Jackdaw's Nest

AWS Elastic Beanstalk: First Impressions

  • 2016-11-30

I've been building my first app in AWS Elastic Beanstalk. There's a lot to like in this platform.

There's a learning curve when you setup the system, but once you're done everything seems to be working smoothly. Deployments are easy from command line and I haven't had any problems so far.

Here's the things that I like the most:

  • Easy to set up a separate web tier and a background worker tier
  • Possible to use your own custom server AMI (I needed some custom binaries for image processing)
  • Nice web based console for setting things up

I'm still learning and I'm probably not utilizing the full potential of Elastic Beanstalk.

Telegraph by Telegram

  • 2016-11-24

Telegram, the company known for their messaging app, has just published a blogging tool called Telegraph.

To try it, go to telegra.ph, publish a story, and share it on Telegram. With Telegraph, your Telegram channel can run stories just like the mainstream media (although you may find it tricky to become as biased).

Telegram Blog

This is interesting. Of course, I had to try it myself :) Here's my first Telegraph post. I really like the simplicity and the Medium inspired editor is really pretty and minimalist. You don't have to (and cannot) signup which adds to the simplicity. Since you cannot create a user account, anyone can post anything under any name. This might become a problem, and you need to be extra careful when you're reading posts in Telegraph.

It's going to be interesting to see what people will do with this. I know there's a need for public, anonymous posting tools, but I'm afraid Telegraph might end up filled with crap and fake news and whatnot. But we'll see, lets be optimistic.

Why ContentEditable is Terrible - Medium Perspective

  • 2016-11-10

I came across some reasoning behind the editor on Medium.com and reasons why contentEditable html5 tags did not work for them. It's written by Nick Santos, one of Medium software engineers. The Medium editor is probably one of the most elegant web html editors there is and, apparently, designing it wasn't that simple a task.

Most of the wysiwyg editors you see these days are broken in one way or another and the html they usually produce is far from optimal. This is probably the number one reason markdown has gained popularity especially among the more tech-savvy crowd. There are many beautiful markdown editors in Ghost and Dillinger to name just a few. However, markdown is definitely not for everyone and Medium has taken another, visually more appealing road.

There's pros and cons in everything. I do like the Medium editor and its simplicity and ease of use. But on the other hand, I'm also a big fan of markdown. There's probably good use cases for both of them. Using contentEditable html5 tags did not work for Medium. It will be interesting to see where where contentEditable will evolve into and what kind of native browser support it will have in the future.

Fresh Coffee from Slurp

  • 2016-11-10
Slurp Coffee

There's a cool new company called Slurp and I'm a fan! They get coffee from small roasteries around Finland and send it to you on a monthly subscription. I get freshly roasted beans twice a month delivered right into my mailbox.

This is simply brilliant. I live in the middle of nowhere and the selection of coffees in my local grocery store is rather limited. Nearest roastery is about 35km away. Slurp is a perfect way to get to try out new coffees from small roasteries.

I've just got my first batch of beans and I'm drinking my Saturday morning cappuccino. I don't think it gets any better than this.

Refreshingly Anti-Disruptive Thoughts on Startups

  • 2016-11-10

Part of the problem seems to be that nobody these days is content to merely put their dent in the universe. No, they have to fucking own the universe. It’s not enough to be in the market, they have to dominate it. It’s not enough to serve customers, they have to capture them.

Signal v. Noise

Ahh, this is a refreshing read. David from Basecamp writes a slightly ranty post about what's wrong with the whole startup scene. Not everyone needs to be chasing unicorns or trying to own the universe.

I really like David's approach to business. And I think this the best way to do business in the long term. I've had enough bad luck with startups getting acquired and seeing their service closed down. Or the company going bankcrupt because the founders or investors were unable to come up with a profitable business model. Personally, I'm getting wary about heavily funded startups that don't have a clear business model. I don't see the long term future in them.

The post is full of great quotes I'd like to add here.

There’s an incredible connection possible when you align your financial motivations with the service of your users. It’s an entirely different category of work than if you’re simply trying to capture eyeballs and sell their attention, privacy, and dignity in bulk to the highest bidder.

I'll leave it at that.

Square's Valuation Bubble

  • 2016-11-10

Square went public today, raising $243 million, a price that values the company around $3 billion. That's about half the $6 billion valuation it received during it's last funding as a private company.

The Verge

This is a good reminder that the high valuations of some startups might not be accurate. Of course, that's the nature of the startup scene, but a 50% reduction in valuation after going public is a slap in the face.

Mobile Internet Usage Exceeds Desktop

  • 2016-11-04

Internet usage by mobile and tablet devices exceeded desktop worldwide for the first time in October according to independent web analytics company StatCounter

StatCounter

This has been coming for a long time. If this isn't a big enough a reason to check how your site works on mobile then I don't know what is.

Long Term Support in the JS World

  • 2016-10-18

Ember.js, one of my favourite JavaScript frameworks announced in February that they will release Long Term Support (LTS) versions of Ember.js.

The LTS version will receive security fixes for 60 weeks. Sixty weeks? Long term?

I guess that's considered a long term in the JS world. Anyway, it's a very welcome announcement for anyone who creates enterprise software.

JavaScript Frustration

  • 2016-10-07

I'm starting to get frustrated with all the front-end development kits. I'm more of a back-end guy and I've been spoiled by Symfony's long term support, excellent documentation and punctual release cycle. I wish some JS frameworks would offer the same kind of enterpriseyness.

AWS Cognito

  • 2016-10-07

I've just done my first tests with AWS Cognito. It's pretty cool but I haven't done anything substantial with it yet.

Playing Around with PHP Caching Static Files

  • 2016-10-07

For some reason I've never used var_export before, but it seems like a useful tool for caching PHP objects or arrays.

I just read a blog post about using the filesystem as a cache for full PHP objects and the results can be pretty good.

AWS CloudFront Supports HTTP/2

  • 2016-09-28

Today we are launching HTTP/2 support for CloudFront.

AWS Blog

This is great! It seems Amazon is pushing HTTPS everywhere with their recent announcement of free SSL certificates and now HTTP/2 support.

SimpleMDE MarkDown Editor

  • 2016-08-25

I just came across SimpleMDE MarkDown editor which seems really cool. It's simple and elegant and has some nice features that make it easier to understand the syntax. I've just done some simple tests but it seems very promising

Note to Self: Check out Ionic Framework

  • 2016-02-19

I just recently came across Ionic Framework. It seems pretty sweet. It's like Angular.js, some front-end styling and Cordova combined. Creating hybrid mobile apps and styling them to look like native apps seems to be easy.

I have to check this out in more detail.

End of the Week Reflections

  • 2016-01-15

I had an amazingly productive day today. Especially for a Friday :) Actually, the whole week has been more productive than average despite the lack of sleep in the last couple of days.

I've been reading a lot, and coding a lot. Both at the office and at home.