Notes on cloud architecture, serverless and the web — by a Senior Software and Cloud Engineer in the UK who builds for the deaf signing community, and who ships things like 50p Direct Debit and Meeting Canary.
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Every post on this site since the migration started life as a chat message. "Write something about Cloudflare Workers and D1, draft it to my blog." Pizza Bot researches the topic, writes the Markdown, and queues it on EmDash as a draft, where I read it, edit it, and hit publish. Under the hood it is two pieces of configuration: an MCP server that gives Pizza Bot access to EmDash, and a skill that tells it how to use those tools. This post is that setup, end to end.
This blog ran on Ghost for five years. It now runs on EmDash, on Cloudflare Workers, with the words in D1 and the images in R2. Every old URL still resolves. Here is how the migration actually went — the pipeline, the four bugs that fought back, and what I would do differently.
I built a little Cloudflare Worker that automatically joins Octopus Energy Saving Sessions so I don't have to remember to opt in. Here's how it works and how you can set it up for yourself.
In the world of web development, we've all deployed throwaway files for debugging—often with innocent names like test.php. But sometimes, these small conveniences can snowball into major security breaches.
2024 saw new peaks in usage for the sign language dictionary, www.signasl.org. With a whopping 34,412,937 searches conducted on the platform and 908,000 unique visitors. This was a 6.8% increase from 2023, which had 32,197,037 searches. This continued growth speaks to our commitment to providing comprehensive resources for those learning American Sign Language.
Greetings, British Sign Language enthusiasts!
When managing a mailing list, one critical task is ensuring that the email addresses in your list are valid. Sending emails to invalid addresses not only clutters your system but also harms your sender reputation, which can affect your email deliverability. One effective way to validate email addresses is by checking their Mail Exchanger (MX) records.
To send an email via a CloudFlare Worker you will need to call a email provider. AWS Simple Email Service (SES) is a robust transactional email provider that I already use in a number of other projects, and simplifies my billing. However the JavaScript SDK provided by AWS is very large and is not compatible with the CloudFlare Worker runtime. So we will want to roll our own simple API call to the SES.
Switching banks has never been more rewarding. With enticing cash bonuses, interest rates, and other perks, savvy consumers are capitalizing on these offers. However, many of these deals come with a requirement: you need to have active direct debits. But what if you could set up these direct debits without breaking the bank? Enter Fifty Pence Direct Debit, the service that makes it easy for you to manage your direct debits for just 50p per transaction.
When it comes to managing costs, especially ongoing ones, businesses and individuals with side projects alike seek efficient solutions. Email services are no exception. While free email providers can be enticing initially, they come with a serious drawback. Learn from my experience that see that resisting the draw of free email services and opting for paid transactional email services from the beginning is the smart choice.
