Author: Tim

Headless Chrome on Heroku

Tim 49 Comments

I’ve been experimenting with headless chrome for a Link Unshortener tool I’ve built to take screenshots of websites. I’ve been using BrowserShot which is great. It’s a php wrapper around Puppeteer which makes it simple to use in Laravel. To experiment more with Puppeteer, I wanted to get a node app running on Heroku. Overall it’s pretty straight forward but there are a few gotchas.

Here is a sample project that should get you started. Clone this and take a look at the source. You’ll notice I specified the node.js version in the package.json file. This is required for Heroku to know what version of node to use. Another issue I ran into is to run Puppeteer on Heroku you have to specify –no-sandbox. They last hurdle was adding the puppeteer Heroku buildpack. Follow the steps below and you should have a working screenshot app running locally and on Heroku. These instructions assume you are familiar with node and Heroku. Read More

Build Your Own Standing Desk for $350.00

Tim 8 Comments

Alright first off if you’re in the market for an electric standing desk, you’ll notice to take ownership of this flagship of technological innovation that is a “standing desk” you’ll need to shell out five Benjamins (or more!). That just wasn’t a price that screamed “value” to me. So I set out on the digital trail to see what could be pieced together with help from the Amazon and Ikea overlords of furniture and retail. Heres the journey…and the desk! Read More