Thoughts

Thoughts and Articles from Blend Interactive

April 1, 2022

Searching With Solr: A Startup Guide

A stylized photo of a construction site.

Chances are, you’ve found yourself in the sticky situation of adapting a default search engine. But, there are options beyond the default, starting with an open source solution called Apache Solr. Here's how to get started.

Development

Joe Kepley  |  March 14, 2022

How Blend Chooses a CMS

Joe Kepley sitting at his desk.

Over its history, Blend has developed a pattern of being an early North American partner for a number of European CMS systems. Blend was an early North America Partner for eZ Publish (now Ibexa), Episerver (now Optimizely), and Umbraco (still Umbraco!).

Development  |  Discovery and Scoping

March 5, 2022

Blend’s Bob Davidson Named One of the Best: Optimizely OMVP

Bob Davidson standing in front of a TV that says "Congratulations! Bob" celebrating his Optimizely OMVP status.

Blend Interactive is excited to recognize Bob Davidson for his selection as one of 2022’s OMVP (Optimizely Most Valuable Professional) developers.

Development  |  Optimizely

Bob Davidson  |  February 2, 2022

Content References in XhtmlString Properties

Bob Davidson sitting at a table in his office.

Blend's Director of Development Bob Davidson takes a brief look at the internals of XhtmlString properties and the fragments that make them.

Development  |  Optimizely

Bob Davidson  |  January 14, 2022

Multitenant Episerver Sites on IIS Express

Bob Davidson sitting at a table in his office.

Blend's Director of Development Bob Davidson explains how to navigate IIS Express in order to bind multiple Episerver sites and languages in this Coding with Bob video.

Development  |  Optimizely

Joe Kepley  |  January 6, 2022

Making the Choice Between Umbraco and Wordpress

A laptop next to an Umbraco logo OR a Wordpress logo.

An overview of the differences between two open-source CMS systems: Umbraco and Wordpress.

Development  |  Umbraco

Bob Davidson  |  November 9, 2021

Integrating Azure AD with Optimizely CMS 12

A stylized photo of a construction site.

Blend's Director of Development Bob Davidson talks through changes to how CMS 12 integrates with Azure Active Directory.

Development  |  Optimizely

Karla Santi, Corey Vilhauer & Deane Barker  |  September 21, 2021

Q&A With the Authors of The Web Project Guide

The Web Project Guide - From Spark to Launch and Beyond.

From early logistics conversations to the book's publishing, distribution, and marketing, it's been a long road to the finish line for The Web Project Guide. Blend's CEO Karla Santi sits down with authors Deane Barker and Corey Vilhauer to discuss the book and the process.

Content and IA  |  Design and Front-End  |  Development  |  Discovery and Scoping  |  Project Management  |  Strategy

Bob Davidson  |  July 1, 2021

Building an Episerver Site from Scratch - Part 1

Bob Davidson sitting at a table in his office.

Blend's Director of Development Bob Davidson provides some guidance on how to do just that in this Coding with Bob video.

Development  |  Optimizely

Bob Davidson  |  June 8, 2021

Meta Properties for On-Page Editing

Bob Davidson sitting at a table in his office.

Blend's Director of Development Bob Davidson highlights how to programmatically surface meta properties within on-page editing in this Coding with Bob video.

Development  |  Optimizely