Ryan Fitton

Backup strategy 2026

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

This post walks through how I transitioned to a fully automated backup architecture that delivers the same reliability—with far less effort and much more peace of mind.

Five CSS Tricks I Picked Up in 2025 That'll Level Up Your Web Game

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

CSS introduced several groundbreaking features that significantly enhance modern front-end development. These additions make web design more modular, maintainable, and performant—reducing reliance on JavaScript while offering greater control directly within stylesheets.

My Journey with Kubernetes: A Practical Experience from 2025

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This blog post documents my personal journey into the world of Kubernetes—from early setup to overcoming common pitfalls.

Five CSS Tricks I Picked Up in 2025 That'll Level Up Your Web Game

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Youtube Livestream scheduler wrapper using Go2RTC

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Custom-created script to automatically schedule and stream livestreams on YouTube with Go2RTC, which allows capturing from devices such as RTSP feeds.

Generating GPG Keys for PGP Mail and Git

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A guide on how to create GPG keys and set up for PGP mail and Git.

Integrating Pushover functionality to RPI Pico Doorbell Chime

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I have updated my RPI Pico project Hikvision DS-KV6113-WPE1(B) doorbell chime with Pushover to provide realtime instant messaging and camera snapshot functionality.

RPI Pico W powered Garage Door opener via 3v relay hat

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

How I built a garage door opener with a Raspberry Pi Pico W and 3V relay hat.

MDN (Mozilla) HTTP Observatory

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Generating reports with the MDN (Mozilla) HTTP Observatory tool.

Idea: Use a private Git repo for documentation

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Why I use private Git repos with Markdown files for documentation.

Upgrading My pfSense Router to a Lenovo M720Q Mini PC

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Upgrading My pfSense Router to a Lenovo M720Q Mini PC.

Transforming My Home Network and Upskilling in Tech 2024–2025 (So far!)

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In 2024, I set out to upskill myself in various tech areas while ...

Ansible Playbooks for Proxmox and Frigate VM to enable Coral Edge TPU PCIe

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Two example Ansible playbook scripts I have created to enable support for Coral Edge TPU PCIe adapters on a VM host, which will assign the Coral to a Virtual Machine ready for the Frigate NVR system.

Career transition: Web Development to Dev-Ops

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

My thoughts and reasonings for why I want to transition my career from Web Development to Dev-Ops.

Learning Ansible

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I have started using Ansible to manage my home servers.

Taking the plunge into JS frameworks with Next.JS

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Blog post describing why I have rebuilt my personal website with Next.JS and Tailwind.

DIY Doorbell Chime for Hikvision ISAPI with a Raspberry Pi Pico

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

I have recently purchased a Hikvision DS-KV6113-WPE1(B) doorbell. The doorbell is one of very few PoE doorbells which look good, work well and relatively in expensive. The doorbell also allows the video feed to be viewed over RTSP which integrates well into my DVR system (~~[Shinobi](https://shinobi.video/)~~ [Frigate](https://frigate.video/)). Recently Hikvision have released firmware (Readme / Firmware) which ...

Enabling/Disabling Hyper V in Windows 10 for Virtual Box and Docker development

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

These instructions offer assistance with enabling/disabling Hyper V in Windows 10. I have found it necessary to disable this service for use with Virtaul Box, then re-enabling it for Docker. To disable Hyper V in Windows 10 (e.g. for use with Virtual Box): Ensure virtualisation is supported by your CPU and enabled in the BIOS ...

Home Network Setup: What's in my rack 2021

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 31 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Following on from my original post in 2017 and a follow up I made in 2019, I am making this post to show the changes my to my home network. Some parts have not changed. such as; The rack, a 9U with dimensions of 600x600mm. I am still running pfSense on a Qotom Q150P-S08 Mini ...

Replacing noisy stock fans on a HP 1920-24G-PoE+ Switch (JG925A)

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have recently been researching VLANs for my home network. These will be used to split up my network devices into their own logical network, such as IP Cams, IoT devices and Guest WiFi. My current PoE switch was unmanaged, I had to replace this with a managed version. I already had a HP ProCurve ...

Installing TP-Link Omada Controller on Ubuntu

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have a bunch of TP-Link EAP model WiFi access points in my home, these are enterprise grade devices allow management via a unified controller, TP-Link call their controller software Omada. This is very similar to Ubiquiti’s Unifi controller. Whilst I don’t have any other Unifi equipment, I found the TP-Link access points to be ...

WordPress Snippet: Using ACF image and WordPress Featured Thumbnails

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT

When building WordPress themes, there is often a need to use a featured thumbnail, or image value from ACF; as either a background image or as a <img> tag. This snippet below is something I use frequently, hopefully this will be as benefit for you too. <?php //Custom image sizes - Add these to your ...

Building a Raspberry Pi Zero temperature monitor with web interface

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve recently purchased a few cheap DHT22 temperature sensors from Amazon. They work great and use Python to display the data from the sensors. I found I required a way to log the data, so I though why not make this a project!? I have created a simple Web Interface to view logged data: https://github.com/ryanfitton/rpi-temperature-monitor-logging-interface. ...

Bride Finds

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Bride Finds came to me asking for a modern looking design for their wedding related blog.

A simple, easy way to add Ethernet and USB power with one cable to a Raspberry Pi Zero

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been using a few Raspberry Pi Zeros for a while, and whilst they’re great, small, cheap boards they have always lacked a dedicated Ethernet port. I could always attach a USB to Ethernet dongle, which I have done in the past but then it adds more bulk and cost – so I may as ...

How to install Home Assistant within an LXC container

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published this blog post to help anyone having issues installing Home Assistant (and Docker) in an LXC container running on Ubuntu. When I was installing Home Assistant on my own hardware, I could not find any straight-forward guides detailing how to do this, and Home Assistant’s own documentation does not help with installing ...

WordPress Example: How to update and refresh current value stored in an ACF field

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

The post displays hows to use WordPress Ajax functions to display a field’s value; and automatically refresh the field every 5 seconds. This example also includes examples of how to send an Ajax post to update the field. In this example, each click oft the ‘submit’ button will increase the numerical value stored in the ...

My 10 year Linux journey: Windows to Linux, and not going back

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Over the past 10 years, I have been able to use free and open source software to benefit my personal and work life, by using Linux I have gained an understanding of what it really is, and how it can be used to make a perfect server or desktop OS. 2010 Starting in 2010 I...

WordPress: Update user email address, or add a new user with only theme access

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

If you’re editing a website but only have theme access, and no access to the database, you can temporarily add the code below into your theme ‘front-page.php’ or other theme file to update either: The existing first user’s email address Add a new Administrator user Remember to remove this code when your have finished your ...

How to LazyLoad images in WordPress without using a WP Plugin

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

This post explains how to use the jQuery Lazy library in a WordPress template. By implementing this library into a template manually will give you greater flexibility in terms of which images can be ‘lazy loaded’. A couple of requirements are necessary before using the jQuery Lazy library: Requires at least jQuery 3.4.1 – This ...

Fixing AMP-IMG Instrinsic ‘small’ images in IE11 and IE10

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

During a recent project I found an issue with images being shown very small when viewing a web page in IE10/11, this happened when the page was built in AMP with images being loaded with the AMP-IMG component. E.g. Notice the small image floated right: The project was built with WordPress, and uses the official ...

Home Network Setup: What’s in my rack 2019

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 08 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This is a follow on from my first post which described how I installed multiple CAT6 network cable runs in my house, view here. In this post, I will talk through the equipment which is currently in my network rack for 2019. Firstly, I have upgraded to a larger rack; now a 9U 600x600mm rack....

Install Dafang custom firmware to Neos Smartcam

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The Neos Smart cam is a small indoor security camera based on the Xiaomi Xiaofang hardware, this is similar to the Wyze Cam 2 which is also based on the same Xiaomi hardware. I’ve wanted one of these for a while, and now the Neos smart cam is readily available on Amazon in the UK, ...

Wedding Website

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This website and print work was produced for my wedding in 2019. We wanted to present our wedding details to guests with high-quality print work, wedding favours and allow them to RSVP via an online system on the website.

Using loadCSS with WordPress

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 28 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I have been using loadCSS from the Filament Group recently, it’s a great tool to asynchronously load your CSS files in-order to increase your scores for Google’s PageSpeed tests. The main issue I faced is using loadCSS with WordPress. WordPress has many plugins to install and each of these plugins usually integrate with the hook...

Powering a RaspberryPi over PoE with a splitter

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I have recently picked up a Raspberry Pi Zero. Because of it’s size, it is small enough to fit about anywhere, but there isn’t always a free electrical socket nearby – however a PoE powered solution would be ideal. I’ve already heard there is an official PoE hat but this can only be used with ...

Learning about Google OptiScore (Optimisation Score)

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Learn more about Google OptiScore (Optimisation Score). A new tool within Google Ads to suggest improvements that can be made to your Ad campaigns.

Free Stock Image and Video Providers for 2019

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This is a follow-up to the current stock image and video websites I use. My original post is from 2016, you can view it here. Overtime the websites that offer these resources can become defunct and new providers become available – my goal with these types of posts are to help other people and also ...

Using Speedtest-CLI to record speed tests to CSV via CRON

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

One of the most common speed testing services for Internet connections is Ookla’s Speedtest, and more often than not your ISP will either throttle your connection, or their network will slow down at peak times. Because of this, I wanted to make sure I am receiving the full connection speed which I am paying for. ...

Eclipse Exhibition Banners

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

These are large roller banner designs, used for display at exhibition events.

WordPress will make PHP 7.0 the minimum required version, upgrade your PHP version soon

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This has just come to my attention today, the developer team at WordPress will be making changes to the minimum PHP versions required by the WordPress core in the upcoming months. This is tracked in the core discussion here, a news article from ZDNet also talks about this change here. Starting with WordPress 5.1, a ...

Replacing my router with pfSense with a Qotom Q150P-S08 from AliExpress

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 12 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Instead of using the TP-Link TL-R470T+ router at home which I’ve showed in a previous post \[link\], I have decided it’s time to take the plunge and start using proper router software, pfSense. pfSense is open-source router/firewall software. It comes with many advanced features and is often used in the enterprise, it’s probably overkill in ...

Sass (SCSS) powered Linear and Radial CSS3 gradients with MS Filters

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I thought i’d share this code, it may be help anyone who wants to have some sort of backward compatibility when using CSS3 gradients with Internet Explorer 7+. How does this work? Sass mixins and functions helps a lot with the ‘heavy-lifting’ and colour calculations. Let me explain the setup for Linear and Radial ...

Catching up on Google Speed and Header videos for the web

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

First post of 2019! During the holidays I have been catching up on a backlog of video talks which I have been wanting to watch. I have embedded the videos below: HTTP Headers – The State of the Web This is a really good video, discussing some of the most common HTTP headers, how ...

Eclipse Website

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT

First started in February and launched in December of 2018, this was a re-brand of the existing Eclipse website which was last re-designed in 2013.

EvidenceWorks

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT

After the success of previous website developments for Capita Secure solutions and services; 911eye.net. I started work on producing a site to showcase one of their other product suites: EvidenceWorks.

Increasing the default ZFS Loop Device value in LXD on Ubuntu

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve recently installed LXD 2.x on my Ubuntu server but forgot to set a custom value for the loop device. The default value was 20GB, but I wanted this to be 1.4TB. It took a while of searching accross the web to find an easy solution to increase this size, as I found it tricky ...

Eclipse Mailchimp Template

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Eclipse moved to Mailchimp from another third party mass email sending service and required a custom HTML email template which could be used in MailChimp.

We’ve received a free Google Beacon!

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMT

So, I forgot I signed up to receive a free Beacon from Google a while ago – but it has just turned up this week at my work, here is a run down of what it does and how to receive one. A beacon for those who don’t know is a small Bluetooth 4.0 Low ...

PHP contact form boilerplate

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Every now and again, there is a need for a simple HTML site which does not need the bloat of a CMS. However, these sites usually require a contact form, so to prevent the need of creating a new PHP form each time and re-downloading the PHPMailer library, etc. I have uploaded an PHP contact ...

LXD Container backup to FTP server script

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT

As mentioned in my previous post, I would post code for a script which will backup an LXD container as a snapshot, then transfer to an FTP server. The script to do this is below, it has been tested on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. The steps listed below can be found in my LXC Container backup ...

911 Eye

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Capita Secure solutions and services wanted a website to showcase their 911Eye product to the US market.

Web related talks from Google I/O 2018

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 15 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Google I/O 2018 is now over, as with last year I have added links to a bunch of talks I have found interesting. Most of them are Web related, with a couple of Android and Google Assitant talks. Google I/O 2018 main keynotes Keynote Developer Keynote Web Building a seamless web Build a ...

Creating an LXD container on Ubuntu 16.04

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 03 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT

I have started getting-to-grips with LXD on Ubuntu – It’s pretty great! LXD makes it possible to separate your applications into containers, and the containers run close to bare metal. I’m running LXD on my webserver (the one hosting what you’re viewing this website on), with four containers: HAProxy: Used for sending port 80 and ...

Quick and easy FTP server install on a Raspberry Pi

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 01 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT

For this setup, i’m using Ubuntu 16.04 running on a Raspberry Pi 3. The instructions should work correctly in Debian and Raspbian too – in fact, you will probably have luck using these instructions on any Linux operating system, Raspberry Pi or not. Note: FTP is not a secure protocol, I would recommend using SFTP ...

My favourite talks from AMP Conf 2018

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

With Amp Conf over for 2018, there has been some great talks by speakers available on YouTube, these are some videos I felt gave me some good understanding for what's next in AMP.

VestaCP API firewall suspend and unsuspend bash script

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

VestaCP offers an API which allows the firewall rules to be changed, but I could only find examples which use PHP and cURL and I required a script which would work as a Bash script. I’ve created a script below which you’re free to use. Ensure your host URL, admin username and password are correct ...

Steps to safely remove Linux kernels (Ubuntu)

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Note: Please understand, these instructions can make your system non-bootable. If you’re unsure, do not continue. If you’re trying to update the kernel and low/empty disk space errors are shown, it’s probably because the /boot/ directory is full. Use this command to see the available space of /boot/: sudo df -h Now check the kernel ...

Multiple videos using the YouTube API within a Bootstrap 3.3.7 carousel slider

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 03 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This is an example of how to use the YouTube API with multiple videos within a Bootstrap carousel. I have added Play/Pause functionality to a custom button and added the ability for the videos to be paused when the carousel is transitioned. A CodePen is attached below to see the example in action, and the ...

Test your system for Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Following the outbreak of three processor vulnerabilities, known as Spectre and Meltdown; I have already patched my systems and whilst doing so, came across this useful script written by Speed47. This script checks your system for the three vulnerabilities. I found it useful to check my systems were secure after applying kernel updates. To run ...

PHP: Finding a multi-dimensional array key’s associated value

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 05 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

I thought I would share this simple PHP function to hopefully help anyone needing a quick solution...

Version 2.0.0: Backup MySQL (Bash script)

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This is similar post to be read together with this. And a follow-up update to ‘Backup SQL files to FTP server‘ script. Some of my similar Backup scripts reside in a a GitHub here: https://github.com/ryanfitton/lxc-mysql-tar-backup-script-collection Version 2.0.0, now adds additional features and bug fixes: Now searches to ensure the required packages are installed. Uses ‘lftp‘ ...

Version 2.0.0: Backup server files as tar.gz (Bash script)

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This is a follow-up post with an update to the ‘Backup Files as Tar.GZ‘ script. Some of my similar Backup scripts reside in a a GitHub here: https://github.com/ryanfitton/lxc-mysql-tar-backup-script-collection Version 2.0.0, now adds additional features and bug fixes: Now searches to ensure the required packages are installed. Uses ‘lftp‘ to upload files via FTP. Lftp allows ...

Linux: Export computer specs as HTML

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This is a quick, but I thought it would be worth a post. Within Linux (I’m using Ubuntu 17.04) you can quickly export your computer specs as an HTML file, useful if you need some info on what particular hardware you’re running. Simply run this within your terminal at the location where you want the ...

Capita Workforce Management

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Capita Workforce Management wanted a new website as they’re were re-branding due to being bought by Capita.

Backup MySQL (Bash script)

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This is a follow-on from my previous post: ‘Backup server files as tar.gz‘. The script below works in a similar way as the previous, save as ‘backup_mysql2ftp.sh’ and fill out the ‘Backup options’, ‘MySQL Connection details’, and your email address. Run the script with sudo sh backup_mysql2ftp.sh (make sure the file is executable first). The ...

Backup server files as tar.gz (Bash script)

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This is a quick and simple backup script, specifically created for use with Online.net’s 100GB FTP Storage, which is given for free when buying one of their dedicated servers. The steps listed below can be found in my Backup script collection on GitHub here: https://github.com/ryanfitton/lxc-mysql-tar-backup-script-collection The script below is simple, saves as ‘sudo sh backup_files2ftp.sh’ ...

Conveyancing Calculator WordPress plugin

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Whilst working at Eclipse Legal Systems, I was tasked to create a Conveyancing Calculator which could be installed on client’s websites; in order for their visitors to request a conveyancing quote, and for the data generated by the quote could be inserted into Eclipse’s Proclaim Case Management software.

Disabling WordPress public REST API

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 23 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

I've recently found that the public WP REST API endpoints within WordPress can provide information which can be used in 'hacking' attempts. One such endpoint is '/wp-json/wp/v2/users' (e.g. https://yourdomain.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users), this will display Admin usernames to any unauthenticated user. There are a couple of way to mitigate this risk, install the Disable REST API or add...

Notifying Google of an XML sitemap via a URL

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Today I found out you can easily notify Google of an XML sitemap by ‘pinging’ Google via a GET request: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=URLOFSITEMAP.xml You can perform this via PHP, or if running on Linux; use wget.

Websites of the month: August 2017

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 11 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Parallax BaySentry Waymo CitiPark Teachable Made By Google Marvel App Help Scout Simply Measured Mapbox Quickbase

Quick and Easy SSL chipers

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve recently came across the https://cipherli.st/ site, from the cron.weekly email newsletter (I highly suggest you sign-up, some great posts and sites featured). Cipherli.st allows you to copy and paste SSL ciphers for a variety of web software (Apache, Nginx, etc.).

Favourite typefaces of 2017 so far

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 09 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This list features some of my favourite typefaces so far for 2017. Most are from websites I have seen over the past couple of months, others are ones I Have known about for a while – see the list below Activ Groteske By Dalton Maag Download: https://www.daltonmaag.com/library/aktiv-grotesk Price: Paid, dependant on styles and ...

In-page embedded viewable PDF documents without a PDF reader

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a neat trick which I’ve found: using a tool by Google named Docs Viewer you can embed PDF (Or office and Postscript) files into a webpage to be viewed on screen, even without a PDF reader plugin installed in the user’s browser. Simply use the snippet below and change where your_document_here is mentioned twice ...

Eclipse Recruitment Flyer

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT

I was asked to design a flyer that Eclipse could use at career fairs.

Web Inspiration for May 2017

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 29 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This is mostly for me. A list of a bunch of websites I have found extremely useful for design inspiration this month. Simply Measured Charles Schwab WeVideo Stripe Atlas Allocadia QuickBase Opbeat Centare Graphical House Lugg.com Culinaria Detectify Progress Infusionsoft

Google I/O 2017 useful Web, Android and IoT videos

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 21 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

A collection of the best videos of talks from Google I/O 2017.

Free stock photo and mockup websites for 2017

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This list is a further update to the one I posted back in April 2016. There has been a few more sites I have found since ...

Assigning fixed names for USB devices with udev on Linux

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 22 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Whilst you can use udev rules with any USB device, I am writing this post to help anyone else who is also having issues with their USB printer name. The main which I had was is the printer’s USB name changing when it is restarted, plugged into a different USB port or when another USB device is connected ...

My must-have Brackets plugins

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT

As a follow on from my previous post ‘Monokai theme for Brackets‘, I have produced a list of my must-have plugins for Adobe Brackets. Let’s go! Brackets Selections This plugin will add Sublime Text style selections. Github: https://github.com/DannyMoerkerke/brackets-selections Brackets Sort Text Extension Provides a couple of utility functions for sorting lines in the current document. ...

RedirectURL.info

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT

RedirectURL was a personal project, the main goal was to provide a free and easy way to redirect domains to a URL of your choice

Monokai theme for Brackets

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT

For about a year I have been using Adobe Brackets as my go-to code editor, previously I was using Sublime Text 3. Whilst I still love Sublime Text the idea of Brackets being open-source and written in HTML, CSS and Javascript was something that got me excited. However the Monokai theme that I gotten used...

PHP script for URL forwarding/redirects using simple DNS TXT records

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This simple PHP script can be used to perform HTTP and HTTPS redirects for your domains. I created this script as my DNS provider does not provide a URL redirection service of their own, and I didn’t want to setup webspace or a virtualhost on my server just for a redirect. To use this script, ...

Home Network Setup: How I installed CAT6 Ethernet

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Update: A related post regarding my network rack is available here: /blog/home-network-setup-whats-in-my-rack-2019/ When I moved into my new house, I knew that I wanted hard-wired Ethernet networking in every home. Ethernet cables provide much faster speeds than Wi-Fi and are much more secure. I wanted the cables to future-proof my house, so I decided to go ...

Looping through a Data Map with Sass

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve decided to share this code for anyone who requires a quick ‘copy and paste’ solution for using data maps (map-get) and loops within Sass. This example will allow you to set values within the data map, then loop through and output as CSS rules. Setup the variables within the data map and create the code ...

Using the Digital Ocean API for Dynamic DNS

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT

A brief tutorial of how to use Digital Ocean's V2 API as a free Dynamic DNS service. Use a sub-domain to provide a static point for connecting into your home or business.

Updated: Monitor your website and database uptime

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT

I have made some changes to the website and database monitoring script which I published in March 2016. A summary of these changes: The script can be used in PHP versions older than 5.4.0. The script has been work with PHP Server Monitor, an open-source self hosted monitoring solution. You can view the code on Github here, ...

Updated: Free Stock Image website list

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT

I have recently found a new free stock photo website...

Eclipse Conveyancing Software Print Adverts

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT

To promote Eclipse’s Conveyancing Software package, I mocked up a Conveyancing styled A4 advert which could be used in magazines and brochures.

25 extra websites for inspiration

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Drift: Join Plaid Circle Pay App Mapbox Litmus Museum of Science and Industry Woodhaven Gardens Creative Click Media NETSUITE Tom Hirst portfolio Udaan Technologies Ivo Mynttinen portfolio faculty WebPlatform.org Frere-Jones Type Swiss Typefaces Quechua – Lookbook Digital Telepathy CIGA splinterteal portfolio FCINQ Studio Naam Tobias Thaden portfolio North Shorthand

25 websites for inspiration

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT

MiSAFE Solutions UBER Brand alchemy digital EtonDigital ISL – NBC Universal Mr. Robot launch campaign Vrge Strategies Twin Collective Vital WiFi Cliffs Living CSS Design Awards SAFER Systems Straus Audio Heaphones Studio Nifty Focus Lab LLC Dunked Fhoke Nitrografix Guest’d Google Project Ara Kalexiko Sketchin Adidas Group Tolia Ice Cream Craft CMS Polyera

Google I/O 2016: What to watch

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 21 May 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Now that Google I/O is over for 2016, I have posted my suggestions for which of their live streamed videos you should watch.

Free Stock Image websites

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

List of free stock photo image website that are great to use for; websites, development, articles and print publications.

Eclipse Dynamic Webdesign Template 1

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

This WordPress powered template is one part of a set of three which were produced for Eclipse’s ‘Dynamic Web Design’ service.

Eclipse Dynamic Webdesign Template 2

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

This WordPress powered template is one part of a set of three which were produced for Eclipse’s ‘Dynamic Web Design’ service.

Eclipse Dynamic Webdesign Template 3

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

This WordPress powered template is one part of a set of three which were produced for Eclipse’s ‘Dynamic Web Design’ service.

Eclipse Webdesign Microsite

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Created in 2013 (just after I joined Eclipse), a need arose for a more up-to-date microsite for Eclipse’s Web Design services.

Using statuscake.com to monitor your website and database uptime

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Note: Updates have been added since this article was originally written. These updates are listed at the bottom of this page, click here to view them. This guide will show you how you can monitor your website and database uptime using a free service from Status Cake (https://www.statuscake.com). Once you have setup an account, you will ...

Favourite websites for February 2016

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT

A collection of my favourite websites for February 2016.

Browser testing matrix

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT

If you’re building websites or Web apps, you will always need to ensure your product works well in a multitude of different browsers, operating systems and devices. To provide good testing documentation you will need a Browser Matrix. I have found the need for one myself, I thought it will help others if I provide ...

WordPress Site Settings Plugin

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Learn how to create and use the WordPress site settings plugin I have created. This plugin will allow you or your client to easily edit a WordPress website's details such as the telephone number, META Keywords, Footer text, etc.

Using Google Alerts to see if your site has been hacked

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Google’s Webmaster Blog has recently posted about their #NoHacked campaign. This campaign is about giving website owners tips and tricks to ensure they don’t fall victim to a cyber attack. You can read about the campaign here, I highly encourage you do – it gives some great advice. Part of the advice they gave was about ...

PHP Function: Get a file’s last modified timestamp

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve recently found the need to show a file’s last modified timestamp. This function is useful when including CSS or JavaScript files. By including a query string will ensure web browsers re-download a fresh copy of the file rather than using a cached file. Simply run this function as you’re including a file, such as: ...

Force all incoming WordPress HTTP links to HTTPS

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMT

This snippet is great to use if you have recently switched your WordPress website over to HTTPS only. Paste this snippet into your .htaccess and overwrite the standard WordPress code at the top of the file.

Walt Disney World 2015 Photos

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 29 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Here are a few photos from my recent trip.

What to expect from Google I/O 2015

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 28 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT

With Google I/O 2015 starting shortly, here is what I most hope to see: Android M announcement with news and Nexus 6 download images New Chromecast hardware and updates Android wear news and updates ChromeOS updates The keynote is scheduled to last 2.5 hours, so there should be much more news. Be sure to livestream ...

Websites for Pure Inspiration

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

There are thousands of websites on the Internet, but only some that really capture the latest trends, colours and what makes user experience really work. This is my list of the best website’s I find which give me the most inspiration.

Webdesign email newsletters

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 05 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Email newsletters are great, sure you can go to websites such as Sitepoint or Smashing Magazine and view articles themselves. But I find receiving newsletters makes sure I read the most relevant and important articles at the end of a week. I mostly sign up for newsletters to keep myself up-to-date with the latest web ...

Custom WordPress login

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 00:00:00 GMT

WordPress has a wide range of options to change the look and feel of your WordPress setup. One that most people overlook is the login box, accessible at http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/. Using the code below, you will be able to apply a custom CSS stylesheet to the login page. Firstly create your stylesheet. You could name the file ...

Change Bootstrap 3 Navicon on toggle

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been looking at how to change the button icon which is shown across Bootstrap 3 navigation menus in a mobile viewport. For months I’ve come across a whole variety of clever Navicon icons which change when clicked upon. I wanted to implement this feature into a Bootstrap navigation menu. In the end, I used a ...

Awesome CodePens

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

A collection of some of my favourite CodePens.

London 2014

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

A couple of pictures from my recent visit to London.

Using Font Icons with WordPress 3.8 Custom Post Types

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 06 May 2014 00:00:00 GMT

WordPress 3.8 introduced a new Admin design which now uses Font Icons instead of images. This method has many benefits such as great support for Retina devices and quicker load times. Before WordPress 3.8 you had to use images for your icons, now you can use Font Icons, specifically the icons designed for WordPress called ...

Creating an always on Status Board

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 12 Apr 2014 00:00:00 GMT

I have wanted my own always-on Status Board, ever since I installed Panic’s Status Board app on my iPad I decided it would be better to have a dedicated device to display the information. Buying a new iPad just as a Status Board would be overkill, however I did have a spare cheap 7″ Android ...

Bethany Jackson

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Produced for Bethany, as her previous website was running a standard free WordPress template.

Working with Git

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 04 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Git is fantastic for version control, I have been using it quite often this month for work and personal projects. Although this isn’t the first time I have used Git, I did use it whilst at university. Although at that time I only used the Github Windows GUI client and whilst it was okay it ...

Eclipse Large Exhibition Banners

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

This is a rendered mockup of a large exhibition banner which is used when attending events.

Making sure Outlook.com receives PHPcMail() emails

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

During the recent development of bethanyjackson.co.uk I had found my current setup of Postfix which is used by PHP Mail() was not sending email correctly to Microsoft email services such as Outlook.com. Emails were being sent by my web server but never received by Outlook.com or placed in the Junk folder, even though emails were ...

Eclipse Website 2013

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

In 2013 the Eclipse website was re-vamped, this is what is currently live until the BETA site is fully ready to be pushed live.

Retain International

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I helped manage the Retain International website during my time being employed at Eclipse Legal Systems.

Better password security

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 00:00:00 GMT

On the 3rd October 2013 Adobe announced they suffered a major data breach as reported by Krebs on Security. Recently security researchers have analysed the leaked passwords used by Adobe's customers, a news article by The Register shows this information clearly. It turns out that 1.9 million users were using '123456' and another 3.5 million were using 'password' as ...

WordPress 3.7 Auto Update

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The WordPress 3.7 (Basie) release went live on the 24 October 2013. It’s great release and includes a number of important features, one of which is Automatic Updates. By default automatic updates will only be applied to minor version upgrades and not major releases. For example; versions such as 3.7.1 to 3.7.2 will be applied ...

Perfect offsite backup

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Over the last couple of years I have begun storing more and more data on my computers, I regularly perform a backup of files and full system images every month. I currently store my backups on two 1.5TB and a 400gb external hard drive, you may say that storing backup data on that amount of ...

PHP cron job to download podcasts

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I have built this script a while ago to keep track of podcasts I wanted to watch. My ISP gives me free internet usage after 11pm which doesn’t contribute to my monthly download limit so I needed some way to automate the download of the podcast. I decided to build this script in PHP as ...

Updated: Animated CSS3 Android Bot

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Since my first post of creating a CSS3 Android bot (here) I have wanted to add animated functionality, and in under 15 minutes I did just that. I have animated the right arm of the Android bot so it simulates ‘waving’. I have added a CodePen and a Gist below. See the Pen Android Bot ...

Android Bot created in CSS3 code snippet

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Update: I have posted an updated version of this Android bot using CSS3 animations here. I have been playing around with CSS3 recently. As a small test to see if it is possible to design with CSS3 I had a goal to create the Android bot in HTML and CSS. The finished code appears to...

CSS3 Flat UI Scrollbars in Google Chrome

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I have recently been developing a piece of work which required the scroll-bars to look flat and clean. I had previously seen Google’s Gmail site using the same sort of scroll-bar design which would fit perfectly into the piece of work I creating. Having a look around the web didn’t show much code snippets or ...

Migrating to Digital Ocean

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I have wanted to setup my own server to host websites for quite a while, although looking at the prices from VPS providers such as Rackspace and Linode; the prices range from around$15 and \$20 a month, too much for what I wanted to pay. My sites don’t get enough traffic to justify that ...

OUYA Review

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The OUYA is a small Android powered game console which originally received funding from a Kickstarter project back in August 2012. It reached it’s target goal of \$950,000 but went on to receive much more. The final total when the Kickstarter project ended was \$8,596,474. I wish I’d heard about the OUYA before the Kickstarter ended as would ...

Implementing an image picker for WordPress 3.5

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Since re-developing my portfolio for this website, I found that the media picker script which I was using to select portfolio images should be updated. Originally the first version of the script was using the old WordPress Thickbox modal. Since WordPress 3.5 it has been possible to use the new WordPress modal. Although I found ...

One Thing I Know

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

One Thing I Know is a book put together by selected organisations in the UK. The book features a large array of article from creative leaders discussing interesting topics such as promoting your business and using social media effectively. The book itself is around 110 pages and features many outstanding illustrations by Fiasco Design. It’s free ...

Orca Home Solutions

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

This website was developed for a large home maintenance company whilst studying at university. The client wanted a website which would showcase their company’s range of services and skills.

Podcasts I Subscribe To

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Podcasts can be thought of as shows, either video or radio shows. They cover certain topics you may be interested in. For me, I subscribe to a variety of Web Design and Technology related podcasts. There are thousands to choose from, using websites such as poodle.fm and the Yahoo Podcast directory will help you discover new podcasts. Apple’s iTunes program also ...

New Blog

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

This is going to be the home of my writing. I will be posting regular articles about the web design industry ranging from design to development, I may also occasionally post articles about some of my interests. I will try to get my first article posted soon. In the mean time please subscribe to this Blog using ...

Thrown in Stone branding design

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I designed a full re-brand for Thrown in Stone, a small Leeds based ceramic company. This work was produced whilst studying on the FdA Web Design course.

Eclipse Fact Sheet Flyers

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Created whilst working for Eclipse Legal Systems. These flyers were produced to ‘inject’ some life into the existing documents.

Building a Mini ITX Home Server

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

For quite some time I have found the need to have a small dedicated computer to act as a file and print server for the multiple computers I have running at home. I did research of the best possible hardware for the tasks which I needed the server to perform. Since the server will be ...

Type Trump card design

ryan@ryanfitton.co.uk (Ryan Fitton) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This set of three cards were produced for an assignment on the FdA Web Design course (now defunct). They were created in Adobe InDesign, and inspired from the TypeTrump cards by Face37.