mastodon 4.5.19I lead Developer Relations at LocalStack.
If you're already doing the hard work of community organizing, you shouldn't be burdened with hundreds of dollars in subscription fees too.
I created a easy to use site for folks in tech to organize professional gatherings that has just the features you need – and it's free! Help me spread the word. https://devrelish.tech
I spent the weekends the past month refining a new site at DevRelish.tech. The goal was to create something that wasn't Meetup (which is emblematic of "enshittification") that helps folks in tech organize in real life social gatherings. It's not a full on replacement, but it can be used to run all sorts of in real life, niche tech-related communities and it's free and open source. I'd love for you all to give it a try if interested. I wrote more about it here. https://remotesynthesis.com/posts/introducting-devrelish/
Today's the day we officially say goodbye to CFE. I've learned so much over these 9 years of running virtual events – especially from my amazing speakers. I started this site because I love to learn and I am grateful for all of you for sharing your knowledge with us.
We'll be hosting a final goodbye stream featuring my regular hosts/co-hosts over the years including Erin Mikail Staples, Raymond Camden, Nick Taylor and Sean C Davis. Join us live at 1pm ET (UTC -5) https://youtube.com/live/trlXshzjvG4?feature=share
New version of my blog just launched. Built with Astro using the Astro Paper template with some light customization. Lemme know if you see any issues as YOLO deployed this over the course of this afternoon. Next step? Actually start blogging some more. https://remotesynthesis.com/
I'd love for you to give DevRel(ish) a try for managing your tech-focused community for free, but I get that folks may find moving difficult. That's why last night I built an importer that let's you pull in your upcoming events on Meetup directly into the site. Give it a shot: https://devrelish.tech/
Some big improvements to DevRel(ish) that I worked on this past weekend to make it even better for organizers.
The latest update allows you to add speakers and sessions to a gathering, making it more useful for folks organizing more speaker-centric events.
I've got a ton more plans to make this site truly empower organizers in the community work they do. https://devrelish.tech
I love posts like this about building something with code just for fun. Rachel Kaufman built some code that can be added as Jekyll plugin to procedurally generate OG images using Truchet tiles to create unique designs. https://www.readwriterachel.com/things-i-learned/2026/01/05/truchet-og-images.html
We're going live with PixelPalooza in just 2 hours! Join us for 8 great talks from 8 amazing speakers all about using web media (images, video, audio, etc) and the page weight/performance implications that come with them. We'll be streaming the full conference for free, live on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/QUWCK1GW1d4?feature=share
I started working on Certified Fresh Events (later just CFE.dev) back in June of 2016. The original intent was to build a series of in-person events but, in order to bootstrap the brand and audience, I decided to launch with some online ones. The initial events were far bigger than I expected, hitting my user limit caps.
Missed TheJam.dev? No worries. I'm releasing a new session recording every day for the next couple weeks. Let's start with the opening keynote from @biilmann@mastodon.social , CEO of Netlify, who first introduced the term Jamstack for web development. In his keynote, he talks about how the term applied back then, how it has evolved and what Jamstack is in 2024.
We're going live with our first session at TheJam.dev featuring @biilmann@mastodon.social talking about Jamstack in 2024. https://crowdcast.io/c/thejamdev
Recently, I learned about a tool called CloudBurn that helps detect cost-related mistakes in your AWS setup. I wanted to see if I could use the tool to detect these issues automatically in your local environment to catch cost regressions in your IaC before you deploy. Here's how it works: https://blog.localstack.cloud/managing-cloud-costs-cloudburn/
This is an interesting article and touches on a number of topics that have been on my mind as well. One area that has really worried me is what the author discusses in the last section about AI not needing open source, which is essentially that innovation in software, as in most other areas, is often driven by solving a pain point. https://blog.scottlogic.com/2026/03/15/if-ai-writes-the-code-who-builds-the-next-open-source-project.html
I created a deep dive into Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) and sample app for handling both application-to-application (notifying another AWS/https service) and application-to-person (SMS, email, etc) messaging. https://blog.localstack.cloud/aws-deep-dives-sns/
CFE is hosting its final virtual conference this coming Thursday starting at 11am ET (UTC -5). It's all about using web media – things like images, video, streaming, audio and files. These are the things that make the web fun, engaging and interactive but they also come at a cost in terms of page weight and performance.
We'll have 8 talks by 8 amazing speakers diving into all these topics! Plus, it's all free. Learn more and register here: https://cfe.dev/events/pixelpalooza-2025/
