How leaders can get to where the work happens and take part in business decisions on GitHub. — As I write this, the front page of GitHub.com declares in big bold letters that this is “Where the world builds software.” This is true. In technology companies today, the creation of your product is largely happening where your developers spend time. …

Let’s create a client-side search index — Yes, you can have an interactive search feature on your static site! No need for servers or paid subscriptions here. Thanks to the open source Lunr and the power of the Hugo static site generator, you can create a client-side search index with just a template and some JavaScript. A…

Announcing the release of a new version of the OWASP WSTG. — I’m very happy and proud to share that the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Web Security Testing Guide v4.2 is now available! This update is the result of a lot of hard work by the repository team and many dedicated contributors. …

Building a responsive website with color themes? Better start at the root — If you happen to visit my website, you may notice I’ve spruced it up a bit. Victoria.dev can now better respond to your devices and preferences! Here’s how to use CSS media queries and custom properties to improve your visitor’s browsing experience with just a few lines of CSS. Catering to Color Preferences The…

How to build your own newsletter list with DynamoDB and SES email signup confirmations — Here’s how I lovingly built a subscription signup flow with email confirmation that doesn’t suck. You can too. Introducing Simple Subscribe If you’re interested in managing your own mailing list or newsletter, you can set up Simple Subscribe on your own AWS resources to collect email addresses. This open source API is written…

Which one should you be using? Why Wi-Fi security matters. — Setting up new Wi-Fi? Picking the type of password you need can seem like an arbitrary choice. After all, WEP, WPA, WPA2, and WPA3 all have mostly the same letters in them. A password is a password, so what’s the difference? About 60 seconds to billions of years, as it…

How to write tests for your Django applications that boost your team and are actually useful — If you regard writing tests as a lame checkbox task, nothing could be farther from the truth. Done correctly, tests are one of your application’s most valuable assets. The Django framework, in particular, offers your team the opportunity to create an efficient testing practice based on the Python standard library…

Using Makefiles, pre-commit hooks, and GitHub Actions to help create a happy development team — Do you want your team to enjoy your development workflow? Do you think building software should be fun and existentially fulfilling? If so, this is the article for you! I’ve been developing with Django for years, and I’ve never been happier with my Django project setup than I am right…