Talking Drupal

www.talkingdrupal.com/135

In Episode #134 we talk about Highly Available websites with Drupal.

• Defining what we mean by high availability and defining availability with a customer.
• High availability scenarios - "Today Show Affect"
• Traffic patterns and history, understanding your customers needs and schedules
• How to determine if a customer needs high availability
• Implementing high availability - single points of failure, components of HA and overview of strategies
• How to learn more about HA website implementations
  • Checkout Digital Ocean and Amazon AWS for learning and playing
  • HA is not point and click… heavy DEVOPS
• HA Drupal providers
  • Acquia and Pantheon
• Disaster recovery (a future show is needed for this)

https://www.drupal.org/project/christmas_lights

A splendid module with Christmas lights decoration that creates long lasting atmosphere of X-mas for you and the users of your website.

Mark Meier from Load Impact joins Nic and Stephen to demonstrate Load Testing with his product Load Impact. Mark has provided a very special offer to receive double the Virtual Users with a subscription. Sign up fo Bonus content at www.talkingdrupal.com/newsletter

Stephen Cross - www.ParallaxInfoTech.com @stephencross

John Picozzi - www.oomphinc.com @johnpicozzi

Nic Laflin - www.nLightened.net @nicxvan

In episode 133 we talk about something that everyone does when building and supporting websites, debugging.

• Can you determine where the issue originates from? Is it front end, backup, css, or a module.
• RIR Strategy - Reproduce, Isolate and Resolve.
• Reproduce
  • Gather pertinent information to help resolve a bug quicker
  • Train your customer and provide a bug report form to help them provide you the best information.
  • When trying to reproduce an issue, make sure your development/QA enviroments mirror the production environment. For example, do you PHP version match? Listen to show #127 Local Development with Vagrant.
  • If an issue cannot be reproduced in a development environment, look at the server configuration and data.
• Isolating
  • When the issue can be reproduced, isolating it is the next step.
  • Tools and techniques you can use to help
    • Drupal and server logs - check your log files first.
    • Turn on error reporting for PHP to display errors
    • Inspector - use the Console and Networking sections in the inspector. This will help identify front end issues. I common issue is javascript not loading from third parties.
    • What are the last things that changed? Looking back at the most recent code or configuration changes will uncover the source of a bug.
    • Peer Programming - work with someone else to resolve a problem. Often, just explaining it will help resolve it.
    • Walk Away - Taking a short break from a difficult bug will you have fresh perspective.
    • Note Pad - Take notes during the research will help you organize your isolation process.
• Resolve
  • Fix it.
  • Think about how you can prevent this in the future.
  • Document it.

Search API - https://www.drupal.org/project/searchapi

This module provides a framework for easily creating searches on any entity known to Drupal, using any kind of search engine. For site administrators, it is a great alternative to other search solutions, since it already incorporates faceting support and the ability to use theViews module for displaying search results, filters, etc. Also, with the Apache Solr integration, a high-performance search engine is available for this module.

Developers, on the other hand, will be impressed by the large flexibility and numerous ways of extension the module provides. Hence, the growing number of additional contrib modules, providing additional functionality or helping users customize some aspects of the search process.

Download Sample Bug Report PDF and Webform version.

Stephen Cross - www.ParallaxInfoTech.com @stephencross

John Picozzi - www.oomphinc.com @johnpicozzi

Nic Laflin - www.nLightened.net @nicxvan

Recorded the day after the US Presidential Election, John , Nick and I were a bit tired after watching election results throughout the night, but energized for a discussion with Kevin Reynen about Drupal Licensing. A recent community 'conversation' between WordPress and Wix sparked our interest to talk about the GPL. If you are making money on Open Source software, you should pay attention to licensing.

Watch or listen

• What is the Drupal Licensing Working Group?
• Everything committed to Drupal repo has to be compatible with GPL v2
• What is the GPL? Based on Richard Stallman's set of four freedoms:
  • The freedom to run the program, for any purpose
  • The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish
  • The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
  • The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions, giving the community a chance to benefit from your changes
• What is the difference between copyright and licensing
  • You can claim copyright of a module you write, which means the others must attribute you are the source of original author. The GPL allows other to distribute and modify that code.
• What does distribution mean and what triggers the distribution clause?
  • As is relates to work for hire
  • As is related to SaaS
  • As is relates to the contract you are hired under
  • Distribution vs Convery
• Can you sell a module or theme? YES!
• Licensing - Drupal interfacing with other products (licenses) - ie. FontAwesome, CiviCRM, CKEditor in Core, AMP
• Major differences between GPL v2 and GPL v3, AGPL
• GPL and the use of GitHub
• Distributions, Drupal 8, Composure and licensing
• How is licensing monitored
• Wordpress and Wix recap

• GPL Version 2
• Drupal Licensing FAQ
• Blog post from Matt at Wordpress

Stephen Cross - www.ParallaxInfoTech.com @stephencross

John Picozzi - www.oomphinc.com @johnpicozzi

Nic Laflin - www.nLightened.net @nicxvan

Kevin Reynen - http://www.colorado.edu/@kreynen

In episode #131 we talk about interfacing your Drupal website with third party APIs.

Listen or Watch

• Nic - sign up for Talking Drupal's new Newsletter to receive bonus material at www.talkingdrupal.com
• John - Consider upgrading your Mac before buying a new one. A Memory upgrade and/or solid state drive can make an old machine new again.
• Stephen - Look for local meet ups. It's a great place to learn and make new Drupal friends.

• What is an API? A contract between two applications.
• Client side vs server side access to third party APIs
• Evaluating APIs
  • Is the API well documentation.
  • Use tools to test the API before you invest time in writing code - (chrome extensions) Advances REST Client, Postman
  • Relationship with company providing the API. Do you have access to technical support?
• Authentication - authentication methods, depends of the API
• Interested in an API - look for a Drupal modules first, before coding one yourself

CKEditor Anchor Link for Drupal 8

The Drupal 8 Core CKEditor is missing some very important options.

• Advanced REST Client
• Postman

Stephen Cross - www.ParallaxInfoTech.com @stephencross

John Picozzi - www.oomphinc.com @johnpicozzi

Nic Laflin - www.nLightened.net @nicxvan

In this special episode we share the New England Drupal Camp keynote speech from Brian Charlson. Brian shares the struggles of a blind person using a good website and bad website.

Brian Charlson is a national authority on assistive technology for persons who are blind or visually impaired. Brian has worked at the Carroll Center for the Blind as both a classroom instructor and as the Director of Technology over the last 30 years. Blind himself, he has dedicated his career to ensuring that persons with vision loss have equal access to technology and the skills to independently use it in their daily lives.

As Director of the Carroll Center for the Blind Computer Training Services program, and as the Chair of the Information Access Committee of the American Council of the Blind, he has worked with Sun Micro Systems, Adobe Systems, Microsoft, IBM and may other companies to improve the accessibility of mainstream products and services. While working with Freedom Scientific, GW Micro, AI Squared and Duxbury Systems, among others, to assure that access technology keeps up with the rapidly changing information technologies used in school, offices and places of public accommodation.

Brian has presented at national and international technology, leadership and special education conferences including traveling to Spain, Israel, Greece, England, Canada and Australia. He is often a guest speaker on subjects related to access to technology for those with disabilities at universities, library associations and other media events. Brian has taken leadership roles in local, state, national and international consumer groups including the Bay State Council of the Blind, Library Users of America, American Council of the Blind and the World Blind Union. Brian is an advocate for quality services for people who are blind so that they can achieve their individual best.

Brian's current passions include universal design so that mainstream technologies can be used by everyone; making access technology training available to everyone who needs it; Major League Baseball as a fan of the Boston Red Sox and internet radio as the co-host of the Yin Yang Show on ACB Radio Interactive.

In episode #128 we talk about options for securing Drupal logins.

TOPICS:

• What do we mean by Login Security?
• Modules
• Password Strength
• Password Policies
• Two Factor Authentication
• Flood Control
• HTTPS
• Spam accounts
• Reset password
• Drush

RESOURCES:

Password Policy - https://www.drupal.org/project/password_policy Password Strength - https://www.drupal.org/project/password_strength Flood Control - https://www.drupal.org/project/flood_control Login Security - https://www.drupal.org/project/login_security Duo Two-Factor Authentication - https://www.drupal.org/project/duo Google Authenticator Login - https://www.drupal.org/project/ga_login

MODULE OF THE WEEK:

BG Image Formatter

www.drupal.org/project/bg_image_formatter This module provides an image formatter who allows you to set an image in background of a div. The images are from a field of an entity and not from a configuration page or sth else, so it's very easy to setup and manage.

In episode #127 we talk with Ben Doherty about setting up a local development environment with Vagrant.

TOPICS:

• What is Vagrant
• Why would you consider using it?
• What are the benefits of vagrant vs *AMP
• Difference between Docker and Vagrant
• How do you install Vagrant
• Common Vagrant Commands
• How do you get a local environment setup
• When using GIT/IDE locally, where does the code sit? How does it work?
• More advanced uses/configuration
• Resources

RESOURCES:

• Vagrant Boxes Search - https://atlas.hashicorp.com/boxes/search
• Vagrant Boxes Install - https://www.vagrantup.com/docs/boxes.html
• Drupal VM - https://www.drupalvm.com
• Docker - https://www.docker.com/

In episode #126 we discuss the planning for the New England Drupal Camp 2016.

TOPICS:

• NEDCamp Third Year
• Scheduling around other camps / Drupalcon
• Moving location
• Team
• Training Day
• Focus/Theme - Accessibility
• Where's next year's camp going to be?

MODULE OF THE WEEK:

IMCE for FileField

www.drupal.org/project/imce_filefield IMCE for FileField allows users to select files from IMCE File Browser. It supports FTP uploaded files by automatically registering them as IMCE files thus making them usable in a FileField.

TOPICS:

• How you can use analytics
• What analytics are needed
• Capturing analytics
• Core Statistics module
• Custom development
• Google Analytics / Google Tag Manager
• Other tools
• Other Analytics Tools/Modules

MODULES: Statistics Counter - https://www.drupal.org/project/statistics_counter Google Analytics - https://www.drupal.org/project/google_analytics Google Tag Manger - https://www.drupal.org/project/google_tag

RESOURCES: New Relic https://newrelic.com/ Loggly https://www.loggly.com/ Google Tag Manager - https://www.google.com/analytics/tag-manager/

MODULE OF THE WEEK:

Simple Ads www.drupal.org/project/simpleads This module provides a way to feature advertisements on a Drupal website. It displays graphical, text and flash ads in configurable blocks. It records and reports useful statistics. It is easy to configure and does not depend on other contrib modules.

HOSTS:

Stephen Cross - www.ParallaxInfoTech.com @stephencross

John Picozzi - www.oomphinc.com @johnpicozzi

Nic Laflin - www.nLightened.net @nicxvan