User Experience, or UX, is a term that gets used (and a little abused) quite a bit. But what does it actually mean?

Navigating the choices for building front ends can be daunting. Like everything technology based, you are faced with a bunch of technology choices and tradeoffs. This article attempts to distill your app development options and outline the various pros and cons.

Content Management Systems seem to be a hot topic at the moment. We have been building varying solutions for several clients with integrated CMS systems, including our very own websites abletech.nz and addressfinder.nz. Our personal experience sees us on a three to five year lifecycle with CMS’s. Abletech went from WordPress, to BlogSpot, to Tumblr, to Medium, and now to Strapi over the course of 16 years! This article outlines some of our learnings, why we keep changing, and what we are really after from our CMS.

JAMstack with Next.js, Netlify and Prismic CMS

JAMstack with Next.js, Netlify and Prismic CMS

JAMstack with Next.js, Netlify and Prismic CMS

Custom software is designed for a specific purpose, user or organisation. Read about our Abletech SaaS (Software as a Service) product AddressFinder.

It’s time to look closely at serverless development. Come on a journey to investigate the serverless development model with Typescript. This article will take you through a potential framework, ORM, relational database provider, how to test, and our conclusions.

Design and development are sometimes thought of as two very opposite disciplines — one is creative and one is logical. Developers can get stuck in this trap, avoiding design because they ‘aren’t creative’ and getting paralysed when they inevitably have to make a minor design decision.

Image by Ralf Kunze from Pixabay

The source code for this guide is available on Github and you can view the original article on my blog (built with this starter).

We’re often asked how students and graduates can increase their chances of getting a paid summer internship with Abletech. Here are a few options to help you stand out from the crowd:

If you want to put the custom map you’ve created with MyMaps onto a website you have two options:

Our Rapid Projects team developed this mobile app in three months. We used React Native and found it fast and efficient. Watch a demo of SmartInspect. Hear what Naiki Pearl and Kate Norquay found as they developed using React Native.

Kate’s favourite talks include Julie Grundy on accessibility, Theresa Ma on improving the way designers and engineers work together, and Diana Mounter from GitHub on the interaction of colour systems.

JSConf-goers enjoying the complimentary coffee on the first day of the event (and some cheery Abletechers on the right!)

Inspiration and support. These events aim to push the boundaries of what JS can achieve. They intend to focus on topics that* define and revolutionise* the coming year of technology and are a launching point for some of the most revolutionary products, services, and technologies on the web. They also encourage the social connections within the community.

This year’s RubyConf AU is the biggest yet with a long line-up of speakers and some very cool social events.

Elixir is rapidly gaining interest and popularity. Kiwi developers connect online to learn and share tips together via Twitter and the AU/NZ Slack group. Wellington Elixir User Group members get together for Hack Nights.

Here are Abletechers Kate Norquay, Oliver Greenaway and Carl Penwarden at the Wellington ‘meet & greet’ with up-and-coming graduates.

Abletech (and its sister companies) sometimes looks to hire 1–2 students for summer internship roles. The following seven steps will substantially increase your chances of getting one of these sought after positions.

Sam grew up in Wellington. She’s currently studying towards a Bachelor of Science at Victoria University. She has two majors: Computer Science and Media Design.

ReactJS Basics with Michael Kuhinica from Sharesight

Static files handle large traffic easily. Photo cred: Sergey Pesterev (Unsplash)