Aaron Eaton

Archives for January 2017

My tech trends for 2017

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Everyone is trying to predict the year’s biggest global tech trends. AI, self-driving cars and VR usually populate the top of the list. While those things are neat it’s tough to see the immediate effect to my life. Instead I decided to create my own list.

  1. Bye-bye Facebook. Yeah, the number of people who say this probably outnumber the gym rookies on Jan. 1. Here’s the thing. Facebook’s value to me has dwindled to almost nothing over the last few months. I blame the election.
  2. Publish more. I’ve struggled over the last several years to do anything resembling consistent blogging. Between deciding on topics and a general fear of sounding ridiculous I always find an excuse to not hit “Publish”. This year all I’m working towards is at least 100 words published per day. So far, so good.
  3. Less screen time. More creating with my hands. Very few things in this world give me more pleasure than spending a couple of hours in the shop and returning with a new box or toy for my son.

Fix your git hooks when using Tower

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One of our newest OptinMonster developers has already made a big splash by introducing even more automation to our development flow. For the past two years (TWO!) this has been our usual conversation after pushing some changes:

The changes you pushed aren’t working.

(┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻

Do I need to run anything after pulling this down?

Yeah. composer install in the core plugin and theme. npm install in the theme. gulp scripts in the theme.

Ah! There we go!

It was time to put an end to it. The new dev created a few git hooks, installed with a script, that run all of the necessary build steps after a pull from our GitHub repository. Only problem is the hooks don’t work if you’re using Tower or any other GUI for git. Luckily the fix is simple. Add this to the very top of all of your git hook scripts:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin

This give Tower the correct paths to find whatever scripts you use in your git hooks. In our case it was node.

Disable comments on all WordPress pages at once

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Comments on pages by default. Not sure why that is a thing but we’re talking about 13 year old software here. It’s easy enough to turn off comments manually. Page by page. Why do work by hand when you could automate it?

Turns out it’s simple enough to turn off comments on every single page on your site with a couple of lines of code. You can add this to your theme’s functions.php file, your core functionality plugin or wherever else you deem fit.

Stay tuned for more in my series titled “How to fix things that shouldn’t be this way”.

Grit

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We all face challenges in our daily lives. The difference between those who go to sleep feeling fulfilled and those who don’t is the former group makes the choice to push through the challenge. In a word: Grit.

Yeah, you were up all night with your kid who was vomiting every hour. The next day was filled with chores and assorted tasks that needed to get done. Grit is sucking it up and checking off your to-do list. Having an amazing spouse helps. ?

Your mind is dead from the long day. It would feel so good just to go to sleep. Grit is sticking to the promises you made to yourself in the evening.

Just get it done.

Hello, 2017

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It’s 2017.

I have no clue if this year will be better than the last. What I do know is my reaction to events has the greatest impact on my experience.

Should I get happy or angry?

Should I mope or celebrate?

That is for me to decide.

I will work to differentiate between those things I can change and those I can’t. I will seek the things that make me happy. I will celebrate the things worth celebrating. I can change my future and have an influence on my family’s. What will it be?

It’s 2017. This could be the best year yet.