Blog Posts

Big Returns from Small Automations

"Save a dollar" takes on a different meaning when you're doing so ten thousand times a year; after all, time is money. You can get massive productivity gains through automation, no matter your business – yes, even yours!


5 Web Frameworks to Watch in 2020

Whether you're a starry-eyed novice developer or a grizzled code guru, odds are that your future projects will be built using an existing framework. Now that the new millennium has turned twenty, what web frameworks are the most exciting? Here are our top picks.


Getting to No with Guesstimates

The client may know what they want, but they might not know what's reasonable (or even possible). Here are a few quick tricks to determine whether something's doable before the client meeting has even ended.


Introduction To Web Scraping

From making sure your site is up to date, to remixing data, monitoring your bank account or keeping an eye on your competitors, web scraping can help automate many online tasks. This post is an introduction to web scraping to give you an idea of what it can do as well as some ideas for possible uses.


Browser Screenshot Microservice for AWS Lambda

Sometimes writing software can be frustrating, especially when you're trying to build something that should be simple but there are just endless roadblocks in the way. I'm releasing an open-source, batteries-included browser screenshot microservice designed to run on AWS Lambda. It does one thing, and it "just works".


The State of Django in 2020

Django has been around since 2007, is it still relevant today? We look at the state of Django in 2020.


When All You Have is a Hammer

When choosing the technology tool to solve the problem, are you fully considering the solution? Or just hitting every screw, bolt and rivet with the same hammer?


Lessons from PostgreSQL at Scale

When scaling PostgreSQL to billions of rows, what hurdles are there? Here's some lessons from using PostgreSQL with AWS Aurora at this scale.


A Big Data Case Study (or, When To Stop Developing)

A short case study about choosing the right approach to data analysis. How much technology is too much?


Fun With Python Enums

Enums aren't new to Python, having been around since 2014. They still aren't being used very much though, but they can help cut down code and make it more readable. This post gives a brief introduction to Python Enums and a couple of interesting use cases.