Web Development by Alistair Robinson

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Posts Tagged ‘content management’…

A Nice and Simple Photo Gallery Solution for MODx


February 25th, 2010 9 Comments

My third MODx site is about to launch. It’s relatively simple (no forms!) so I had the chance to really concentrate on refining my architecture, and the work I’ve done will stand me in good stead for a while (unless I give in to the enticements of SilverStripe or ExpressionEngine, or just ditch the PHP altogether and finally get up-and-running with Django).
“Refining his architecture? What does he mean?” For me, learning to use MODx well has been about working out how to combine templates, template variables, chunks and snippets in a logical and efficient structure. A good application – a small one, at least – should have a shape that you can envision (if you’re the kind of person who … read on »

Web Development and Chopping Garlic


December 2nd, 2009 1 Comment

For this post it was a toss-up between:
1. My observations on Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life (boiling down to my realization that I’m a tangle of complexes, but also that I’m actually doing alright and won’t be running to an analyst any time soon)
2. A vague and geeky ramble over the broken, scarred and unstable terrain of web development.
Since moving this blog over to my website, I’m conscious I may be losing those who enjoyed such posts as Sweaty Rectangle and My 25-year-old Earworm, but the geeky ramble won out this time. Bear with me though: I am large, I contain multitudes.
Though I’ve been doing web development off and on for ten years, I’ve never been as enthusiastic about it … read on »

The Black Sheep Blog and More Ted Hughes


November 13th, 2009 1 Comment

I am the black sheep of my flock,
I stand alone at field’s edge.
Out here my waking hours I spend,
Chewing a hole in the hedge.
I am the outcast of this flock.
When you are gathered together,
I spend my days tied up by a rope,
Seeking an end to my tether.
Black sheep, baa baa baa
etc.
I’m reminded of these lines, from Julian Cope’s “Black Sheep Song,” because my blog has been the black sheep of the family around here, sitting around within my site but with a completely different style and lacking a common navigation which might let people know they were actually on the alistairrobinson.co.uk site.
Well now it has returned to the flock: I turned my alistairrobinson.co.uk style into a Wordpress theme, so now … read on »


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