What is IMAUG? IMAUG is the Iowa Microsoft Azure User Group. As some of you may or may not have noticed if you follow me on LinkedIn or my blog, I have links to join IMAUG everywhere. You might have questions about what is it, what should I expect to...

One day this spring, I walked the dog and forgot my headphones. It was early April; muddy and cool. We generally go about three miles on trails by the creek near our home. The path was quiet, all I could hear was birdsong and water. As I began to daydream,...

So you’ve discovered the wonderful world of Docker and are running containers left and right. You can effortlessly spin up any application under the sun and browse it locally. What more could a techie want in their home server hosting environment? That HTTPS Padlock showing you’re a secure web site...

From Warren Buffet to Kobe Bryant, it has been said the absolute best thing for you to do as a professional is to invest in yourself. For some, that is reading about or researching a specific topic to learn something new. The goal is to get the learning juices flowing...

DEFINING THE PROBLEM One of our partners who manufactures agriculture equipment began to experience growing pains with a high-volume API platform. The platform had grown into a monolith that was making it increasingly difficult to tune performance and add new features. Source Allies was asked to provide guidance and technical...

“Decide as late as possible” On the surface this principle of Lean Software Development would seem to suggest that we, as engineers, should put off as many decisions as possible till the last moment. This seems counterintuitive, as creating a working piece of software requires a great deal of planning...

Vim in Ten Keys If you’re reading this, you’re curious about Vim. Maybe you’re a curious person. Maybe there’s some really annoying person on your team who will just not shut up about it, and you’re trying to placate them. Maybe you opened it by accident, can’t get out, and...

GraphQL: From Zero to Schema What is GraphQL? Why would I want to use it? At its core, GraphQL is a query language for an API, just as SQL is a query language for databases. What this means is that GraphQL is a specification that allows our clients to query...

Pro Tips for Onboarding a New Teammate Intro Last month’s blog post, Pro Tips for Joining a New Team, was from the perspective of the reader joining a team. But what if you’re a member of a team that is onboarding a new teammate? Look no further, we’ve got you...

DEFINING THE PROBLEM For farmers, planting seed can be a complex process entailing planning and forecasting. Many agriculture companies across the U.S. invest in technology with hopes of improving both the process and overall annual yield. Initiatives like this start with a comprehensive look at current processes and operations to...