Projects

Serverless Django with Zappa

I am the author of Serverless Django with Zappa.

I was introduced to Django in 2009 and I consider it my go-to web framework. With continuous support from a vibrant community in addition to an incredibly rich ecosystem, I would be hard pressed to find another framework that matches up.

I’ve been using Zappa to host my Django applications for several years now, and I have found no other solution that is as powerful and cost-effective as serverless Django hosting on AWS – especially for the solo developer working to get a product to market.

If you’d like to get in contact with me, please join the Newline Discord Server and ask questions on the #serverless-django-with-zappa channel.

Grade Corner

I am the author of Grade Corner, a mobile application that allows students and parents to view grade information in Aspen™. Aspen™ is a popular online grade book used by many school districts.

Grade Corner was originally inspired by being frustrated with grade visibility for my children attending public schools in Washington, DC. It allowed me a chance to learn React Native while serving a real need. I built the first prototype using Expo and released it. After showing the app to a few family and friends, it quickly gained popularity in the local middle school. And then started to grow city-wide. It has a ‘sweet spot’ of being naturally viral when students are using it - their friends quickly adopt it.

Then one Christmas break, while visiting family in Massachusetts, we discovered that nieces and nephews are also using Aspen. So the app was adapted for their school district. Eventually, more and more school districts were added including Chicago Public Schools and Boston Public Schools.

Now I have thousands of students and parents using the app every day. I’m proud of my contribution to students all over the country who are benefiting from this app. It is fairly low cost for me to continue to maintain this app, but it does take a substantial amount of time to add new features and perform tech support.

Live Streaming Church with OBS

I’m a volunteer at my local church and during the pandemic of 2020, I set up and operated the live stream for worship services. I learned about OBS and remote control cameras. The OBS setup was complex and I should really blog about that.

Zappa Contributions

I wrote a nice guide to Using Django with Zappa. I wrote that a few years ago and periodically refresh it. But really it’s a bit out of date and the course I mentioned above is much more comprehensive.

TBH, this information should be moved into the Zappa docs proper.