Writing on software development, infrastructure, CI/CD and technology.https://www.garybell.co.uk/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/how-to-use-chatcpt-to-help-write-a-blog/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/how-to-use-chatcpt-to-help-write-a-blog/If you're reading this you will already know what ChatGPT is to some degree. You've probably seen posts in various places about how it will replace…Thu, 16 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/using-gitlab-ci-to-deploy-via-ssh/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/using-gitlab-ci-to-deploy-via-ssh/It's been over a year since I last has a Tanuki Tuesday post. I normally look at specific features of GitLab when I do one of these - instead I want to…Tue, 21 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/setting-up-rabbimq-on-a-raspberry-pi/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/setting-up-rabbimq-on-a-raspberry-pi/Technically, these instructions should work on most Debian based systems (Ubuntu, pop_OS etc.), but this is the process I go through when setting up…Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-web-hosting-roundup-2023/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-web-hosting-roundup-2023/Time to round up and so a side-by-side comparison of the hosts I looked at last week. I started with 3 of the top hosts from Digital.com's list of best web…Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-hosting-with-ionos/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-hosting-with-ionos/We're finally at the end of my series about cheap web hosting. Today I take a look at IONOS, though I will stress there are many other hosts out there which…Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-hosting-with-digitalocean/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-hosting-with-digitalocean/This is the fourth installment of my series looking at cheap web hosting. This one is the first installment where I depart from the hosts listed with on…Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-webhosting-with-hostinger/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-webhosting-with-hostinger/Overview Hostinger is a provider which looks to offer a wide range of options to host websites or Minecraft servers on. They offer billing in various…Wed, 18 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/siteground-cheap-hosting/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/siteground-cheap-hosting/In today's edition of my cheap web hosting series, I look at the host at the number 2 spot in Digital.com's "best web hosting" list, SiteGround. SiteGround…Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/bluehost-cheap-website-hosting/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/bluehost-cheap-website-hosting/Welcome to the first in my series comparing cheap web hosting. A series written following some discussion with digital.com to help them reach a new…Mon, 16 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-web-hosting/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cheap-web-hosting/In the middle of 2022, I was approached by Digital.com to share some of their resources with my audience here. They saw areas where my content overlaps with…Thu, 12 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/managing-website-hosting/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/managing-website-hosting/When it comes to running a website, there's a couple of obvious ways to go; shared hosting, or self hosting. Managed hosting is where your website sits on…Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/looking-ahead-to-2023/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/looking-ahead-to-2023/It's been nearly a year since I last posted, but that's not for a lack of ideas. Rather it's been a year of being busy at work, busy with family, and…Thu, 29 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-group-level-templates/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-group-level-templates/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. My very first Tanuki Tuesday post in 2021 was…Tue, 18 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/an-alternative-to-google-analytics/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/an-alternative-to-google-analytics/If you run a website you probably want to know how much traffic you are getting. The chances are if you are running a site, you are running Google Analytics…Thu, 06 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/revisiting-my-stance-on-4k-monitors/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/revisiting-my-stance-on-4k-monitors/Way back in June 2020, I wrote a post about how not all developers need 4k screens [__GHOST_URL__/not-all-developers-need-a-4k-monitor/]. A lot of things…Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/creating-draft-posts-with-sculpin/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/creating-draft-posts-with-sculpin/As is so often the case with blog posts, you start writing one and then hit writers block. You want to go away and clear your mind, or do some additional…Thu, 25 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/the-down-side-of-static-site-generators/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/the-down-side-of-static-site-generators/It's been nearly a year since I looked at the benefits of a static site generator [__GHOST_URL__/static-site-generators/], which I followed up with some PHP…Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/updating-my-home-network/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/updating-my-home-network/I've recently rearranged my home office space, and I now have a standing desk. Well, technically it's a sit-stand desk as it can be either, but that's not…Thu, 11 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/migrating-your-magento-1-users/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/migrating-your-magento-1-users/So you're still on a Magento 1 installation for your e-commerce website. That's okay, you aren't the only ones. According to SimilarTech, Magento 1 has over…Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/lessons-from-time-away/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/lessons-from-time-away/Back in April I took time to reflect on my 2021 goals. I came to realise that I was facing burnout, and I was not ok with that. It was down to trying to…Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/2021-goals-q1-reflection/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/2021-goals-q1-reflection/Somehow it's April already. A quarter of the year has passed, yet it feels like it should only be a few weeks or days old. I'm not entirely sure where the…Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-i-use-php-for-ci-tasks/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-i-use-php-for-ci-tasks/I've previously posted about how to create a release with GitLab and Composer. It's actually my most popular post of all time (more popular than my home…Thu, 25 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/commenting-on-designs-in-issues/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/commenting-on-designs-in-issues/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday, where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I look at the ability within GitLab for users to comment on designs…Tue, 23 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/horizontally-scaling-ghost-blog-digitalocean/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/horizontally-scaling-ghost-blog-digitalocean/Preface I had intended to submit this to DigitalOcean as a post, but the topics they require for their community posts don't fit the content of this post. I…Thu, 18 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-vs-github-2021-edition/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-vs-github-2021-edition/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I'm making a slight change to the…Tue, 16 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/i-used-a-macbook-for-the-first-time/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/i-used-a-macbook-for-the-first-time/Until very recently I had never used an Apple Mac device. I had speculated previously that a MacBook might be the perfect development device, but was never…Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/issue-board-configuration/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/issue-board-configuration/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I'm looking at configuring issue…Tue, 09 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/one-eye-on-the-job-market/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/one-eye-on-the-job-market/Following the nightmare that was 2020, and the losses of jobs which happened, this may seem like an odd statement. A lot of people are suffered and…Thu, 04 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/project-vs-group-labels-in-gitlab/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/project-vs-group-labels-in-gitlab/Group vs Project labels Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week is a quick…Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/alternatives-to-lastpass/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/alternatives-to-lastpass/LastPass has been my go-to password manager for as long as I can remember. Longer than I can remember, really. I know I have an invoice from them from 2013,…Thu, 25 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-built-in-ide/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-built-in-ide/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I take a look at how to edit files…Tue, 23 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/php-static-site-generators-twig-templates/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/php-static-site-generators-twig-templates/I've previously loosely covered static site generators [__GHOST_URL__/static-site-generators/] and mentioned that they can bring performance benefits to a…Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-issue-dependencies/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-issue-dependencies/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I take a look at issue…Tue, 16 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/test-and-trace-a-failure-in-it-procurement/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/test-and-trace-a-failure-in-it-procurement/Regardless of where you live on the planet, you will be aware of Covid-19, the novel Coronavirus strain. It's affected all corners of the globe. Depending…Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/project-wikis-in-gitlab/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/project-wikis-in-gitlab/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. Up this week, knowledge sharing in the form…Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/using-gitpod-to-start-a-new-project/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/using-gitpod-to-start-a-new-project/Ever since I used Gitpod as part of some early access with GitLab [__GHOST_URL__/getting-started-with-gitlabs-cloud-development-kit/] I've wanted to use the…Thu, 04 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/using-keyboard-shortcuts-in-gitlab/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/using-keyboard-shortcuts-in-gitlab/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday, where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I'm going to look at keyboard shortcuts, and how you can use them to…Tue, 02 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/static-site-generators/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/static-site-generators/There is more and more focus on the performance of a website, and the effect performance has on search engine rankings. Performance is the first metric…Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/php-password-validator-2-2-0/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/php-password-validator-2-2-0/Version 2.2.0 of my PHP Password Validator [__GHOST_URL__/projects/] has been released. There is a fix to replace the supported PHP versions and Packagist…Wed, 27 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/merge-request-templates/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/merge-request-templates/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I'm going to look at merge request…Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/are-mobile-workstations-dead/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/are-mobile-workstations-dead/I need to open by saying that this is not a guarantee of the actual demise of a product, rather my view on why it is obsolete. I have a feeling that the…Thu, 21 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/quick-actions-in-gitlab/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/quick-actions-in-gitlab/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday, where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I am looking at quick actions, and how they can increase your…Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/upgrading-ci-cd-pipelines-to-php-8/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/upgrading-ci-cd-pipelines-to-php-8/With the release of PHP8, there's going to be a scramble from people to get their PHP applications up-to-date. Yes, PHP 7.4 is supported until 28th November…Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-scoped-labels/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-scoped-labels/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I'm going to look at scoped labels,…Tue, 12 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/how-to-start-blogging/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/how-to-start-blogging/It's the start of a new year, and a time when new resolutions come to people. One of those resolutions may well be to start blogging. But just how do you do…Thu, 07 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-issue-templates/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-issue-templates/Welcome to Tanuki Tuesday [__GHOST_URL__/tag/tanuki-tuesday/], where I look at the features offered by GitLab. This week I'm going to look at issue…Tue, 05 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/my-goals-for-2021/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/my-goals-for-2021/This is an entirely self-serving post, and is only about what I plan to achieve in 2021. This might not be the most interesting post for readers, but…Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/php-password-validator-2-1-0/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/php-password-validator-2-1-0/Short announcement about my PHP Password Validator project [__GHOST_URL__/projects/]. Version 2.1.0 has been released. It only bring support for PHP 8, with…Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/december-downtime/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/december-downtime/It's come to that time of year when things get busy for a lot of people, due to spending time with family, and scrambling round to find presents. I've had a…Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/resolve-npm-depends-on-node-gyp-ubuntu-20-04/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/resolve-npm-depends-on-node-gyp-ubuntu-20-04/I've recently been trying to update NodeJS and NPM on a couple of my machines. Both machines started out as having Ubuntu 18.04 and have been upgraded to…Wed, 25 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/everything-you-know-about-security-is-probably-wrong/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/everything-you-know-about-security-is-probably-wrong/I read a post on dev.to about how most websites validate passwords incorrectly. The premise of it centres on this well known strip on xkcd. Basically things…Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/upgrading-to-composer-2-using-ansible/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/upgrading-to-composer-2-using-ansible/A week ago I looked at upgrading to Composer 2 [__GHOST_URL__/upgrading-to-composer-2/] on a couple of machines. The process wasn't as simple as I was…Wed, 11 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/password-validator-2-0-0-released/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/password-validator-2-0-0-released/One of my projects [__GHOST_URL__/projects/] is a password validator for PHP which uses the entropy of a password to determine its strength. It was…Fri, 06 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/upgrading-to-composer-2/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/upgrading-to-composer-2/If you develop using PHP, there's a very high probability you've come across Composer, the PHP dependency manager. You've likely used it to import libraries…Wed, 04 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/beware-the-black-friday-sales/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/beware-the-black-friday-sales/Black Friday is right around the corner. About 4 weeks away. There's a good possibility you've been holding off buying something until then to see what…Wed, 28 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-you-should-avoid-virtual-machines-for-development/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-you-should-avoid-virtual-machines-for-development/I've previously written about why you should use virtual machines for development [__GHOST_URL__/why-you-should-use-virtual-machines-in-development/], but…Wed, 21 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/digitalocean-droplet-unable-to-resolve-mirror-locations/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/digitalocean-droplet-unable-to-resolve-mirror-locations/You've set up a Droplet in DigitalOcean and locked things down to restrict access to it via the firewall. Great. You can access the server and make local…Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/getting-started-with-gitlabs-cloud-development-kit/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/getting-started-with-gitlabs-cloud-development-kit/I'm a huge fan of GitLab, and make no secret of it. Pretty much my entire CI/CD section [__GHOST_URL__/tag/ci-cd/] of site is dedicated to GitLab CI. I'm…Thu, 08 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/creating-a-release-with-gitlab-ci-and-composer/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/creating-a-release-with-gitlab-ci-and-composer/If you work with PHP for projects, there's a good chance you work with Composer as a package manager, and therefore have a composer.json file. This is a…Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/configuring-php-web-servers-with-ansible/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/configuring-php-web-servers-with-ansible/Setting up a webserver for a PHP site is relatively straightforward for a basic configuration. Install and configure Apache (or nginx), install the relevant…Wed, 30 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/how-i-got-to-number-1-on-google/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/how-i-got-to-number-1-on-google/The holy grail for any website is hitting that number 1 spot in Google. According to a study by smart insights , the number 1 result for anything in Google…Wed, 23 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-ci-minimum-requirements-for-phpunit/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/gitlab-ci-minimum-requirements-for-phpunit/I do most of my coding in PHP. Always have, likely always will. Yes, I dabble in other technology, but I am getting to a point where I spend more time…Wed, 16 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/fixing-gitlab-pipeline-stuck-on-tzdata-configuration/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/fixing-gitlab-pipeline-stuck-on-tzdata-configuration/Are your pipelines stuck forever waiting one one job to finish? Does that job always time out? And in the console output for that job, is it stuck at the…Wed, 09 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/npm-del-task-forgets-to-signal-async-compeltion/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/npm-del-task-forgets-to-signal-async-compeltion/As part of my development workflow, I use gulp to build the Javascript and CSS files for production. To ensure that the files are removed and replaced,…Wed, 02 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/remove-unused-plugins/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/remove-unused-plugins/I've previously covered the issues of using a CMS [__GHOST_URL__/issues-with-using-a-cms/], and that they require a lot of work to keep up-to-date. But…Wed, 26 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-you-should-use-custom-exceptions/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-you-should-use-custom-exceptions/Anyone who has done any real coding is likely to have seen an exception message, and/or a stack trace which comes with it. It's usually a whole load of file…Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/are-macbooks-the-perfect-development-device/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/are-macbooks-the-perfect-development-device/Let me start by saying I'm not a fan of Apple. I don't own a single Apple device, and the only Apple device I have ever owned is an iPod. I've always…Wed, 12 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cula-io-limiting-password-lengths/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/cula-io-limiting-password-lengths/Following my post on why passwords shouldn't be limited in length [__GHOST_URL__/disk-space-is-cheap-data-breaches-are-not/], I have decided to name and…Wed, 05 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/disk-space-is-cheap-data-breaches-are-not/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/disk-space-is-cheap-data-breaches-are-not/Many, many years ago (way back in 2015), I wrote an article about keeping data secure [__GHOST_URL__/keeping-data-secure/]. A few things have changed since…Wed, 29 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/user-experience-consider-your-users/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/user-experience-consider-your-users/User Experience (UX) is something which has been around for a while. It is becoming more and more prevalent and "buzzwordy" as more people get more…Wed, 22 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/installing-pi-hole-on-ubuntu/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/installing-pi-hole-on-ubuntu/Following the use of a Raspberry Pi for my backups [__GHOST_URL__/raspberry-pi-for-backups/], I decided to go ahead and install Pi Hole on the same device.…Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/raspberry-pi-for-backups/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/raspberry-pi-for-backups/I've previously written about my backups, the server they were running from, and the NAS drive problems i have had. I've also had issues getting the backups…Wed, 08 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/commits-are-your-backup/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/commits-are-your-backup/If you are a software developer of any sort, you really should use source control [__GHOST_URL__/why-i-use-gitlab/]. It doesn't matter if it's for personal…Wed, 01 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/symfony-profiler-not-working-on-apache/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/symfony-profiler-not-working-on-apache/So you've decided you want to create a web project using Symfony 5. Great! By now you've got the Welcome to Symfony 5.x.y message on screen; great. You're…Wed, 24 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/not-all-developers-need-a-4k-monitor/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/not-all-developers-need-a-4k-monitor/This is going to be controversial. And for those developers who's managers read this post and decline their, likely legitimate, request for a 4K screen, I…Wed, 17 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/writing-a-good-technical-test/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/writing-a-good-technical-test/Having previously defended technical tests [__GHOST_URL__/in-defence-of-technical-tests], I started thinking about what makes a good tech test. It's also…Wed, 10 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-you-should-use-virtual-machines-in-development/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-you-should-use-virtual-machines-in-development/I've previously covered why I use Ubuntu [__GHOST_URL__/why-i-use-ubuntu/], even at my day job where I have a Windows laptop I spend most of my time using…Wed, 03 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-i-use-ubuntu/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-i-use-ubuntu/I use Ubuntu Linux. That much is clear from the title. It confuses some people as to why I would; and others have no idea what I am on about when I say I…Wed, 27 May 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/in-defence-of-technical-tests/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/in-defence-of-technical-tests/I've just undergone a round of recruitment to expand my team at work. We're a small, steadily growing team. But when we hire someone, I want to understand…Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-i-use-gitlab/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-i-use-gitlab/I took the #GitChallenge to compare GitHub and GitLabSun, 10 May 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/symfony-unit-tests-with-redis-on-gitlab/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/symfony-unit-tests-with-redis-on-gitlab/I've written a few times about GitLab and the CI/CD pipeline features it has. For most cases, it's straightforward to use. But, every so often, things don't…Wed, 05 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-should-you-blog/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-should-you-blog/There are millions of blogs out there. Literally. But there should always be more. It might be seen as filling the Internet with junk, and but I think…Wed, 29 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/clear-out-unused-apps/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/clear-out-unused-apps/It's that time of year when we undertake a spring clean of our homes ready for the year ahead. Throw out the unused junk, and generally keep things tidy.…Wed, 22 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/how-to-configure-your-ci-pipeline-environments/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/how-to-configure-your-ci-pipeline-environments/This seems like a very simple and trivial thing, but it's something which gets easily overlooked. Setting up a CI pipeline environment is fairly trivial…Wed, 15 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/test-your-deployment-tasks/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/test-your-deployment-tasks/The great part of a CI/CD pipeline is the headache which can be removed from deployments. Manual deployments are painful, but deployments as a whole don't…Wed, 08 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/doctrine-dbal-and-the-like-operator/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/doctrine-dbal-and-the-like-operator/Doctrine is a great abstraction layer, and I've resolved to use it more and more through my projects to keep things simple and maintainable. The problem is,…Mon, 18 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/replacing-a-drive-in-buffalo-ls441d-after-a-drive-failure/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/replacing-a-drive-in-buffalo-ls441d-after-a-drive-failure/I mentioned back in August that I'd changed my backups [__GHOST_URL__/changing-my-backups/]to use a NAS enclosure rather than a full blown server. I'm glad…Mon, 11 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/fix-magento-invalid-attribute-error-supee-11219/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/fix-magento-invalid-attribute-error-supee-11219/Having recently updated a Magento installation to apply SUPEE-11219, there were issues when searching for products using the filters for the grid. I had an…Mon, 04 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/magento-patching-frustrations/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/magento-patching-frustrations/I've previously covered the issues I have with CMS platforms [__GHOST_URL__/issues-with-using-a-cms/]. They aren't bad (I use one for this blog), however…Tue, 29 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/http-status-codes-and-their-uses/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/http-status-codes-and-their-uses/We all know about HTTP codes, or at least we know there is a 404 one which means not found. Some of us know that there's a 200 code (meaning OK), and that…Fri, 23 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/changing-my-backups/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/changing-my-backups/It's been a long time since I turned my old PC into a home media server [__GHOST_URL__/home-media-server-samba-configuration/], but time has come for that…Fri, 16 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/issues-with-using-a-cms/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/issues-with-using-a-cms/If you have a website, the chances are it runs on a CMS (Content Management System). There are hundreds of them out there, some you will have heard of;…Fri, 09 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/having-a-break/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/having-a-break/It's been a while since I last posted anything, despite starting off really well with weekly posts since moving to the Ghost platform. This hasn't fully…Fri, 02 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/mostly-leaving-facebook-behind/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/mostly-leaving-facebook-behind/There's hardly a week goes by that Facebook isn't in the news for one thing or another - usually something privacy related. Privacy and data protection have…Wed, 19 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/ci-cd-with-gitlab-getting-started/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/ci-cd-with-gitlab-getting-started/I use Gitlab a lot. I use it for personal projects and have also implemented it at work - I love the platform. Others are available, but for me, having…Wed, 12 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/a-late-introduction-to-continuous-integration-and-deployment/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/a-late-introduction-to-continuous-integration-and-deployment/It's been one of the buzzwords around development offices in recent years, and everyone is wanting a piece of the efficiency generating DevOps, but what are…Wed, 05 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/simple-changes-for-a-mobile-friendly-online-store/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/simple-changes-for-a-mobile-friendly-online-store/Sat on a train heading through the Welsh countryside, I've been doing some browsing and shopping on my mobile phone (yes, there is mobile signal in strange…Wed, 29 May 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/when-does-the-cloud-make-sense/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/when-does-the-cloud-make-sense/Most people are run all realising that the cloud is just someone else's computer which you use for a time. Cloud computing and the benefits of elastic…Wed, 22 May 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/ghost-vs-wordpress-performance/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/ghost-vs-wordpress-performance/I've posted about my reasons for switching blogging platforms [__GHOST_URL__/switching-blogging-platforms] to Ghost, but ahead of doing so I wanted to be…Sat, 18 May 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/switching-blogging-platforms/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/switching-blogging-platforms/If you are reading this, you may have noticed that there's a new look and feel to the site. I've moved from my self-hosted WordPress platform to a managed…Wed, 15 May 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/starting-with-symfony-performance-issues/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/starting-with-symfony-performance-issues/When I chose Symfony, I did so on the understanding that it was going to be a relatively lightweight, performance framework which I could use to build web…Sun, 07 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/getting-started-with-symfony-part-1/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/getting-started-with-symfony-part-1/I'm about to make a change in my career and go back into development. To help me do that I've started a course on Udemy for getting up and running with…Tue, 26 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/jenkins-disk-space-usage/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/jenkins-disk-space-usage/I'm working on a project, part time, in my spare time. As part of that project I have Jenkins for continual building when I publish anything into the master…Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/automating-the-simple-stuff/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/automating-the-simple-stuff/We all use computers for one thing or another, and in most cases we'll do the same things on them over and over. Part of being a developer is realising the…Fri, 23 Sep 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/encrypting-the-site/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/encrypting-the-site/I've just moved my site from HTTP over to HTTPS. It's not a huge deal for something like this, but it's something which I've really needed to do for a…Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/introducing-charon-file-uploader/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/introducing-charon-file-uploader/I've wanted to build a useful JavaScript library for a while, but never found any of the ones out there lacking. I've been working on a new project recently…Tue, 26 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/database-connection-mis-information/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/database-connection-mis-information/Whilst on my usual rounds on StackOverflow to help spread useful knowledge of computing and web development I came across the following comments on a…Mon, 25 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/check-test-and-check-again/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/check-test-and-check-again/I noticed today as I was about to start a different article that my website was looking a bit, well, funny. The layout was wrong, some of the colours were…Wed, 13 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/never-trust-user-input/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/never-trust-user-input/I've had the joys recently of being part of a code audit for a potential client for a change or re-build of a system. The code in itself was complete…Wed, 16 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/perils-of-a-shared-hosting-platform/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/perils-of-a-shared-hosting-platform/Once again I've been inspired by a stack overflow question , and it made me think about issues of a shared hosting platform. You know the ones; the "host…Wed, 09 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/the-importance-of-meaningful-variable-names/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/the-importance-of-meaningful-variable-names/I was having my usual browse around Stack Overflow today (I really want that Fanatic badge) when I came across this question about fatal errors. The coder…Tue, 08 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/developers-still-lack-security-know-how/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/developers-still-lack-security-know-how/Earlier this week I was looking into RESTFUL web services and how to create them, so I set myself a small project. The idea was to do something very basic,…Sat, 05 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/developers-are-the-destroyers-of-hardware/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/developers-are-the-destroyers-of-hardware/I've had a few discussions with some of my colleagues and friends in software development, and one of the things we all agree on is that there is nothing…Sun, 22 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/fun-with-firewalls/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/fun-with-firewalls/Firewalls are not fun. I've got to open with that statement as I've been doing a lot of work with firewalls in the past couple of weeks. It's not been the…Fri, 25 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/a-reminder-about-backups/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/a-reminder-about-backups/I'm a huge advocate of taking backups of things. So much so, I've got my own home server backing up to "the cloud" with all of my files on it. It needs a…Thu, 03 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/sensible-svn-structuring/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/sensible-svn-structuring/SVN, or any other version control system for that matter, should always be used when developing code. It doesn't matter if it's for a single person project,…Wed, 26 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/coding-basics-dry-programming/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/coding-basics-dry-programming/I’ve been working on an old code base recently, a one which I have inherited, and looking through it I was frustrated at a lot of the code involved. Don’t…Mon, 27 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/home-media-server-samba-configuration/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/home-media-server-samba-configuration/As part of the file server set up, I've created a Samba share in order to facilitate easily adding files to it form other devices around the house. It's not…Thu, 23 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/home-file-server-debian-jessie-installation/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/home-file-server-debian-jessie-installation/After posting my intention of building a home file server [__GHOST_URL__/home-file-server-the-hardware] for storing my movies, pictures, music and probably…Wed, 08 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/installing-non-free-network-drivers-on-debian/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/installing-non-free-network-drivers-on-debian/As you might have seen, I've been building, and setting up my home server, and during that time, I had a lot of issues getting things working. Some were…Wed, 08 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/home-file-server-the-hardware/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/home-file-server-the-hardware/This post is the start of a series on setting up a home file server. There’s lots of them out there, but I wanted to document the process I have gone…Sun, 21 Jun 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/performance-issues-with-sass-generated-css-and-missing-sourcemaps/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/performance-issues-with-sass-generated-css-and-missing-sourcemaps/I'm a big fan of anything which makes my life easier, and when it comes to web development and styling things, SASS ticks just about every box I need. I'm…Wed, 27 May 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/making-a-responsive-canvas/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/making-a-responsive-canvas/Not too long ago I looked at working with HTML5 Canvas [__GHOST_URL__/working-with-html5-canvas]. It's a great little thing, and I am working on some posts…Fri, 22 May 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/setting-up-your-web-server/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/setting-up-your-web-server/I spend quite a lot of time on StackOverflow, both in terms of finding answers for something I need, and also for helping people out with their issues. One…Wed, 20 May 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/keeping-data-secure/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/keeping-data-secure/Following the news this week that South Wales Police have been hit with a fine of £160,000 for not reporting missing data for two years, I got thinking…Tue, 19 May 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/working-with-html5-canvas/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/working-with-html5-canvas/Since I changed jobs [__GHOST_URL__/a-professional-change/] a little over a month ago, I've found myself in a position of needing to brush up on a few…Thu, 14 May 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/hopefully-the-last-of-the-changes/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/hopefully-the-last-of-the-changes/'Tis the season for change, it seems. And after a lot of changes with the site and jobs, I've had to make yet another change. Namely to my web-hosts. I…Sat, 09 May 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/a-professional-change/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/a-professional-change/Change isn't always an easy thing to do, but it's exactly what I have been doing. I've changed where I work, bringing down the curtain on my second stint…Thu, 23 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-windows-10-is-not-bad-thing/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/why-windows-10-is-not-bad-thing/Microsoft have announced that their new operating system, Windows 10, should be ready for release later in 2015. If history is to be repeated, we can look…Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/bug-reports-bugging-me/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/bug-reports-bugging-me/In my life I'm no different to any other developer. I make mistakes from time to time, and others around me make them too. As a result, I occasionally get…Thu, 22 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/xml-is-your-friend/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/xml-is-your-friend/I've been working a lot recently with data import and exports between systems. Obviously different systems have a variety of ways they can export data, and…Sat, 02 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/the-importance-of-valid-html/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/the-importance-of-valid-html/The need for standards compliant HTML is documented all over the internet with the primary reason of speed and cross browser compatibility. There are, after…Sat, 28 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/are-error-messages-evil/https://www.garybell.co.uk/blog/are-error-messages-evil/A colleague of mine posted a question to us developers for our input. They had read an article on LinkedIn which stated the following, and asked for our…Tue, 20 May 2014 00:00:00 GMT