Machine Learning
What does Metal Toad do?
Welcome to Metal Toad! So you’ve been hired at this cool tech company cal
TOPIC
PHP
SaaS Application
Lambda: javascript vs python
For this hackathon we created a product, YouToad, using Amplify
Artificial Intelligence
Building a AWS Headless CMS
Over the past several years, Metal Toad has launched several successful cloud-first web and mobile applications, often with hardware components. With...
Artificial Intelligence
Docker Containers & Clustering/Orchestration
The Big Picture The aim of this blog post isn’t to get into the nitty gritty how to build and run a containerized app on your favorite cloud provider...
Drupal
Drupal 8: Consumption of a Third-Party API
For a recent project, we were tasked to consume the client's internal data from a custom API. Now, this scenario was lucky for us, the API provides a...
SaaS Application
Drupal 8: Migrating data from JSON files
The beauty of Drupal 8's built-in Migrate module is its flexibility. Lots of people will likely use it to migrate their Drupal 6 or 7 sites, but...
Artificial Intelligence
Secrets to Project Happiness Using Git
I have worked with dozens of projects over my career, on platforms ranging from Drupal to Yii to Django to AngularJS
Drupal
Anatomy of a Drupalgeddon attack
Before working at Metal Toad, I saw an email from Acquia. A strange email. It went something like this:
Database
WordPress Deployments: Example of Database Changes in Code
How do you update the database of a WordPress site that's already in production without a lengthy content freeze or losing your client's data?
Drupal
Drupal 7 Tutorial: Creating a Custom Entityqueue Handler
Entityqueue uses Ctools plugins for what we call an EntityQueueHandler. In this post we are going to see how to create a custom EntityQueueHandler.
SaaS Application
Amazon CloudFront with Drupal 8
Since I wrote my first review of CloudFront, Amazon has added support for three essential features...
Drupal
Drupal 8 Migrations, part 4: Migrating Nodes from Drupal 7
Drupal 8 provides a flexible, plugin-based architecture for migrating data into a site. In Part 3 of this series, we explored how to migrate...
SaaS Application
Drupal 8 Migrations, part 3: Migrating Taxonomies from Drupal 7
Drupal 8 provides a flexible, plugin-based architecture for migrating data into a site. In Part 2 of this series, we explored how to migrate users...
SaaS Application
Drupal 8 Migrations, part 2: Migrating users from a Drupal 7 site
In this article, we will be building a custom migration which will import users from a Drupal 7 site into a Drupal 8 site. The migration will include...
Artificial Intelligence
Why Portland will be the Next Tech Hub
The demand for software continues to rise. I've written before on the current workforce gap and how that gap will be filled through vocational...
Artificial Intelligence
The Challenge to Innovation
Recently inspired by Peter Thiel's excellent book Zero to One, I've been reflecting on the software industry as the preeminent place where we can...
Business
10 Months as a Junior Developer
I am now within a couple days of having survived as a Junior Developer at Metal Toad for 10 whole months.
Drupal
Attack of the PHP clones: Drupal, HHVM, and Vagrant
Exploring the impact of HHVM on PHP development, including speed gains, compatibility challenges, and the introduction of a PHP specification.
Artificial Intelligence
The Best Way to Learn Programming for Beginners
What's the best way to learn programming for beginners? What makes the difference between the people who knock things out of the park vs those who...
Artificial Intelligence
Kegerator
Here in Portland we have people who brew beer and many more who drink it! Between the brewing and consuming of it, there is the overlooked step of...
JavaScript
Javascript: Understanding Objects vs Arrays (2 of 2)
In Part 1 of this blog post I omitted one very important detail about the nature of Arrays.
Drupal
What I Learned Today: Drupal Behat Scenario Cleanup
I've been doing a lot more Behat testing recently.