In the software industry, the definition of "success" isn't necessarily the same as it is for the rest of the world. The customer asks for a complex system composed of many parts, with a specified budget, and a timeline.
November 2012
Successful Turkeys: Redefining Success in Web Projects
Totem Ocean
Freelock teamed up with Eben Design to build a new site for Totem Ocean Trailer Express, a shipping company that has two voyages between Tacoma and Anchorage each week. In addition to being a basic corporate site, this site has a few cool custom features.
Wow, what a year. Freelock is jamming, with some very exciting new projects, and some ongoing work from existing clients. In October alone, we signed up 4 new customers, with 3 of them having sizable projects, including projects for the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The first one is on the verge of launching already, and we're excited to be well into the planning on two more!
Since my last newsletter in April, Quest, Aaron, Eric, and Bob have joined the team. Our office is getting a bit cozy, so we're starting to look for a new place!
We continue to develop particular specialties in data visualization, event and conference management, CRM, and e-commerce -- if you know anybody who has a need for a custom site along these lines, we love referrals, please send them our way.
Meanwhile, I would love to hear from you. Drop me a line at john@freelock.com, and let me know how you're doing, and what technical or business challenges you face, or leave a comment on our site!
Recent Rants
🕑May 19, 2026 🖋John Locke
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Your Website Will Be Attacked. Here's How We Make Sure You Survive It.
The question used to be whether your website would face a serious security threat. That question has been answered. The question now is whether you'll be ready when it happens — and whether you can recover cleanly when something gets through.
🕑May 18, 2026 🖋John Locke
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The Rules Have Changed: Security in the Age of AI-Assisted Attacks
Security is getting dramatically harder and more expensive. AI is simultaneously driving an explosion in vulnerability discovery and weaponizing the exploits that follow. The question for every organization with anything online is no longer whether to invest in resilience — it's whether that investment is already in place before the next incident arrives.
🕑May 06, 2026 🖋John Locke
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When Your WordPress Site Launches Into a Performance Crisis
A real-world post-mortem on 15 performance issues we fixed in 4 days — and what every WordPress site owner should know before going live.
🕑Apr 21, 2026 🖋John Locke
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When Views meets Drupal Canvas -- getting dynamic content into your Canvas page
From early days, "views" has been the killer feature of Drupal. Views is a powerful querying tool built into Drupal that allows dynamic lists and displays of content to be created without writing custom code.
🕑Apr 15, 2026 🖋John Locke
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Ask Freelock: Why Is My Site Still Getting Hammered by Bots — Even on a Major Hosting Platform?
We recently heard from a former client who had moved their site to a major managed hosting platform, hoping for more stability and better protection.
🕑Nov 20, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Vibe-coding versus Open Source - Security over the long haul
Vibe-coding is all the rage today. Who needs a developer when you can get an AI to develop an application for you? There are scads of application development tools now that promise to create that app you always wanted -- and surprisingly, these often work!
🕑Sep 22, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Use Drupal Flake for PHPUnit testing
Drupal Flake is a new way of doing local Drupal development (running a self-contained Drupal site on your desktop or laptop).
🕑Sep 22, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Use Group Purl on your Group site!
One big missing part of the Group module is setting up friendly URLs that contain the group in the path for group content. You can't set this up in Pathauto -- the tokens are too limited to handle this correctly.
🕑Sep 22, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Easy unit testing with Drupal Flake and AI - Group PURL, a case study
AI does not replace system engineering. Stories abound about AI running amok, deleting production databases, exposing private data, failing to deliver on promises.
🕑Sep 19, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Upcoming Sales Tax changes for Washington
Starting next month (October 2025), Washington businesses and residents will be paying sales tax on a slew of new services -- including custom web development, IT services, digital advertising, and even temporary workers.
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