Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Vim plugins for a complete and powerful PHP IDE

http://web-techno.net/vim-php-ide/
plugins to turn Vim into a PHP IDE

Decentralize your application with Google Cloud Platform

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/decentralize-your-application-with-google-cloud-platform-7149ec6d0255
Creating microservices in Google Cloud

A Javascript quirk that will catch you out

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/a-javascript-quirk-that-will-catch-you-out-7895dfbae657
In JavaScript object copy by Reference, not Value

A Response to REST is the new SOAP

https://philsturgeon.uk/api/2017/12/18/rest-confusion-explained/
Is REST the new SOAP? a critical look

How to Find a Niche in the WordPress Ecosystem

https://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-find-niche-in-wordpress-ecosystem/
Similar to finding a niche in any digital ecosystem.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

10 “Best of the Best” Growth Stocks to Buy for 2018

http://dailytradealert.com/2017/12/12/10-best-best-growth-stocks-buy-2018/
10 stocks for 2017

These 3 Funds Yield Over 7% and The Fed Just Made Them a “Buy”

http://dailytradealert.com/2017/11/25/3-funds-yield-7-fed-just-made-buy/
three short-term debt funds

Friday, December 15, 2017

Let’s evolve a neural network with a genetic algorithm—code included

https://blog.coast.ai/lets-evolve-a-neural-network-with-a-genetic-algorithm-code-included-8809bece164
Example of training neural net with genetic algorithm with code in Python. 

Atomic commits: Telling stories with Git

https://frederickvanbrabant.com/2017/12/07/atomic-commits.html
Atomic commits = Making LOTS of little commits in git.

Creating Your Own PHP Helpers in a Laravel Project

https://laravel-news.com/creating-helpers
Tutorial on creating helpers in Laravel.

SOLID Principles made easy

https://dev.to/dhurimkelmendi/solid-principles-made-easy-1pg
the classic SOLID principles explained. 

This Game Teaches You How to Build a Quantum Computer

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3jkya/quantum-game-physics-computer-puzzle
Educational, probably. Fun?

6 Decision-Making Techniques all Product Managers Should Know

https://builttoadapt.io/6-decision-making-techniques-all-product-managers-should-know-429fe4d13654
How to move things along.

How To Tell If An Industry Is Ripe For Disruption

https://medium.com/swlh/4-ways-to-tell-if-an-industry-is-ripe-for-disruption-b599f657c788
There are a couple of industries that hit all of these criteria. 

1.4 Billion Clear Text Credentials Discovered in a Single Database

https://medium.com/4iqdelvedeep/1-4-billion-clear-text-credentials-discovered-in-a-single-database-3131d0a1ae14
First of all, any systems should never store passwords in cleartext. Those that do, this happens.

Friday, December 8, 2017

A recap of front-end development in 2017

https://levelup.gitconnected.com/a-recap-of-front-end-development-in-2017-7072ce99e727
Current SOTA of front-end development as of the end of 2017

How we do Vue: one year later

https://about.gitlab.com/2017/11/09/gitlab-vue-one-year-later/
Recap of GitLab's first year of using Vue.js on the front end.

Blazing-fast static site generator for React

https://www.gatsbyjs.org/
Really odd: javascript to generate static websites from dynamic sources.

Comparative Audio Analysis With Wavenet, MFCCs, UMAP, t-SNE and PCA

https://medium.com/@LeonFedden/comparative-audio-analysis-with-wavenet-mfccs-umap-t-sne-and-pca-cb8237bfce2f
Is this article about audio? Encoding? Python? How about all of them. 

Google Academy for Ads

https://landing.google.com/academyforads/#?modal_active=none
Yet another iteration of Google Ad education. Hope it works and they stick with it.

There are 170,000 fewer retail jobs in 2017—and 75,000 more Amazon robots

https://qz.com/1107112/there-are-170000-fewer-retail-jobs-in-2017-and-75000-more-amazon-robots/
Is Amazon a destroyer of jobs? Not exactly. 

The secret to being a top developer is building things! Here’s a list of fun apps to build!

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-secret-to-being-a-top-developer-is-building-things-heres-a-list-of-fun-apps-to-build-aac61ac0736c
Good projects to hone your development skills.

React Native: Is It Worth It?

http://andydyer.org/blog/2017/11/27/react-native-is-it-worth-it/
React Native. Is it just a really fast way to develop really ugly apps?

Why CSS Grid is better than Bootstrap for creating layouts

https://hackernoon.com/how-css-grid-beats-bootstrap-85d5881cf163
Good take on why CSS Grids beat Bootstrap. The only problem is that Bootstrap's more than just a grid.

How Teams Get Microservices Wrong From the Start

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-teams-get-microservices-wrong-from-the-start-51777c99c059
Some common-sense approaches to microservices. No, it's not SOA.

Laravel 5.5 Facades Tutorial

https://appdividend.com/2017/12/02/laravel-5-5-facades-tutorial/
gentle introduction to facades in laravel.

x​Solver is a solver for engineering and scientific equations.

https://www.fxsolver.com/
common science and engineering equation solver

Friday, December 1, 2017

Interview with Luis Pabón: Creator of PHPDocker.io

https://www.shiphp.com/blog/2017/luis-pabon-phpdockerio
Interesting project to create a customized docker file for php projects. 

Debugging the dreaded "Class log does not exist" error in Laravel

https://sebastiandedeyne.com/posts/2017/debugging-the-dreaded-class-log-does-not-exist-error-in-laravel
How to debug Laravel if it dies before creating the log class. 

Happier HTML5 Form Validation

https://daverupert.com/2017/11/happier-html5-forms/
Technique for lightweight, simple client-side HTML5 form validation.

How to Refactor Your Legacy Code: A Decision Matrix

https://qafoo.com/blog/112_refactoring_matrix.html
When and If and How to refactor legacy code. 

23 Development Tools for Boosting Website Performance

https://www.sitepoint.com/23-development-tools-boosting-website-performance/
Not so much boosting as instrumenting so you know how to boost it. 

Why I love Vim: It’s the lesser-known features that make it so amazing

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/learn-linux-vim-basic-features-19134461ab85
Some lesser-known features of VIM. I've honestly never come across the tabs interface. 

Using Laravel and WordPress to build a fast and flexible API

https://www.adampatterson.ca/2017/building-an-api-using-laravel-and-wordpress-part-1/
Mixing Laravel for a REST API with a WordPress admin backend. First question: WHY?!?!

Podcast Guides: 26 of The Best Podcasting Resources

https://www.buzzsprout.com/blog/podcast-guides
Pretty good listicle on podcasting resources.

Thursday, November 23, 2017

The Best Animated Films of the 21st Century Ranked, From ‘Anomalisa’ to ‘Spirited Away’

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/11/best-animated-movies-21st-century-pixar-studio-ghibli-1201895863/
Many of these I've seen, some I haven't. Got some catching up to do.

State of GraphQL PHP libraries and Symfony integrations in 2017

https://symfony.fi/entry/state-of-graphql-php-libraries-and-symfony-integrations-in-2017
There are currently two usable GraphQL libraries for PHP.

Gates and Policies in Laravel

https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/gates-and-policies-in-laravel--cms-29780
How to handle user permissions in Laravel.

PHP Tutorials

https://www.cybrhome.com/topic/php-tutorials
Some of the better online PHP tutorials around. 

19 Things About Life You Should Know Before You Turn 29

https://medium.com/personal-growth/19-things-about-life-you-should-know-before-you-turn-29-40997347a6a1
Good life advice for those just starting out.

Alibaba’s AI Fashion Consultant Helps Achieve Record-Setting Sales

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609452/alibabas-ai-fashion-consultant-helps-achieve-record-setting-sales/
Interesting application of AI to hybrid ecommerce and brick-and-mortar stores. 

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Friday, October 27, 2017

Conditional Operators in PHP

https://www.shiphp.com/blog/2017/php-conditional-operators
PHP conditionals, from the basics to the new Null Coalesce operator in PHP7. 

Injectables vs. Newables

https://qafoo.com/blog/111_injectables_newables.html
One of the more cogent explanations of Injectibles vs. Newables in PHP I've ever read.

How to connect ELK with Monolog

https://pehapkari.cz/blog/2017/10/22/connecting-monolog-with-ELK/
Interesting case study of sending logging events from Monolog to an ELK stack, using RabbitMQ in the middle so as not to lose anything. 

15 Interesting JavaScript and CSS Libraries for October 2017

https://tutorialzine.com/2017/10/15-interesting-javascript-and-css-libraries-for-october-2017
Draggable from the Shopify folks looks particularly interesting.

Getting Started With GraphQL

https://tutorialzine.com/2017/10/getting-started-with-graphql
Compendium of GraphQL tutorials from beginner through..

R tutorial: Learn to crunch big data with R

https://www.infoworld.com/article/3233263/application-development/r-tutorial-learn-to-crunch-big-data-with-r.html?nsdr=true
High-level, not step-by-step tutorial for R.

Managing from Afar: How to Run a Remote Team

https://zapier.com/blog/remote-team-management/
From the folks at zapier it boils down to team, tools, and process.

Introduction to web scraping with Python

https://datawhatnow.com/introduction-web-scraping-python/
letting lxml package do the heavy lifting.

Why Bitcoin Matters More Than Blockchain

https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankelly/2017/10/24/why-bitcoin-matters-more-than-blockchain/#687debaf37ac
Interesting thesis: what email did to the post office, and amazon did to retail, so bitcoin will do to banks.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

The beauty of Go

https://hackernoon.com/the-beauty-of-go-98057e3f0a7d
A good case made for the Go language

7 Critical Mistakes That Can Kill Your Business

https://medium.com/@IrrfanAk/7-critical-mistakes-that-can-kill-your-business-4aab4cce882e
Some interesting takes here, like not being a solopreneur. 


Play This Paperclip Manufacturing Game, It's Your Life Now

http://digg.com/2017/paperclip-game
I'm not much of a gamer, but this looks interesting


Eloquent Relationships Cheat Sheet

https://hackernoon.com/eloquent-relationships-cheat-sheet-5155498c209
Eloquent ORM relationships illustrated and implemented. 

Event-Driven Architecture

https://herbertograca.com/2017/10/05/event-driven-architecture/
When to use event-driven architecture. Just as important: when NOT to. 

Style Guide

https://vuejs.org/v2/style-guide/
Official, well, beta anyway, style guide for Vue.js

15 Essential Packages For Extending Laravel

https://tutorialzine.com/2017/10/15-essential-packages-for-extending-laravel
Don't know about essential, but they're good Laravel Packages.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

The Cheapest, Easiest, Most Painful Way To Improve Your Podcast

https://www.asceticproductions.com/easily-improve-podcast/
best way to improve your podcast? Actually listen to yourself!

Laravel and Twilio: Group Video Chat

https://www.twilio.com/blog/2017/09/laravel-and-twilio-group-video-chat.html
Video chat with Laravel and Twilio

An Introduction to Generators in PHP

http://blog.kelunik.com/2017/09/14/an-introduction-to-generators-in-php.html
I've bumped into generators before, but never really used them.

Build a Slack chatbot in Laravel with BotMan Studio 2.0

http://christoph-rumpel.com/2017/09/build-a-slack-chattbot-with-laravel-and-botman-studio/
implementing a slack chatbot in laravel

Measure Anything in Laravel with StatsD

https://laravel-news.com/measure-anything-laravel-statsd
how to instrument and profile laravel apps using StatsD

SMS admin in 8 lines of code

https://jason.pureconcepts.net/2017/09/nexmo-sms-admin-laravel/
adding SMS to laravel

Goodbye controllers, hello request handlers

https://jenssegers.com/85/goodbye-controllers-hello-request-handlers
interesting take on the evolution of the MVC pattern.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Open Source Security Secure networks start here.

https://www.pfsense.org/
PfSense seems to be one of the leading open source firewalls 

Check your PHP project for known security issues!

https://security.sensiolabs.org/
Checks your composer libraries for known bugs. 

PHPMD - PHP Mess Detector

https://phpmd.org/
A php mess detector. Interesting. 


My Simple Approach to using Docker and PHP

https://bitpress.io/simple-approach-using-docker-with-php/
Start-from-scratch setup of PHP development environment with Docker. 

The Best PHP Books 2017 and 2016

https://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/567-The-Best-PHP-Books-of-the-Year.html
I'm often asked for good PHP books. Here's a good a list as any. 

From PHP to JavaScript with Node.js

https://blog.matters.tech/migrating-from-php-to-javascript-with-node-js-155534498b58
Some tools and techniques for moving from php to JavaScript with Node.js

What the Commission found out about copyright infringement but ‘forgot’ to tell us

https://juliareda.eu/2017/09/secret-copyright-infringement-study/
EU report says piracy has almost no effect on copyright sales.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Setting up containers with systemd-nspawn

https://blog.mekansm.de/2017/09/16/setting-up-containers-with-systemd-nspawn/
systemd might actually be useful for something

Our nonprofit needed a cheaper way to send email blasts. So we engineered one.

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/our-nonprofit-needed-a-cheaper-way-to-send-email-blasts-so-we-engineered-one-167322e3f28e
Open source email frontend to AWS SES

This Morning Routine will Save You 20+ Hours Per Week

https://medium.com/@benjaminhardy/this-morning-routine-will-save-you-20-hours-per-week-a05c68b8e73c
do more through shorter periods of higher focus

Opshell: DevOps Shell

https://blog.opszero.com/opshell-devops-shell-252acfef4aa
review and intro to the DevOps shell.

10 Tips to Get the Most out of Apple Notes on OS X

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-tips-get-apple-notes-os-x/
using apple notes. I've used evernote for a while, but might have to move

KXStudio is a collection of applications and plugins for professional audio production.

http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/
KXStudio is a collection of applications and plugins for professional audio production.

Saturday, September 16, 2017

4 Recording Packages to Get Started with Home Recording

https://yhomerecording.blogspot.com/2017/01/4-recording-packages-to-get-started.html?m=1
basic podcasting equipment packages

The Newest Generation of Entrepreneurs? Podcasters

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/299980
entrepreneurship and podcasting

Scaling on AWS (Part 1): A Primer

https://medium.com/aws-activate-startup-blog/scaling-on-aws-part-1-a-primer-dbf1276ded5a
Basics of AWS Scaling, mostly EC2.

13 Headless CMSs to Put on Your Radar

http://www.cmswire.com/web-cms/13-headless-cmss-to-put-on-your-radar/
Is the future of CMSs headless, serverless or both?

3 Linux Smartphone Operating Systems You Can Install Today

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-smartphone-operating-systems/
3 versions of Linux that run on android platforms.

Free Photos, Vectors, Icons, Fonts and Videos

https://www.stockio.com/
Source for CC0 licensed artwork and photos

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

The 50 best free online university courses according to data

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-50-best-free-online-university-courses-according-to-data-deb6fe34ef30
According to reviews, the best free online courses. 

Autonomous Cars: The Level 5 Fallacy

https://mondaynote.com/autonomous-cars-the-level-5-fallacy-247ae9614e14
Is the true Level-5 autonomous car really around the corner?

The Economy

http://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/0-3-contents.html
Open-sourced? Economics textbook. 

Yes, Some Questions Are Better Than Others

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/09/11/550151190/yes-some-questions-are-better-than-others
A bit vague, but still the point is we need to learn to ask good questions. 

Ruthless Optimization, Part 2: The Tools and Workflow We Use to Produce Zengineering Podcast (and Also Have Full-time Jobs.)

https://zengineeringpodcast.com/ruthless-optimization-part-2-the-tools-and-workflow-we-use-to-produce-zengineering-podcast-and-6fb85ceeb042
Some gritty nuts-and-bolts of podcast production. 

For the love of God, please tell me what your company does

https://hackernoon.com/for-the-love-of-god-please-tell-me-what-your-company-does-c2f0b835ab92
My feelings exactly. 

Saturday, September 9, 2017

The Rule of 40% For a Healthy SaaS Company

https://feld.com/archives/2015/02/rule-40-healthy-saas-company.html
Interesting metric for SaaS companies: the 40% rule.

Burn Rate 101 for Startups: A 15-Min Introduction

https://medium.com/swlh/burn-rate-101-for-startups-a-15-min-introduction-6755936efc88
Burn rate and runway: finances for startups.

The College That Produces Founders at 5 Times the Rate of Stanford

https://blog.ledwards.com/the-college-that-produces-founders-at-3-times-the-rate-of-stanford-2c53ea44f91e
Want to be an entrepreneur? Consider this tiny college.

WHERE TO FIND A REMOTE JOB THAT LETS YOU WORK ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

https://www.austingrandt.com/writing/where-find-remote-job-lets-you-work-anywhere-world/
Online resources to find remote work.

5 Things You Should Know Before Update To Joomla 3.8

https://www.themexpert.com/blog/joomla-38-update
The new router finally appears in Joomla starting ing 3.8

Monday, September 4, 2017

Flat UI Elements Attract Less Attention and Cause Uncertainty

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-ui-less-attention-cause-uncertainty/
Flat UI elements are all the rage now, but don't make them too flat.

Isaac Newton’s Principia

http://www.kroneckerwallis.com/product/isaac-newtons-principia/
Beautiful edition of Newton's Principia Mathematica

The Last Auto Mechanic

https://medium.com/@tomprice_22461/the-last-auto-mechanic-841adec75498
Has the last auto mechanic been born?

Peaked?

https://m.signalvnoise.com/peaked-78ec0b147aeb
It the notion of being more productive early in life a myth? It may have more to do with volume than inspiration.

Build amazing iOS and Android apps with technology you already know

https://www.nativescript.org/
Interesting twist on cross-platform mobile development via javascript, not cordova. 

Friday, August 18, 2017

Behind-the-Scenes: How We’re Automating Acceptance Testing

https://deliciousbrains.com/how-were-automating-acceptance-testing/
Automating acceptance tests with Docker and scripts. 

Application logic done right

http://www.marco-bunge.com/2017/08/05/application-logic-done-right/
Different than the MVC pattern, inspired by Domain-driven design.

SEO Guide for Blogs, Business and eCommerce Websites in 2017

https://www.fmeextensions.com/blog/seo-guide-business-ecommerce-websites-2017/
Good basics of SEO for blogs, and especially e-commerce websites. 

Vali Admin A free, modular and easy to customize dashboard theme built using Bootstrap, SASS and Pug JS.

http://pratikborsadiya.in/blog/vali-admin/
Interesting dashboard built on Bootstrap and other JS components. 

TensorFire runs neural networks in the browser using WebGL.

https://tenso.rs/
How many layers deep are we? This runs neural networks in the browser using WebGL. 

SVG can do THAT?!

http://slides.com/sdrasner/svg-can-do-that#/
Nice examples of SVG files, animations and effects.

Friday, August 11, 2017

A high performance, open-source universal RPC framework

https://grpc.io/
REST and GraphQL are all the rage, but there's still some use for RPC out there. 

A tool to automatically rerun PHPUnit tests when source code changes

https://murze.be/2017/08/tool-automatically-rerun-phpunit-tests-source-code-changes/
An automated testing tool to re-run PHPunit tests when the source code changes. 

Generate Pdfs With Google Chrome on a Forge Provisioned Server

https://sebastiandedeyne.com/posts/2017/generate-pdfs-with-google-chrome-on-a-forge-provisioned-server
Google Chrome browser as cli webpage-to-pdf converver

Open ZFS vs. Btrfs… and every other file system for that matter

https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/open-zfs-vs-btrfs/
The ecosystem around high performance open source file systems: OpenZFS in particular. 

First steps with Laravel and Continuous Delivery

https://buddy.works/guides/first-steps-with-laravel-and-continuous-delivery
Hints on setting up tooling for CI/CD and Laravel. 

The Surprising Statistics About Online Shopping 2017 [Infographic]

https://www.fmeextensions.com/blog/online-shopping-statistics-infographic/
Infographic about online shopping, but not too surprising. 

Investors poured millions into a storage network that doesn’t exist yet

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/08/investors-poured-millions-into-a-storage-network-that-doesnt-exist/
A blockchain-based file storage system? ok, but who's going to pay for the proof-of-work? 

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Aussie brothers raise $9m for training startup A Cloud Guru after less than two years Read more: http://www.afr.com/technology/aussie-brothers-raise-9m-for-training-startup-a-cloud-guru-after-less-than-two-years-20170725-gxi2g1#ixzz4ob76z3F0 Follow us: @FinancialReview on Twitter | financialreview on Facebook

http://www.afr.com/technology/aussie-brothers-raise-9m-for-training-startup-a-cloud-guru-after-less-than-two-years-20170725-gxi2g1
I've loved the ACloudGuru tutorials for a year now. The owners get $9M in funding to expand. Will the regret it?

Citrix brings virtual desktops and more to Google Cloud

https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/20/citrix-brings-virtual-desktops-and-more-to-google-cloud/
Google cloud brings virtual desktops via Citrix.

How to Stop a DDoS Attack in Its Tracks (Case Study)

https://kinsta.com/blog/ddos-attack/
Case study on how to mitigate a DDoS attack on a WordPress site.

OPTIMIZE YOUR KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN ... based on data of thousands of successful crowdfunding campaigns Project name or URL

https://predictify.co/
Add-on to Kickstarter that claims to use BigData to help a campaign succeed.

Bitcoin splits in two amid feud

https://www.cnet.com/news/bitcoin-cash-splits-in-two-in-blockchain-feud/
The ongoing Bitcoin feud finally boils over into a hard work into BitCoin Cash. But will people use it?

Hackers can turn Amazon Echo into a covert listening device

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2017/08/01/amazon-echo-covert-listening/
Hackers demonstrate taking of Amazon Echo. If they have physical access.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Hacker Steals $8.4 Million Worth of Ethereum From Veritaseum Platform

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hacker-steals-8-4-million-worth-of-ethereum-from-veritaseum-platform/
"the amount stolen was miniscule"

Marcus Aurelius: How to Think Clearly

https://medium.com/personal-growth/marcus-aurelius-how-to-think-clearly-c7f76026fb6
This Roman emperor knew how to think: 

Rest APIs are REST-in-Peace APIs. Long Live GraphQL

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/rest-apis-are-rest-in-peace-apis-long-live-graphql-d412e559d8e4
Yes GraphQL is wonderful, if you can implement it on the server side. 

Top 3 UI Techniques That Users Hate Most

https://uxplanet.org/top-3-most-hateful-ui-techniques-b81eb337e3b9
3 UI/UX things that users hate most: 

A computer was asked to predict which start-ups would be successful. The results were astonishing

https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/a-computer-was-asked-to-predict-which-start-ups-would-be-successful-the-results-were-astonishing-7840b73af4b
Title's a bit misleading, but results are an interesting list of startups.

Introducing Laravel Horizon

https://laravel-news.com/introducing-laravel-horizon
Laravel Horizon to manage queues.

Lambo "config" and "after" scripts for even better quick Laravel app creation

https://mattstauffer.co/blog/lambo-config-and-after-scripts-for-even-better-laravel-app-creation
Lambo: for easier Laravel setup

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Hackers compromised smart fish tank at casino

https://boingboing.net/2017/07/20/hackers-compromised-smart-fish.html
Hackers break into smart aquarium at casino and from there jump into internal network.

Soundcloud’s Fatal Mistake

https://medium.com/@decktonic/soundclouds-fatal-mistake-6c5bad763ab1
A history of SoundCloud's death spiral from a former Pro user.

Understanding the MVC pattern in Django

https://medium.com/shecodeafrica/understanding-the-mvc-pattern-in-django-edda05b9f43f
The MVC pattern in Django explained.

How to Find Your Open Source Goldilocks Zone

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/searching-for-your-goldilocks-issue-f23b3a718de
Solid advice on how to contribute to Open Source projects.

Monitoring and application analytics. Built specifically for Laravel.

https://eyewitness.io/
Laravel add-on for monitoring and analytics

Email Design Trends of 2017 (so far)

https://explore.reallygoodemails.com/2017-email-design-trends-5911f819e7b2
Strange design trends for email. Good design or just bandwagoning?

Friday, July 21, 2017

Micro frontends—a microservice approach to front-end web development

https://medium.com/@tomsoderlund/micro-frontends-a-microservice-approach-to-front-end-web-development-f325ebdadc16
Somewhat mis-named micro front-ends and the shared event bus. 

Bootstrap to CSS Grid

https://medium.com/@tallys/bootstrap-to-css-grid-87b3f5f830e4
Moving from Bootstrap to CSS grid. The why and wherefore.

How I used machine learning as inspiration for physical paintings

https://artplusmarketing.com/digital-processes-inspiring-analog-paintings-a358eb7801a0
Interesting way of making art via machine learning. 

A hacker stole $31M of Ether — how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/a-hacker-stole-31m-of-ether-how-it-happened-and-what-it-means-for-ethereum-9e5dc29e33ce
Hacker steals $31M of ethereum. Good-guys steal more. 

Server Admin for Programmers

https://serversforhackers.com/
A step toward devops: teaching developers about servers. 

10 Best CRM & Project Management PHP Scripts

https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/10-best-crm-project-management-php-scripts--cms-28943
Good project management tools written in PHP, mostly for freelancers, none opensource. 

9 cutting-edge programming languages worth learning now

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2840235/application-development/9-cutting-edge-programming-languages-worth-learning-next.html
A group of up-and-coming programming languages. Kotlin and Go look interesting. 


Friday, July 14, 2017

5 ways to deploy PHP applications

https://buddy.works/guides/5-ways-to-deploy-php-applications
Various ways to build and deploy PHP code. We use #3.

Easily optimize images using PHP (and some binaries)

https://murze.be/2017/07/easily-optimize-images-using-php-binaries/
How to integrate image optimization tools into PHP projects (including Laravel)

How to Analyze Tweet Sentiments with PHP Machine Learning

https://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-analyze-tweet-sentiments-with-php-machine-learning/
Yes, Python's the go-to language for machine learning, but it's still possible with PHP. 

Top 10 Magento Extensions that Every Magento Store Needs

https://www.fmeextensions.com/blog/top-10-magento-extensions-for-your-store/
Magento's great, but here are some good add-ons, mostly for the user side.

Automated Testing: 6 Open-Source Laravel Projects

http://laraveldaily.com/automated-testing-6-open-source-laravel-projects/
Tools to help with automated testing of Laravel projects. 

HTTP Tools Roundup

https://lornajane.net/posts/2017/http-tools-roundup
In an increasingly API-centric world, you need ways to interact with HTTP. Here are a handful. Postman is my favorite.

Friday, July 7, 2017

Easily convert webpages to images using PHP

https://murze.be/2017/07/easily-covert-webpages-to-images-using-php/
Interesting tutorial on using PHP to capture a web page image going through a headless Chrome browser. 

Build A Simple Chat With ReactPHP Socket: Server

http://seregazhuk.github.io/2017/06/22/reactphp-chat-server/
Example of using the ReactPHP library to build a chat server. 

8 Must Have PHP Quality Assurance Tools

https://www.sitepoint.com/8-must-have-php-quality-assurance-tools/
PHP QA and CI tools. 

What I Learned From Researching Coding Bootcamps

https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior/what-i-learned-from-researching-coding-bootcamps-f594c15bd9e0
Some take-aways on how coding bootcamps are set up and run.

7 Jeff Bezos Quotes That Outline the Secret to Success

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/7-jeff-bezos-quotes-that-will-make-you-rethink-success.html
7 quotes from jeff bezos. not too snappy, but they reveal his mindset.

bserving and Photographing the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse

http://www.astropix.com/html/i_astrop/2017_eclipse/Eclipse_2017.html
info on the 2017 solar eclipse

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Strange Noise in Gravitational-Wave Data Sparks Debate

https://www.quantamagazine.org/strange-noise-in-gravitational-wave-data-sparks-debate-20170630/
LIGO's gravity wave discovery may have some issues with strange noise.

Make your Laravel App Fly with PHP OPcache

https://medium.com/appstract/make-your-laravel-app-fly-with-php-opcache-9948db2a5f93
how to enable and tune opcache for your laravel install

cinesift: the movie rating site

https://www.cinesift.com/
a movie meta-rating site that pulls in ratings from IMDB, RT, etc.

The Ultimate Collection of Google Font Pairings (Displayed Beautifully with Classic Art)

https://www.reliablepsd.com/ultimate-google-font-pairings/
Beautiful design examples of nicely-paired google fonts. 

Bitmovin Supports AV1 Encoding for VoD and Live and Joins the Alliance for Open Media

https://bitmovin.com/bitmovin-supports-av1-encoding-vod-live-joins-alliance-open-media/
Will anything come of the new AV1 video encoding efforts? 

You’re doing your weekend wrong

https://qz.com/1012585/the-best-weekend-activities-are-most-likely-not-the-ones-youre-currently-doing/
The best weekend activities are... active! 

Friday, June 30, 2017

A Beginner's Guide To Ethereum, The Next Bitcoin

http://digg.com/2017/what-is-ethereum
Introduction to Ethereum, and why it's more than a BitCoin clone. 

Kinetica raises $50 million to provide GPU-powered data insights

https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/29/kinetica-raises-50-million-to-provide-gpu-powered-data-insights/
Machine learning and GPU startup raises $50M

Fighting for jobs in America’s former ‘Sock Capital of the World’

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fighting-jobs-americas-former-sock-capital-world-heesun-wee
Having grown up in "the clothing center of the South", this article hits close to home. 

Linus Torvalds Explains How Linux Still Surprises and Motivates Him

https://www.linux.com/blog/event/lc3-china/20176/6/linus-torvalds-explains-how-linux-still-surprises-and-motivates-him
General interview with Linus about Linux, community and the surprising popularity of git. 

‘I’m a Bitcoin Millionaire’

https://melmagazine.com/im-a-bitcoin-millionaire-2672ca1d1ab7
Interview with a self-proclaimed bitcon millionaire. About what you'd expect: bought early and mined. 

Friday, June 23, 2017

What Would Happen If You Never Used An Alarm Clock?

http://digg.com/2017/never-use-alarm-clock
I don't generally use an alarm clock. Good to hear I'm doing the right thing. 

What Is Snapshot Testing, and Is It Viable in PHP?

https://www.sitepoint.com/snapshot-testing-viable-php/
Interesting take on testing: Snapshot testing, borrowed from the React world. 

Chiropractors are bullshit

https://theoutline.com/post/1617/chiropractors-are-bullshit
Apparently, I'm not the only one with a dim view of Chiropractors.

Laravel Bootstrap Components

https://medium.com/appstract/laravel-bootstrap-components-9b6e9a259a9e
Library to make it easy to use Bootstrap components with Laravel. 

PHP 5.6 Vs PHP 7 – Performance Benchmarks With Laravel 5

https://www.cloudways.com/blog/laravel-5-benchmarks-php-5-6-and-7/
As if enough benchmarks between PHP 5 and PHP 7 haven't been run, another with Laravel. 

Deploying your PHP / apache webapp in under a minute with Hasura

https://blog.hasura.io/deploying-your-php-apache-webapp-in-under-a-minute-with-hasura-16b8d5212117
Sorta like Heroku, we'll see how it runs. 

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Plugable Digital USB Microscope with Observation Stand

http://plugable.com/products/usb2-micro-250x/#drivers
home page for the plugable digital microscope

The NSA has open-sourced dozens of security tools

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/the-nsa-has-open-sourced-dozens-of-security-tools-7af99cfe422
OpenSource NSA security tools. I like the Raspberry PI VPN. 

Drop jQuery From Your Bootstrap Project (and Replace it With Vue.js!)

https://dzone.com/articles/drop-jquery-from-your-bootstrap-project-and-replac
Nice intro to replacing JQuery with Vue.js Bootstrap. 

A tiny requestAnimationFrame powered 60+fps lightweight parallax hover tilt effect for jQuery.

http://gijsroge.github.io/tilt.js/
Nice tilt package for JQuery. I may use this in my next class.

How do you draw a circle? We analyzed 100,000 drawings to show how culture shapes our instincts

https://qz.com/994486/the-way-you-draw-circles-says-a-lot-about-you/
Drawing basic shapes and how culture relates, though it may be more about written language. 

The Myth of 'I'm Bad at Math'

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/the-myth-of-im-bad-at-math/280914/
Basic competency in math is more about work than natural ability. Surprise!


Thursday, June 15, 2017

First-of-its-kind trial goes plaintiff's way; Winn-Dixie ordered to update website for the blind

http://legalnewsline.com/stories/511127037-first-of-its-kind-trial-goes-plaintiff-s-way-winn-dixie-ordered-to-update-website-for-the-blind
How far does the Americans with Disabilities Act go? Ecommerce sites? Ask Winn-Dixie? 

Podcast Statistics 2017: Will Android Continue To Gain Market Share While Apple Slips?

https://powerpresspodcast.com/2017/06/14/podcast-statistics-ns-2017/
What type of devices do people listen to podcasts on? Some historical perspective.

Who is the Warren Buffett of the Meme Economy?

https://priceonomics.com/who-is-the-warren-buffett-of-the-meme-economy/
Interesting market simulation using memes. 

10 Best PHP URL Shortener Scripts

https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/10-best-php-url-shortener-scripts--cms-28675
Collection of good URL shortners written in PHP. Most I've never heard of. 

Family CRMs, Guzzle Wrappers and PHP Machine Learning? Sourcehunt!

https://www.sitepoint.com/family-crms-guzzle-wrappers-php-machine-learning/
Mixed-bag of PHP open source tools: machine learning, guzzle wrapper, CRM, etc.

Five Tips to Improve Your Unit Testing

https://qafoo.com/blog/105_five_tips_improve_unit_testing.html
Tips to improve unit testing.  Language-agnostic read.

Developing a CI Process for Laravel with Codeship and Forge

https://laravel-news.com/ci-process-codeship-forge
How to set up a CI process for laravel with Codeship and laravel forge. 

Read and write Google Sheets from PHP

http://www.phillipshipley.com/2017/05/read-and-write-google-sheets-from-php/
Read and write Google Sheets via PHP

Here's How Much Businesses Pay To Get On Those Big Blue Exit Signs

http://jalopnik.com/heres-how-much-businesses-pay-to-get-on-those-big-blue-1795338950
How much does it cost businesses to be on the blue exit signs? About $1k per year? 

Up and running exakat in 15 mins

https://www.exakat.io/up-and-running-with-exakat/
Static PHP code analysis via Exakat. Shame that it uses Java, though. 

JSON feed: fail

http://cweiske.de/tagebuch/jsonfeed.htm
The technical failings of the new JSON feed proposal.

The Laravel platform CMS

https://pyrocms.com/
CMS built on top of Laravel. 

Sunday, June 11, 2017

How Dropbox, Airbnb, Groupon And Others Acquired Their First Users.

https://medium.com/@SoldOutSupplier/how-dropbox-airbnb-groupon-and-others-acquired-their-first-users-ae9fd6372e0d
How dropbox, quora, reddit, groupon, etc got their first customers. 

Your Ultimate Guide for Learning Any Skill Faster and Better

https://themission.co/your-ultimate-guide-for-learning-anything-faster-and-better-abceb81327b8
Hints on learning anything better: Focus and take notes? 

104 Facts You Don’t Know About Mobile Marketing

https://websitebuilder.org/resources/104-facts-you-dont-know-about-mobile-marketing/
Not sure about the count, but an infographic about mobile marketing. Hint: tough to convert. 

Mezzanine is a powerful, consistent, and flexible content management platform.

http://mezzanine.jupo.org/
Open Source CMS built in Python Django. Like the MIT license.

The Best Website Builders in the Market 2017

https://websitebuilder.org/
Review site for the point-and-click website builders out there. 

How to scrape websites with Python and BeautifulSoup

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/how-to-scrape-websites-with-python-and-beautifulsoup-5946935d93fe
Cool Python library to scrape websites. 

Friday, June 9, 2017

Malware Uses Obscure Intel CPU Feature to Steal Data and Avoid Firewalls

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malware-uses-obscure-intel-cpu-feature-to-steal-data-and-avoid-firewalls/
Really sophisticated attack on Intel chipsets: Serial over Lan?!?

Websites built by freelance developers are plagued with security failures

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2017/06/08/website-security/
From the no-surprise-here department: hiring a cut-rate web developer yields apps with major security issues. 

The Impossible Mathematics of the Real World

http://nautil.us/issue/49/the-absurd/the-impossible-mathematics-of-the-real-world
Interesting take on the so-close-but-not-quite problems in math. 

Marketing Made Simple Maximizing open rates automatically with Artificial Intelligence, Hyper-personalization, Predictive analysis for email, SMS, Web Push, SMTP

https://sendpulse.com/
Representative of what I'll call "3rd generation" bulk email providers: SMS, email, push, etc. 

What is the best bulk email sender for mass emails?

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-bulk-email-sender-for-mass-emails
Quora discussion of best mass email providers. A couple being mentioned do indeed look like 3rd gen providers. 

Sunday, May 28, 2017

what's up with css?

https://medium.com/@vyaron/there-is-an-amazing-raise-in-web-technologies-usage-and-good-frontend-developers-are-one-of-the-c80dda82ed8f
a handful of useful CSS tutorials. 

Thoughts on Tokens

https://medium.com/@balajis/thoughts-on-tokens-436109aabcbe
Cryptocurrency coins are now generically known as tokens. Here's some current perspective. 

Are solar and wind really killing coal, nuclear and grid reliability?

https://theconversation.com/are-solar-and-wind-really-killing-coal-nuclear-and-grid-reliability-76741
The shifting landscape of energy production. It's not just renewals that are killing coal. 


7 Lessons From 100+ Failed Startups

https://thinkgrowth.org/7-lessons-from-100-failed-startups-2db31984867a
Great lessons from failed startups. hint: there's gotta be a market. 

1 things I learned reading the flexbox spec

https://medium.com/@david.gilbertson/11-things-i-learned-reading-the-flexbox-spec-5f0c799c776b
Good perspective and hints on Flexbox CSS.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

22 Books That Expand Your Mind and Change The Way You Live

https://medium.com/art-of-practicality/22-books-that-expand-your-mind-and-change-the-way-you-live-47da380eaf3d
Another list of must-read books. Such generally say more about the article writer. 


The steady rise of GraphQL

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/the-steady-rise-of-graphql-27b14e938164
Github says their next-gen API will use GraphQL. 

Why you should totally switch to Kotlin

https://medium.com/@magnus.chatt/why-you-should-totally-switch-to-kotlin-c7bbde9e10d5
Enthusiastic piece about the features of Kotlin. We'll see if an ecosystem evolves for it. 

A Primer on IOTA (with Presentation)

https://blog.iota.org/a-primer-on-iota-with-presentation-e0a6eb2cc621
Interesting blockchain-inspired software to record transactions from the IoT on the cheap. 

Find and Connect to the World’s Top APIs.

https://rapidapi.com/
Mashable's API marketplace has been absorbed by RapidAPI. Good. Never liked Mashable. 

Ethereum Could Be Worth More Than Bitcoin Very Soon

https://www.inc.com/brian-d-evans/ethereum-ether-could-be-worth-more-than-bitcoin-very-soon.html
Ethereum doesn't have BitCoin's political infighting or technological bottlenecks, so it's gaining ground fast. 

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Friday, May 5, 2017

Dear Writer,

https://medium.com/personal-growth/dear-writer-773ebd74cdfb
Is the whole "content-marketing" thing taking writing in the wrong direction?

Introducing Bootstrap Studio A powerful desktop app for creating responsive websites using the Bootstrap framework.

https://bootstrapstudio.io/
Yet another Bootstrap editor. Not free, but reasonably-priced. 

Weex - a framework for cross-platform mobile UIs

https://weex.apache.org/
Certainly the best-looking website I've seen for an Apache project. An interesting take on cross-platform apps. 

Lightweight UI components for Vue.js based on Bulma

https://buefy.github.io/#/
Bulma meets Vue.js in this framework. 

Bulma A modern CSS framework based on Flexbox

http://bulma.io/
Interesting CSS framework built on Flexbox. 

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

How to build your own Alzheimer’s light treatment relay with Arduino/Espruino

https://blog.cinqmarsmedia.com/alzheimers-52aabbfbdbfd
Can flashing lights ward off Alzheimers? Try this arduino project and see. 

5 Keys to IoT Product Development

https://iot-for-all.com/5-keys-to-iot-product-development-10a2a71f236e
Some from-the-trenches lessons on IoT products. No, you can't count on Wi-Fi. 

You Should Learn Functional Programming in 2017

http://coderoncode.com/functional-programming/2017/04/23/you-should-learn-functional-programming-in-2017.html
Interesting piece on why functional programming is coming into its own. I agree with many points. 

loopy, a tool for thinking in systems

http://ncase.me/loopy/
interesting, fun little visual feedback simulation tool. 

Kint - a modern and powerful PHP debugging helper

https://kint-php.github.io/kint/
Knit is a PHP debugger not as powerful as Xdebug or hard to set up, but better than print_r()

PHPDocker.io is a tool that will help you build a typical PHP development environment based on Docker

https://phpdocker.io/
PHPDocker, a project to help get a Docker running PHP up and running quickly.

Introduction to Elixir

http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html
Introduction to the functional programming language Elixir

Friday, April 21, 2017

Analyze your site’s speed and make it faster.

https://gtmetrix.com/
Site to analyze website speed. Mine come in about 83%. 

PHP-FPM

https://wiki.apache.org/httpd/PHP-FPM
Ugly site about great software: speeding up PHP via PHP-FPM. 

A Vue.js introduction for people who know just enough jQuery to get by

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/vue-js-introduction-for-people-who-know-just-enough-jquery-to-get-by-eab5aa193d77
Good tutorial on transitioning from JQuery to Vue. 

10 Excellent Pieces of Expert Advice for Entrepreneurs from VCs

https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/10-excellent-pieces-of-expert-advice-for-entrepreneurs-from-vcs-8c000895940a
What VCs look for in startups. 

Functional Programming is taking over UIs with Pure Views.

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/the-revolution-of-pure-views-aed339db7da4
At last front-end programming seems to be going in a sane direction with Functional programming and Pure Views.