Welcome to Sourcetoad’s Blog
Your digital compass for the latest trends, insights, and expert knowledge in software development. Dive into our sea of articles where we unravel the complexities of technology, offer innovative solutions, and share our passion for software excellence.
FRAME: The Checklist You Need Before Launching AI-Powered Tools in Front of Customers
Before you put an AI-powered tool in front of customers, run through the FRAME checklist. FRAME stands for Funnel Stage, Risk, Authority, Mechanism of Truth, and Escalation, and each part answers a question that should be settled before launch
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Where AI Code Generation Ends and Software Expertise Begins
AI code generation is a force multiplier in the hands of experienced engineers, but it is not a replacement for architectural judgment, domain expertise, or production accountability.
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The Tools Our Teams Loved in 2025
At Sourcetoad, we’re always on the lookout for tools that help us build smarter, move faster, and make the complex feel downright elegant.
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From Spreadsheets to Data Lakes: Understanding Where Your Data Lives
Most teams start managing data the same way: a few spreadsheets, a shared drive, a couple of people who “own” the numbers.
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Tampa’s Biggest and Best Custom Software Company? Let’s Look at the Numbers!
If you live and work in Tampa Bay, you already know that we love our lists. Fastest growing, best places to work, top innovators, and, of course, the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s annual ranking of the largest software developers.
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3 Prompts to Immediately Improve Your Vibe Coding
If you're using Replit or Lovable to build software, you've probably been...
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Why Your AI Assistant Needs an Audit Trail, and How to Add One
When your AI makes decisions that impact people or business processes, you need to know what happened and why.
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Replit Is for Building, Not Running: When to Call in Real Engineers
While Replit excels in rapid prototyping, it wasn’t built to run production-grade software—at least not yet. When performance, security, and scalability start to matter, it’s time to involve real engineers.
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Technical Debt 101: Managing Technical Debt with Automation
Technical debt is often framed as a developer problem. But for operations leaders, it’s a silent budget drain and a barrier to scaling efficiently.
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Running Your Own LLM Instance: When It’s Worth It (and When It’s Not)
The decision to host a Large Language Model (LLM) in-house is a strategic one. The allure of enhanced data privacy, compliance adherence, and potential cost savings at scale is compelling.
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How MCP Servers Are Rewiring the Internet and Why It Matters Now
Instead of hardcoding bespoke connections between agents and services, MCP servers provide a way for AI to find and use tools as needed, on the fly.
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Rethinking Product Launches: MVP vs. SLC
While Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) help you move fast, they can leave users underwhelmed. Enter the Simple, Lovable, Complete (SLC) framework…
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AI Tools Roundup: “Conversations and Creations” Edition
This week, we’re diving into tools that help you master social media, stay ahead of financial markets, and build AI agents
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Day-to-Day Automation with GenAI: Part II
Discover how to create custom AI automations with GPT Builder to automate review responses in simple steps.
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How to Build Any Product in 12 Weeks
You can build just about any* product in 12 weeks or less, from idea to in-market. But, to do it,...
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How Laravel’s $57M Accel Investment Benefits Sourcetoad Clients
Today, we’re excited to share some incredible news: Laravel, the PHP framework we specialize in, has just received a significant $57 million investment from Accel, one of the world’s leading venture capital firms.
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Sourcetoad’s First Staff Augmentation Deal Sets a New Model for Technical Industry Partnerships
Sourcetoad recently achieved a significant milestone with our first Cost+ staff augmentation deal,...
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Laravel on AWS Fargate at Sourcetoad
Sourcetoad’s Laravel on ECS Guide: Comprehensive tips for enterprise-grade migration.
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Meet Sourcetoad, a 2023 Best Places to Work honoree
Tampa Bay Business JournalSourcetoad has been selected as a 2023 Best Places...
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Education Technology Trends: What to Expect in 2023
The COVID-19 pandemic was a huge catalyst for growth in the education technology market. During the...
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The Evolution of Buy Now, Pay Later in eCommerce: Part 1
If you’ve shopped online recently, you’ve probably noticed an increase in financing options being...
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2022 Trends in FinTech
The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly accelerated the digitization of the financial services sector. As...
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Tampa software company makes pandemic pivot to keep business afloat
WFLA News Channel 8— TAMPA— July 14, 2021 Watch the WFLA segment and read the article here.
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Sourcetoad & Otalio
Sourcetoad partners with Otalio to unlock the potential of the most...
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Tampa Bay Tech summit gets personal with A-LIGN, Sourcetoad CEOs
St. Pete Catalyst— Sept 19, 2020 Tampa Bay Tech's CEO2CEO panel featured Greg...
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Sourcetoad Ranks #34 on Tampa Bay Business Journal’s Fast 50 List of Fastest Growing Companies
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TAMPA, Fla. — July 26, 2019 — Sourcetoad, an enterprise software development...
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Apktool Sponsorship
Apktool is the original Android application package (Apk) decompiler. Released in January 2010,...
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2017 Daveler Pitch Competition
On Saturday, Greg Ross-Munro, Sourcetoad's Founder and CEO, joined 4 other...
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Controlling a Light Bulb via Voice Recognition in Pure Javascript
Final Product Amazing production quality, I know. I'm sort of a big deal....
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View Models in the Yii Framework
Ever since I started using Yii 2, I felt that the default way of passing data from controllers to...
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Adding Personal Flair to Your Code
I've been thinking recently about the naming conventions I use while coding,...
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Edge Computing
Edge computing is the newest tech buzz phrase you might want to consider with some seriousness. I...
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Adding Some Pizzazz To Your Terminal
How many times have you bashed numbers and letters into your basic old terminal, thrown the...
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Why You Can’t Trust Local Storage in Your Cordova App
Settings are an important part of any mobile app. A mobile app is nothing without user data, which...
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An In-Depth Look at Regular Expressions Part 3: Finite State Machines
So in part 1, we talked about different ways to represent languages in general, and in part 2, we...
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Pattern Library Frameworks: Astrum, Fractal, and Pattern Labs
For those of you unfamiliar with pattern libraries, I'd recommend reading Paul...
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Split Payments: Braintree Marketplace vs. Stripe Connect vs. Paypal Adaptive Payments
If you’ve ever used web platforms such as Uber, Kickstarter, or Elance, then you’ve seen split...
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The Economics of Efficiency
Sourcetoad develops many different types of applications for many different types of customers....
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Flat Design: An Origin Story
As quickly as we threw away our pens, notepads, sound systems, address books, alarm clocks, and...
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Thinking About Micro-Services
I've been thinking about micro-services lately as a way to organize projects....
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Logo Design: Start at the Font
Logo design is becoming easier and easier these days. You can get a website to spit a logo out in a...
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The True Cost of AWS: Part 2
Part one of this article discussed the downfalls of running a “VPS-style” site on a single AWS...
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Gulp-Webserver For The Win
Gulp Webserver For the Win I love when a great set of tools gets an update; especially when it’s an...
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SSL Certificates
I don't want to freak you completely out, but I can most likely read your...
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How We Migrated a Legacy Code Library into a Modern Composer Package
Introduction: A couple projects ago, a client of ours wanted a simple forum system. Nothing nearly...
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Mutual Exclusion In JavaScript
Many years ago, when I was still a student in High School, I enrolled in a summer program for...
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JavaScript Task Runners and Bower Components
For this article, I will assume you have, at least, some basic knowledge of what a Task Runner is...
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HTML5 on Embedded Devices
Many years ago, embedded systems were fairly complex to build. They had extremely limited resources...
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The Hamburger Menu: The Dreaded Second Cousin We Can’t Seem to Avoid
For web and app developers, one question has always been a top concern in the realm of user...
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How to QA the Sourcetoad Way
Client QA Cycle Setup Instructions Welcome to your QA cycle! At Sourcetoad, we take QA very...
read morePart 2: The Planning Process
Last week we talked a lot about the importance of planning and research in regards to your new...
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Monetizing Your Mobile Apps (Part 2)
Let's take a look at some of the various ways you can monetize your mobile...
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Offshore Development vs. Onshore Development
When most people think of outsourcing, they probably think of physical products that are...
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Software Supply Chain Security in the AI Era
AI can help a malicious actor inspect public code, generate exploit ideas, write credible package descriptions, create phishing messages, and automate parts of reverse engineering.
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If Your App Uses Generative AI, Who Owns the Output?
Who actually owns the content that your app generates? The answer matters for IP risk, product positioning, contractual terms, compliance, training data strategy, and platform liability.
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How to Actually Implement MCP for Your Service Company
Alright, so MCP sounds great in theory. But how do you actually do this? Let’s walk through the practical steps, from easiest to most advanced.
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Are You a Service Company or a Tech Company in Disguise?
A lot of service firms reach a crossroads: are we really a traditional service business, or are we operating like a tech-enabled company, and if not, should we be?
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Should’ve Audited First: Real-World Risks of Launching Vibe‑Coded Apps Without a Safety Check
AI coding tools like Replit, Cursor, & Lovable let you build prototypes in days, not months.
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Using AGENTS.md in Replit or Lovable
Using an AGENTS.md file in your vibe coding project can make a huge difference in the security and reliability of the app you’re building with it.
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Why Digital Transformation Fails, and How to Avoid It
Despite billions spent, over 70% of digital transformation efforts fail to meet their objectives, according to Forbes.
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Should You Let AI Write Code for You? Productivity vs. Risk
Used thoughtfully, AI can help engineers move faster, but it should never replace deep domain knowledge, security, and reliability overseen by seasoned developers.
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Your Operations Are a Product, Here’s How to Build It
Productizing an internal process isn’t just a clever way to repurpose your company’s operations; it’s a strategic shift that can unlock new revenue, streamline internal workflows, and reinforce your competitive moat.
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AI is the New OS
ChatGPT isn’t an app, it’s an operating system, and the pattern that was developed by OpenAI has now become pervasive. This is exactly how Gemini, Claude and X work. It’s how all AI codegen apps work. This is the new pattern for computing in the future.
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Privacy as a Human Right
At Sourcetoad, we don’t find compliance boring or a series of burdens. We believe privacy is fundamentally a human rights issue.
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Sourcetoad Joins the Official Laravel Partner Program
Discover why Laravel chose Sourcetoad as an official partner and see how we use the framework to build secure, scalable software.
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AI Tools Roundup: “Smart Sidekicks and Magic Tricks” Edition
Learn how AI tools are transforming interactions, automation, and design in this week’s roundup.
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Day-to-Day Automation with GenAI: Part I
Automation with generative AI has the potential to transform how businesses manage everyday tasks....
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7 Non-Profit Challenges That Generative AI Can Solve
When it comes to non-profits, the mission is always bigger than the budget. And yet, every day, you...
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Personalized Financial Solutions with AI and Human-Centered Design
AI and human-centered design enhance personalized financial solutions and decision-making
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Apple’s New EU Policies for Apps
Apple and the EU's Digital Markets Act In light of the European Union's new...
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Building an AI Policy for Your Company
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an integral part of our present-day technology landscape. At...
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The Agile Manifesto in Practice: Part 2
The Agile approach to software development first emerged in response to the inflexibility of...
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The Agile Manifesto in Practice: Part 1
How Sourcetoad Values People Over ProcessThe software development process can...
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The Rise of Ransomware Attacks on Schools: Why the K-12 Cybersecurity Act is Only the First Step
The shift to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of digital...
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2022 Trends in Education Technology
The unexpected shift to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic has forced educators of all...
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Get to Know Sourcetoad, a 2021 Best Places to Work honoree
Tampa Bay Business Journal—Mar 18, 2021 Click here to read our 2021 profile in the Tampa Bay...
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Sourcetoad CEO, Greg Ross-Munro, Shares with Us How He Founded His Hospitality Technology Innovation Company and Talks about Lessons Learned from COVID-19
Startup Info — Oct 31, 2020 Click here to read Startup Info's interview with...
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Sourcetoad named in Business Observer Top 500 2020
Business Observer Top 500 2020 — Aug 14, 2020 Sourcetoad ranked 485 in Business Observer’s Top 500...
read moreDevFest Florida 2017
We spent last Saturday sponsoring and attending the 2017 edition of DevFest Florida, an annual...
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Sourcetoad on 83 Degrees Media
A big thank you to Cheryl Rogers and and 83 Degrees Media for the feature article on Sourcetoad....
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Trello: How I Found Balance in My List Obsession
Once upon a time, I was a habitual list maker — grocery lists, to-do lists, prioritized lists, wish...
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ES6: Constants Can Change
I recently made the switch from the archaic JavaScript of yester-year that everyone loves to hate...
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The Benefits of Using React
React is a simple, yet powerful, UI library. When it was released in 2013, it offered an...
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Progressive Loading Of Images
Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday, or whatever it is that you do. And while I am...
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An Atari for Productivity
While the Atari video computer system from 1977 gave us plenty of classic games, the Atari 8-bit...
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Magic Methods Within Yii2
Yii and Yii2 utilize various magic methods within the framework, the implementation of which can be...
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Debugging PHP: Save Time with Xdebug’s Remote Autostart
Whenever I find myself working with an unfamiliar PHP codebase, Xdebug becomes one of my most...
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Preprocess All The Things
In a quickly mutating world of web software development, preprocessors are rapidly becoming the new...
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Phone Number Validation: A Cautionary Tale
We recently received a ticket for a project requesting phone number validation in some forms. Seems...
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PhpStorm: Useful Features to Make Your Life Easier
Is PhpStorm the best PHP IDE out there? In my last blog post, I talked about switching from my...
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An In-Depth Look at Regular Expressions Part 2: Regular Languages
So we've discussed what a language is from a computer science theory viewpoint...
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Picking a Domain Name – Hints and Tips
Every time you start a new project, or need to create a new business, you're...
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Organizing Project Dependencies
No matter what language or framework you use, you are bound to have dependencies. The days of...
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Getting Started with PouchDB to Replace Parse
With the demise of Parse, I had to be receptive to alternatives. Luckily I had already been...
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The True Cost of AWS Hosting: Part 1
As we always like to tell our clients, Sourcetoad is not a devops company. That isn’t our core...
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How I learned To Stop Worrying and Love the IDE
As developers, the integrated development environment (IDE) we choose to use is both incredibly...
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Using Jira’s Issues To Communicate More Effectively With Clients
As a project manager in a technology setting, communication between clients and agencies can...
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Ugly Websites Built For Your Enjoyment, Anguish
I like to give the guys something fun to do ONCE in a while. So this time round, we hosted the “Bad...
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5 Very Spooky Viruses
It’s almost Halloween. Time to buy a bunch of cheap candy, put up a few spooky decorations around...
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Migrating a Module From Yii1.x to Yii2.x
Yii is an amazing framework. As it has been iterated on version 2 is now out and is quickly picking...
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How To Get A Job As A Programmer
We’re always on the hunt for talent. I think that almost everyone is these days. That doesn’t mean...
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Cost Benefits vs Sacrifices in Cross-Platform App Design
Ok, so there are a thousand articles out there doing a Pros/Cons analysis of cross-platform...
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Introducing Tadpole.js: A JavaScript Library Built to Enhance Backbone.js
Backbone.js is a JavaScript library that any developer can get up-and-running with, in just a...
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Part 1: The Planning Process
During this three-part series, we’ll be discussing some of the more important aspects of going from...
read moreMonetizing Your Mobile Apps (Part 1)
It's no secret that a great mobile app can be an excellent source of revenue,...
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Should I Build a Mobile Website, Mobile App, or Both?
The Internet used to be a simpler place. Once upon a time, you didn’t have to choose between a...
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The Dice Tell the Story: What D&D Taught Me About Failure, Creativity, and Collaboration
Games like Dungeons and Dragons create a space where it’s safe to be imperfect. You learn how to adapt, how to think on your feet, and how to stay engaged even when things don’t go as planned.
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Sourcetoad Joins Thompson Holdings: What This Means for Our Clients and Our Future
We’re excited to share a major milestone in Sourcetoad’s journey. Sourcetoad has officially joined Thompson Holdings, Inc., an employee-owned organization.
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What Are MCP Servers and Why Service Companies Should Care
If you’re tired of feeling like your tools work against you instead of for you, MCP might be exactly what you’ve been waiting for.
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Scam Alert: Fake “Sourcetoad” Job Offers on WhatsApp and LinkedIn
We’ve recently been alerted to a recruitment scam that’s using Sourcetoad’s name, logo, and reputation to trick people into fake “remote job” opportunities.
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Can You Put a Non-Replit Project into Replit?
Replit and Lovable are great – but once you’re in them, you’re in them, right? We’ve had clients come to us asking to take their app out of Replit or Lovable…
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Getting Your Lovable App into Production: A Practical Hand-Off Guide
Prototypes are built for speed, not scale. Moving to production means introducing rigor where it didn’t exist before.
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Stop Selling Hours: Increase Margins in Professional Services with Tech
There’s a fundamental math problem baked into most professional services firms: if you’re billing by the hour, your revenue is capped by the number of humans you employ and the number of hours in a day.
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Why Laravel Is Ideal for Custom Enterprise Apps
When enterprise teams consider custom app development, they often seek a balance between speed, security, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
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How Incremental Digital Transformation Builds Buzz and Modernizes Systems
Many service businesses still run on aging software. Replacing these systems isn’t just expensive, it’s operationally dangerous.
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How the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Big Bend Are Using AI to Transform Operations
Most nonprofit teams operate on tight budgets and even tighter bandwidth. We delivered a custom, hands-on training engagement built specifically for nonprofits.
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Outgrowing v0: How to Transition Your AI MVP to a Scalable Production Stack
You had an idea. You built something fast. Maybe you used v0 to turn your vision into a working MVP in days instead of weeks. That was the right move…
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How Burger King’s “Million Dollar Whopper” Campaign Showcases the Power of Generative AI in Franchise Marketing
Learn how franchisors can leverage AI for innovative marketing strategies.
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Launching Lean: A Case Study in Testing Assumptions First
Launching a new product, app, or feature is risky and expensive. There’s a good chance things won’t...
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From Buzzword to Bottom Line: How AI is Transforming Franchises
AI and human-centered design enhance personalized financial solutions and decision-making
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Practical Ways to Augment Your Customer Service Team Using GenAI
Customer service is the heart of any company. When customers reach out, they expect fast,...
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How GPT-4o Can Transform Projects at Sourcetoad
OpenAI’s GPT-4o: Advanced AI with multimodal capabilities and efficiency.
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The Power of Proximity in Design
Welcome to the Davis Design Debrief, where we delve into the…
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Sourcetoad Presents: Fine-Tuning OpenAI
Welcome to Sourcetoad’s first video in our Artificial Intelligence series! In this video,...
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This Year in FinTech: Trends to Watch in 2023
The financial services industry experienced rapid digitization throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,...
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The Evolution of Buy Now, Pay Later in eCommerce: Part 2
In Part 1, we talked about the rapid growth of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and discussed its...
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Sourcetoad is Laravel Certified
April 11, 2022 — We are proud to announce that Sourcetoad is now the first US-based company to...
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IoT: The Revolution Will Be Integrated
While the term “Internet of Things” (IoT) was coined over 20 years ago by Procter & Gamble employee...
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Technology firms partner for property management system development
Cruise & Ferry— Dec 4, 2020 Read about Sourcetoad's partnership with...
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Get to know these Fast 50 honorees: Burgess Civil, KnowBe4, Spathe Systems, Sourcetoad, Elite Insurance
Tampa Bay Business Journal—Oct 19, 2020 Read the article here.
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How Sourcetoad is Keeping Its Company Culture Alive
Creating a positive company culture is no easy task, and it’s something Sourcetoad takes very...
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Sourcetoad at DevFest Florida 2017
We're proud to announce that both Connor and Joey are speakers at DevFest...
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Sourcetoad on ABC Action News
Thanks to ABC Action News and Nicole Grigg for featuring Sourcetoad in their report on technology...
read moreMagic Methods Within Yii2 __set
This article is continued from the previous post about the __get method. The basic __set method is...
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How To Build A Successful, Cross-Platform Mobile App
One of the most gratifying feelings an app development team can experience is seeing an app they’ve...
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Improve Backups with S3
Perhaps the most important aspect of any system is the backup strategy. All sysadmins would agree...
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Presentations: 6 Guidelines to Follow
Powerpoint or Keynote presentations are infamously terrible. In the software development world (and...
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6 Holiday Tips to Stay Safe When Browsing Online
As 2016 draws to a close, and the holiday rush of online shopping is in full swing, I thought it...
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No One Has Time to be Wait()ing.
Like any dev shop worth its weight, we strongly promote testing of our products. In order to...
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When to use Monotonic Time
When writing about time and software development, most people think of time zones. This Youtube...
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3 Web UX Rules to Follow (When Designing for Short Attention Spans)
Working at a software development company is a daily reminder of why communication is so...
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Learning to Work With (and Not Against) Your PHP Framework
Too often have I come upon a code base, in a framework that I know, just to be lost in a mess of...
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JavaScript Decorators: True Power In ES7
JavaScript can be pretty annoying at times. You would think that with classes implemented in ES6,...
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Responsive Content Canvasing With Fixed Ratios
Today I would like to discuss a concept aimed at preparing an area of content that is yet to be...
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On the Origins and Applications of Substring Matching
Today I'm going to be looking into substring matching algorithms. The...
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Flex Your Box
If you have read any of my previous articles, you may have noticed by now that I tend to write...
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The Benefits of ‘Auto-Updating’ Programs
Auto-updating programs are definitely useful. When one evaluates their most-used programs, they’ll...
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An In-depth Look at Regular Expressions Part 1: Languages
Most programmers have used, or are at least aware of, regular expressions and how they work. But,...
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Three 2015 Web Design Trends That’ll Give You Hope for 2016
Trend is an unattractive word. More often than not, a trend is something that is scoffed at or...
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Good Practices for Using Heroku
The nice thing about using Heroku is that it is very simple to deploy. Just git push Heroku master....
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Filling the Blanks: Hiring Practices and Thoughts Upon Such
We’re growing! Which means we’re hiring developers and designers of caliber whose talents we can...
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Six Rules For Non Technical Managers in Software Roles
We live in a world where very few businesses have NOT been affected by technology. Even...
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Developing Code Standards for Teams
“Write a blog post” they said, “It will be fun.” Okay, then, let's talk about...
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What Are API Calls? Part 1
In almost every application project, the topic of APIs will inevitably come up. A lot of the times,...
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An Introduction To Scope In ECMAScript 6
6 (ES6) introduces some new features that improve upon ECMAScript 5 (ES5) scoping. In this post...
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Part 3: The Planning Process
Thanks for coming back! As we’d talked about on the 21st of October, we’ll be continuing the final...
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How Mobile Apps Are Driving Revenue for Businesses Using Geo-Targeting
One of the things we specialize in is creating mobile apps for businesses, and one of the main...
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How to Plan a New Web Application
So, you've come up with an idea for the next web application that is going to...
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Questions to Ask When Hiring a Mobile App Developer
6 Important Questions You Should Ask Before You Hire a Mobile App Developer It’s no secret that in...
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