PhpStorm "No appropriate protocol" Database Error
We recently started migrating from MySQL Workbench to use PhpStorm's internal database integration. In doing so we came across a rather cryptic error: The last packet successfully received from...
Image Compression For High DPR Images
Images typically account for 40% of the size of a webpage. This makes them a key thing to look at when optimising a site. Image optimisation typically involves resizing and compressing it to be as...
Midday Mooch
A few weeks back I was booking a training course. The company we booked with, up the road from us in Wimborne, were doing something that caught my eye: the midday mile. They mentioned a range...
Storing Multi Currency Prices In Laravel
Recently I was involved with building a new module for our internal Intranet. It is responsible for storing all the details of our subscriptions; name, start/end dates, price, notes... All simple...
Image Focal Point Auto Detection
A recent trend with CMSes is to do focal point based media cropping. Traditionally an image is uploaded and then is cropped/scaled to the required size, eg a thumbnail. The problem is that crops...
Volunteering at The Country Corner
It's difficult sometimes to find places for a small team to volunteer just for a day or two, so although we get a fantastic 3 volunteering days a year, we sometimes struggle to find places locally...
Why website privacy is bigger than cookie banners
In terms of website privacy, cookies have somewhat stolen the limelight. Maybe it’s because they’ve got a cute name*, who knows? The thing people worry about if they own a website is "do we need a...
Tracking scripts, privacy and performance
So earlier this week I wrote a post with some recommendations for website owners to help them keep abreast of online privacy requirements. The post came out of internal discussions about where we...