[In the second part of his series, a Zone Leader begins the process of using Heroku for the very first time. In this article, he walks through the new account process, then performs the necessary setup of a database and RESTful API for use with the application built for a family member.]

In the "Moving Away From AWS and Onto Heroku" article, I provided an introduction of the application I wanted to migrate from Amazon's popular AWS solution to Heroku. While AWS is certainly meeting the needs of my customer (my mother-in-law), I am hoping for a solution that allows my limited time to be focused on providing business solutions instead of getting up to speed with DevOps processes.

In the Alexa Skills for Node.JS ASK SDK development world, the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) Command-Line Interface (CLI) is one of the most overlooked tools.

Boosting Developer Productivity

With proper use, one could really increase productivity when developing Alexa Skills. This is especially so if you are creating many Alexa Skills, either because you are in the learning process or you are just managing multiple Alexa Skills projects for yourself or your clients.

In the "Moving Away From AWS and Onto Heroku" article, I provided an introduction of the application I wanted to migrate from Amazon's popular AWS solution to Heroku.  Subsequently, the "Destination Heroku" article illustrated the establishment of a new Heroku account and focused on introducing a Java API (written in Spring Boot) connecting to a ClearDB instance within this new platform-as-a-service (PaaS) ecosystem.  My primary goal is to find a solution that allows my limited time to be focused on providing business solutions instead of getting up to speed with DevOps processes.

Quick Recap

As a TL;DR (too long; didn't read) to the original article, I built an Angular client and a Java API for the small business owned by my mother-in-law.  After a year of running the application on Elastic Beanstalk and S3, I wanted to see if there was a better solution that would allow me to focus more on writing features and enhancements and not have to worry about learning, understanding, and executing DevOps-like aspects inherent within the AWS ecosystem.

Few people are at this point in time willing to bet their money on .Net Framework, simply because .Net Core is obviously the future. This creates problems for us developers, since a lot of the tools we have grown used to, simply doesn't exist in .Net Core. One example of such a tool is Microsoft Workflow Foundation. According to what I've read, Microsoft is not willing to port Workflow Foundation to .Net Core either, so as you cross the bridge into ".Net Core land", you'll have to leave workflows behind.

What is Microsoft Workflow Foundation?

To find out how to replace Workflow Foundation, we must first ask ourselves what its primary feature is. As in, what makes MWF valuable for developers, and why have so many chosen to use it over the years?

See the Code - See it Full Page - See Details

This Pen uses: HTML, CSS, Vue, and Vue

See the Code - See it Full Page - See Details

Do you sometimes get lost in what day it is today? This Day Clock shows the progress of the current day and for the week. Click the center clock knot to toggle display. Double click the letter D to activate the debug mode. Also available at github.com/kunukn/dayclock

This Pen uses: HTML, CSS, Vue, and Vue

It’s that time of the year again. A new TV season is upon us. With some shows beginning to air this week, I thought it best to post my “to watch” schedule for the fall. Unlike last year, I…

TL;DR: Brad Williams, John James Jacoby, and I will be publishing the 2nd edition of Professional WordPress Plugin Development this year. It is hard to believe, but it has been nine years since I was approached by Brad Williams…

Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all…

I am back in the collecting game. After several months of work and keeping an eye on deals, I am now inching closer toward 100 titles and have built a pretty nice 4K UHD collection. It started with my first DVD…

The Cannabis Issue People have been enjoying cannabis for recreational purposes for centuries, including in the United States since the early 1900s. That means weed was in America a good 50 years or so before the invention of rock 'n' roll.…

The Cannabis Issue Times are stressful, what with a virus rampaging, people dying, hospitals being overloaded, the economy imploding and unemployment soaring.…

The Cannabis Issue So many of us are stuck inside right now, and that lack of socializing means we're all probably going a little bit stir crazy.…

[IMAGE-1]After having their school year totally disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, a return to some semblance of normalcy come summer is all many school-age kids and their families are looking forward to. For many, this anticipation includes annual summer camp traditions, from sleep-away adventures on the lake to fun-filled day camps for arts, learning or team sports.…

Summer Camps 2020 Breakthrough Basketball: Elite Guard Camp A three-day basketball camp for intermediate to advanced players, covering essential skills, techniques, habits and drills to become an elite player and to develop an elite mindset.…

Legal marijuana might be putting dealers out of work, but it's definitely not harming the job market in general.…

We've come a long way since the olden days before legalization, when basically the only product on the market was the flower you got from a dealer.…

The CDC designed a flawed test for COVID-19, then took weeks to figure out a fix so state and local labs could use it. New York still doesn’t trust the test’s accuracy By Caroline Chen, Marshall Allen, Lexi Churchill and Isaac Arnsdorf Propublica…

Agencies, local authorities and national governments do not agree on who should be quarantined or what that should actually look like. Here’s what we do know. By Maya Miller, Caroline Chen and Joshua Kaplan ProPublica People who have been exposed to the coronavirus are being given incomplete or misleading information about whether they should quarantine themselves, exposing major gaps in the public health response to the pandemic and illuminating disagreement among officials about how useful the tactic even is at this point in the disease’s spread.…

After Governor Jay Inslee announced a prohibition on gatherings of 250 people or more in three Washington counties (Snohomish, King, Pierce) on Wednesday, and with public health concerns growing over the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations in Spokane are following suit. The Inlander will be frequently updating its online calendar of events to reflect local cancelations as we hear of them.…

By learning from a MERS outbreak in 2015, South Korea was prepared and acted swiftly to ramp up testing when the new coronavirus appeared there. Meanwhile, the U.S., plagued by delay and dysfunction, wasted its advantage. By Stephen Engelberg, Lisa Song and Lydia DePillis ProPublica…

You shouldn't find yourself rewatching some sitcom for the thousandth time or sitting through a vacuous Hollywood blockbuster just because you're stoned and stuck inside during the age of social distancing.…

Low on essential supplies and fearing they’ll get sick, doctors and nurses told ProPublica in-person care for coronavirus patients has been scaled back. In some cases, it’s causing serious harm. By Joshua Kaplan, Lizzie Presser and Maya Miller, ProPublica Every morning, between 7 and 8, at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, several coronavirus patients are pronounced dead.…

UPDATE: The Department of Veterans Affairs announced after this article was first published that Spokane Veterans Home residents with COVID-19 would be moved to the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center.…

[IMAGE-1] I started sobbing from the opening moments of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and I didn't stop crying for two hours. And then after I left the cinema and ran into a fellow film critic who had also just seen it, I literally could not manage a word of discussion without bursting into tears again.…

[IMAGE-1] Watching Rian Johnson's Knives Out, I was reminded of my middle school English teacher Mrs. Soderbergh, who loved Agatha Christie books almost as much as she loved diagramming sentences. There was a week when she brought in a box stacked high with her own Christie paperbacks, set it down in front of the classroom and had each of us pick a book based solely on the plot summary on the back.…

Once upon a time, Clint Eastwood, a notoriously outspoken conservative in supposedly liberal Hollywood, had no problem at all with cops who employed their own unconventional extra-legal brand of law enforcement (see: Dirty Harry). Today, in Richard Jewell, he really doesn't like the FBI.…

[IMAGE-1]Welcome back to the jungle. And welcome to an unfortunate new Christmas movie tradition: the Jumanji movie.…

With all due respect to Greta Thunberg and Billie Eilish, nobody had a better 2019 than Baby Yoda. The real star of the Disney+ flagship Star Wars series The Mandalorian, the little green puppeteering/CGI marvel (aka "the Child") might be the most adorable creature ever created.…

Sam Mendes' 1917, which took Best Picture and Best Director awards at the Golden Globes earlier this week, looks like a standard period piece.…

[IMAGE-1] First of all: No. Why would a suddenly single dad to traumatized young children leave said shocked and distressed kids with his new fiancée, who is also the sole survivor of her own massive childhood trauma?…

Back in November, we wrote about local singer-songwriter Eliza Johnson's musical project Eliza Catastrophe and her new album You, which she released on pre-loaded MP3 players. One thing we weren't able to mention in our interview — for contractual reasons — is that she had only a couple months prior auditioned for American Idol, and her performance finally aired on the ABC reality competition show Sunday night.…

Dwight Yoakam has always been the personification of country-cool, and he's bringing his killer band, hiccuping vocals, rootsy style and predilection for unexpected covers to Spokane in September. Perhaps best known for his devotion to the "Bakersfield sound" and his past collaborations with Buck Owens, Yoakam has always straddled the line between country and rock.…

This is hardly the first time the Catholic Church has to deal with a plague. Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly knows that well.…

PROPHET OF DOOM…

Spokane chef Ricky Webster is bringing tips, recipes and good cheer from his kitchen to yours through a series of lighthearted cooking videos.…

Earlier this morning, Sleater-Kinney announced on Twitter that they're hitting the road on a co-headlining tour with Wilco this summer. Great news!…

[IMAGE-1] Part of being a music lover is also being a snob, and even though my mind has opened considerably as I've aged, I still remember all the genres I just couldn't give any time to when I was growing up. Southern rock was definitely verboten for much of my life.…

March is obviously going to be the busiest month for any purveyor of traditional Irish music, and with St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, Spokane's Floating Crowbar has multiple gigs crowding the week's calendar.…

Thirty years into his distinguished career as one of the world's great guitar players, Joe Bonamassa is still finding new ways to showcase his skills, explore new sounds and stretch his artistic horizons.…

As the threat of the Coronavirus spreads throughout the country, public events everywhere are being canceled and postponed for public safety concerns. The Fox Theater is the latest venue to follow suit, closing its doors and canceling all events through April 10.…

Jenny Don't and the Spurs were right in the middle of recording their third full-length album when a vocal polyp put a halt to the process.…

You'll be forgiven if, during the daily deluge of COVID-19-related updates, you didn't notice that some seriously great musicians recently booked shows in and around Spokane for later in the year.…

Celebrities: They're just like us! Along with everyone else, famous people are self-isolating at home, and some of them have taken to social media to alleviate the stress of the outside world. We don't need to tell you that events everywhere are canceled, so a few big-time musicians are putting on personal concerts for their fans and followers, and a lot of them — save for that cringe-inducing, star-studded cover of "Imagine" that was going around yesterday — are actually pretty good.…

When it comes to the music scene in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the math is pretty simple: No shows equals no revenue.…

Tours are on hold.…

When he was putting together the latest compilation CD for his label CorpoRAT Records, Kris Martin had intended to hand out promotional discs at Boise's Treefort Music Festival, where several artists from the Spokane label were scheduled to perform, and then officially release the album in April for Record Store Day.…

Put pictures of 1975-era Aerosmith and 1995-era Guided By Voices next to each other and you probably wouldn’t think the bands have anything in common.…

The Buzz Bin HERE'S THE BEEF…

…