Smashing Boxes

Blog Posts

You Can’t (Really) Innovate Without Discovery

Innovation begins with an idea. A spark of intuition based on an assumption - that there is a problem or that something could be better, and that we can solve it.

What All Software Engineers Need to Know about WWDC 2019

With the new home screen, apps can now play fullscreen video previews, which makes the Apple TV 4K more discoverable and engaging.

WebSockets in Rails 5

Rails 5 is on the horizon. There are many great new features in this new version, but the one I'm most excited about is built-in WebSockets support.

The Case for a Standard Research Backend

In a previous blog post, we talked about the benefits and challenges of ResearchKit and ResearchStack.

Testing a Rails Template

As promised in my previous post, here is part 2 of my series on Rails Templates.

Rails and React Monorepo: A Perfect Balance of Speed and Sustainability

Learn how to implement a Rails and React monorepo that achieves the perfect balance between speed and sustainability.

Quality isn’t magic: Why you need QA

At SB.Quality means fully tested applications and websites with thoroughly defined test plans and test cases that are created and executed from a user’s perspective.

Putting QA Tool PractiTest to the...test

When it comes to managing your QA and testing processes, it’s ideal to have a tool that fully supports your business needs.

Pro Tips for Surviving the Digital Health Product Lifecycle

Two weeks ago, we co-hosted the 5th Annual mHealth@Duke Conference with the conference founders, the Duke Global Digital Health Science Center.

Navigating the Highs and Lows of Open Source

Most developers are encouraged to contribute to Open Source Software projects.

Moogfest Workshops in VR, IoT and Wearables Coming to Smashing Boxes

When Moogfest announced it was coming to Durham, partnering with the event was a no-brainer for Smashing Boxes.

Mobile Optimized Versus Responsive Design

No matter where you look on the web today, Responsive Design is there.

Merging Rails and Ember-CLI - Part III

In this third and final part of my "Merging ember-cli with Rails" blog series

Learn React.js a Little at a Time, Part 3

After the first two parts of this series, you have a simple app for posting messages into a feed.

Learn React.js a Little at a Time, Part 2

After working through the first part, we have a simple app that writes “Hello World” to the page.

Learn React.js a Little at a Time, Part 1

Smashing Boxes encourages us to find better ways to deliver high-quality products.

Introduction to the MEAN Stack [video]

At Smashing Boxes, we encourage our developers to teach the rest of our team about trending technologies, innovative concepts, and new workflows that they are interested in or testing out.

Image Upload in Phoenix

I’ve been having tons of fun lately learning Elixir and, being a Rails developer, it was only a matter of time before I tried out Phoenix.

Image Preview with Dragonfly Gem

The Dragonfly gem is a really efficient way for a rails project to support on the fly image resizing and processing.

How to Convert EC2 AMI to VMDK for Vagrant

First launch an EC2 instance with the desired AMI. Now we’ll need to enable root ssh access.

How Developing a Software Product is Like Peeling an Onion

Developing software is a lot like cooking. Specifically, it’s like slicing and peeling an onion. At every turn you peel back layers and layers of details, complexity, and possibilities.

How an Attacker Sees Your Website

You don't have to try very hard to hear about the latest cyber attack. Sony, Yahoo, LinkedIn are just a few of the recent victims.

Essential Research Skills for Engineers

Modern software development requires a ton of research.

driver.get() series: QA Automation and Value

In my previous post, QA Automation and Domain Knowledge, we discussed the importance of acquiring domain knowledge and being intimate with the details of client priorities and needs with empathy.

driver.get() series: QA Automation and Domain Knowledge

This is the first of a series of posts relating to Quality Assurance, automation testing and automation engineers.

Dev Download: Google I/O 2019 #io2019

Security, Privacy, Performance, and Machine Learning were focal points of this year’s Google I/O event. Let’s dive into the key takeaways.

Choosing your future tech stack: Clojure vs Elixir vs Go

Programming is a fashion industry. As developers, we have to keep on top of the trends or we quickly become outdated.

Choosing a Front End Framework: Angular vs. Ember vs. React

As front end engineers, we live in exciting times. The big three of web frameworks are all approaching or have had major new releases.

Apple’s Swift: A Developer’s First Impression

Our developers Jordan Clifton and David Sweetman dove into the new programming language, “Swift,” that was announced yesterday during Apple’s keynote at WWDC14.

An Easy Way to Manual QA Your Product

If you are building your own product, here's a "Cliff's Notes" version of the QA process to help you get your product off the ground.

Alumni Build the World: Using Data Visualization to Re-engage with Alums.

Continuing a connection with alumni after graduation can provide a valuable form of support to higher education institutions. But maintaining that relationship can prove more difficult over time.

React is all the rage right now. And since Smashing Boxes is always all the rage, we decided that we should start using React. It all began in Smashing Labs, our weekly innovation time, when a few developers started making small apps using React.