Blog Archive: June 2018
An ex-pat living in Georgia since 2011, I trade stocks, take photographs, work out at the gym, and many more. Here I write about travel, finance, and other things that might interest me.
Latest articles
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 Church The 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…
Talsi Regional Museum
Talsi has been on my radar since the Summer of 2017. One of the first tourism attractions I discovered here is Talsi Regional Museum. For a long time, I thought it's probably some manor house or something, but doing a Google search I learned I was wrong. Well, as I have never been inside the museum, instead I love wandering in the nearby park. Talsi Regional Museum There are storage, history, art and nature departments in Talsi Regional…
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 House 2018 is no exception, and it today's home remodeling series a few photos from the early Spring 2018 Grilling season has just started Last year we bought an extra huge grill Cat enjoying such activities Grilling 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…
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,…
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…
How To Setup Google Analytics For Drupal 8 Website
Setting up Google Analytics for a Drupal 8 powered website is as simple as it is with Drupal 7 website, luckily for us, there is a small and neat module doing the hard work for us. Google Analytics is one of the essential modules to have for any website, see: Building Drupal 8 Website From Scratch - Part 3, Essential Modules (Pathauto, Google Analytics, Disqus) I have been using Google Analytics to track my website performances more than 10…
Building Drupal 8 Website From Scratch - Part 3, Essential Modules (Pathauto, Google Analytics, Disqus)
In the third part of Drupal 8, website building from a scratch series I will focus on a few essential must have, modules to boost Drupal website's SEO and usability. Before continuing to learn how to build a successful Drupal 8 Website, make sure to check out previous articles in the series: Building Drupal 8 Website From Scratch - Part 1 (Domain name, Hosting), Building Drupal 8 Website From Scratch - Part 2 (Content Types, Custom Fields,…
Buying a Vineyard in Georgia
The other day a blog reader asked me about purchasing a vineyard in the Republic of Georgia. I do feel flattered being honored as an expert in such topics, but in fact, I'm not. Sure I have visited a couple of wineries in Georgia (Château Mukhrani Winery, Wine Tunnel Near Kvareli in Georgia (Winery Khareba)), have tasted most of the Georgian wine varieties, but I'm not an expert on buying a vineyard in Georgia (or any other country, heck I…
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…
2 day tour in "Soviet Georgia"
Now, this is interesting, today I was browsing Viator for tours in Georgia, and this one caught my attention - 2 days in Soviet Georgia starting $335.00 My attention was caught with that lovely yellow Soviet VAZ car, I quickly imagined driving around Georgia in such and thought - cool. By the way, last summer I enjoyed driving in such car in Kiev, I wouldn't call it a pleasant ride, but fun for sure. Regarding this Soviet Georgia tour - I'm…
Tapping Birch Sap in the Backyard
Can't decide on a new hobby? Think about tapping birch sap in early spring. Depending on the region you are located and availability of birch trees you might even enjoy this drink - a birch sap. In today's article a few photos from tapping a birch sap in early spring in our backyard using Libertu Birch Sap Kit. You can purchase this kit at sula.lv to get your own tree sap. If you have maple or birch trees in your yard or forest you can get…
Securing Drupal Files and Folders (Chmod, Security Review, Hacked)
There are a couple of great helper modules for Drupal to learn more about failing security holes - Security Review and Hacked. Security Review The Security Review module automates testing for many of the easy-to-make mistakes that render your site insecure. Security Review runs the following checks: Safe file system permissions (protecting against arbitrary code execution) Text formats don't allow dangerous tags (protecting against XSS)…
Building Drupal 8 Website From Scratch - Part 2 (Content Types, Custom Fields, Manage Display)
In the second part of the series Building Drupal 8 Website from the scratch I will cover details on working with content types and node displays. Make sure to check out part 1, before proceeding. When comparing Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, there is little difference regarding managing content types, except most of the cool features we have been used to have in Drupal 7 by using additional modules and fields, are already built in Drupal 8 core. Which…
Confession from a Day Trader. Part 1 Denial - I'm not a Day Trader
Confessions of a day trader is an interesting term, I first discovered about a year ago - a guy from Norway, living in Riga, contacted me about some issues with doing business in Georgia. That guy turned out to be a day trader, writing a popular blog on day-trading. Here is the blog: Quantified Strategies I thought - hmm, that's cool - Confessions of a day trader, sounds really cool. But that's all I stopped there. The thing is, I don't feel…