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Feb 12 2013

Drush Make is now working on Vagrant/DLAMP server on Windows 8

Posted by Katy | Categories:
I recently purchased a new Samsung laptop with Windows 8. The 16 GB SSD drive makes it quick to start up and the 8 GB of RAM makes all my software run smoothly. I haven't used many of the Apps; I click on a square and the familiar desktop appears.

I recently installed a Vagrant server using a chef script written by Jeff Eaton of Lullabot. It works great on my Windows 7 laptop. See my blog post: Installing Vagrant DLAMP server on Windows 7 PC

I installed the Vagrant/DLAMP server on my Windows 8 laptop last evening. I needed to do a Google search to find the Windows command line. (Press Windows button then R and type cmd). Windows 8 blocks even administrators from editing the hosts file. I did a search for Notepad and clicked 'Run as administrator' and I was able to edit the hosts file.

The Vagrant/DLAMP server comes with Drush installed. I used the command 'drush dl' to download Drupal 7.19. I installed Drupal and it works well.

I went to DrushMake.me and created a drush make file. I tried to run it on my new Vagrant/DLAMP server but it didn't work. I need help to troubleshoot this problem. Perhaps it's a path problem.

Update: Turns out the Drush make file generated by www.DrushMake.me had several errors in it. See upcoming blog post for the details. The Vagrant/DLAMP server including Drush make does work well on Windows 8 PCs.
Feb 11 2013

Part 2: Installing Vagrant DLAMP server on Windows 7 PC

Posted by Katy | Categories:
In Part 1, we installed Vagrant with only Ubuntu. See: Part 1: Gettng Started with Vagrant on Windows 7 PC

In this tutorial, we will be installing Vagrant along with a DLAMP stack. (Drupal/Linux/Apache/PHP/mySQL) You will need to have VirtualBox, Git and Putty installed.
 
Requirements:
A hard connection to the Internet
VirtualBox needs to be installed.
Git needs to be installed.
Putty needs to be installed. (putty-0.62-installer.exe)
Recommended: 8 GB RAM is recommended to run VirtualBox on Windows PCs
 
We will be using a chef script written by Jeff Eaton to download the base box, precise32, instead of using lucid32 like the example in Part 1.
 
Feb 11 2013

Part 1: Getting Started with Vagrant on Windows 7 and 8

Posted by Katy | Categories:
Before starting this tutorial, be sure to read this article: Introduction to Vagrant

In this tutorial, we will be installing Vagrant, a bare bones server with Ubuntu installed. Vagrant is a server that runs under VirtualBox. You will need to have VirtualBox installed. You will also need to have Putty installed in order to access your new Vagrant server via SSH. These instructions also apply to Windows 8.
 
Jan 28 2013

Introduction to Vagrant: Development environments made easy

Posted by Katy | Categories:
Vagrant is a flexible, reproducible server.

Using Vagrant, you can set up a complete LAMP server in about 30 minutes
-          If you are working with a team and you want to ensure that each team member has the exact same server configuration, you can use Vagrant.
-          If you are working on custom PHP or Drupal core patches and you want to make sure that the recurring error message is from a code error and not a server configuration error, you can use Vagrant.

Jan 14 2013

Top 100 web design blogs to follow in 2013 - Infographic

Posted by Katy | Categories:
We are honoured to have been chosen as one of the top 100 design blogs to follow in 2013. Enjoy the following infographic produced by couponaudit.com
Jan 10 2013

Surrey Drupal Meetup: Jan. 10, 2013: Optimizing Your Drupal Workflow

Posted by Katy | Categories:

Katy will be giving a presentation on Optimizing Your Drupal Workflow including lively group discussion.

This presentation is an overview of best practices and valuable tools to improve workflow for solo devs and small teams.

Are you having problems when trying to build Drupal websites?

  1. You installed a new module and the site broke
  2. Help! A team member overwrote my changes
  3. Client changed his mind (again!) and wants the version from last week
  4. What was I thinking when I did this?
  5. How to save time when cloning Drupal sites
Learn valuable tools and best practices for building Drupal websites more efficiently. Recommended tools include:
  • using command line shortcuts
  • Git version control for documented backups
  • Drush commands for automating Drupal site build/upgrade tasks
  • Using local development environment, staging server to test your sites

I will be posting my notes in a series of blog articles so stay tuned.

Please RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/surrey-drupal/events/96450112/
Dec 21 2012

Happy Holidays from Katy and Team at SeascapeWebDesign.com

Posted by Katy | Categories:
Happy Holidays from Katy and Team at SeascapeWebDesign.com.
Dec 19 2012

Top 15 Drupal Performance Tips

Posted by Katy | Categories:
Get the best out of your Drupal site with these speed tips

Drupal is not known as the most performant application, neither is the PHP language it is written on, but there are lots of things you can do to increase the performance of your Drupal site. This article will touch on many of those methods covering key modules, configuring these modules and setting up other applications to aid your Drupal site.

http://www.netmagazine.com/features/top-15-drupal-performance-tips?
Nov 26 2012

Convert More Visitors to Buyers with High Quality Images and Good Copy

Posted by Katy | Categories:

Research shows that 80% of the buying decisions are made by women. Make sure your website color scheme, choice of images and website copy appeals to your women audience. When chosing photos for your new website, keep in mind that people want to see photos similar to themselves enjoying or using your services.

Nov 8 2012

Drupal Mobile Theme Links and Information

Posted by Katy | Categories:
From Aimee and Michael of Mobix Creative
 
There are few free, ‘only mobile’ themes for Drupal and I have selected the actively maintained ones. The others do not have Drupal 7  (dev or released) version or no recent updates…
 
Theme name: Mobile (Actively Maintained) (for Drupal 7 as well)
Mobile is designed as a mobile-only HTML5 theme with a focus on clean, readable, usable display of content and accessibility of functions. You can use the base theme, use one of the included child themes, or make your own child theme.
http://drupal.org/project/mobile