Blog

Unfortunately I haven't given my site much attention for a while. So I decided to take the time to revamp it a little and alter the way I build it (static site generation). You'll have to bare with me for a bit as I'm going through my old posts and tidying them up / converting them, meaning not everything that was here is currently here (blog posts older than 2012-03 at least). Also thought I'd provide a brief update on upcoming posts and other stuff I'm up to.

This is a short post just to cover a little grunt plugin I create called grunt-twbs. It's designed to help you with the process of creating customised versions of Twitter Bootstrap.

I've managed to secure my second speaking appearance at a conference. This time it's Web Applications In Trend (WAIT) which is taking place in Manchester at the awesome venue, the Manchester Conference Centre (Manchester, UK), on the 4th & 5th June 2015. But apart from myself, there are plenty of other reasons for yourself to attend or speak.

As much as I enjoy writing JavaScript, there are various parts of it I'm not the biggest fan of. When I saw Coffee-Script, I loved how much more enjoyable and easier it seemed to write JavaScript. But eventually there were places that Coffee-Script just seemed to get in the way or was overly fussy. I then started finding out about what the future holds for JavaScript, I liked what I saw and I wanted it now.

Another little side project of mine bites the dust, but not due to failure. I discontinued this one due to hitting the limits of my hosting resources and a few other reasons. Read of if you're curious.

I've always wanted a way to customise Twitter Bootstrap easily, without having to overwrite existing CSS styles with my own or worry about how I would keep it up to date. So I decided it was time to try and put together a process to build my own Bootstrap CSS file using the .less files Bootstrap is built from. Here's what I managed to come up with.

If you happen upon an issue of Web Designer magazine issue 225, why not grab a copy. For one, it's always got some great content, but issue 225 contains a sprinkling of myself within it as I've had two mini tutorials published from a super hero team up between myself and Matt Gifford, who provided me with the opportunity in the first place.

For my first ever go of being a speaker, I jumped in at the deep end. Lots of people, popular subject, lots of cover within the time limit, loads of nerves and a sprinkling of technical issues. Now you good people get to watch, as a deer caught in headlights presents his talk covering Node.js, NPM and Express at Scotch on the Rocks 2014.