp/HelloWorld ./AspNetSite/App_Code > AspNetSite/App_Code already exists and is not a valid git repo ``` uhhh ... huh. Nothing happened. I deleted the HelloWorld folder within App_Code. ``` git submodule add C:/Users/greg/source/cSharp/HelloWorld ./AspNetSite/App_Code/HelloWorld > Cloning into 'C:/Users/greg/source/repos/AspNetSite/AspNetSite/App_Code/HelloWorld'... ``` There we go. Visual Studio is a little confused now as I didn't include it in all the fun. Sorry VS but i wanted to manage this without you. I'm finding your Team Explorer a bit limited for using Git. Step 2 ... Show All Files. Include in Project. If anyone finds this post looking for answers, don't forget to set any .cs files in App_Code to compile. Last step was to learn how best to get submodule changes in the main project. I took another look at the documentation at https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Submodules . ``` git submodule update --remote ShinyGrey/App_Code/HelloWorld >Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), done. From C:/Users/greg/source/cSharp/HelloWorld ``` Success! You can see the conclusion at https://aspnet.shinygrey.com . Enjoy.

I still wasn't quite satisfied with www.shinygrey.com so I spent some time tinkering over the weekend. I think we can call this version 2.5 Earlier this year I discovered Vue.js and found I quite enjoyed using it, so I recreated my site entirely using Vue. This started nicely but I found it required a lot of work to make the site work with older web browsers. This weekend I decided to go back to a mainly PHP based site and have provided better error handling than my last attempt. I'm sure I'm going to be experimenting with the site for years to come, however for now I'm happy with the current result.

Ticked off another #website #todo late last night. Worked out how to do progress bars with #threejs Take a look - https://t.co/fdYlbb3sWu

Today I put my first Django website together. I still barely know any Python, however I was able to muddle through with enough knowledge to get started. Now I potentially have a nice way of putting a Python portfolio together as I learn .... though I sometimes wonder if I'm spreading myself too thin. Maybe in 5 years I'll be coding everything in a language I haven't even heard of yet. Still ... I feel being language agnostic could be a strength. I'm open to the possibility of a One True Programming Language but I remain sceptical regarding it's existence. https://buff.ly/2W87nqf

At #GMBExpo2019 today. First activity - heading VR balls at a VR dartboard.

It's the first day of the working week (yesterday was a UK holiday if you happen to be reading this from elsewhere). Like many people I have my own personal rituals and habits. This morning, I find myself starting the routine I've developed in different workplaces over the years. In my case a large influence in this is that I like to avoid paper. Below is my 'week notes' routine. - open Evernote I found #Evernote looking for a free OneNote alternative back in the days when they allowed free accounts to sync to any number of devices. It's still a great program and syncing between phone and laptop suits my needs very well for the moment. - create a new week. I usually name this note with the year first and tag it *week notes*. With the year first (followed by month or week number) I can sort by title and the notes will be in chronological order. Not strictly necessary as I could sort by created. As with many habits, it satisfies a small neurosis; a desire for well ordered files in my case. - copy anything forward from the previous week, noting any progress. - list anything new i want to get done, such as send emails, phone calls or finish part of a website. I used to use the tick boxes in Evernote but fell out of love with them one day .... however I can't remember why. I think today I'll try using them again. What's your ritual?

Today Shiny Grey turns 1 year old. #birthday #1yearold

Today Shiny Grey turns 1 year old. #birthday #1yearold https://t.co/s1paAeZ5bD

https://t.co/93qDhoB7Gn v2.0 coming soon. #vuejs #webdevelopment https://t.co/35AQ53BGCn

Friday night business meeting. All the business. Discussing #instagram feeds and their merits.

Juggling the #wordpress template hierarchy leads to exclamations such as "hey that's not in the parent theme! oh wait ...."

Found myself making friends with #wordpress again recently. The two of us have a complicated relationship.