cygwin permissions

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I ran into some problems with files copied from the cygwin command line not having administrator permissions. WAMP for instance didn’t have access to these files, which is not fun.

I took this advice (found here)

As a general rule, if you are going to mix Cygwin and native tools, let windows handle file permissions ("noacl" mount option), and you'll not see such issues again.

Not sure if this is the best solution, but I added the option noacl to etc/fstab, rebooted Windows and it seems to work fine now.

# This is default anyway:
none /cygdrive cygdrive binary,noacl,posix=0,user 0 0

Starting a new WP project with WP-Skeleton

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Install using Mark Jaquith’s method. This involves

  1. Handling differing database connection details
  2. Handling plugins that can’t or shouldn’t run on a localhost

Create a local subdirectory. Then clone Mark Jaquith’s wp-skeleton into a new directory www. Or, if you already did the steps below, clone it directly from your own fork.

Note: use recursive cloning otherwise the submodule will not be cloned:
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WordPress starter frameworks (free)

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WordPress starter frameworks (free)

  1. Roots
    Roots is a starting WordPress theme made for developers that’s based on HTML5 Boilerplate, Blueprint CSS (or 960.gs) and Starkers that will help you rapidly create brochure sites and blogs. It has a bunch of excellent tweaks to WordPress, plus support for the best CSS frameworks including Foundation and 1140 Grid. This is a solid theme framework that is constantly updated and used by many developers, you cannot go wrong with it.
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Web Development – Tools of the Trade

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What is what and why should I use it?

Javascript Frameworks

  1. Node.js Node.js (Node) is an I/O environment built on top of Google Chrome’s JavaScript runtime — essentially, a server-side implementation of JavaScript. Node’s asynchronous, event-driven I/O model makes it easy for developers with JavaScript knowledge to build high-performing, scalable, and highly concurrent web applications rapidly and run them in the cloud. Node.js uses an event-based server execution procedure rather than the multithreaded execution in PHP.Beginner’s Guide to Node.js Read More

Develop an Information Architecture for a complex website

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Information Architecture

From: Information Achitecture Resource Pack

Information Architecture involves the organisation of information into a structure that helps people find the information they need. To achieve this on a website, the designer needs to consider:

  • The purpose of the website
  • How the website content can achieve this purpose
  • How to organise the content to ensure it is easy to navigate
  • How to ensure that the website content can be easily maintained

Developing website Information Architecture is an important early step in the overall design and development process. Read More

Grunt

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So, people seem to be exited about something called ‘Grunt’…

Let’s explore.

From the Grunt website:

  • Why should you use a task runner like Grunt?
    In one word: automation. Automation of what? Well, such repetitive tasks as: minification, compilation, unit testing, linting etc.
  • Why Grunt?
    The Grunt ecosystem is huge with hundred of plugins. Coffeescript, handlebars, jade, JS Hint, {less}, require.js. SASS, Stylus etc.

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Don't make me think (Kruger)

Don’t make me Think

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Steve Krug’s ‘Don’t make me think’  is a classic in the world of web design. I recently pulled the 2006 print from my book shelf to give it a (first) read. And it was worth it!

This is what stayed with me the most (ordered by chapter):

  1. Don’t make me think

    – Remove as much as possible the ‘question marks’ (Where am I, Where can I find, What does this mean
    – Make things self-evident, or if this is not possible, self-explanatory

  2. How we really use the web

    – We don’t read, we scan. (I like this analogy: web users tend to act like sharks: they have to keep moving or they’ll die)
    – We satisfice (choose the first reasonable option)
    – We muddle through
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