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April 9, 2019

Writing reliable, efficient code with Rust

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Recently, I’ve begun tackling a few projects in Rust, an open-source programming language designed to maximize software reliability and efficiency. Rust is used by a lot of big names — including Mozilla, Cloudflare, Dropbox, AWS, Google, MS, and Yelp — and was the #1 “most loved language” in StackOverflow’s 2018 Developer Survey.

In this post, I’ll share a bit of my experience using Rust; I’ll also talk through the language’s benefits and recommended applications.

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posted

March 25, 2019

Atomic design: When a Button is a Molecule

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If you’ve worked on a web design or development project, you can probably appreciate the benefits of reusing design elements across multiple website pages or app screens. Whether it’s a big, obvious chunk — a head or footer, say — or something much smaller, like an image or an icon, a design approach that allows for mixing and matching building blocks can save you a ton of time over one that’s constantly reinventing the wheel.

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posted

March 21, 2019

What is the California Consumer Privacy Act?

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In 2018, the California legislature passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).  Set to go into effect in 2020, the CCPA arose out of a compromise between legislators, privacy advocates, and a California businessman who had proposed his own ballot measure.  How the CCPA came to be is a very interesting story – I encourage you to read more about it.  

What is the CCPA?

In a nutshell, the CCPA is a law that gives all California residents the right to access any data that companies collect about them, know how their data is used, and exercise control over whether and when their data is collected.  

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posted

March 5, 2019

Using Headless Chrome to Detect XSS Vulnerabilities

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What are XSS vulnerabilities?

Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, commonly referred to as “XSS” vulnerabilities, allow a third-party attacker to run arbitrary Javascript on a website. XSS vulnerabilities might allow a website to be used for crypto mining, for example, or could allow an attacker to steal auth tokens and other sensitive information.

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posted

September 24, 2018

A Brief Introduction To Quantitative Finance

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Interest in the stock market has never seen such diversity as it has in recent years. Technologies have extended interest to a range of demographics that previously did not give much thought into investing and the public markets. Instead of requiring large account balances, persistent fees and unintuitive interfaces, digital first brokerages like Robinhood have proliferated access to the markets in a manner never before seen. Modern “robo-advisors”, like Wealthfront, provide easy access to financial advice to those who would previously not seek it, and micro-investing apps like Acorns make investing a passive, but profitable experience. While these solutions work great for those just getting started in the public markets, how do investment firms with billions of dollars on the line find appropriate investments?

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posted

August 23, 2018

Motion & UX Design

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In recent years I have noticed mobile and web apps starting to include motion design in their user experiences. One example of this is Facebook reactions. Instead of the reactions instantly appearing on hover, they gradually appear to the user’s eye and animate to help the user further understand and choose their reaction. If the user hovers over a certain reaction it becomes larger to help signify to the user that that reaction will be the one they choose if the click or tap on it. The motion being used here keeps the user engaged in the app and is included in a meaningful and playful way.

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posted

June 28, 2018

Migrating from AngularJS to React

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angular-react

Most organizations with a web application will inevitably need to make a decision regarding their current front-end framework.  I’ve personally been involved with two projects that have come to this crossroads. One of the two applications was written in AngularJS, the other in Backbone.js. In both cases, the organization decided that the best course of action was a full rewrite using React and Redux.  In the case of the AngularJS app, a gradual migration approach was considered and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to investigate this possibility.

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posted

June 22, 2018

Emerging Tech Inspired by Self-Driving Cars

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Self-driving technology is even more fascinating when applied to things other than cars

Alternate Title: The Self-Driving ABCs

My boyfriend’s dad’s car was recently broken into. By itself, this would be a pretty low note to start a blog post with, but rest assured that nothing was stolen and only one window of the car had to be replaced. The situation was made 100 times better by the fact that he was lent a Tesla Model X while his own car was being serviced.

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