The adventures of Matt Lawrence and Mike Karan through the world of web development, web design, and small business management. As web development agency owners for the better part of a decade, they’ve worked with all sorts of technologies, through the rise of responsive web design, the revolution of serverless computing, and the popularity gain of many no-code tools for small business owners. They commonly discuss foundational web development technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - including popular frameworks and tools such as Tailwind CSS, Svelte, WordPress, Vue, and more.
Episodes
Monday May 25, 2020
Monday May 25, 2020
In this tidbit, Matt and Mike discuss the recent news that Joe Rogan's JRE (Joe Rogan Experience) podcast will be heading onto Spotify exclusively in just a matter of months. Even though this isn't web dev/design, or small business related - it does affect our medium of podcasting. This also potentially affects the entire structure of podcasting as you used to be able to choose your favourite podcast app and then just listen. Now that we're seeing exclusivity come to light, you may have to have multiple podcast apps just to listen to all your favourite shows. Furthermore, this could affect monetization moving forward as well, where all the podcast apps you have start running premium subscriptions that you will need to subscribe to in order to continue listening. It is important to note that this sort of monetization is not what is happening to JRE, as stated in the announcement the show will remain free on Spotify.
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Thursday May 21, 2020
Thursday May 21, 2020
In this episode Matt and Mike discuss something more important than your MVP (Minimum Viable Product), project cornerstones. If a feature of your MVP has no viable substitute, focus on ironing that out first - then move on to the rest. These project cornerstones, if left unattended, can lead to a project's complete failure. Imaging working on the UI, text chat, and overall feel of an app like Snapchat, only to find out that the stack you're using won't allow you to use the camera on iOS devices. Problems like that can easily be overlooked and can just as easily result in hundreds of hours of lost work.
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Wednesday May 13, 2020
Wednesday May 13, 2020
In this episode Matt and Mike discuss new and interesting web tech such as web assembly, API- first development, Flutter Web, and much more. By touching on a variety of topics like this you'll be able to better converse with other developers even if you're not fully versed in a how a technology works. You'll also get a bit of a feel of how other parts of your team work and maybe even discover something you're interested in pursuing yourself. Then in the web news, the guys talk about ecosystems, focusing on Edge Chromium versus Google Chrome.
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Friday May 08, 2020
Friday May 08, 2020
In this tidbit/web news, Matt and Mike discuss the difference between Peer-To-Peer(P2P) and Centralized cloud computing methods. Recently the difference between these two cloud computing methods has been brought up due to all the data that we process inside of centralized datacenters that are often owned by large corporations like Facebook and Google. With that, there is cause for concern as to what is happening to that data and how/where it is stored. There is also the concern that most of the software used by larger companies, Facebook for example, is not open source - so it is difficult (or sometimes impossible) to tell exactly what Facebook's software is doing without that source code being available publicly for experts to analyze.
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Wednesday May 06, 2020
Wednesday May 06, 2020
In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss proposing projects to your team in the early stages of an idea. When talking to your team with an idea, it's a lot less formal than preparing research and documentation for an investor, for example. Instead, the idea needs to be mostly flushed out, with some small holes that your team, or additional research can easily remedy. You need and want to sell your team on your idea, so the idea needs to be presented in such a way that you get them excited or interested, not bored and rolling their eyes. Over time as you present ideas to the same people over and over, you'll hone your presentation skills and know what certain people expect in your proposal For example, if there's an accountant on the team, they might want rough numbers on how much it'll cost to make right out of the gate, or may your UX expert wants to know the target audience and devices right away.
This week's episode went a little longer than expected so we've spun off our Web News portion in a tidbit that will be published later this week!
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Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
In this episode Matt and Mike discuss some of the most popular web design tips, but with a bit of a twist. Instead of just going through the list, the duo tackle them from a developer's point-of-view instead of a designer. As a web developer, especially a frontend developer, it's very common that your job will overlap that of the web designer, or artist. Sometimes you'll not have an artist, or branding expert handy and you'll be left to create a UI all on your own. Luckily iterative designs, familiarity with user interfaces, and a knack for modern design techniques (ie responsive design) are all you need to create a great website.
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Wednesday Apr 22, 2020
Wednesday Apr 22, 2020
In this episode Matt and Mike discuss taking charge on client projects. Even though you (as the developer/programmer/web dev), aren't the owner of a project, sometimes you need to take charge and just get the project done. Some clients aren't aware of where their job is supposed to end and where yours is supposed to begin, which often times results in long delays and other communication issues. We outline when to take charge, if you should at all, and some other tips/tricks to keep in mind. Then in the Web News we discuss what life is going to be like post-COVID - will things still rely on the internet to function, will take-out be king over eat-in, etc.
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Wednesday Apr 15, 2020
Wednesday Apr 15, 2020
In this week's episode Matt and Mike discuss learning by doing, rather than learning by tutorials or traditional classes. By working on projects, getting stuck, and then Googling your way through you'll learn faster, have a finished product at the end of the day, and be able to retain what you learned easier because you've researched and implemented the solution yourself. They go through various tactics on how to maximize your learn by doing experience, and then go through an example scenario of how they'd plan a project that they've never done themselves. Then in the Web News, they discuss hardware obsolescence via software with things like Windows 10 + HDDs, and the iPhone battery scandal.
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