DevObs

The last few weeks I've opted for a slightly different direction. I parked the SSL dashboard stuff I was working on and worked with @alistairtweedie on a SERP simulator which he's been using to improve his SERP result for https://designremotely.co.

This has come along really well and I've now added it as a free tool onto https://devobs.co.

To make it even more useful I wanted to provide an integration so I created a bookmarklet that would allow you to open the SERP Simulator for any webpage as you are browsing the web. The link for the bookmarklet was just

javascript:(function() {
    window.open("https://devobs.co/tools/serp-simulator?url=" + encodeURI(window.location.href));
}());

Alistair got this to work well but had suggested a Chrome plugin would be better so I created a really simple Chrome plugin the had effectively the same code and it has been accepted into the Chrome Web Store. This was an early iteration (basic styling etc) as I wasn't 100% sure it would pass the review phase, so now I need to go and give it a bit of TLC.

And finally, I added a subtle CTA onto the SERP Simulator to let you know how many days until the SSL certificate expires for the domain being used in the simulation. I'm hoping this will help drive more users into the main product offering.

So, to round up this update, I've

• Added a new SERP simulator tool to DevObs
• Created my 1st integration (bookmarklet)
• Created my 2nd integration (Google Chrome extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/checkmysite-website-monit/kbnnkmippakelcfmoflahciiaildgmgb)
• Added a context-aware CTA for the main product (SSL Certificate Monitoring)

Feel free to give it a try. You can see what Alistair has been using it with via https://devobs.co/tools/serp-simulator?url=https://designremotely.co/jobs/

I've been chipping away at devobs.co most days since launch and adding lots of little tweaks here and there. Most of them are little updates that I can manage in a lunch hour or in a spare half hour before work i.e. providing better messaging for result statuses (invalid/expired), adding canonical tags, fixing a bug with mixed case input like DevObs (I found this because of auto-complete on my mobile), etc.

The results view has been reworked into more of a dashboard-style layout and can show the results from multiple checks. I intend to carry this layout through into a summary dashboard which I hope to build next year.

Work has also started on the MVP for SSL monitoring and notifications, which is going well, and I hope to have up and running towards the end of next week.

Throughout the week I've been doing random SSL checks of domains that pop into my head as I've been working and these random SSL checks have helped identify issues with 3 sites.

All-in-all a good couple of weeks.

DevObs is my latest side project and is intended to be a collection of tools to help with common day-to-day issues that crop up as you develop and maintain your application.

The first tool is an SSL Certificate Checker which checks to see if your SSL certificate is valid and when it expires.

This has arisen from a website migration job I've been working on where I am moving several sites to a new server, some with SSL configured using bought certificates, some using LetsEncrypt and some still not using SSL at all.

There are still a number of teething issues but I'm pleased to have got it out there in a relatively short space of time (working lunchtimes for the last 3-4 weeks).

Next steps - to enable monitoring and notifications of upcoming SSL certificate expirations

You can give it a whirl at https://devobs.co/ssl-certificates