This is the blog of web developer and designer Andy Walpole.

Create and do what is new, through and through.


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A Blog in Suburban Glory: Web Design Ideas and Inspiration

The Suburban Glory Directory Has Been Launched
Thu 16th Jul 2009

Finally, I've launched the Suburban Glory niche directory for web design and SEO and which I coded myself with PHP.

Coding PHP can be engrossing – 10 hour sessions are not unheard of for me; but they can also...

Drupal modules that look useful
Tue 14th Jul 2009

There are over 4,000 third-party Drupal modules with new additions to this mass being added every week.

It's often the case that while working on a Drupal site I think, “I wonder if there is a Drupal module that does X or Y?”.

I then spend hours looking for such a mo...

Spotify: Finding Music To Design Websites To
Mon 6th Jul 2009

I've just recently discovered Spotify. It is a service that allows you to browse their vast catalogue of albums and listen to as much as you like for free. The free service is dependent on the occasional advert between tracks while for a small fee you can listen to their library without commercial aural intrus...

Spotting that a web site has been hacked: Using BrightCherry.co.uk as an example
Mon 8th Jun 2009

It's not necessarily easy to spot if a website has been hacked (or cracked to use the correct terminology).

A lot of website attacks amount to a malicious user breaking into a site through a security flaw and then defacing it. I've even hea...

Google launches Firefox addon for webmasters to test the speed of their web page
Sun 7th Jun 2009

Google has just released Page Speed, a tool for Firefox/Firebug. It lists all factors on a page that could cause unnecessary download lags for users.

Features covered include gzip compression, browser caching, usin...

Adobe launches BrowserLab to the select few
Wed 3rd Jun 2009

As any web designer knows, it is vital to create a website that has multi-browser capabilities. This means that the website functions and looks identity or near the same in all major browsers. At the moment this is Internet Explorer 7, 7 and 8; Safari, Opera, Chrome and Firefox.

I have all ...

Alexandr Rodchenko and Liubov Popova at the Tate Modern, London
Sun 24th May 2009

In a deep 20th century crevice, inbetween the mud and gas of the First World War and the permafrost of The Gulag Archipelago, lies the Constructivist movement in the USSR.

In an era that has witnessed Damien Hirst display his jewel-encrusted skull, it may be stupefying to know that past art...

A dark ambient mix for you by thejass
Sat 23rd May 2009

.thejass. mix: "endlessly elapsing evil"

01."HZ Waltz" Monoton 'Monotonprodukt 07 20y++' Oral 02."Bathory Erzebet" Sunn O))) 'Black One' Southern Lord 03...

Andy Clarke and IE6: I Surrender!
Fri 22nd May 2009

Andy Clarke was once a design hero of mine, but like all heroes they fade and die or sell out eventually. Just recently he wrote a blog post entitled Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS on the website For...

Creating a web design that facilitates the reading of large blocks of text
Thu 21st May 2009

Just recently I bought a Sitepoint ebook called The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks. It wasn't until after I purchased the item that I realised that it was over 500 pages long. Printing this amount would cost ...

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