Mazais Ansis Restaurant Near Valmiera

Mazais Ansis is a popular roadside cafeteria/restaurant located some 15 km from Valmiera town (if driving from Riga). This place serves a traditional Latvian cuisine.When traveling to the Vidzeme region in Latvia, I love to take a stop here and have a lunch. Here comes my latest review back from Summer 2017.The outdoor terrace at Mazais AnsisSeems that at the nearby lake there are some water attractions availableInterior at Mazais AnsisClassical Latvian decors with modern touchA meal at Mazais AnsisTypical "Latvian cuisine" - French fries with some salads and meat. Tastes good.Mazais Ansis near ValmieraWood carved sculptures are very popular across the Baltics (for sure in Latvia and…

Latvia |

Former bath-house of Emilija Racene in Jurmala

When thinking about bathhouses the first thing that arrives in my head is the sulphur bathhouses located in Tbilisi, should they be located in the Abanotubani district or the old and neglected Kiev's bath. Turns out there is not less interesting bath-house (though former) in Latvian Jūrmala - Former bath-house of Emilija RaceneAgain, when thinking about something former - I always remember the lovely former hotel London building in Tbilisi. Now, back to the subject, according to visitjurmala.lvThe building was constructed in the beginning of the 20th century and saw its expansion in 1914, for he first time ever in this part of Jurmala offering various – warm sea water,…

Latvia |

Lake Ķīšezers

Ķīšezers is a lake in Riga, Latvia, with a primary inflow of the Jugla River. The lake is 1,730 ha (4,300 acres) large, it has 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in) of average depth and reaches 4.2 metres (14 ft) at the deepest point.Lake Ķīšezers is a popular recreation area both for locals and foreign guest in the Mežaparks neighborhood. Riga Zoo is located close to the lake. A recreational area near Lake Ķīšezers in Riga

Latvia |

Pontoon Footbridge Over Mill Lake In Kazdanga

The pontoon footbridge over Mill Lake in Kazdanga, Latvia is a recently built and opened for a public a really cool tourist attraction.Such tourist attractions seem is really gaining the momentum in Latvia, as in fact, this is already third such type of construction I've visited lately in Latvia. See: The Great Kemeri Bog Boardwalk and Hiking Trails in Kemeri National Park (Near Forest House)Kazdanga footbridge is 2 meters wide and 190 meters long, with a viewing tower 2.7 meters height it has been built with a support of funds by European UnionDiscovered by an accident, after wandering around Kazdanga Mill Lake in April. Pontoon footbridge in…

Latvia |

Eden Beach Hotel Review in Agia Marina

During our about a month-long trip around the island of Crete back in 2017, we stayed at Agia Marina twice -  for about 2 nights at trips start and about 5 days at the end of the trip. For the start, we chose Vergina beach hotel which was good and for the end, we stayed at Eden Beach hotel apartment  - which was amazing.Eden Beach Hotel is set in Agia Marina Nea Kydonias and provides air-conditioned accommodation with free WiFi, as well as access to an outdoor swimming pool.Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to Booking.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a reservation on Booking site, I might earn an affiliate income from…

Greece |

The Great Kemeri Bog Boardwalk

The Great Kemeri Bog Boardwalk is a popular tourist destination in Kemeri National Park, offering visitors a chance to explore the bog and its inhabitants.As we have been relocated to Latvia's Jūrmala for some time, we decided to explore nearby vicinity, and we started with nearby hiking trails. Ķemeri has many attractions to offer, sure The Great Ķemeri Bog Boardwalk probably is the most popular, but there are other routes as well, for example, Hiking Trails in Kemeri National Park (Near Forest House)Now, it was a sunny April's Sunday morning and here we go:Start of the Ķemeri bog hiking trailThe boardwalk takes visitors to the world of moss, small pine trees, deep…

Latvia |

La Playa Taverna Cafe Ouzeri Near Rethymno

And again I must say - strange how it works - I almost missed coordinates for this place but with a little investigation from pictures and help with Greek transliteration and even Greek car plate registration table I was able to locate this place finally on the map.Meet La Playa Taverna Cafe Ouzeri Near RethymnoDiscovered during our latest trip to the island of Crete back in Summer 2017​Beach near La Playa Taverna Cafe Ouzeri​Palms near La Playa Taverna Cafe OuzeriBeautiful sceneryInterior at La Playa Taverna Cafe OuzeriIf I remember correct, we actually didn't offered any meal here, instead enjoyed just a cup of coffee during our little break

Greece |

Postcards from Talsi

Talsi is a city in Latvia, I have discovered just lately. During the Summer of 2017, I had to spend here some time.During my stay, I discovered some amazing places, and have returned here for a couple of times more. In today's Piece of life series - postcards from Talsi.Postcards from TalsiReminds me panoramas from Germany's Mossel Valley, see: 3 day leisure trip to Germany (The Mossel Valley)  or Andernach - A Lovely German Town On The Banks Of RhineView towards Talsi town

Latvia |

Early Spring 2018 in the Yard

Since early 2018 we have been relocated to Jūrmala resort town in Latvia. It was in early April 5th morning I decided to run my second 365 days photo challenge. I didn't sleep that night, I thought about making a cool sunset photography at Jūrmala beach. I actually did.Once we returned from the nearby sea to our yard - I decided to make a panoramic photography of the yard we have spent so much time. Piece of Life.Our yard for 2018 (panoramic photography)

Latvia |

Restaurant Istabas In Talsi Review

Restaurant Istabas in Talsi is among the best restaurants I've tried in Latvia lately, located on Liela street 31 in Talsi city, the restaurant offers great views of Lake Talsi .Istabas restaurant serves great European/American cuisine.First visited back in the Summer of 2017, since then have returned here for a couple of times.Restaurant Istabas in TalsiLocated in a three-storey building, seems there is a hotel available as well. Lovely patio (during Summers)Salmon tartarWell made, great looking and tastyBurger menu for hungry men

Latvia |

Galaxy Iraklio 5-star Hotel Review (Heraklion, Crete)

Located in Heraklion's elegant district, this 5-star hotel offers 2 gourmet restaurants, a free wellness centre and a large freshwater pool. Luxurious rooms feature balconies with pool and city views.We booked this hotel for a one night stay back in the Summer of 2017 and paid about EUR 100. Top 5 star and Luxury hotels in HeraklionDisclosure: this article contains links to Booking.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a reservation on Booking.com site, I might earn an affiliate income, at no cost to you.All accommodation in Galaxy Iraklio offers work desks, satellite LCD TV and free Wi-Fi access. Air-conditioned rooms are equipped with pure Egyptian cotton…

Greece |

How To Fix "gzip is failing for js files" Nginx

From Drupal Reports status page I noticed gzip is failing for js files error

The web servers configuration will need to be adjusted. In most cases make sure that the webroots .htaccess file still contains this section "Rules to correctly serve gzip compressed CSS and JS files". Certain default web server configurations (nginx) do not gzip HTTP/1.0 requests. If you are using cloudfront you will have to add metadata to the .gz files. There are some other options if using cloudfront.

For Nginx web servers there is an easy fix, adding just a few lines of code to the server block

here is the fix (source: Enable GZIP for CSS and JS files on NGINX server for Magento)


sudo nano /etc/…

Drupal Development |

June 2018 Dividend Income Report - $147.44

Welcome to the #14 dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from the dividend-paying stocks (Baltic and European) and peer to peer lending (both fiat and cryptocurrencies).Last June turned out much better than I thought before, more precisely it turned better $40 thanks to the bitcoin lending on Poloniex.com The total income generated in June was the highest so far for 2018.Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending website, by clicking on links on this page and by making an investment on mintos.com, I might earn affiliate income at no cost to you. Also, I'm not a financial…

Dividend Income |

Postcards from Crete

It has been now over a year since we visited the Greek island of Crete, during the past months I've already documented many stories from this trip. In today's Piece of Life series - one of the last days on the island back in 2017.Town in CreteThe town is most probably Argiroupoli, as somewhere in this area we enjoyed a cup of coffee, see: Palios Mylos Restaurant Review near Argiroupoli Springs, CreteRural CreteSee: Discoveries in Crete - Rough Road To Balos BeachNarrow roads in CreteSee: Crazy, Stupid, Love - Tranquil Rough Adventures in CreteMountainous Crete

Greece |

Talsi Evangelical Lutheran Church

On the top of the abrupt Baznīcaskalns (Church Hill) stands the white masonry Talsi church – the dominant of the old town.It was built in 1567 and later rebuilt for several times. A transept and sacristy are attached to a rectangular, elongated building.Talsi Evangelical Lutheran ChurchThe square bell-tower is attached on the west side of the church, it has a pyramidal spire with a sphere, rooster and a cross. The church spire, the rooster, the tiled roof, the façade and the interior were renovated in 1996 – 1998. The relics of the church witness its history.The most brilliant among them are the epitaph of Fishers’ family (1794) that was carved in limestone and have…

Latvia |

Another Year, Another Barbeque

It has been already a tradition to feature the first barbeque of the year at our rural country house in the blog. See First Barbecue Festival in Our Newly Inherited House2018 is no exception, and it today's home remodeling series a few photos from the early Spring 2018Grilling season has just startedLast year we bought an extra huge grillCat enjoying such activitiesGrilling 2018

How To Embed YouTube video in Drupal 8 (CKEDITOR)

Now, there is one more reason I'm starting to enjoy Drupal 8, embedding YouTube videos in articles now are super easy, thanks to the simple and neat Drupal module - Video Embed Field

In this article, I will guide you through how to configure Drupal 8 built-in CKEDITOR to work with this module.

For another interesting YouTube module for use in Drupal views see Display YouTube videos on Drupal site with YouTube field module

Video Embed field creates a simple field type that allows you to embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo and show their thumbnail previews simply by entering the video's url.

Features


Responsive out the box, optionally make your videos scale…

Drupal Development |

How To Configure Trusted Host settings for Drupal 8 Website

In today's Drupal tutorial series I will talk about Trusted host settings, what they are and how to configure them.

In short, Trusted host settings protects against HTTP HOST Header attacks (prevent your site from thinking it is someone else).

Drupal 7 added a new feature into the core that is not user-facing directly but is sometimes called poor man's cron. The feature triggers the periodic tasks of a Drupal site like emptying log files, sending e-mails, and clearing out caches. This feature, when combined with dynamic detection of the "base url" (added in Drupal 4.7), can lead to some screwy situations.

Let's start with the oblivious, first noticed a warning in a Drupal 8…

Drupal Development |

How To Redirect in Nginx all Domain Name Versions to https://www

As you might already know search engines (Google) sees www.domain.com and domain.com as two separate domain names. If you are not using 301 redirects (www to non-www or vice verse)you might get penalized for duplicate content. 

In Ngnix, there is a simple solution how to make such redirect happen, see: Ngnix Redirect To WWW

Now, things get a bit complicated when https versions are involved. See: Linode: How To Secure Nginx with Let's Encrypt on Ubuntu 12.04

Once your website has https enabled, technically speaking you might be dealing with for different domain names:


domain.com
www.domain.com
https://domain.com
https://www.domain.com


What we are…

Servers & Config |

How To Update Drupal Modules via SSH (Putty)

To strengthen Drupal websites security I decided to disable one-click automatic module updates from Drupal dashboard, unfortunately, it makes it harder not even for bad guys to compromise Drupal website but it also makes it harder for Drupal devs.

Now, there are several options you might choose instead, composer being a top of them. But for this article, I will write down how to update modules using SSH.

For Windows, we are going to use Putty:

From your Drupal installation go to the modules folder


cd /sites/all/modules

now, using wget download desired modules and extract:


sudo wget https://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/file_entity-7.x-2.21.tar.gz
sudo tar -xvzf…

Drupal Development |