Creating an eBook with Pandoc and Markdown

You might already be aware of this, but I’ve accomplished a life achievement of writing and self-publishing two technical eBooks. I published Web Services for the JavaScript Developer, followed by Web Services for the Go Developer, which contain the same concepts using two different programming technologies.

If you’ve ever thought about writing an eBook, you’ve probably opened tools like Apple Pages or Microsoft Word and said to yourself, formatting this is going to be a nightmare. Technical content will, more often than not, contain code, which may have sophisticated formatting. Writing a programming eBook or another technical eBook doesn’t have to be a hassle when you’re using the right tooling.

In this tutorial, we’re going to explore Pandoc, and see how you can write a book quickly and easily with Markdown.

Leaving HERE and Going to MongoDB

About a year ago, I joined HERE Technologies as the Lead Developer Evangelist after having been at Couchbase prior. I wrote about this transition in an article titled, Moving from Couchbase to HERE, the Adventure Continues.

In the year that I’ve been at HERE, I accomplished quite a lot in Developer Relations. Some of those accomplishments include:

• Starting the HERE stream on Twitch.
• Revamping the technical content production strategy for the blog and YouTube channel.
• Improving how feedback is acted on within the organization.

While I did so much more within HERE, this is where my story ends and a new one with MongoDB begins!

Announcing The Polyglot Developer Courses Portal

I’m pleased to announce that The Polyglot Developer has its own courses portal, a replacement to Udemy and Gumroad!

The new portal, powered by Teachable, is a dedicated area for development courses relating to the material typically found on The Polyglot Developer blog. The portal will contain a variety of courses, some of which are free, and some of which are paid, but all of which are offering a premium learning experience.

I wanted to take a moment to explain what you’ll be able to find in the courses portal and some of the longer term goals of what it hopes to accomplish.

Use A YubiKey For PGP Signing, Encryption, And Authentication

As you know, based on a few of the tutorials that I’ve published recently, I have a YubiKey that I’ve been learning how to take full advantage of. In previous tutorials I demonstrated how to implement U2F in your web application, but most YubiKey devices do so much more than just U2F authentication. For example, the YubiKey NEO and YubiKey 5 have support for U2F, FIDO2, OpenPGP, OTP, and a bunch of other crazy technologies.

In this tutorial, we’re going to explore using the YubiKey as a smart card for storing our PGP signing, encryption, and authentication subkeys.

A Recap Of CES 2019

This past week I had the honor of attending the consumer electronics show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. This had been a lifelong goal of mine to attend the event and get a firsthand look at all the latest and greatest technology releasing in 2019.

While mostly unrelated to development and the material typically found on The Polyglot Developer, I wanted to give a summary of the event with some of the things I enjoyed and some of the things I didn’t about the event.

My Activity Report For 2018

The 2018 year is winding down so it is time to reflect on some of the things that have happened in terms of The Polyglot Developer and all of its channels.

Let this be a statistics report for everything that has happened on the blog, YouTube channel, and podcast. If you’re interested in adventuring into the world of technical content production, this will give you some perspective into what to expect.

The Community Contributions Of 2018

With the 2018 year coming to an end, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate the guest content that was submitted and published on The Polyglot Developer this year. While I love sharing technical content with everyone, I love it even more when the community gets involved and does the same.

Let’s take a look at the guest tutorials that appeared on the blog and the guest authors that wrote them.