Eric Mann's Blog

  • Cracking the Uncrackable

    Several years ago, I spent the majority of my time freelancing while looking for regular work. Usually this paid well. Occasionally a client would take my work and skip the bill. It happened once with an architecture website. Again with a college seminar tracking site. One customer, those, admitted he couldn’t pay me in cash and offered instead to pay his debt in Bitcoin. I was fascinated with cryptocurrency, but had never owned any, so this seemed fair. I created a wallet, he transferred the crypto, and we went our separate ways. The bill was tiny – around $100 –…

  • One year ago today …

    One year ago today, I sat in the National Mall and reflected on the inspiring atmosphere and the amazingness of my favorite PHP conf. Today, I mourn the loss of both.

  • One Man’s Unsolicited Opinion on the WordPress 5.6 All-Women Release Squad

    An all-women release squad for WordPress is long overdue. I’m excited to see what the new 5.6 release will bring to the community!

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  • Storytelling

    I love telling stories, and I’m learning daily how many fields and industries rely on compelling storytelling to succeed.

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  • Sciencing the Data

    Over the past month I’ve been engaged in a Coursera specialization to better understand the field of data science. As part of the capstone project I was tasked with evaluating various neighborhoods in the region of my choice to make a business decision. As part of the project, I was also asked to produce either a PowerPoint presentation or a blog post. The Problem My goal was to help a new (fictitious) brewery identify the best neighborhood in the Portland metro area in which to open a new location. They specifically want to target neighborhoods with relatively high concentrations of…

  • Unboxing the Lemur Pro

    Over the past several months I’ve dug deep into the RingCentral Game Changers challenge in the hope of redeeming my points for the grand prize of an all expense paid trip to Coder Cruise. Given the current state of the world, however, it’s become increasingly unlikely I’ll attend this (or any) cruise in the foreseeable future. As an alternative, I elected to cash in my points for a new laptop – the Lemur Pro from System76. For those of you taking notes, this is not my first System76 machine. I picked up an Oryx Pro about 2 years ago and…

  • Slack Autoresponder – Part II

    Last time, we talked about my motivations for building a Slack autoresponder so I can better communicate with my colleagues. Today we’ll walk through the components required and all the steps for wiring together the full application. Serverless Framework First things first, we need to build the application itself. We’ll be leveraging the Serverless framework, so if you don’t already have that installed go ahead and install it: We install this tool globally to make the sls command available everywhere. When we’re ready to deploy our application, a simple sls deploy will push everything up to AWS. That said, the…

  • Slack Autoresponder – Part I

    The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are legion; millions contracted the disease, hundreds of thousands have died, schools are closed, businesses are closed, the economy is in turmoil, and I’m working remotely once again. This last impact is the least concern, but as a software developer it’s also the easiest thing for me to address in the immediate term. I’ve worked remotely before. It’s an enjoyable work experience to skip your morning commute, make as much coffee as you want, and even take a break to have lunch with your family on a daily basis. It’s a wonder more people…

  • System76: Reflections of a Superfan

    Back in September, I saw a random post on Twitter from the team at System76 about a “superfan contest.” The goal was to build something awesome using open source tools and tell the world about it. The announcement video was pretty inspiring, too. Superfan is taking off! Now until October 4th, we're looking to recruit 10 loyal fans to join us for Superfan 3: Mission to Thelio. Visit https://t.co/OuIt1hjbBt to see how YOU can be part of the mission! #superfan3contest pic.twitter.com/xlDZ9XE96L — System76 (@system76) September 13, 2019 Given I have little time available these days for side projects, I was…

  • Keeping Fresh

    How do you keep your coding skills fresh when you’re no longer coding on a daily basis?