It can be done! You do not need to set-up port forwarding or otherwise have your development server serving HTTP requests over the Internet.

We use Django, but the general concepts can probably be applied to other frameworks.

Here's an overview:

• Fake a domain
• Create your Facebook app
• Obtain an SSL certificate
• Install & configure nginx
• Run & Develop

Step 1 - Fake a domain

If your app will have its own domain, use that one, and pick a subdomain. For instance, if your app will be hosted at www.example.org and your name is Monty, you might choose monty.example ...

We’re spending some time with Web Intents these days. Initially conceived around the Intent system used on the Android OS, we’re using them to find ways to increase functionality. An area where Web Intents seems incredibly useful is when using the ‘mail-to’ function on a web page. We can’t count the number of times we’ve selected that option, only to sit impatiently while the program then opens our default email client. If you’re using a web based email application, such as Gmail, this means waiting for the program to load until you can copy and ...

Continuous Integration (CI) is the process of running software through quality control at regular intervals. Similar in spirit to Test-driven development, but more all-encompassing of the software development cycle, including deployment and common administration tasks as well as testing. We see CI as an invaluable part of our deployment process. With CI, we can avoid many of the hiccups caused by a programmer combining either too much or too little caffeine ...

The Django FogBugz Gadget is an open source Django app we've developed for streamlining bug submission to FogBugz (our favorite bug tracker). We see this tool as being useful to other developers who want to integrate bug submission into their Django apps. Initially, we developed the Gadget as part of our ever-improving Stratus CMS. The idea was to allow site administrators to submit bugs directly to FogBugz from their site's Stratus-powered backend tool. We'd like to thank the developers at Fog Creek Software for providing an extensive (and exhaustive) XML API for FogBugz. So, how does it ...

We’re excited to get the latest incarnation of Sanders New Media online. While the look and feel hasn’t changed much, our past work has been updated and we’ve shared more information about our process and approach. Technically we took a different approach, stepping away from Flash and back into good old HTML.

Over the past year, we have grown steadily. We have had the pleasure of working with some great clients on some fantastic and interesting projects. Many of those projects we are not able to share on this new site but are available upon request as ...