THE JOURNAL
Notes on building, shipping & securing the web.
FEATURED · Security
WordPress Backup and Restore: Step-by-Step Guide
This guide walks you through verifying, backing up, and restoring your WordPress site with both plugin and manual methods to secure your content and settings.
Leo Tanaka
Nov 04, 2026 · 10 min read
Engineering · 5 min
Next.js rendering choices: static, server or cached
Next.js offers several ways to render a page, and the default is not always right. How we decide per route between static, server and cached rendering.
Maya Okafor · Aug 26, 2026
Engineering · 5 min
Idempotent webhooks: building integrations that tolerate retries
Webhooks arrive late, out of order and more than once. How we design handlers and integrations that stay correct whatever the sender does.
Daniel Reyes · Jun 12, 2026
Engineering · 5 min
What a proper project handover should include
You own the code, but can your team actually run it? The handover package we deliver at the end of every build, and what to ask any agency for.
Arjun Mehta · Apr 16, 2026
Engineering · 5 min
Multi-tenancy for SaaS: shared schema or database per tenant
How you separate customer data shapes security, cost and every migration you will ever run. The trade-offs between shared and isolated tenancy models.
Maya Okafor · Feb 13, 2026
Engineering · 5 min
Background jobs and queues that survive failure
Queues move slow work out of the request, but they also move failures somewhere harder to see. The patterns we use so jobs retry safely and nothing gets lost.
Maya Okafor · Dec 12, 2025
Engineering · 5 min
Database schema decisions that hurt in year two
Schemas outlive frameworks, teams and redesigns. The early database choices we see causing the most pain later, and what we do differently from day one.
Maya Okafor · Oct 16, 2025
Engineering · 5 min
How we scope fixed-price software projects
Fixed prices only work if the scope is precise and the risks are priced honestly. The process we use to turn a brief into a quote we can stand behind.
Arjun Mehta · Aug 14, 2025
Engineering · 5 min
Laravel, Django or Node for a new product: how we choose
The framework matters less than people think, but it still matters. The questions we ask before recommending Laravel, Django or Node for a new build.
Maya Okafor · Jun 13, 2025
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