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
🕑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.
🕑Jul 29, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Automating all the things - 24 ideas for things you can automate with your website
Last December I wrote up 24 specific things we've automated on Drupal, and published them as an Advent Calender -- one little nugget each day.
🕑Jul 14, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Unleashing the power of ECA: No-code coding for ambitious site builders
Last year I gave a presentation at DrupalCon about automating things using the powerful ECA Module. Here's the recording!
🕑Jun 12, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Website Availability - handling an outage
How do you get a website back up, when it goes down?
🕑May 11, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Sustainable Business and AI
Call me a radical, but I don't think a handful of billionaires controlling the majority of a country's wealth is a good thing. I don't think the ultra-wealthy need more benefits at the expense of everyone else.
🕑May 01, 2025 🖋John Locke
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Containerless Dev environments for Drupal development with Nix
The recording of my talk from DrupalCon this year is now available!
This is perhaps my most technical talk, meant for developers and tinkerers who would like an easy way to get started with Drupal.
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