I'm developing sustainable products at Ninebark.io and provide consulting services for growing businesses. I write here about my experiences building physical and software products.
Attending conferences and local networking events are out to grow client work and build a stronger network. So, I've spent the last week considering next steps on how to continue progress from home. A lot of people are in the same place, including some who may now be unemployed. I thought best to share how, as a new freelancer and small scale entrepreneur, I'm hoping to make it through this time.
For small businesses it can sometimes seem out of reach to implement project planning practices in your organization. It’s true some project management methodologies are monolithic and will not work well in small organizations. However, there are simple tools you can use to set defined expectations for your team and project outcomes.
Fathom is a simple analytics platform focused on privacy. It doesn't track your personal data and has a nice single-page interface. Follow along as I show how it only takes a few minutes to setup Fathom analytics in your Gatsbyjs or Next.js static site.
When you have numerous competing priorities or directions it is often difficult to focus on where to start. This can occur when you have multiple viable options that are not immediately clear which would provide the best outcome. An exercise I've often used to push through to a decision and create progress is a decision matrix.
GatbsyJS is a React framework for generating high performance static websites and apps. It has a wide set of available methods to access content and data that make for quick production of Progressive Web App compliant apps. Gatsby also has a super easy production and continuous integration setup with Serverless hosting.
There are a few places to host GatsbyJS apps including AWS, Github Pages, and now Gatsby Cloud. The host I've found the easiest and that offers a number of other useful tools is Netlify. With Netlify you can get a GatsbyJS app up and running in just a few minutes. Seriously, it will take longer to get your DNS transfered over.
During the Summer of 2018 I went in search of community. Having lived in Colorado for almost seven years, focused on family and work, I had spent almost no time in the community.
Git Large File Storage (LFS) helps by storing your large binary files outside the Git repository to keep the repository size manageable. This feature is particularly helpful for open hardware projects where design source files are often large binary files.
Git has become the predominant version control software in Free and Open Source Software projects and communities. Although not as common, Git is also a worthy tool for managing the source of your hardware projects.
Wagtail provides a number of features including a rich text editor, content explorer, and advanced image handling to name a few. The admin interface has been so well designed I would question spending time on a custom admin interface if your project is largely going to be content management focused.
With an active developer community, there are many Django resources available for beginners and experts.
Web frameworks for Python range broadly from quick set-up to complete freedom in customization. There is also a notable difference in the communities and the rate of development surrounding Python frameworks.