This Old Fixer Upper, part 3: Garden and Landscaping

Submitted by Danny on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 16:47

With nothing but grass growing in the 1/3-acre yard - and massive amounts of perrenial flowers surrounding the house that we had no idea about until spring - we had a big canvas to do whatever we wanted with. I wanted lots of trees! And a big garden! No, bigger than a garden. A food forest! At least that was the plan.

Make your own conditional fields in Drupal 7 by "hacking" the hook_form_alter() function with JavaScript injection

Submitted by Danny on Fri, 04/14/2017 - 16:44

When I needed a conditional field for a Drupal 7 content type, of course I just googled "drupal conditional fields" to see if a module exists. One did exist, but its D7 release came with a big, red flag warning any would-be downloaders that it's not supported any longer and is vulnerable to security issues. Instead of risking it on the entrerprise-level website, I decided to code up a solution myself. And I would use JavaScript inserted by the PHP code. Easy!

Product Review: Sony NEX-6 + Nikon Nikkor AI-S lenses

Submitted by Danny on Thu, 04/13/2017 - 11:33

Unlike the other camera I tried to adapt to my small collection of old manual focus lenses - a Nikon J1 - this Sony NEX-6 camera body is perfect! With manual focus lenses, it's all about getting the focus just right. If it's not perfect, then it's blurry. And a blurry, out of focus image is trash. Same thing for exposure. Here's why the Sony NEX-6 is the perfect camera body for use with old, manual focus lenses.

sony nex-6 camera body with manual focus Nikon Nikkor AI-S F-series lense

How to remove bark from live edge walnut slabs

Submitted by Danny on Fri, 03/31/2017 - 14:00

I was gifted some walnut slabs. Actually, the truth is, my friend didn't want them and threw them into a bonfire, and before the flames could devour them I pulled them out and loaded them onto my trailer. You see: he considered them to be waste because they're not flat on both sides. One side is flat and the other is nothing but live edge bark. It's the side of the tree trunk, basically. But I knew that they were not trash, I knew I could find some sort of creative use for them. So I stowed them in my workshop, and waited for an idea to spring to mind. Then, one night while lying awake in bed unable to sleep, it hit me. I knew exactly what I would use these for—and you'll have to continue reading to find out. ;)

Project CheroKeeper

Submitted by Danny on Fri, 03/03/2017 - 16:02

The Jeep -- which I'm now calling the CheroKeeper because it's a keeper ;) -- is finally in my hands! Just as suspected, it has the venerable Christler 8.25" rear end w/ 29 spline axles and np231 transfer case. The mechanicals are in virtually perfect working order. I took it on it's first ever off-road excursion and I was actually surprised at how smooth the jeep conquered those rather large ditches and mud holes. The 4wd worked flawlessly and there was even a little mud to play in.

jeep cherokee xj stock flex offroad 4x4

New project! A '97 Jeep Cherokee XJ with 244,000 on the clock

Submitted by Danny on Fri, 12/16/2016 - 11:24

I'm buying a site-unseen '97 Jeep Cherokee XJ for $1,500! This thing was owned and garage kept for the last 19 years by a nice, older lady who never abused it and maintained it religiously via the dealership, and the Jeep comes with a stack of service receipts as thick as pea soup. That's the only way I would buy any vehicle with 244,000 miles on the odometer...

Exporting/migrating a Joomla website to Drupal7, with code

Submitted by Danny on Thu, 05/19/2016 - 14:16

After building the new webiste for Kansas Public Radio using Drupal 7, I needed a way to export all of the old articles from our Joomla website to the new website. I could have experimented with the Feeds module for Drupal or another Joomla to Drupal solution, but our installation of Joomla was sooooo old and outdated that I couldn't trust anything. I decided to write my own bit of code.