Right about the time that Google eliminated their "don't be evil" motto a few years ago, I finally began to lose hope in them, after years of unbounded enthusiasm. It was kind of a final straw thing. From then til now, my previous superfan enthusiasm with all their amazing technology -- […]
Coding and Techy Stuff
This "Coding and Techy Stuff" category is here because peripatetically I make a living as a software engineer. This is where I put anything related to coding and technology, and sometimes just unrelated information such as you might find posted on ycombinator's always-intellectually-curious Hacker News.
A little anarchy in your pocket
I might, could, possibly know someone involved in working on the backend of this MineCraft Pocket Edition server together in their spare time. Or I might not. Either way, if you're into Minecraft, and you found yourself here reading this sentence, you may enjoy taking a tour of this Nukkit server. […]
Diving in to React JS
After circling around it for weeks, looking at every other option I could find, I finally decided that ReactJS has what I want to carry me forward for the next few projects, possibly years if it goes as well as I think. I fell in love with JSX the moment I saw it, we shoulda been using that long […]
Shortcut to start VPN connection with a single click in Windows 10
Alas, Windows 10 introduced an absurdly complicated way to start a VPN connection where it used to take only a couple clicks. Turns out you can make a shortcut that will allow you to single-click your way into a VPN connection like the good old days. Winaero.com does a great job of describing how to […]
Hilarious notes on a programming task that got absurdly complicated
In the end, it looks like I should have searched through the code for all SQL commands like "SELECT" and "UPDATE" and "INSERT" and determined which tables I needed. Might have saved a few days. But you know how you get tunnel vision when you're down the rabbit hole. So, […]
Configuring Iridium Browser with even more privacy than default
Iridium is a privacy-oriented browser based on Chromium, so it has all the advantages of Chrome without flooding Google with a continual stream of telemetry as you surf the web. From looking at it and playing with it recently, I find it to be pretty much what it advertises, and am happy using it to […]
A boatload of cool JavaScript animation widgets for you web designery types out there.
Well this is just delightful. There are enough tips and tricks on this single website to keep a web designer happy for a long time. Thoroughly enjoying trying to get impress.js working in a site that I'm working on. Delicious crumb here: https://1stwebdesigner.com/css-effects/ […]
Installing FreedomBox inside VirtualBox on a Windows Virtual Machine with a dedicated IP
Normally when installing FreedomBox inside VirtualBox, you can use Bridged Mode and get on with things, but you can't use bridged mode when installing a VirtualBox image running on a VM with a dedicated IP address. This is because bridged mode requires DHCP which you don't have in this scenario. You […]
My 2 cents on blockchain as I slowly understand the trust bit
Blockchain is not "just another database." Or even "a decentralized database." It is more, because it enables two people to trust each other without relying on a third party. It took me a while to realize how important and revolutionary that is, so... here is my brief intro to […]
AI data economies on the blockchain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms_1TZL-Z48 https://venturebeat.com/2017/12/23/why-you-want-blockchain-based-ai-even-if-you-dont-know-it-yet/ https://oceanprotocol.com/
Comparing Asterisk vs FreeSWITCH: a Meta-analysis
Overall, the two systems are roughly equal, both are well supported and both are well documented for the needs of anyone with basic PBX needs. For most purposes, either way you go, you're going to be fine. However, most likely, if you're asking "Asterisk or FreeSWITCH" you have little […]
How can I install Perl CPAN locally as a non-root user?
Every now and then we encounter a Stack Overflow answer that cuts through hours of searching and aborted attempts at fixes with a few lines of elegance. Here's one I just deployed, figured I would point others to it as well in case Google brings you here... The easiest method I have found so far is […]
Beginner's Cross Platform App Development Notes: Coding
In the previous post, we installed two virtual machines, one for Windows and one for Mac. Here, we install Xamarin and Visual Studio on each environment, and jump right into a code tutorial or two. It's pretty straightforward to install Xamarin, but the installer does take a long time. In each dev […]
Beginner's Cross Platform App Development Notes: Getting Started
I am a long time C# developer and have worked with Visual Studio extensively for server and client side development, but have not developed any Apps yet. I have a few friends who are interested in App development, so I'm starting a thread here on this blog to cover some of the material that we'll be […]
Getting to Angular elements from JQuery or JavaScript to trigger validation
I currently know almost nothing about Angular, but it does look interesting enough for when I have time to look closer. I had to integrate an authentication sequence with AngularJS recently and found that it can create some barriers to a simple approach until you spend time learning about how it […]
Intuitive comparison of functional vs imperative programming
Another example of how you can spend hours trying to understand an idea and get nowhere, but search for "intuitive+youridea" and rapidly find a gem like this example of the difference between functional and imperative programming. Within seconds of reading this I understood more than an […]
An intuitive introduction to Lisp is refreshing to encounter
It's fascinating how few articles on a given subject can be written in an intuitive manner. Just spent an hour aggressively searching the Internet for anything similar to this article giving an intuitive introduction to Lisp and found very little. Spent another hour with similar results for the […]
How to Fix SQL Server Error 10055
Since it's actually an OS issue more than a DB issue, this solution works for more than just MySQL which is mentioned in the article linked below. This fix is the only one that worked for me using SQL SERVER after trying everything else. So I figured I'd put this out there for others to find: […]
Google is less concerned with how awesome you appear, than how awesome you actually are
Insightful article about going beneath the surface layer to understand people. Google attracts enough talent that it can afford to look beyond the obvious factors in hiring. For example: "leadership — in particular emergent leadership as opposed to traditional leadership. Traditional leadership […]
Sony patent application talks about method for wirelessly juicing up devices via NFC
https://techxplore.com/news/2017-03-sony-patent-application-method-wirelessly.html Wirelessly charging your phone using your friend's phone? You have to hand it to Sony for bright ideas. James Milne, True Xiong and Charles McCoy are named as the inventors on a Sony patent application published […]