Author Archives: Dan

SEO Tip: Titles matter, probably more than you think

November 10, 2011 – 1:56 pm

As a preface, I want to mention that this post is not any sort of secret formula for SEO. The only way to succeed at SEO is to deliver relevant content to a user, and if you don’t do that you are not going to succeed. However, like most things there are always opportunities for [...]

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Three string functions every PHP project needs

May 20, 2011 – 6:29 pm

At Thumbtack, we do most of our work in PHP and Python.  Our website is written in PHP, and much behind-the-scenes is written in Python.  Because we are constantly working in both languages, we often run into features of one language that we wish we could have in the other.  In particular there were 3 [...]

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How database replication helps me sleep at night

April 6, 2011 – 5:18 pm

Early Christmas Morning, around 2 A.M., I was on vacation with my family in St. Thomas.  I had just fallen asleep when I was woken with a phone call.  It was my coworker Steve. “The site is down,” he said. I pulled out my laptop, checked the website, and confirmed. This is a spot everybody [...]

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