Category: Technology

Easy partial branch merging in git

On By westiIn Development, Technology, Tutorials1 Comment

Recently I have been trying to diversify my usage of source code control so as to be more familiar with the different tools that are currently popular so I have been using git more for personal projects and recently I came across a process hurdle that didn’t seem to have a simple solution:

  • We have a project in git hosted as a private repo at GitHub
  • We have multiple contributors
  • Development is happening in a development branch
  • development contains many commits that we don’t want in master because of the differences between production and development environments
  • development also contains code we don’t want to release yet
  • We want to maintain attribution for code changes in what is merged to master

All in all, it felt like this should be simple, right, surely I can just git checkout master && git merge development {path_to_folder_containing_code} right … well not really.

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Experiments in macrophotography

On By westiIn Photos, Technology

Recently I’ve been having fun experimenting with exploring the world at the macro level and seeing what I can capture.  After much research and consideration I decided that I probably didn’t want to invest in any specific macro lenses for now as I already have quite a collection of lenses and you can only carry so much around.

So, for this first foray I’ve settled on a fairly simple setup – Canon 7D with a 12mm Kenko Extension Tube and the EF 50mm f1/8 II.  For the second two shots I also brought my trusty 580EX II into the mix because there wasn’t enough light in the kitchen to get any good shots otherwise. The shallow depth of field and narrow distance window at which the lens will focus in this setup make taking these photos a challenge.

I really love how the shallow depth of field in the first image really draws you into the Kingfishers eye while the background just blurs away.

Kingfisher ornament
Kingfisher ornament

 

The other two photos that I want to share from this experiment come from a recent days baking.  These rocky piles of sugar have a magical sparkle, maybe they can be mined for diamonds ;).

Sugar mountains
Sugar mountains

 

This close up of the brownies came out really well. I love the bokeh and shallow depth of field.

Brownie Landscape
Brownie Landscape

Proudly Automatic Updates for WordPress

On By westiIn Development, Technology, WordPress

Sometimes I’m glad I don’t make rash bets, it saves me from losing them as much as I lose out from not winning them.  The recent release of WordPress 3.7 with its built-in auto-update functionality is one of those things I nearly offered a bet on not happening many years ago :).

Back in the summer 2009 at the second UK WordCamp in Cardiff I remember chatting with Matt and one of the things we talked about the potential for auto-upgrades to happen one day. I was pretty sceptical, at the time we hadn’t even had the manual upgrade feature for a year yet, 2.7 was released in December 2008, and getting that working across all the different hosting platforms had been a fun experience.

I’m pretty sure I might have used the word “impossible” that day.

I’m immensely proud of the improvements we have made in manual update process over the past few years and very happy to have been proved wrong.

Major props go out to Dion, Nacin and everyone else who has contributed to this release.

Stand up against the #censorwall

On By westiIn Rants, Security, Technology

Censorship is a hot topic at the moment after David Cameron announced plans to introduce default adult Internet filters for everyone. It is also a topic that is close to my heart every day as I support the fine people who work on the WordPress.com Terms of Service team as they work to protect everyone’s rights.

If we push internet censorship forwards as David Cameron has announced then we are going to be joining a small “club” of countries with pervasive censorship of our internet access and people are going to start searching for ways to work around the censorship which is likely to put them at more risk than they would have been before they had their access restricted. People will start searching out open proxies to use to bypass the censorship. Often these proxies are run by people with a vested interest in collecting usernames and passwords which is going to put people’s online accounts at risk.

If you can do one thing as a result of reading this then please sign the ORG Petition and if you can do two please also join the Open Rights Group and support them as they campaign to protect your rights.

It’s time to stand up against this attempt at censorship and be counted.