September 2007

Drupal developer search engine

September 23, 2007

One of the things about doing Drupal development is one is always searching for information. There are many great sources of information and things like Planet Drupal that are a wealth of information. Then there are sites like the API site and sites for PHP and MySQL manuals that come in handy for other things. To make it easier to search the areas I needed I setup a Google Custom Search Engine for Drupal developer search. Please feel free to add additional sites that would be useful. Presently in addition to the main drupal.org sites it searches Planet Drupal, PHP, MySQL, and w3's CSS documentation.

It is raining again

September 21, 2007

Softly the rain builds. Each minute more drops come than the minute before. From the quiet still dampness of the desert night the rain grows stronger.

We've been very fortunate the last couple of days. It started last night really when a Pacific Ocean storm came in across the desert. The rain came, weak at first, and stronger before fading again as it does west of the mountains. Having just arrived back in town we timed our return to coincide with the coming of these beautiful days. Earlier in the evening things were exciting for a time. The national weather service saw fit to issue a tornado warning for our town. Doppler radar showed a large thunderstorm rotating over the valley. It seems there was no actual tornado but it was one intense hail storm. In the time it takes to walk through the house the storm went from light rain to a barrage of the frozen pellets and as quickly faded to a hard driving rain. Without a doubt one of the best things about living in the desert are the days when it is cloudy and rainy.

Weekend gift - Drupal 6 beta 1

September 15, 2007

Just in time for a weekend of testing we have Drupal 6 beta 1. There will be many, many installations this weekend. Mine won't come until Sunday after some playing around on Saturday. There should be a competition this weekend to see who can submit the most unique bugs and a separate challenge for who can submit the most patches that solve open issues.

Making outbound links generic

September 7, 2007

I'm looking for a good way to make outbound links from a Drupal site not show the full path of the referring page when the user reaches an external server. There are some posts in the Drupal forum about doing this sort of thing. In short, instead of wanting to track clicks I'm more interested in not making the internal URL evident to the external server. For example if I have an internal page at the following URL:

http://example.com/top-job-applicants

One easy way is of course not to use path aliases and that would be the quick work-around. However, in some cases I want users to be able to remember a URL and most don't recall 'node/1234' as well as they do 'job-applicants'. The challenge is that for privacy reasons I don't want to make evident to the operators of a server linked from the internal page that the user is an applicant (and maybe they aren't but are a prospect I want to encourage to apply).

A cursory look at the modules list didn't reveal the answer. Likely a module for this with a filter that can be applied to redirect all links through it will be the solution.

Day 3: Susanville, California to Bend, Oregon

September 6, 2007

A brisk dawn met us on the next day of the trip. The thin air of Susanville had a welcome crispness to it as we made the morning rounds. After breakfast at the Trailside Inn Sarah made a stop at the market for some on-the-road munchies while I topped off the fuel for the trip. The roads north of Susanville take on a distinctly different character than those so far on this trip. It isn't so much that the roads themselves are drastically different but the drivers seem to have a courtesy missing in so many other areas of the country.

Heading north on California Highway 299 we reach the town of Adin. Every summer I can recall we would stop at the old general store in Adin. With a front porch the likes of which aren't made anymore the 101 year-old Adin Supply is certainly a fixture. When last we were through more of the original hardware in the form of the white wooden bins were still in place, but otherwise this friendly outpost hasn't changed. Being a late morning stop it was a bit early for lunch but we picked up some sandwiches at the deli and proceeded up the road.

Day 2: Mammoth Lakes to Susanville

September 5, 2007

Waking to the aroma of pine is certainly a signal for a desert boy that he is sleeping in the hills. After packing the car, in itself a major undertaking with the trappings of an infant on board, we turned to the north. Traveling through the pines of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains and past the supremely beautiful Mono Lake.

Day 1: Sandy Valley, Nevada to Mammoth, California

September 4, 2007

We're starting out on a road trip through the Pacific Northwest. There should be pictures soon to go along with the stories and the reason for their delay will soon become clear when we get to the "computer hard drive dies" portion of the trip.Eight miles from home we remembered the things we'd forgotten. Thinking them necessary we made a quick round-trip and were back on the road. With the obligatory tardiness in the initial start we were on the road about an hour behind schedule. After dropping in on the parents we were on the road headed up US 95 towards our first stop at the Death Valley Fruit and Nut company in Beatty, Nevada.Stocked with some hard candies we were again headed north. The shuddered and for-sale bordello, Cottontail Ranch, marked the point were were to depart from US 95 and head west. The trip across Lida summit, through Oasis and past Deep SpringsDeep Springs College.

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