Web development notes and commentary by Ryan Weal

Hi! I'm Ryan Weal. I am a software developer who works remotely for clients in Canada and the United States. This blog spans most of my software development career: this blog started in 2006 as a shell script, later becoming a Drupal site, a node.js site built with Metalsmith, to now a statically generated site using Sapper.js.

For work, I am available to hire for web projects. I specifically enjoy doing data migrations between platforms, but I also do my fair share of front-end, api, and database architecture as well.

If any of my blog posts are exactly the thing you are trying to do - but perhaps too much for you to take on yourself - consider paying me to do it for you! If I solved all of your life's problems, cosnider making a donation.

• Moved to Saskatchewan, back in 2022... (2024-06-18)
• Comparing Svelte with Nuxt and Vue (2021-04-13)
• This Blog is now a Svelte Site (2021-03-12)
• Moved to Lachute, QC (2020-07-17)
• Thinking of Websites as a Series of Apps (2020-07-09)
• Nuxt. The Vue.js tool that guides my web development work in 2018 (2018-10-04)
• Testing with mocha, chai, and puppeteer (2018-07-23)
• What should I be learning in 2018? (2018-01-25)
• Creating a Metalsmith static site powered by node.js (2017-12-06)
• Use more than two DNS servers (2017-07-27)
• Creating a static archive of a Drupal site (2017-04-24)
• Always Be Learning (2017-04-14)
• Talking migrations at DrupalCon Baltimore (2017-04-12)
• My blog is now a JavaScript-powered static site (2017-04-11)
• Migrations on the road (2016-09-23)
• Migrating into Drupal 8 - New Jersey edition January 2015 (2015-01-31)
• Drupal Sprint Cards (2014-10-03)
• Migrating Drupal 8 in Europe (2014-09-28)
• FormAPI, AJAX and Node.js presentation at Montréal DrupalCamp (2014-09-13)
• Migrating into Drupal 8 (2014-05-03)
• Migrating multilingual data into Drupal 8 (2014-04-11)
• Getting content into Drupal with Migrate : Montréal (v.0.4) (2013-10-26)
• Getting content into Drupal with the Migrate module (Vancouver v.0.3) (2013-10-06)
• Migrate all the things! (2013-07-13)
• Introducing pump.io to Montréal JavaScripters (2013-07-10)
• New pump.io server, signing off of StatusNet (2013-06-24)
• Working with Drupal's Migrate module (2013-04-25)
• Getting started with multilingual content in Drupal 8 (2013-01-18)
• The All-Purpose Drupal Entity Translation Guide (2013-01-18)
• Hosting your own Git-based shared repositories using SSH (2012-12-24)
• Solving your multilingual navigation issues with Entity Translation in Drupal 7 (2012-10-19)
• Deploy Drupal's blocks on a different instance using Features without having to re-map your CSS (2012-09-17)
• Overriding Drupal7 node display with Views (2012-07-12)
• Using simplehtmldom API with Drupal to radically change node editing UI (2012-04-12)
• How I moved from the west coast to the east coast (2012-04-11)
• An amazing year as part of Montréal's software community (2011-12-31)
• Canadian Payment Gateways, Merchant Accounts and other ways to get paid in Canadian dollars (CAD) (2011-10-26)
• Lentil soup for when a geek needs to eat... (2011-10-21)
• Announcing Kafei Interactive Inc. (2011-09-02)
• Comparing Canadian mobile Internet offerings (2011-05-26)
• First Drupal code release - Node Tasklist (2011-03-13)
• Tips for working with Web Developers (2011-02-12)
• Moved to Montréal (2011-02-08)
• Drupal's Theme Registry Rebuild: turn it off! (2010-07-07)
• The Drupal FormAPI Rapid Development Quickstart (2010-06-16)
• Notes from Drupal Camp Victoria (2009-09-18)
• A New Desk in Gastown (2009-08-31)
• Managing all of your images with Drupal (2009-08-27)
• Want to be a Linux admin? Start here. (2009-08-08)
• Customizing FCKeditor on Drupal (2009-04-30)
• Securing your site with SSL (2009-03-27)
• Time to Put Your Business Card Online? (2009-03-09)
• Migration to Debian 5, aka, Lenny (2009-03-09)
• Creating multiple item packages with Ubercart (2009-03-03)
• Things I love about having gone solo (2009-02-02)
• Designs, workflow and other small business notes (2009-01-27)
• Authenticated Email for Newsletters (2008-08-21)
• Consulting here I come (2008-08-07)
• Falling in love with wikis again (2008-06-08)
• A vanity website for Web 2.0 (2008-04-28)
• Introducing New Servers, East and West (2008-03-07)
• Winter technology meanderings - web and email system upgrades (2008-01-26)
• The Windows Life: Reboot, reuse, recycle (2007-12-01)
• Second annual trip to Ontario & Quebec (2007-10-20)
• Business services offered this fall (2007-09-13)
• Always buy two (different) computers for mission critical applications (2007-09-04)
• Always expect delays at Canada Customs when ordering goods online (2007-08-27)
• Upgrading the Debian way (2007-08-06)
• Claiming ownership to your Blog (2007-08-06)
• Preparing your network for the fall business season (2007-08-01)
• Moving beyond just tagging using del.icio.us (2007-07-25)
• New hardware coming soon (2007-06-26)
• Automatic Upgrade (2007-04-11)
• Taking business online (2006-11-20)
• Internet remote control (2006-11-18)
• Typing in Chinese on Debian (2006-11-06)
• After years of Photoshop, the Gimp is rocking my world (2006-11-04)
• Posting with Blackberry (2006-11-02)
• A Linux weekend (2006-09-04)
• Radio station prototype on Debian (2006-07-23)
• Managing mailing lists with ecartis software (2006-07-19)
• Finally, a schedule... done a very strange way... (2006-07-17)
• Seeking dream CMS (2006-07-17)
• 'Week of month' calculation for cron (2006-07-10)
• Linux media server rebooted, uptime ramblings will follow... (2006-07-03)
• On changing Linux server configurations... (2006-07-03)
• The newsletter writer's guide to project management (2006-06-27)
• As Linux grows, Mac market share set to increase? (2006-06-19)
• Verbosity. Systems for communication. (2006-06-18)
• Microsoft finally changes their message on Linux (2006-02-06)