Random Access Memory

One of the reasons I blog is to share info with others. The other reason I blog is to make permanent notes for myself. This is my online repository of the things I don’t have space to remember.

Guide to everyday Git commands

Setting up PHPCS for WordPress Coding Standards

Words I can never remember to spell correctly

unnecessary

necessarily

definitely

decision

exercise

Check Apache for startup errors

systemctl status apache2.service

Latest Posts


  • How I lost 12.5kgs in 2021 and kept it off in 2022

    Whenever I run into people who’ve not seen me in person since before the pandemic, they are surprised at how different I look today. Personally, I don’t see it, until I go looking for photos of myself before 2020, and then look at more recent photos. The differences are quite remarkable. For some context, here’s […]

  • Developing WordPress Blocks without React

    Code. Free public domain CC0

    One of the most common complaints I hear from long term WordPress developers boils down to the fact that to develop blocks for the WordPress Block Editor, you need to set up the JavaScript development environment (Node.js + npm + @wordpress/scripts) in order to start building blocks. This is not entirely true, as it is […]

  • Upgrades and benchmarks

    dark industry internet abstract

    It’s been just over 2 years since I last worked on building/upgrading a computer, in what was then my new office workstation. One of the main reasons for this is that I now have a company-sponsored MacBook Pro, and so my office and home computers are mostly used for gaming, or if I’m tinkering with […]

  • 2022 Year in Review

    white and brown sea dock

    Since 2016, I have tried to write either a year-in-review and/or goal-setting post, or a combination of the two. The idea behind these process is to try and set achievable goals for me for the year ahead, and then look at how close I’ve come to achieving them. Last year I set some very specific […]

  • I don’t understand computers

    Free computer chip image

    I’ve been building PCs for as long as I’ve been into computers (early nineties) and they still baffle me. Yesterday I installed a new graphics card on my office workstation, and the PC didn’t POST the first time. So I power cycle it, and it POSTs, but throws some “safe mode” BIOS error. So I […]

  • Tuesday Twitch Streams

    I’ve been toying with the idea of doing weekly development live streams for some time now. Fortunately, my work on the WordPress training team regularly requires me to do some R&D work on new topics, which are the perfect subjects for live streams. So if you want to watch me fumble my way through WordPress […]

  • Running Different PHP Versions with Apache on Ubuntu

    abstract business code coder

    I’ve been using Apache as my default local development web server since I started writing PHP code back in 2006. Back then, Nginx was barely 2 years old, and every web server was running Apache, so it just made sense. Over the years I’ve come to prefer Nginx on my web servers, but I still […]

  • Let’s code! Creating your first WordPress Plugin

    As part of my sponsored work for the WordPress Training Team, I’m hosting weekly “Let’s Code” Online Workshops for Learn WordPress. Each week I cover a WordPress development concept. I’m sharing them here as well so that if anyone has questions they can ask me here (in the comments) directly. Watch this video on WordPress.tv […]

  • Turning a shortcode into a block

    a laptop screen with text

    I’ve had a couple of folks either reach out to me or ask on Twitter if it’s easy to convert a shortcode into a block. The irony is that during my trial at Automattic, that’s exactly what I created, a tutorial on taking an existing shortcode plugin and adding it as a block. I am […]