Author: David Emerson

Strategy

5 Critical Steps to Avoid API Integration Failure

API integration projects can be risky (and stressful), but they are a necessary evil if you want your web app to integrate seamlessly with other tools and services. Recently we discussed how web developers and their clients can keep API projects on track, but today we want to share some of the things developers and clients can do before beginning an API integration project to ensure its ultimate success.

Bottom line: If you need to integrate with an API, do the following five things at the beginning of your project and it will be less likely to fail later on.

Careers

Welcome Liat Kadosh-Zamir!

Please join us in welcoming our newest team member, Liat! Liat has a diverse background in account management, project management, and product management with a focus on planning, implementation, and risk mitigation. Working from our Toronto office, Liat provides ongoing support to our customers, helping to ensure that their experience is both satisfying and positive. […]

Strategy

Emerson Media Becomes SiteRocket Labs

As you may have noticed, we recently renamed Emerson Media to SiteRocket Labs. Before I tell you why, I’ll tell you what is not changing: Our great clients, great work, amazing category, and commitment to doing the right thing for our clients. In other words, we are doing the same great work today as we did last month.

Strategy

6 Key Business Benefits of Open Source Technology

Open source technology is our bread and butter for a lot of reasons that, in the tech space, are so obvious that they don’t need explaining. But when businesses approach us, the benefits of using open source technology aren’t always so clear. On a regular basis we get hit with the simple but very smart question: Why is open source the right choice for us?

Strategy

How to Prevent your API Project from Turning into a Monster

Talk to any technology professional and you’ll hear horror stories about API development and integration projects that took months longer than expected, went way over budget, or (worse) failed completely. This is, unfortunately, an all-too-common scenario. So if you’re planning to embark on a project that involves integrating different systems together, be sure to read this first.

Strategy

10 Ways Your Business Can Avoid Technical Debt

It’s possible to develop any web or mobile application in many different ways. Developers are constantly faced with decisions about how to structure their code or infrastructure, and it can be tempting to choose easy short-term solutions instead of the best overall strategies that can last for a long time.Technical debt is the extra work that builds up when short-term decisions are made. What might have seemed like an amazing “quick fix” in the past can turn out to interfere with the growth and maintenance of the application in the future. Like financial debt, technical debt can build up over time – the longer it’s neglected, the longer it takes to pay off. And the interest rate in the software world is very high!

Laravel

Why Businesses Choose Laravel: Interview with Taylor Otwell

Ask any Laravel developer what they love about Laravel, and they’ll rattle off a large number of technical benefits: It’s powerful, it’s elegant, it adheres to modern coding standards, it’s well documented, etc. However, as more and more companies – including major enterprises – are adopting Laravel for custom web application development, what are their business justifications for doing so? I met Laravel’s creator, Taylor Otwell, at Lone Star PHP 2016 last month and interviewed him to get his thoughts on the business reasons for Laravel adoption. This post is a partial transcript of our interview.

Strategy

Apple, the FBI, and UX Tips for Designing a Website People Can Trust

You probably heard about Apple’s decision to oppose a federal court order to aid the criminal investigation of one of the San Bernardino shooters by unlocking their iPhone. Opinions are coming down on both sides of that news, but one thing is very clear: Regardless of where individuals stand on Apple’s announcement, people are definitely wary of how their privacy is impacted when personal data is collected and used online.

Strategy

We ♥ Startups: SiteRocket Labs and a Social Network that Needed to Scale

As you may know, SiteRocket Labs is headquartered in Boston – the birthplace of some remarkable innovations – so it’s no surprise that we dabble in the startup space. What excites us the most about working with startups is the opportunity to take part in projects, from the ground up, that change how people live. […]

Strategy

Easter Eggs for Fun and Profit

By now you’re probably familiar with at least a few website Easter Eggs; after all, who hasn’t clicked on an interesting Google Doodle, or found a hidden secret by keying in the Konami code (↑↑↓↓←→←→BA) on a popular site? For those who missed Easter Egg buzz, Wikipedia defines website Easter Eggs as “secret responses that occur as a result of an undocumented set of commands. The results can vary from a simple printed message or image, to a page of programmer credits or a small video game hidden inside an otherwise serious piece of software or on the web.”