Posts

Goodbye, Apollo, written on Jun 8 in category Thought. - About a month or two ago, Reddit announced that they are going to start charging for their API, in a move that seems if not inspired by…Moving over Street Art Cities to PMtiles and MapLibreGL, written on Jun 8 in category Blog. - Street Art Cities is basically one big map. Well, lot’s of individual maps.Why only Apple can pull this off, written on Jun 5 in category Thought. - The device announced today by Apple is a very niche device. A first generation, something that – even with its Apple-classic polished…Rough consensus, written on Jun 3 in category Thought. - I’m reading the wonderful book Working In Public by Nadia Eghbal, and there is a reference in there to a note from the Internet Engineering…Preparing for Apple WWDC 2023, written on Jun 3 in category Thought. - I wonder how Monday’s event will make me feel about Apple as a whole.The power of `.toString()`, written on Jun 2 in category How-to. - Using `.toString` on functions in JavaScript is a powerful way to create reflection-like behaviours.Setting up GitHub Actions to have access to your AWS account, written on May 28 in category How-To. - GitHub Actions is the best CI/CD provider I've used so far. It is extremely flexible, and has really quickly caught up in terms of feature set with CI providers that existed for years before Actions was...Speeding up your dev workflow with Alfred, written on May 13 in category Blog. - Alfred is one of my favourite Mac apps. Here’s how to use custom workflows to enhance your dev experience.Processing incoming email with AWS Simple Email Service, written on May 9 in category Blog. - Add reply-via-email functionality to your app using Amazon SES.Building social features using DynamoDB and Lambda, written on Apr 8 in category Blog. - How we built a personalised feeds service and following using serverless on AWS.Returning to slower social media, written on Feb 6 in category Blog. - No more algorithmically generated feeds with something new every time you refresh, no companies fighting for your attention.Creating a Production-Ready Public API using Serverless, written on Jan 1 in category Blog. - How to build an API using Lambda and API Gateway for use by external developers.Memories: The Relative Score, written on Dec 28 in category Blog. - Lessons learned as a 16-year old entrepreneur about how simple product features can have a big impact.AWS re:Invent news for serverless developers, written on Nov 30 in category Blog. - AWS re:Invent has brough many new AWS features. Here are the most interesting ones for serverless developers.Team size matters, written on Nov 23 in category Blog. - How big does your team really need to be to achieve your goals? Probably not as big as you think.Battery Powered, written on Aug 22 in category Blog. - It’s easy to forget how far batteries have come over the last years — but the Oura Ring is a great reminder of what’s possible now.Using AWS S3 as a simple cache service, written on Apr 16 in category Blog. - Using S3 as a simple caching mechanism for any stateless functions that need to save some ephemeral data to keep state.High-rise, written on Aug 11 in category Dialogue. - "I fear the moment I'm truly happy with myself, I won't be myself anymore," he said quietly.Slackin' Amazing, written on Aug 5 in category Productivity. - Here are some of my favourite hidden features of Slack. From a talk by Elle Tattersall and myself as part of the NearSt "Lunch & Learn"…Enginears podcast, written on Apr 15 in category Podcasts. - I got the opportunity to talk with Elliot Kipling about NearSt, the journey from prototype to product market fit, and how we decided to…Interceptors in Axios, written on Apr 5 in category Engineering. - Interceptors in Axios are a great tool to simplify your management of network requests.The Craft, written on Oct 3 in category Writing. - There’s something unique about creating something from scratch, with nothing but your own vision of what it should be like, with no…Serverless magic links with AWS Cognito, written on Jul 27 in category Serverless. - I've written before about what I consider to be best practices for magic links from a UX perspective. Recently, I got a chance to apply…Practical regular expressions, written on Jul 26 in category Dev basics. - Regular expressions (regex) are one of those topics that a lot of developers find difficult to get started with. I think that's not because…Digital gardens, written on Jul 24 in category Writing. - Something that I recently came across is the concept of a digital garden. It's not a new concept, although this terminology for it seems to…Undivided attention, written on Jul 19 in category Road to me. - My granddad passed away earlier this week at age 95. It didn’t come as much of a surprise, he had not been anywhere close to well in the…Fighting for a cause, written on Jun 3 in category Road to me. - I was thinking the other day about the fact that I haven’t really fought for a cause since I was in primary school.Good software, written on May 22 in category User experience. - A lot has been written on this subject, and if you want the definitive guide on product design and software development (if there is such a…Go to / on it, written on May 21 in category Screenplaying. - I've been watching some old episodes of NCIS in the background while doing some mundane admin tasks for work (only outside office hours of…Transactional emails at scale, written on Mar 15 in category Open source. - At every tech startup I've created, we've had a need for transactional emails. You know, the ones that welcome you after you created your…Just done, written on Feb 22 in category Screenplaying. - INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT Standing strong, written on Feb 16 in category Poem. - Tonight I’m standing strongLike that willow tree across the streetAll alone on my balconyThe wind moving past meGusts of cold air hitting…The anti-bullying day, written on Feb 9 in category Road to me. - Almost exactly 13 years ago today was my day. A few months earlier, as a 10-year-old, I had started an anti-bullying club. Not because I…The 'why', written on Feb 7 in category Road to me. - I’ve been kind of running all of the past few years, even sprinting maybe. Now that I’m not running as much anymore, now that I’m just…Renting in London, written on Nov 4 in category Life in London. - When I first lived in London about four years ago, I lived with housemates. That was pretty fun: I was able to help my housemate who was…Better all the time, written on Nov 27 in category Road to me. - I’ve been extremely lucky in life so far. I’ve been given so many great opportunities, and I’ve received most of them with open arms and…Twenty-one, written on Mar 11 in category Road to me. - This is it. Tomorrow is the start of a new life, of a new chapter, a new section with a new rhythm, a new feel, a new baseline. We’ve just…Twenty thieves, written on May 9 in category Prose. - There once were twenty thieves, sitting in the shade of a giant blade of grass. They had a leader, a strong, but little man. He stood up…