Blockchain
Blockchain|May 2, 2018

Chip Off The Ol’ Blockchain – Chip 2: Deploy a Smart Contract

Most people have probably heard about blockchains and even fewer people probably understand how they actually work. But even so, what makes blockchain technology itself so appealing is not about what you can do with the blockchain itself, rather what you can do with Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts, or “distributed apps” or “DApps” as they…
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JavaScript
Tutorials|Apr 12, 2018

How To Do Data Binding in Pure JavaScript

Data binding for modern applications is about as fundamental as addition is to mathematics. To write any major application without it would seem absurd. An related to data binding is one of the most fundamental architectural patterns that has birth dozens of progeny, the Model-View-Controller pattern. I wanted to write this post not as an…
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Blockchain
Blogs|Apr 4, 2018

Chip Off The Ol’ Blockchain: What is a Blockchain? Part 1

Blockchain – just the word seems to stir up confusion.  Because there is so much confusion surrounding blockchain, it’s often hard to get clarity about what it really is and how it works. Blockchain is not that complicated, rather it’s remarkably simple. And moreover it has the potential to fundamentally change the way that businesses…
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Blogs|Mar 12, 2018

Implement a CAPTCHA with Azure Functions

CAPTCHA’s are those things that site administrators love because they stop comment and form spam but user hate because they are impossible to read. Regardless though, they have become a mainstay in Internet usage, particularly on websites that allow for unauthenticated feedback. CAPTCHA’s are intended to prevent automated responses from computers by generating a test that…
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Blogs|Mar 7, 2018

Host a Website with Azure Functions and Node.JS, Part 2 — Logging

In part 1 of this series, we looked at how you could use Azure Functions to host a static website. The function basically served up static files it read off the file system and delivered them as HTTP responses. Websites though are not complete without logging! Logging is already supported in functions when one calls…
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Blogs|Mar 2, 2018

Host a Website with Azure Functions and Node.JS, Part 1

Azure Functions are Microsoft’s answer to “serverless” computing. Functions enable applications developers to write event-driven code (ie. “functions”) than can be triggered by timers, manual integration, HTTP requests, service buses, message queues and many other integration points. These functions can be written in a number of different languages including C#, NodeJS (which this example uses),…
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Docker + Python
Blogs|Dec 20, 2017

Containerize a Python App in 5 Minutes

Python for better or worse has found cemented itself as the lingua franca of data science. With its rise in popularity also comes how it is deployed. Simultaneously with the rise in Python has also been the rise in container deployments. Like Python, containers are being used in data science as well to run processes…
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Node Docker
Blogs|Dec 4, 2017

Containerize a Node App in 5 Minutes

Node and Docker are a match made in heaven because the strengths of Node play to the strengths of Docker. Node microservices typically are built on top of the Express web server which can be configured with “just enough” server and run an application. Additionally, the Node package manager, NPM, makes installing and running Node…
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swarm vs kubernetes
Blogs|Nov 6, 2017

Why “Kubernetes vs. Swarm” is the Wrong Question

Kubernetes is getting a lot of attention these days. The container industry has coalesced around Kubernetes. And for this reason, many people are giving eulogies for Docker Swarm. While Kubernetes is incredibly popular, the dominance of Kubernetes does not imply the death of Swarm. These two systems do have overlap, but they approach a similar…
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Innovation
How To|Oct 30, 2017

Developing a Business Case for Containers

Developing a business case for any technology is not always an easy endeavor. In many organizations, CIO’s, CTO’s, and CISO’s will see the value of adopting new technology strategies, however these are harder to sell to others in the C-suite. Those that don’t fully grasp tech see a lot of costs that they don’t understand…
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DevOps|Oct 5, 2017

Choosing Between Containers and Virtual Machines

Containers are simple, but harder to explain. Fundamentally, containers are a virtualization technology and they share a lot of common ground with virtual machines, however the biggest difference between the two is where the abstraction occurs. A VM hypervisor exposes a set of virtualized hardware components like a virtual network card, a virtual hard disk,…
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