Ben Centra

One of my many hobbies is homebrewing. I’ve been brewing my own beer for over five years now, and I’m hoping to take my skills to the next level. To help me track my progress, refine my recipes, and share my knowledge I’ve started another site called Ben’s Beer Blog....

Music has always been a big part of my life. Over the last year or so, I’ve been recording original music in my home “studio.” It’s a minimal setup that enables me to record high-quality vocals and guitar all from the comfort of my bedroom. There are already multiple guides...

This post originally appeared on the Constant Contact Tech Blog. I love working at Constant Contact. But like any engineering group — especially at a mid-sized, 20-year old startup-gone-public — technology can easily lag over time, drift between teams, and generally become a hassle. This time last year I wanted...

Last month I was as a Tech Focus counselor at the Camp Fitch YMCA summer camp. For one week I worked closely with two kids who wanted to learn JavaScript. Hoping to have them take home something more exciting than just a website, I focused on teaching the language basics...

This past week I attended QCon San Francisco. The conference is organized by InfoQ, which aims to “accelerate the software side of human technological process.” The track I was most excited for was Monday’s “Next-Generation Web Standards” that explored recent and upcoming advancements to the JavaScript ecosystem. Here are some...