Finding your niche is figuring out what drives you and letting the world know
There are some phrases that come up so often that I tend to reject them as if they're "dirty" or have some negative connotation. "Networking" used to be one. Before I had ever attempted to go to a user...
View ArticleMaybe building a robot..? Four magic words... It's For The Kids!
Short post tonight. My 10 yo came to me the other day and said she'd like to build a robot. This is good for two reasons. I've been meaning to do something like this and kids are great at pushing you...
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Comprehending "List Comprehensions" in Erlang (a comparison with C#'s LINQ)
Any time we learn something new, we tend to make sense of it in relation to what we already know, one thing building on top of another. Since I started learning Erlang a year ago, I find myself...
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Tech is fun, tech is amazing... but it's not the end-all be-all
One of my coworkers tweeted an important question a few weeks ago. She asked, what about "techies" who just do what they do to survive? After all, why do most of us work, if not to make money to do all...
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The Culture of Likes and Hearts and Faves
I rejoined Facebook a couple weeks ago after a long hiatus, and though I haven't posted much yet, it's been fun to see what everyone's up to. I'm terribly horrible at keeping in touch with friends and...
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How to Unit Test using Visual Studio for Mac (it's easy!)
Last month at the AkronCodeClub they selected the magic square kata, which was a new one for me. Basically, you arrange 9 unique numbers in a 3x3 grid such that they add up to the same number...
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A few tips for handling and manipulating timezones
Some issues transcend programming language, equally tripping up developers across the board... Regular expressions (try validating an email address...) SQL injection (NEVER run a user's input through...
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What do we mean by API?
To define it, an API is an Application Programming Interface, but what's that really mean? In a more practical sense, it's one programmer hiding the (possibly messy) details of their own code behind a...
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How to build on top of the Casper theme in Ghost
This blog runs on the Ghost platform, and I've done a bit of customization to the styling. Nothing major. I was mildly surprised when I ran a "ghost update" the other day and suddenly my custom themes...
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Don't (git) Blame Me!
This sentiment on twitter cracked me up because I've thought the exact same thing! It's funny how git blame has an unusually negative connotation. Doesn't it seem to assume that if you're going through...
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Quotes 'n Notes #9
So many interesting articles, so little time! Here are a few links to thoughtful posts I stumbled across this week. What's the best career decision you've ever made? Ben Halpern, creator of The...
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10 Ways to Explain "The Cloud"
For the last couple years, a sad little cloud has been making its way through the Internet, spreading its message of cold hard reality. It mocks those who would say "The Clouuuud" with the same...
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Staying motivated to maintain an online presence
Sometimes when I'm feeling unmotivated or overwhelmed, or that continuing to learn while raising young kids (and all the obligations attached to that) is more than I can balance, the universe tosses a...
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When you close an online account, don't forget to check any other connected...
I was closing out an account on a website I no longer use, when I recalled that I had connected a few of my other online accounts to it. You've probably done the same - to make logins easier or to...
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Creating a Tiny Chrome Extension for Ghost
I just created the world's smallest Chrome extension! Well, maybe not, but it's pretty darn small. I self-host the Ghost platform for this blog, and there's a nice feature where you can type /edit...
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Making Your First Chrome Extension
We all have our favorite web browser with our favorite extensions loaded, but have you ever considered writing your own? You've probably had at least one idea for something that it'd be nice to have,...
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It's just a tiny refactor. What's the worst that could happen?
I recently stumbled across a "lessons I've learned" style post. One of the lessons the author shares is to think very carefully about refactoring code, and I agree. Put yourself into the shoes of the...
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10 ways I'd explain technical debt - what are yours?
Technical debt is a topic that's been written about extensively by many people over the years. It can be a little tough to define, but in the broadest sense, technical debt is any unaddressed...
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A new Chrome extension for hiding comments (and what I learned)
I thought about making an extension to block comments awhile back - like years ago. Frequently, when I'd read an article from a major news outlet or watch a YouTube video, I'd find the comments full of...
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An Erlang snippet for easily concatenating binaries and strings
There have been a number of times when using Erlang that I've found myself concatenating a list of binaries and strings. I usually resort to manual conversions one way or the other... and I think...
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