When someone breaches the security of a web app, sometimes it’s not discovered to weeks or months later. There are a number of tools that specialize in intrusion detection, but they may be costly or difficult to set up. Another idea is to use a canary in the coal mine or a honey pot. Here we’ll talk about the concept and then demonstrate some easy and quick methods. (more…)

“If you have the question, chances are someone else in the group has it, too. Be brave: get the answer to your question with a by-product of serving others.” (more…)

During a code review, a coworker showed me a piece of code for a stateless React component that was similar to this: (more…)

Laravel has a lot of the most common functionality built into the framework. However, decisions need to be made to balance the needs of the majority of use cases with the stability and agility that programmers need. No one really wants a bloated library. Because of this, you might find that you need functionality that is not directly built into Laravel. When I started working with Laravel-based CSV responses, this was the case. (This article... (more…)

I’ve written about mentoring a bunch before , so you know I’m a fan of it. But, there’s another aspect that has been bothering me lately. The questions are simple: (more…)

I’ve been to conferences where I’ve shelled out my hard-earned money to attend, been to free local meetups, and all kinds of presentations in between. One thing that I’ve heard more than once, though, is a variation of this: (more…)

How often have you heard this phrase? (more…)

The other day I was looking for an image from one of my iMessage chats. When you browse through the attachments on the iPhone, it takes forever to scroll through them. At one point, I kept having the iMessage app crash as well (I think I was maybe 400 or 500 images into the history). Turns out, if you have your iMessage and iCloud accounts configured properly on your Mac, you’ll have duplicate copies of... (more…)

GitHub is one of the most useful tools I have in my arsenal. With over 100 repositories (some of which are private), it’s the best $7/mo I spend. However, there are a couple things about GitHub you might not know. (more…)

Every mistake comes with a lesson or two… (more…)