Atomic Spin

Web Apps • Dec 11, 2017

Mocking in JavaScript Unit Tests Using Sinon.JS

With mocks for dependencies inside functions, unit tests will be resilient to a changing codebase. And functions with mocks can be developed without a chain of dependencies.

Growing as Makers • Dec 10, 2017

Get Caught Up in the Small Victories on Big Projects

It’s the small victories along the way that give us the energy to reach the final goal. They give us renewed motivation, especially during setbacks.

Business Practices • Dec 09, 2017

Selling with Your Head and Your Heart – The New ABCs of Sales

Good sales is fundamentally human centered—treating people with dignity, staying humble, and recognizing that we don’t have all the answers.

UX/Design Practices • Dec 08, 2017

How to Make a Customer Journey Map for Experience Design

Customer journey maps help visualize experiences, identify opportunities, and create value. Here's my process, plus an an example journey map.

Project & Team Management • Dec 07, 2017

Overcoming Project Management’s 4 Big Stressors

Even with a great team, being a project manager is hard. The problems are real—but there are ways to mitigate or eliminate them.

DevOps & System Admin. • Dec 06, 2017

Formatting AWS CloudFront and ELB Logs for Easy Review

AWS CloudFront & Elastic Load Balancers access logs are essential for diagnostics. I wrote a few scripts format these logs and make them much more useful.

Development Practices • Dec 05, 2017

Five Build Commands to Make Project Onboarding Faster & Easier

New team members should be able to jump in and run your project in 10 minutes, flat. So the next time you start a new project, write your Makefile first.

Web Apps • Dec 04, 2017

Testing React App SEO using Fetch as Google

How to use Fetch as Google to test the SEO visibility of a single-page app written in React, plus a few experiments.

Growing as Makers • Dec 03, 2017

Opening Up at Work – Lessons Learned from a Month of Being My Whole Self

There is a lot to be gained from telling people that you care, and little to be lost. So I’ve been testing a new guideline: Don’t hold back the good things.

Developer Tools • Dec 02, 2017

Exporting Application Data for Business Users? Use XLSX, Not CSV

When you analyze the tradeoffs, there really isn’t any category that CSV actually wins in. CSVs simply have several inherent problems.

Project & Team Management • Dec 01, 2017

5 Ways to Highlight the Value of Your Development Team

A lot of the awesome work developers do is not self-evident to project stakeholders. Here are five tips to improve the visibility of your team's value.

Planning Your Project • Nov 29, 2017

Choosing the Right Mobile Technology – Native, Cross-Platform, or Responsive Web

Choosing the right mobile platform or technology is essential. Do you go native with iOS or Android? A responsive web app? Cross-platform tools like Xamrin?