Great content I've found this month.

This month picks are: i) the VSCode "Settings Sync" feature; and ii) "Darknet Diaries": the podcast about hackers, breaches, hacktivism and cybercrime - a must-listen for anyone in tech, DevOps and cyber security.

I recently gained the AWS DevOps Engineer Professional certification. While studying, I learned many new skills and best practices. I want to put these into immediate action, so in this article I explain how I built and deployed a cloud-native weather notification app using AWS resources. With any luck, this app will help me remember my umbrella on rainy days!

Wordle-mania has swept the world. My whole family is hooked! You've probably heard that it is a hobby project created by a single developer. This made me wonder how the app is designed, built and hosted. What are the hosting costs? What analytics are sent back to the server? This led me to inspect the source code to uncover its secrets - and potentially ruining the whole game for myself along the way 😅.

Lately I've been working on a novel regulation-tech concept called "Rules as Code". What is that, you ask? Basically, it is an attempt to produce a machine-consumable counterpart to certain types of legislation, with the aim of enabling better digital service delivery by Government. I gave a masterclass on the topic to the Australian Society of Computers & Law. Check it out!

Great content I've found this month.

This month picks are: i ) the new JSONField feature in Django v3 and django-jsonfield-backport for v2.2, and ii) I am on Medium!

In May 2020 Google will start including "Page Experience" in its search ranking algorithm. In a rare and welcome twist, Google has signposted in great detail the factors influencing this search ranking criteria. I recently spent an afternoon updating findram.dev to optimise Page Experience. Here is how it went!

Excel is the most popular development environment in the world. It is also the most abused software tool in the world. In this post I outline the 6 Circles of Excel Hell ("Exc-Hell"), and how to avoid this hellscape by embracing purpose-built software tools.

Part 3 - I recently discovered a new serverless Database architecture called MongoDB Realm. I'm so excited about it that I'm doubling back and rewriting (or more accurately, removing) the backend for Pensify.

In celebration of the AFL grand final and Hacktoberfest, I've created pyAFL - an open-source Python library for collecting AFL player and match data. My aim with pyAFL is to make it easier for Pythonistas to get their hands on AFL data, and to be able to concentrate on the analytics.

Great content I've found this month.

This month picks are: i ) Visual Studio Code's Test Explorer, and ii) The Opinionated Guide to React by Sara Vieira

Great content I've found this month.

This month picks are: i ) my favourite book in ages ("Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), and ii) a fantastic (old) podcast with a refreshing (new) panel ("The Freelancer Show").

Part 2 - Now it's time to set up the backend and authentication system using Express.js and MongoDB! Today I'm aiming to build and deploy the backend in one day. This post really highlights the simplicity of the Express/MongoDB stack.

I often read or hear something that resonates with me and I don't want to forget; a quote or music lyric or thought-provoking factoid. In this hobby project, I will build a note-taking application to help me catalogue this content.

Each time I deploy a project it takes longer than it should. After all, it is the same process every time! This time I'm documenting all the steps along the way.

I've given myself one day to build the findram.dev site. I've documented my process along the way, including a heap of shortcuts, utilities and resources I lean on to kickstart and deploy my Django projects quickly.