Hi, thanks for visiting!

My name's Sam Kelleher, and I am a Senior Full-Stack Web Developer / Software Architect based in London. This website mostly contains a sample of work from my portfolio, tips, and best practicies for building web applications, and reviews + photos of food and hotels in London.

Opinion Posts

Statement on the UK exit from the EU đŸ‡ȘđŸ‡ș

I believe in inclusivity, openness, outwardness, a forward thinking future for all.

Brexit is the opposite of that.

The entire referendum was propagated by manipulating social networks for spreading targeted misinformation paid for by unknown foreign actors. What might not be obvious to those outside the UK, is that most mainstream media providers have all sewn an anti-immigration narrative for several years broadcasting radial right-wing opinions rather than fact based news. Factual misinformation has been promoted without question.

Democracy is an ongoing basis, to treat a non-binding referendum as binding and not give the public the change to reflect based on new information and instead use a flawed vote as a mandate to pursue the worst flavour of Brexit is just madness.

European citizenship is about being part of something greater than just the sum of my own nationality. While the EU is not by any means perfect, it stands as a triumph of human political achievement.

We are better off together than we are alone.

Fortunately I was able to personally retain my freedom of movement and European citizenship due to holding dual citizenship with the UK and Ireland.

Tech isn't hard, but it is complicated.

GitHub vs BitBucket

When it comes to hosting our source-code, many platforms can cover the basic of hosting a central GIT repository for us.

GitHub charges per repository, while BitBucket charges by contributor.

Use BitBucket if:

  • You only work individually or in a small team (5 people or less).
  • You wish to have private repositories.
  • You wish to work with a large number of repositories.

Use GitHub if:

  • You project is open source.
  • You only have a small number of private repositories.
  • Many people will work on a repository (5 people or above).

As for the rest of the differentiation features, they're both pretty similar, with the one exception that GitHub is universally recognised and there are many tools, such as CI services, that can plug straight into GitHub by using your account; although BitBucket is gaining notability in this regard.

I do wonder about the long term viability of BitBucket offering private repositories, as surely the cost of doing so will increase over time - with storage costs in particular. Then again, the same applies for GitHub and its generous hosting of public repos.

At the end of the day you get what you pay for, there are a handful of good reliable paid for services that can offer the best of both worlds - such as Codebase HQ which has git and project hosting for a small monthly fee, they charge by tiers of storage space used, users and number of projects - but each project can have unlimited repositories!

Who is the voice of Google UK TTS engine?

The lady speaks with such authority an demand it demands me of voice of Corbin Dallas's' mother in the Fifth Element.

Where else do computers speak with regional accents in films? And not the universal one voice fits all as depicted in Star Trek.

Mystery Shopping Yourself

So you've hired temporary workers to provide a presence for you at a trade show, you're not there yourself since you're networking with other business leaders at the event, so how do you know that the 'fort is being held down'. Read more...

Thirdparties - the biggest bottleneck to IPv6 adoption.

The Internet is changing. The problem is, some parts change faster than others. If you need a stack supporting IPv6 - you might struggle. Popular providers are still lagging in their offerings, which means picking a provider with lower expertise might be needed, or even bringing hosting in house. Here we look at the major bottlenecks with IPv6 adoption. Read more...

The importance of due-dilligence when dealing with clients.

Doing business can be tricky. Whilst you might think you'll never have any problems, it's good to be prepared and know who you are dealing with. These are my practical tips and insight for finding out and investigating the backgrounds of people and companies you do business with. Read more...

My Twitter wish list for developers

Twitter is a big platform, but could be improved - my wishlist. Read more...

10 tips for preparing for meetups and conferences.

Going to any type of conference or mid-week evening tech meetup is a valuable treasure trove of people you might want to work with. This might be new co-workers, creative and intelligent minds to share with, and clients and new employers. Here are my top ten tips (and a bonus tip) to help you get the best out of events like this. Read more...

7 best-practicies and privacy considerations to follow when choosing a CDN provider

Using content distribution networks (CDNs) to globally distribute static assets for your website or web appoication, such as it's images, JavaScript files, videos and downloads etc, is increasingly common. It's common because they are reliable systems, cheap to use, easy to get setup on, and take a chunk of work off developers from having to build and maintain these systems themselves. I've devised a list of seven tips and best-practicies to look out for when picking which company should be your CDN provider. Read more...

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