Dave Reid

GO VOTE!

Dave Reid — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:52:13 +0000

GO VOTE! Find your polling location and GO VOTE! If the line is long, stay in the line and VOTE! After you have voted, watch the results below:

Perfect Drupal contact access module

Dave Reid — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:44:55 +0000

I've been looking through all the Drupal content access modules for a nice module to use on my other blog, davenjenny.com. I've been looking for the following features:

Per-node access restricted by user roles
If a node is restricted to user, have an option to show a nice message like "Sorry, this post has been restricted to uses with the following roles: registered user, friend."
If the node is restricted to registered users and the current user is anonymous, also show a message like "Please create an account to view this content."

Probably the closest thing to what I'm looking for is the Node Privacy by Role or Content Access modules, but I'm almost leaning towards rolling my own module.

Drupal 7 Hitlist

Dave Reid — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:35:10 +0000

Fun lists to keep updated on:
http://drupal.org/please-review-my-patch - Hey, webchick! Please review my patch.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/5647/patch-spotlight - Improvements to core

Hitlist
http://drupal.org/node/147000 - Unify and rewrite module_rebuild_cache() and system_theme_data()
http://drupal.org/node/73660 - Split out path.install from system.install
http://drupal.org/node/306151 - Improve the module uninstall process using hook_modules_uninstalled()
http://drupal.org/node/320009 - Modules without files[] in .info cause errors
http://drupal.org/node/230710 - Centralized module to control feeds and feed types
http://drupal.org/node/315176 - Replace $form['array_filter'] hack
http://drupal.org/node/298708 - drupal_html_to_text() removes line endings
http://drupal.org/node/58224 - Allow anonymous users access to a members personal contact form
http://drupal.org/node/319666 - Remove unnecessary boolean ternary conditionals

Drupal reset script

Dave Reid — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:56:30 +0000

I needed a script to use with Drupal CVS HEAD during the testing and patch review process that deletes all the current database tables and starts a fresh re-install. There's maybe a better solution out there, but this works for me right now. Below is the code in the 'reset.php' file in the root of my Drupal install. I've also included an archive of the reset.php and developer profile that automates the whole process. Just extract the contents in the root of your Drupal directory, and go to 'http://yourdrupalpath/reset.php'.

WARNING: This deletes your current database tables and should not be used on any kind of site that you value your data. This has only been tested on a Drupal 7 (CVS HEAD) install.

Getting deeper into Drupal

Dave Reid — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:50:28 +0000

I feel like I'm getting more involved with the Drupal community and as a developer. In the last week or so, I've really started to feel comfortable contributing in the actual Drupal issue queue, submitting core patches and even doing my own testing.

#305802 - Handle default user picture as an upload and enforce maximum picture dimensions
The way Drupal treats the default user picture has bothered me for a long time and didn't make sense. Would really like to see this get into core!

#147000 - Unify and rewrite module_rebuild_cache() and system_theme_data()
The most work I've done on a Drupal core patch to date. I'm really proud of the improvements made in this one.

#302763 - Remove time()
Helped keep the patch rolling and made my first official Drupal.org documentation contribution!

DNC 08 - Obama

Dave Reid — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:03:49 +0000

After watching Obama's nomination acceptance speech tonight, I truly feel he is the candidate I want elected. I am really looking forward to the debates (and the weekly SNL special coverage!) and think that it will be a very close, well-fought race. The Republican attack that Obama doesn't have the experience to be president just doesn't fly. He's a senator. I guess that's not enough proof that he can handle responsibility and leadership? I didn't know that an AARP membership was required to be president.

Maybe for once, I want someone that will dare to take risks and make America great again. I want someone that won't support solutions to "buy more time" while we figure out what to do (cough...cough...off-shore drilling). I want someone that will say that now is the time for change.

My name is Dave Reid and I accept Barack Obama as my candidate. If you're a Republican and reading this, I hope you look forward to the debates as much as I do. This will be fun.

TreasuryDirect - Too Much Security?

Dave Reid — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:17:55 +0000

I recently registered both Jenny and I to use the TreasuryDirect website so we could convert our old, obsolete savings bonds into new-fangled electronic savings bonds that I can redeem with the click of a button. I almost think that it pushes the boundry of security vs usability. Once you register, you get a little access card that you use when you login. I really don't mind that so much, but the fact that I have to type in both my password (which has to have numbers, letters and at least one special character) and my access code using the on-screen random-key-locations keyboard is a little annoying. I can deal with the on-screen number pad with my ING Direct account.

The site itself is designed so that if you accidentally hit your browser's back or forward buttons, your session is toast and I have to do the login process again. If you try visiting a help page not in a new tab, you're logged out. I can't tell you how many times I've done this. This is complicated by the fact that it's not clear that you need to press some 'Cancel' button to actually proceed on some pages. As for being able to get to what you need to do within the site itself, that's a whole bigger issue. Just to convert savings bonds, its a convoluted process involving sub-accounts, multiple registrations and hard to find menus.

Now I understand all of these things are designed to make the site more secure and I will rest easy at night knowing that it will pretty much be impossible for someone to hack into my savings bond account. But there has to be some point where there is too much security that it gets in the way of usability. It frustrates me and I consider myself a little above-average web user. For casual web users trying to access it, I would think that it would be even more frustrating. Maybe I'm just a developer thinking too hard about usability...

FeedBurner Drupal 6.x-1.0 Beta

Dave Reid — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:10:00 +0000

The 6.x-1.0 beta2 version of the FeedBurner Drupal module is now available, bringing the last few major features I wanted to get in, mainly the email subscription and feed count blocks. My primary focuses for the module are now: Views module feed integration, back-porting the module to 5.x, documentation, and testing. Please give the new version of the module a try and report any bugs! I think I'm also going to try and get my module reviewed by the wonderful chx and Morbus of Drupal Tough Love.

I will have to be closely monitoring the status of the Feedburner to Google Feedburner transition. As of now, the module still works just fine if you have your feeds served by Google. You just need to change the MyBrand domain in the module settings to 'feedproxy.google.com.'

And of course if you like the module, please donate to my laptop fund or review it on drupalmodules.com.

Who Needs Backups When You Have Wayback Machine Memory?

Dave Reid — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:40:30 +0000

So when I finally started to update this site, I accidentally deleted the database with all my posts. After trying to locate backups of any kind (I know... tsk tsk), searching through Technorati and Google caches to no avail, I found my new best friend: Internet Wayback Machine results for davereid.net. Behold, nearly every single page I've had on this domain since November 2005! Not sure I'll be able to recreate comments though, but I'm so happy right now I could cry.

HAH! As a special bonus, I found my first hand-coded blog from davereid.org.

And don't forget, back up your databases regularly.

Accurate Read Count - New Drupal Module

Dave Reid — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:17:00 +0000

UPDATE: I decided this module was too specific and had no room to grow at all, so I created a new module, Statistics Advanced Settings that includes an improved version of Accurate Read Count.

Well that was fun! In about a total of two hours, I was able to code, cvs commit and create the project page for a new module of mine, Accurate Read Count. I think that's pretty good for only my third module.

So what does it do you ask? Do you like seeing how many times your content has been read using the core statistics module? Did you know that every time you view a node, even if you're logged in, the read counter is incremented? Any Drupal user could easily inflate the read counters just by normal site administration alone. Crazy! I've been keeping track of bug #90468: Only record unique hits in node counter stats and I even tried my first core patch there a while back. Seeing as this bug is not going to be fixed in Drupal 6.x (the bug is slated to be fixed in 7.x), I decided to create a simple module that would work with the core statistics module and disregard any non-unique content views.