The Notebook

Drupal Configuration Management & Config Split: Still a Winning Combination

Recently, I decided to revisit the topic of Drupal configuration management, with a special focus on the Config Split module. Configuration management, first introduced in Drupal 8, was a fantastic addition to the platform and has paved the way for major improvements in CI/CD workflows over the years.

2025: A Year In Review

A 2025 year in review blog post image with 2025 and abstract design.

As I sit here in 2026 getting ready to head back to work tomorrow (Monday), I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the year that was 2025. It was a busy year—and one that somehow went by incredibly fast. Between the increasing use of AI and the rapid innovation happening across the Drupal ecosystem, there was a lot to experience, contribute to, and learn from. Looking back, 2025 felt like a year when many long-term ideas became real, usable tools for the community.

Hey America! The Internet’s Only Part of the Problem

Person sitting in a chair watching TV with a thought bubble that says "The Internet!!"

Over the weekend, I did something I don’t often have time to do: I watched Meet the Press. I find the show gives interesting insights from both sides, and the host does a great job asking the hard questions. Sundays episode focused heavily on the current state of the country and acts of political violence.

Recap: My Return to Drupal GovCon 2025!

After more than five years away, I was happy to return to Drupal GovCon, hosted on the beautiful campus of the University of Maryland in College Park. The event brought together an incredible mix of government technologists, open source enthusiasts, and Drupal community members—all with plenty of hot topics (especially AI) to dig into.

Drupal + Mailgun: A Simple Setup for Transactional Email

Cartoon man using a computer, smiling with email icons around.

I’ve been using SendGrid as the transactional email provider for my site for a while. Since I only send about three emails a week—mostly simple contact form submissions—the free tier was perfect for my needs. It let me test things out, integrated easily with Drupal, and just worked.

Creating a Simple Donation form with Drupal, Stripe, and Webforms

Cartoon Drawing of Webform with Credit Card Field and Submit Button

If you're looking to accept donations on your Drupal site, the combination of the Webform module and Stripe provides a flexible and powerful solution. In this guide, I’ll walk you through setting up a donation form using the Webform, Stripe, and Stripe Webform Integration modules—all on a local Drupal environment using DDEV.

My Go-To Setup for Local Drupal Development with DDEV and Colima

Illustration of a smiling developer sitting at a desk, working on a laptop with visible code. The Drupal and DDEV logos are prominently displayed in the background. The scene uses shades of blue and follows a cartoon-style aesthetic, with a simple workspace and a light, tech-focused atmosphere.

As someone who frequently builds POCs and demos with Drupal, I’ve spent plenty of time spinning up local environments. A while back, I switched to DDEV as my go-to local dev tool after hearing great things—and it quickly became a core part of my workflow. It's fast, reliable, and makes managing Drupal projects a whole lot easier.

Drupal Platforms: A How to Guide - Resources

These are helpful resources to go with my talk from DrupalCamp NJ in March of 2025. These resources accompany a talk on Drupal Platforms.

Drupal is Great! Its Perception Might Not be.

I love Drupal! With over 15 years of experience and active involvement in its community, I value its open-source software philosophy. Despite its remarkable improvements, Drupal faces perception problems due to dated opinions and issues with past versions. Educating the misinformed and emphasizing new features will improve its perception, strengthening Drupal as a household name in the digital space.

Overcoming Small Business Thinking: Strategies for Building Individuals

This blog post has been a long time in the making. Over my 18+ year career I have had the pleasure of working for some great small companies. Most of those small companies have always had something I call "Small Business Thinking" holding them back. Small Business Thinking can manifest in a number of ways from lack of company growth to high employee turn over. Any way you slice it Small Business Thinking isn't great and at the end of the day it starts with the people running and working for your company.

Drupal Starshot: Delivering on a promise to Ambitious Site Builders

For me the introduction of the Starshot initiative raised concerns about a potential divide in the community and not going far enough into the no code space. However, further exploration revealed that Starshot is not a separate version of Drupal but an enhancement built on Drupal Core. Features such as Recipes, Experience Manager, and Project Browser aim to simplify site building and encourage community growth. Making it seem that Starshot could deliver on the promise made to support Ambitious Site Builders.

DrupalCon Portland 2024 Community Summit: Drupal Resources

Tree with many different Icon leaves that show different types of media

I was asked to do a lightning talk highlighting all the Drupal Resources available to folks in the community. Here is the list I developed. Enjoy!

Just Say Drupal

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DrupalCon 2023 - Helpful Resources

These are helpful resources from my talk at DrupalCon Pittsburgh in June of 2023. These resources accompany a talk on Open Source Principles and Organizational Governance.

Think Locally, Build Globally - How Drupal can power a headless omni-channel web platform - Resources

Think Loocally, Build Globally slide with picture of earth

These are helpful resources to go with my talk from Florida Drupal Camp in February of 2023. These resources accompany a talk on Omni-channel Headless Web Platforms.

5 open source principles that help organizational governance

A Slide from Dries with text "If you want to go quickly go alone. if you want to go far go together"

Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to work with many organizations of various sizes on a variety of projects. All of these projects had open source software at their core, and most contributed what they could back to the open source community. I recently worked on a greenfield project using open source software within a large organization. After the MVP phase of the project, the organization's leadership was interested in learning what led to project success and how they could apply it to other teams across the organization.

2022: A Year in Review

This year has gone by in the blink of an eye. As I sit here half way through the last week of the year, It got me thinking about everything I did this year. I figured I would get a start on one of next years goals, more blogging. Here it goes 2022: A year in review!

Open source runs on non-code contributions

At this year's DrupalCon North America, EPAM Solution Architect John Picozzi presented a talk about the importance of non-code contribution. He talked about how everyone can get involved and why he believes this is an important topic. This article is a text adaptation of John's talk; find a link below to a video recording of the complete presentation at DrupalCon.

DrupalCon Portland 2022 : The Highlights

This year’s DrupalCon marked the first in-person North American DrupalCon in two years. Here is a recap of my experience and some of the highlights from Portland.

DrupalCon 2022 - Helpful Resources

These are helpful resources from my talk at DrupalCon Portland in April of 2022. These resources accompany a talk on Non-Code Contribution.