2023-10-11 11:11
Congratulations to Damien on completing the Jurassic Coast Mighty Hike yesterday - an epic half marathon hike over the hilly Dorset coastline, for McMillan Cancer Support. He completed the 2… Read More
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Blog | Freshleaf Media Blog
freshleafmedia.co.uk/blog
Musings on all things web: news, technologies, tips and tricks.
2023-09-20 20:56
I’ve been listening lately to a podcast about business, and it’s reminded me how important it is – in life and in business – to ingest…. I hate the word &ldquo&hell…Read More
2023-09-20 20:15
We've done various team-building days over the years, but this year's may qualify as one of the best. The weather was beautiful for our outing to sunny Swanage where we visited Cumulus Outdo… Read More
2023-09-11 11:43
The NHS is one of those things that we never appreciate enough. Free healthcare at the point of delivery is something we utterly take for granted in the UK, but it's one of THE greates… Read More
2023-08-26 14:44
Pest is our tool of choice when it comes to testing in PHP. It is built on top of the tried and tested PHP Unit and adds a bunch of useful helpers which improve the DX. One I use often… Read More
2023-08-18 14:32
Easy Coding Style is a really nice code-style checking tool. It combines the best of both PHP-CS-Fixer and PHP Code Sniffer, it's easy to use and has a declarative config with all kinds of u… Read More
2023-08-04 13:36
Following on from my last post about output buffer streaming I wondered if it was possible to stream the output from a Laravel Artisan command to the browser.
You might be asking "but why… Read More
2023-07-28 11:46
Recently I needed to provide a simple CSV export function which allowed users to download some dynamic data. I wanted to use PHPs inbuilt fputcsv function so I didn't have to think about for… Read More
2023-06-14 14:02
I’ve written before about how managing privacy on websites is bigger than just deciding whether you need a cookie banner. In this post, we look in more detail at how websites process P… Read More
2023-03-17 18:11
Recently I've been using Filament CMS quite a lot. It makes use of Livewire through out and as with any new technology I've been exploring what it can do.
While writing a component test I… Read More
2023-01-25 10:44
When developing new features it is all too easy to go immediately to packagist.org and see if that wheel has already been invented. Most of the time this is the right approach. We don't need… Read More
2023-01-24 14:02
The internet moves fast. New libraries, new tools, major updates to existing tools, security vulnerabilites etc.
To keep up with this we created a #learning channel in Slack. This serves… Read More
2023-01-10 14:58
Sometime back in the summer just gone, I got a bit stuck. I’d been running this business for something like eight years, and somehow I’d lost track of where we were going. A lot… Read More
2023-01-06 15:42
It is standard in our projects to include simple routes which are used to signify if the application is alive and working. They are primarily polled by Kubernetes liveness probes. The tests… Read More
2022-12-15 14:34
Data transfer objects (DTOs for short) are simple PHP classes which have one job: Store some data. Until recently the spatie/data-transfer-object package was our go-to when creating DTOs. Th… Read More
2022-12-14 22:52
There is a neat feature in Laravel called a Fallback Route. This is the route which will handle the request if none of the others can:
Route::fallback(Controller::class);
The fal… Read More
2022-12-07 11:49
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 receive… Read More
2022-11-23 15:50
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 r… Read More
2022-11-22 17:42
Recently I was tweaking the default quality values used to compress images on one of our sites. The quality value is a number between 0 and 100. 100 produces a large file size and has high q… Read More
2022-11-14 13:00
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 s… Read More
2022-11-08 12:21
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… Read More
2022-11-04 11:25
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 c… Read More
2022-08-18 10:50
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 l… Read More
2022-07-07 14:41
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 websit… Read More
2022-03-03 13:02
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 whe… Read More
2022-03-01 16:42
This post takes a brief look at the battleground that is internet privacy, and its implications for website owners. If you want to skip the context and get straight to the implications… Read More
2022-01-20 14:39
New year: it’s a good time to talk about process. Process improvement is easy to want and often difficult to implement. We all set out with good intentions, but there’s that whol… Read More
2021-12-08 15:18
This post takes a look at how we eventually scrapped our outdated intranet software, and made life better for everyone by building a new custom system.
The software that helps run the… Read More
2021-07-12 11:43
There are plenty of organisations for whom SEO is an inherent part of their marketing efforts. Organisations for whom a difference of one place in the search rankings can make tens of thousa… Read More
2021-05-11 15:47
We develop and maintain a couple of WordPress sites. There are a number of things we will do as standard to secure each site. One of these is running WPScan. It checks for all kinds of thing… Read More
2021-02-01 15:31
We build all different sized sites, some call for a full blown CMS but others are more suited to a static approach. These static sites come with some unique problems when it comes to CSP and… Read More
2020-11-18 15:46
There’s been plenty written already about how the current global pandemic has affected the way we live and do business. In some ways I don’t want to add to that noise. But… Read More
2020-11-10 23:11
The AVIF image format is a really exciting, it promises much higher compression without any noticeable loss of quality and is supported in most of the major browsers. If you want all the nit… Read More
2020-11-03 17:34
This has been an interesting year, to say the least. We've been counting our blessings that Freshleaf seems to operate just as well with us all at home as it does when we're in the office, b… Read More
2020-10-15 15:17
The IoT is not new. It’s essentially been with us since the first computers connected to the first networks. But from conceptual beginnings to real-world implementations in a few short… Read More
2020-10-14 11:40
We use a number of different tools when profiling our sites performance. PageSpeed Insights is one that gives you a nice high level and easy to compare scores. Recently though, I've become a… Read More
2020-10-08 16:09
We’ve written once or twice before about the perils of using Excel for the management of large-scale critical data… but it seems that big organisations and government agencies (… Read More
2020-10-08 10:42
The most obvious choice for moving files in and out of containers is kubectl cp but it just does a straight copy of all the bytes. If you want to backup just a few changed bytes out of sever… Read More
2020-09-10 15:48
When images are set to load lazily they will only be downloaded when they come into view but what counts as "in view"? It seems Google Chrome only takes the vertical scroll position into acc… Read More
2020-09-10 15:25
Recently we were asked to implement a Content Security Policy (CSP) onto an existing site. The process of retro fitting CSP goes something like this:
Put in a restrictive policy
Test th… Read More
2020-08-06 12:33
Recently we needed to set one of our Apache servers to output a HTTP header for a specific URL, a simple task right? Well it turns out it can be a right pain...
The server is pretty stand… Read More
2020-05-24 16:23
At almost exactly 0300 (UTC) on the morning of 22/05 our monitoring systems started sending alerts for a handful of websites. They had begun to respond slower. This was very strange, the sit… Read More
2020-04-30 15:10
As part of a recent server migration we had to move a Satis instance. The server it was being moved from was a baremetal server, the server it was going to was a Kubernetes cluster, quite di… Read More
2020-03-10 16:28
Server migration: there’s a term bound to strike fear into the heart. Horror stories of downtime and lost data abound. This post looks at the good and bad of our migration from d… Read More
2020-02-25 10:57
Just in case anyone else finds themselves wrestling with this: I was recently attempting to create BitBucket Pipeline variables via BitBuckets API using curl:
curl -X POST --data '{… Read More
2020-02-24 12:05
When using a build pipeline it is common to create some kind of value, like a path, container ID, auth token etc in one step which is then needed in a subsequent step but the whole point of… Read More
2019-11-20 14:22
Monitoring bespoke metrics with Prometheus textfile collector scripts can fail in such a way that all your monitors look fine but actually there is a problem. Here's how to prevent that… Read More
2019-11-19 11:09
Businesses run on data. And there are some really good systems available to manage some of that data. Your financial data might live in Xero or Quickbooks or Sage. And your customer data liv… Read More
2019-06-13 09:08
Last year we didn't quite manage to achieve all of our volunteering goals - the weather and our workload conspired against us - so this year we've made a strong start early on with a second… Read More
2019-05-09 14:33
It's part of the human condition to not really appreciate how lucky were are. We think times are tough if we get caught in the rain, or fight with the kids. But there are people in our own c… Read More
2019-04-15 15:13
I know at Freshleaf we’re a bit guilty of going on (and on) about website and application security, code quality, and the consequences of leaving online data protection to chance. We t… Read More
2019-03-20 13:04
Technical debt is part of the landscape of development. But so often it's the elephant in the room - we all know it's there, but we can't talk to customers about it. Why is that?
What is… Read More
2018-10-09 11:36
I don’t consider myself to be a usability expert by any stretch. I like to think I’m pretty familiar with some of the basic usability tenets: KISS (keep it simple, stupid), Don&r&hell…Read More
2018-09-20 15:51
Yes, I know, yet another blog post about GDPR. I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort on reading, understanding and implementing the new regulations over the last 12 months… Read More
2018-02-22 12:01
Guest Post: Victoria Greene looks at whether technical SEO is relevant to your website.
Is it relevant? In a nutshell: yes. Even a small portfolio website needs strong SEO foundations, an… Read More
2018-01-18 10:39
This year we're celebrating ten years of doing fantastic work for some amazing customers. Yep, 2018 is Freshleaf's 10th birthday.
Some of you might not know that the organisation that was… Read More
2017-09-12 15:20
Over the years at Freshleaf we’ve spent a bit of time thinking about what makes us successful. What’s important to us. And one thing that’s consistently top of the list &nd&hell…Read More
2017-08-02 11:14
At Freshleaf, we invest a lot in choosing the right people for our team. I think it probably drives the recruiters crazy. But just because it says “developer” on a CV doesn&rsquo&hell…Read More
2017-07-18 12:01
How can you ensure your design feedback process doesn't get stuck in an endless loop? Here are our top tips....
As the client in a website design project, you might be forgiven for thinki… Read More
2017-07-04 16:05
Could this be the highlight of the summer? A team-building day with a difference, and all for charity.
A little earlier this year some bright spark (who shall remain nameless) noticed tha… Read More
2017-06-29 11:08
Last week we escaped the office and spent the day getting scratched to bits by holly bushes. Why? Well that's a very good question.
Here at Freshleaf, as part of our commitment to giving… Read More
2017-06-28 10:48
There are lists all over the internet of things everyone should know. From wilderness survival skills, to everyday "life hacks". For my money, you should know how to listen, how to put yours… Read More
2016-05-17 14:43
When are we going to learn that if we leave an open door to our data, someone will walk right in and help themselves?
Data isn’t inherently unsafe. And yet it seems like not a day goes… Read More
2016-05-13 12:06
Business applications can make or break your business operations on a daily basis. We often take a great application for granted because it’s easy to use and delivers the reports and a… Read More
2016-05-12 12:07
As a logical extension of our web development services, we also build web applications. But while most folk have got a handle on mobile apps, mention web apps and you get blank faces. … Read More
2016-05-04 10:49
It’s official, we now actually have the attention span of a goldfish – or rather, less. Smartphones, Facebook, Twitter with its 140 characters, and the constant stream of things… Read More
2016-04-26 10:21
So there’s a feeling within the company that the website needs a re-think. You need to find someone to do the job, and it needs to be someone you feel you can trust – and then yo… Read More
2016-03-22 09:44
In modern business we’re blessed with an abundance of data. We have information about every facet of our businesses at our fingertips, from pricing to portfolios to personnel. The chal… Read More
2016-03-15 14:18
I’m a big fan of the question-and-answer website Quora. Being that I follow various topics around web design & development, it’s not uncommon to see this question posed:
Now… Read More
2016-03-10 16:14
There’s a lot to think about when you start considering redesigning the company website, so below are a few of the considerations, and things that sometimes get overlooked.
1. When is… Read More
2016-03-09 15:05
For anyone who’s worked in the website, software or application development industry for more than five minutes, I shouldn't need to explain the need for a really good specification.&n&hell…Read More
2016-03-07 17:10
Style over substance has been an Achilles heel of company websites for too long. Quite rightly, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on how something looks and how it feels to a user, but… Read More
2016-03-02 11:00
At Freshleaf we’re very excited today by the launch of a brand new site for our long-standing client Surrey NanoSystems. When we started working with SNS they were a fairly typical Fre… Read More
2016-03-01 14:49
As a website owner, it can be difficult to tell whether your site has been well built, but there are some fantastic tools around which can help you to understand whether your site is solid… Read More
2016-02-29 15:48
Jakob Sales is a youngster from Wimborne who has a severe form of cerebral palsy which has confined him to a wheelchair. In 2015 his family set out on an epic fundraising journey to raise &p&hell…Read More
2016-01-29 16:35
As far as managing servers go no news is good news, and you can be sure when a server sends an email it’s never good news… So when I came in on Monday morning to an email from o… Read More
2015-12-21 15:26
Where has the year gone? It seems like five minutes ago we were planning our summer picnic – poorly, as it turns out, since we missed the great weather earlier in the year – then… Read More
2015-08-13 13:20
Unlike the last time we took part in some farm-based volunteering, the weather was kind to us yesterday when we all ventured into the wilds of north Dorset to Rylands Farm, the home of the F… Read More
2015-04-08 14:30
So Google announced a while back that it was going to roll out some changes to its algorithm later this month that would increase the degree to which mobile-friendliness is taken into accoun… Read More
2014-11-28 10:10
We can hardly believe it but we’re proud to announce that Freshleaf was the winner of last night Dorset Business Awards in the “Engagement with the Community” category! Th… Read More
2014-10-17 13:54
We’re delighted, honoured and a little surprised to have been chosen as one of the finalists for the forthcoming Dorset Business Awards. The prestigious awards showcase leading compan… Read More
2014-05-21 12:03
If you’re anything like me, and did First Aid in the cubs or brownies, you’ll no doubt have fuzzy memories of the creepy Resusci Annie doll, and terrible attempts at putting peop… Read More
2014-04-15 08:06
So, anyone with their eyes on the tech blogs or the national news will no doubt be aware of a significant security vulnerability in OpenSSL which is being referred to as one of the biggest… Read More
2014-03-06 10:27
Here at Freshleaf two of the things we’re proud of are our commitment to training, and our business ethics. So recently, when we had a training slot scheduled, we decided to combine th… Read More
2013-12-24 11:01
Well, the festive season really is upon us (complete with rain and gale force winds!) – and what better way to celebrate, than with a fantastic five star three course lunch?
We’v… Read More
2013-12-04 09:45
It might not be where you’d expect to find web developers, but High Mead Farm was our destination last week for a spot of volunteering. High Mead is an amazing place – a wo… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Git Deployment We use a simple post-receive git hook to make a production ready repository that we can push to from our local machines. We’ve also setup SSH keys on the servers we depl… Read More
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