Tag: Sitecore

Catching Exceptions Episode 6 : Stephen Pope

August 03, 2015

I've released the sixth episode of Catching Exceptions featuring Stephen Pope. If you've always wanted to know how a career in graphic design can lead to software, now you know.

Follow up with Stephen here:

Twitter: @stephenpope
website: stephenpope.co.uk

Catching Exceptions Episode 5 : Robbert Hock

July 24, 2015

I've released the fifth episode of Catching Exceptions featuring Robbert Hock. If you're looking for a 'Die Hard'
technology partner, you've found the right guy.  

Follow up with Robbert here:

Twitter: @kayeenl
website: kayee.nl

Catching Exceptions Episode 4 : Pieter Brinkman

July 08, 2015

I've released the fourth episode of Catching Exceptions featuring Pieter Brinkman. He's your inside man, developer advocate and community evangelist at Sitecore!  

Follow up with Pieter here:

Twitter: @pieterbrink123
website: community.sitecore.net

Catching Exceptions Episode 3 : Lars Floe Nielsen

June 22, 2015

I know I've been neglecting my blog but it's for a good reason. I had the good fortune to travel to the Netherlands and attend SUGCON 2015 (while meeting a ton of great people). During that trip I undertook the audacious goal of interviewing eight (yes eight!) people in a single day. The first of which is now the third episode of Catching Exceptions featuring Lars Floe Nielsen

Follow up with Lars here:

Twitter: @ln_sitecore
website: www.sitecore.net

How a Poster is Born

May 11, 2015

Last December, before a soul crushing winter had fully descended on Boston, Sitecore sponsored a posh Meetup at Stoddards pub. While mixing it up, I ended up talking to Rick Cabral about making some t-shirts for the user group. While at the Sitecore Symposium the previous fall, I noticed a few other groups had made their own shirts and I thought it was really cool and as it turns out, I may know a guy who makes t-shirts. So knowing I could supply the backend, I asked Rick what kind of design he thought would be good. I didn't really expect it but his eyes widened and he started talking about how he always envisioned this soviet-era propaganda with the slogan "Join the Sitecore". I almost died laughing because I could totally see it. I didn't need any other explanation and let's be honest, with the goatee, he looks kinda like Vladimir Lenin and would perfectly fit the caricature. And just so you know, as Rick continues to insist, he didn't come up with the idea of immortalizing himself, I did.

Shortly after the meetup I contacted my old, old friend Jay at Antidesigns to produce the design. Working with his team, we went back and forth for few rounds, working from some cruddy source images I pulled off the intarwebs but the image wasn't good enough. It was just too grainy and he wasn't projecting the right message. Here's a few of the early designs:

Sitecore Upgrade : The Art of War

March 22, 2015

When you enter a battlefield, be it land, mind or disk, be aware (wink):

"No plan survives contact with the enemy"
-Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

That's not to say you should have no plan though. Quite the contrary:

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
-Sun Tzu

Sitecore Dictionary Redux

March 15, 2015

I always knew Sitecore provided Dictionary support for a long time but I also knew there were, shall we say, scalability problems. Like, let's say, general user access (it was located under the system node) and the inability to create individual dictionaries for individual sites. Because of that, I, and apparently others, have been inanely custom rolling dictionaries. That is, until I came upon Scott Mulligan's article highlighting the latest changes in Sitecore 6.6 (yesss, it's been a while, I know [sighs, rolls eyes]) that convinced me to finally stop reinventing the wheel and adopt the Sitecore provided solution. 

There are resources out there to help get started like John Wests' seemingly canonical post. There's also a super handy article by "sitecorecode" (I couldn't find the author's actual name but I guess you know who you are). And my long time friend M3, as he's known colloquially, breaks it down like a legend.

An Old Trope

February 27, 2015

Not a very long time ago,
in a repository not particularly far away....

It is a period of automation and obsolescence.
Sitecore developers committing
code, day and night, globally.
Spiraling like the arms of a galaxy
sharing tasks, techniques and trade-craft.

During the past few months
I've been developing my 
ultimate tool, the TestStar
A sitecore module with enough
power to test an entire platform.

In pursuit of stability whose breadth
and depth I've not yet known.
To restore freedom for productivity to all.