Archive

Week in Review: 2025-05-09 May 2025
Continuing my weekly series where I share what I learned, what I did, and what I found interesting t...
Week in Review: 2025-05-02 May 2025
First post of a hopefully weekly series where I share what I learned, what I did, and what I found i...
GitHub Copilot Agent is Here and I'm Living in the Future (Again!) April 2025
[Current Vibe: Absolutely buzzing, fueled by coffee and the sheer potential radiating from my screen...
One Month with the Apple Vision Pro March 2024
Reflecting on a Month with the Apple Vision Pro: A Long-Time Apple Developer's Perspective # I've be...
Lesson to my Past Self: Take Care of Your Hardware February 2024
Beverage: Rowdy Mermaid Kombucha - Roaring Pineapple flavor Lessons from Years of Experience as a So...
Starting a 2024 Blogging Habit February 2024
I haven't been good... # Background music: The Beths - Expert in a Dying Field I haven't written a b...
DC Area Meetups Are Back in 2023 April 2023
Something I have really missed from the before-times are programmer meetups. They were great to get ...
I migrated this blog to Eleventy 2.0 March 2023
Eleventy 2.0 just came out and I migrated this blog from Wordpress to it. I also moved the hosting f...
My So-Quantified Life, Part 1: Collecting Data March 2020
I lost 15 pounds and 3% body fat in 3 months. How did I do it? Quantification and slow but steady ha...
Closing a Chapter March 2020
I left my role as Director of Engineering at Capital One last Friday March 6th, 2020. Before I start...
pipenv November 2019
I've been writing more Python recently and package management seemed simple with pip. Then I learned...
How to enable headless networking on Ubuntu Mate on Raspberry Pi September 2017
I gave a talk tonight on Swift and how it works on the server-side as well as Raspberry Pi. I gave a...
2016 Stats January 2017
Wow did I really not blog in 2016? I guess I was busy. Well because I like metrics, just wanted to u...
Hello 2017! January 2017
I moved this blog from Linode to Digital Ocean this weekend, using a combination of GitHub, Ansible ...
2015 Year In Review December 2015
It is good to sit back and reflect sometimes and with today being New Year's Eve, I thought it would...
Swift - 53 Days Later July 2014
The bomb dropped at WWDC. 5,000 of my fellow iOS and Mac Developers were sitting there at Moscone We...
Further Thoughts on Being Productive May 2014
I've recently come across Cate Huston's blog and she has inspired me to start blogging again. I thou...
Contributing to CocoaPods April 2014
If you're an iOS Developer, you probably have heard of CocoaPods. More and more developers are using...
Android + Glass Meetup April 2014
Did I mention that I started up a group called Android + Glass, a meetup which is focused on develop...
iOSDevCampDC 2014 Coming in August! March 2014
Mark your calendars: the date for iOSDevCampDC 2014 will be Saturday August 2 Friday August 1, 2014....
I'm going to be speaking at WearablesDevCon February 2014
WearablesDevCon is a conference about wearable technology from March 5 - 7 over in San Francisco. I'...
Enable Two-Factor Auth in GitHub February 2014
My source code is really valuable to me. So I like to secure it as much as possible. GitHub does a g...
I'm giving a Google Glass talk at DevIgnition December 2013
If you're in the Washington DC area, please come to my talk about Developing for Google Glass at Dev...
Lagunitas - an iOS app inspection tool November 2013
If you make iOS apps, sometimes it is helpful to verify that the archive you made via Xcode has what...
iOSDevCampDC 2013 coming up this Saturday August 24 August 2013
Time flies. We're having our fifth iOSDevCampDC already! Well, technically it was iPhoneDevCampDC, t...
If your Emulator doesn't show up in the Devices list... July 2013
Sometimes the Android Emulator that you just started up does not show in the Devices list in the DDM...
I'm giving a talk about the Android Emulator at AnDevCon Boston May 2013
Good news! I'll be giving this talk again at AnDevCon San Francisco in November. I'll be updating it...
Will the Android Developer Tools for Eclipse continue to exist? May 2013
Here's a paraphrased quote from the Q&A session after the What's New in Android Tools session at...
If you're a brave Android Developer... May 2013
...download the 0.1 Early Access Preview of Android Studio
Git branching May 2013
Here's my quick notes on a git workflow to create a branch, merge and clean up: Create a branch name...
How to fix problem when app won't start when testing with calabash-android April 2013
I've been starting to use calabash-android, which is a way to run cucumber tests on Android. It requ...
java.lang.ExceptionInitializerError when using Mockito on Android April 2013
So you're being a good Android developer, using JUnit 3 tests [Sidenote: JUnit 4 does not play well ...
Parcelabler helps you create Parcelable implementations for your Android classes January 2013
If you have ever had to implement the Parcelable interface for one of your Android classes, you will...
Earned the Android Badge January 2013
Hey look - I earned the android badge on StackOverflow! android badge: "Earned 100 upvotes for ...
Nexus 7 Won't Boot Up December 2012
I've recently been having problems with my Nexus 7 not booting up after it completely runs out of ba...
AnDevCon III Review December 2012
I attended AnDevCon III in May 2012 as my first Android-related conference, about a year and a half ...
Fixing Copy in Eclipse November 2012
I use Eclipse for Android development and one of the issues I have come across is that sometimes Com...
LG Optimus V Black Screen Fix November 2012
I have an LG Optimus V that I use for testing. Its battery had run down and when I plugged it back i...
Official Android SDK November 2012
There's a new official Android SDK available that was released this past week. It is basically Eclip...
New Android UI Testing Tools in ADT 21 November 2012
There are new UI Testing tools in the Android Development Tools (ADT), version 21. This is an exciti...
Why you should participate in Stack Overflow November 2012
If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a programmer and you probably use Stack Overflow daily....
Preparing an iPhone for power outages October 2012
We just survived Hurricane Sandy here in the Washington DC area. We were fortunate that we did not g...
Recommended Tablets for Android Development October 2012
Last week, I discussed the different handsets that I recommended for Android development. Today, I w...
Which Android Handsets Are Good for Developing Android Apps? October 2012
Hopefully these guidelines will help you choose which device to get for Android development. Someone...
I've Added Android to my Toolbox October 2012
For the past 2 years, I’ve been working on Android apps. It started in mid 2010 when I was doi...
iOSDevCampDC 2012 August 2012
About two weeks ago, on Saturday August 11th, we held our fourth iOS-related event in the Washington...
How to read 3rd party books on your iPad in a Post-PC world (aka how to send books to your iPad without tethering through iTunes) March 2012
I'm trying to be truly "Post-PC" (or rather, let my mobile devices live untethered from my Macs) wit...
My WAMALUG LEGO Display at The LEGO Store Potomac Mills January 2012
When I'm not making apps, one of the things that I enjoy doing is making things out of LEGO. When I ...
My Tribute to Steve Jobs October 2011
Steve Jobs inspired me to make apps for the Mac, quit my job and start my own business. He created t...
What would you take in an earthquake? August 2011
I was at a co-working space in Herndon, getting ready to type and I noticed the external 20" monitor...
What I wish I knew when I first attended WWDC June 2011
I've been attending WWDC since 2005. This year will be my seventh WWDC in a row. Woohoo! So I was th...
What to put in your gitignore May 2011
A question that comes up frequently is what to put in your .gitignore files. I recently stumbled acr...
Fixing SASL For Colloquy When You Are Using A MiFi April 2011
I got a MiFi the other day. It has performed great so far, with the exception of IRC. Why use IRC yo...
Fully Baking this Blog March 2011
Brent makes a plea for "fully baking your blog." Another way to put it in the Mac community is to ma...
Pavlov's Inbox September 2010
I realized this week that I'm like Pavlov's dog. The New Mail bell rings, I see the number of unread...
East Coast Cocoa Conferences August 2010
I've been thinking about upcoming Cocoa (Mac and iPhone) conferences for the past week, ever since t...
Blog Reboot August 2010
Twitter - that's one word for where a lot of my writing energy has gone. It's such an easy way to ge...
GitX - a great Mac OS X tool for visualizing your Git history March 2010
I'm a command-line kind of guy. I guess when your CS teachers in high school raised you on a Minicom...
dim - visualize your Git diff in TextMate October 2009
I use git as my primary version control system and one nice alias that I have in my ~/.bash_profile ...
C4[3] Blitz Talks and MacRuby September 2009
I just came back from C4[3] - an Independent Mac and iPhone Developer Conference in Chicago. Wolf an...
Getting Sparkle from source (using bzr as compared with svn and git) July 2009
A few notes about getting Sparkle, the widely used framework for updating Mac OS X apps, from source...
iPhoneDevCampDC is coming July 31st - August 1st! June 2009
We are putting together a local gathering of iPhone developers in the Washington DC area. Its called...
Three things I learned at WWDC 2009 June 2009
I went to WWDC 2009 last week and I learned 100 things. Unfortunately, 97 of them are under NDA, so ...
Developer Day - Falls Church, VA - this Saturday May 30 May 2009
There's a local Developer Day one-day conference here in Falls Church, VA (which is right outside Wa...
Lessons Learned: Blank page of death after upgrading to Wordpress 2.7.1. May 2009
I had the blank page of death problem when logging in to my blog after upgrading to 2.7.1. What this...
How to use TouchJSON in your iPhone Apps April 2009
I gave a presentation at NSCoderNightDC a week ago on "How to use TouchJSON in your iPhone Apps...
Lessons Learned: Wordpress Comments Disappearing and Spam March 2009
Today I emailed my favorite coffee company Beanetics to ask them to have a repeating order of coffee...
Pitfalls That You May Encounter when Running iPhone Unit Tests and How to Overcome Them February 2009
We have come to the last part of this series on iPhone Unit Testing. In this post we will cover pitf...
Getting Started Writing iPhone Unit Tests February 2009
Alright, well hopefully you have read the first two parts of this series. If not, then go back and r...
How to Create an iPhone Project in Xcode That Can Run Unit Tests February 2009
This is the second part of a blog series I am writing on How to Do iPhone Unit Testing or Lessons Le...
Is iPhone Unit Testing Possible? February 2009
Lessons Learned: Unit Testing iPhone Apps This is the first part of a four part series on How to do ...
C4[2] t-shirts available February 2009
I love to wear Tech Conference t-shirts. Â I should really take a picture of them all sometime. Â Th...
I've been busy February 2009
It has been a few months since I've blogged here and where have I been? Short answer is that I, Luis...
NSCoderNightDC is going to be studying iPhone SDK Development October 2008
NSCoderNight DC is going to be switching gears tonight and starting to study the new Beta Book from ...
10 Things I Learned from C4[2] September 2008
I went to C4[2] last month. For the uninitiated, C4[2] is the third (yes we count from zero) confere...
How to fix a corrupted WordPress comments table September 2008
I logged into my WordPress admin panel and saw these ominous warnings: './your_wordpress_database/wp...
RubyNation 2008 wrap up August 2008
I attended RubyNation 2008 last weekend on Friday and Saturday. It was great to meet up with fellow ...
NSCoderNight DC - I'll be demoing Prizes.app August 2008
Tonight is NSCoderNight DC. It's at the La Madeleine in Bethesda, MD at 7PM. (More directions to La ...
RubyNation links August 2008
I've been posting the web pages of the RubyNation speakers and the Ruby tools and libraries that the...
Generating random numbers in Cocoa July 2008
I'm writing an application to pick prize winners for the RubyNation conference that's coming up here...
NSCoderNight Washington DC tonight July 2008
NSCoderNight Washington DC is meeting again tonight, July 8, 2008 at 7pm - 10pm. We meet every week ...
NoVA Languages Group First Meeting Tonight - Focusing on Erlang June 2008
Our new language study group, Northern Virginia Languages aka novalanguages is having its first meet...
New Programming Language Group forming in Northern Virginia June 2008
I don't know what it is about Northern Virginia and programming languages, but we just can't seem to...
NSCoderNight tonight in Northern Virginia June 2008
I've been going to the past few NSCoderNights here in Northern Virginia. We've met up at Panera in T...
Registration for RubyNation is now open May 2008
East Coast Rubyists - you can now register for the Washington DC area Ruby conference RubyNation. It...
RubyNation - a Ruby conference in the Washington, DC area May 2008
I'm proud to say that we are going to have our very own Ruby conference here in the Washington, DC a...
The closing Jimnote at MountainWest RubyConf March 2008
Many of us call the opening keynote of WWDC by Steve Jobs the Stevenote. Well I'm dubbing the closin...
MountainWest RubyConf Day 1 March 2008
Well we're 3/4ths of the way through MountainWest RubyConf. It has been a pretty interesting confere...
What to do before you do Ruby on Rails development on Mac OS X Leopard March 2008
Apple has a new series about Ruby on Rails development on Mac OS X Leopard. Its a nice article to he...
Going to MountainWest RubyConf 2008 February 2008
I just booked my flight, hotel and conference tickets to MountainWest RubyConf 2008. It should be pr...
Regional Ruby Conferences in 2008 February 2008
What's interesting about the Ruby community is that there are a lot of regional Ruby conferences. I ...
2007 Training in Review January 2008
Last year I took a lot of training. In the past, my employers would usually send me to one training ...
Happy New Year! January 2008
2007 was great. Ruby on Rails I think really came into its own last year. Cocoa got a big boost with...
What tools do you use for Ruby on Rails? November 2007
I'm curious to see what people are using for Ruby on Rails development. I know there are a lot of pr...
rcov 0.8.1 fixes Safari 3 colorization November 2007
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you enjoyed time with your family and friends. Well one new thin...
The software industry lacks political clout November 2007
So I'm still upset at this new Maryland tax on software services. I hope it is not a harbinger of wh...
Taxes on consulting? November 2007
I woke up this morning and nearly spit out my coffee as I read that the neighboring state of Marylan...
RubyGems 0.9.5 is now available November 2007
rubygems 0.9.5 was just released. It's got quite a few new features, but the big one that's bugged m...
Reinstalling RubyGems on Leopard November 2007
So you've got your nice shiny Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard install with all the Ruby goodies you need. Why ...
Ruby bugs on Leopard November 2007
I installed Leopard about 2 weeks ago and been doing Ruby on Rails development on it since. I encoun...
A RubyConf 2007 Haiku November 2007
mul ti ple VMs ruby hackers a plenty one dot nine corn bread
I'm at RubyConf 2007 November 2007
RubyConf 2007 is in Charlotte, NC this year. I've never been here before but its within driving dist...
How to run Cisco VPN over EVDO when you've got VMWare Fusion installed October 2007
Well I finally got one of those EVDO cards, specifically a Novatel Wireless Merlin EX720 that fits n...
CCMenu helps you monitor your builds October 2007
You're using continuous integration, right? If not, you really should. And you should probably set i...
Beanetics - a micro roaster in Annandale, Virginia October 2007
Beanetics has got me hooked. On coffee. The last time I was hooked was when I went to vacation in It...
Rails 1.2.4 - getting ready for Rails 2.0 October 2007
Rails 1.2.4 came out today. The big thing here in my opinion is that it helps you get ready for Rail...
I've been Primed October 2007
I recently signed up for Amazon Prime again. I joined when they first started offering it about 2 ye...
Reports of my demise have been grossly exaggerated September 2007
Long time no blog, eh? Let's see - what's been going on in my life? I've been keeping busy. Ruby on ...
DC Cocoa Meetup July 15th July 2007
Hey all - I've been away on vacation. But we're having a Cocoa Meetup in DC this Sunday July 15th. H...
RailsConf 2007 at the halfway point May 2007
RailsConf 2007 is going well. I found the RailsConf slides that are available already at http://wiki...
Need to get a Sprint or Verizon wireless broadband card May 2007
Any thoughts on which one to get? I'd like to have a more consistent Net connection when I travel. T...
JRuby 1.0 coming at end of May May 2007
Sitting through the Sun keynote at RailsConf. Tim Bray is up and speaking and making it clear that S...
Automated CRUD Plugins BOF tonight at 8:30pm May 2007
We'll be gathering together all the Rails folks who want better scaffolding, like Dave Thomas said h...
Streamlined at RailsConf May 2007
My tutorials day turned into a Streamlined day. After going to most of the JRuby presentation, I duc...
RailsConf is huge May 2007
We've got 1600 people attending this years RailsConf (as opposed to around 400 last year.) This sort...
DHHNote 2007 May 2007
DHH is reviewing the State of the Ruby on Rails Union: 1 million downloads of the Rails gem hundreds...
9 Things that DHH likes about Rails 2.0 May 2007
Breakpoints are back. Wait, actually there's a real debugger in there?! HTTP Performance has improve...
I'm at RailsConf 2007 May 2007
I'm at RailsConf 2007 in Portland, OR - its tutorial day. I've been really busy with consulting late...
Tip: Monitor your website and your Rails apps April 2007
You probably want to make sure your websites are up, especially your personal and corporate site. Of...
If your Wordpress 2.1 is slow... April 2007
I just debugged a strange issue with this Wordpress 2.1 blog. It's running 2.1.2 to be exact, but I ...
The best way to understand continuations April 2007
I was reading up about Procs due to an interesting error in some code: warning: tried to create Proc...
Ruby Hoedown is coming March 2007
The South is getting its own regional Ruby conference: Ruby Hoedown. I like to think of Northern Vir...
NOVARUG Meeting next Wednesday - March 21st March 2007
I've been away at Advanced Rails Studio most of this past week. I just confirmed the next NOVARUG (t...
Quick and Clean Rails Code by Chad Fowler - a summary March 2007
The last NOVARUG meeting was great. I have been insanely busy since then, but felt remiss not postin...
Quick and Clean NOVA RUG meeting tonight with Chad Fowler! February 2007
I've been so heads down in RoR development that I've been remiss in my blogging... But the February ...
Rcov February 2007
I've started to use rcov on all my Rails projects. A project I had started working on last year had ...
Testing Rails Apps at the Rails Edge Reston January 2007
Stu Halloway is speaking about testing. Mike Clark is pairing. assert_raise plus a block helps you v...
Rails Edge Reston - Day 1 January 2007
Rails Edge Reston is here. The first day was excellent and I can't wait for tomorrow. It wasn't just...
Creating Rails Plugins, Refactoring Helpers and Deploying Rails at Rails Edge Reston January 2007
It's day 2 of Rails Edge Reston. Right now we're in the middle of the Rails Golden Deployment Path t...
Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group - January 2007 notes January 2007
David Bock gave a presentation about his experience deploying a Ruby on Rails app at the recent Janu...
Rails 1.2.1 is here! January 2007
Yes, there's nothing like the smell of freshly released software. Rails 1.2.1 was just released earl...
Silicon Valley Ruby on Rails meeting tonight January 2007
My friend Zack is helping to organize and host the Silicon Valley Ruby on Rails (Redwood City, CA) M...
My friend Brian deploys his first public Rails app January 2007
My friend Brian just deployed his first public Rails app, 12 Stone Art, and blogged a bit about it i...
How to see the different Ruby on Rails svn tags January 2007
I was curious to see if there was a new Release Candidate of Ruby on Rails, so I went looking for a ...
NovaRUG Meeting next week on January 17 January 2007
when_at_novarug_january_17_2007_meeting do |attendee| attendee.observe :david_bock => "Rails Deploym...
Different ways to write I will not throw paper airplanes in class. 500 times in Ruby January 2007
Someone sent me this FoxTrot cartoon that compares how to write 500 times "I will not throw pap...
MashPit + CocoaDevHouse at MWSF 2007 January 2007
Blake told me about this event and it really makes me wish I was at Macworld right about now. Looks ...
Rails 1.2 is closer than it appears in the mirror January 2007
Get the Rails 1.2 release candidate 2 while its hot. rake rails:freeze:edge TAG=rel_1-2-0_RC2
Intermediate Rails training in Reston, VA this January January 2007
I met Patrick Reagan of Viget at the December NovaRUG and he told me about a Rails training event th...
NovaRUG December 2006 as a DSL December 2006
when_at_novarug_meeting do |attendee| Â Â attendee.eat :pizza Â Â attendee.drink :mountain_dew Â Â a...
NovaRUG meeting next Wednesday the 20th December 2006
Just a reminder to all Ruby on Rails developers in the Northern Virginia / Washington DC area: There...
I went Indie! December 2006
So I did it - I took the leap - I quit my day job at webMethods doing design, architecture and Java ...
Rails 1.2 is coming November 2006
DHH announced Rails 1.2 RC 1 on Wednesday. That's good news and another thing to be thankful for. :)...
Looking for an Eclipse Plug-in Developer in the Washington DC area September 2006
I'm looking for someone experienced at developing Eclipse plug-ins. This is for a full-time job at a...
Back from a blogging vacation August 2006
I'm still here... Just been taking a vacation from this blog. Sorry to be a dinosaur in your NetNews...
Commands and Undos and Navigators oh my! (EclipseCon Day 3) March 2006
If you're busy keeping track of all the new projects that are starting up, let's see there's DSDP, S...
No Halo feature for you March 2006
Well I guess we aren't getting the embedded Halo engine in Eclipse. I mean after all, didn't Microso...
Project Proposal: Teleportation Framework March 2006
Earlier I thought that the Short Talks here at EclipseCon 2006 would be very cool and give you many ...
My EclipseCon 2006 schedule March 2006
Not yet a recommended track, since I'm not sure exactly how to submit one. That is, I created an Ecl...
Joel Spolsky keynote at EclipseCon 2006 March 2006
Joel Spolsky is rambling along (it seems) about Blue chip products. Really he is a good presenter an...
How to distribute a big huge open source tool to tons of people (EclipseCon 2006) March 2006
Ok, that's not the real title, but that's what I think of this part of From Developer to Download: A...
How Eclipse does its builds (EclipseCon 2006) March 2006
I'm at From Developer to Download: A Tour of the Eclipse Platform Build Factory. Kim Moir of the Ecl...
Eclipse on Mac BOF tonight at 9:30pm (EclipseCon 2006) March 2006
We are going to have an Eclipse on Mac BOF (Birds of a Feather) tonight (Tuesday) at 9:30pm. I think...
Consuming and producing web services with WebTools (WST and JST) (EclipseCon 2006) March 2006
Interesting - the presenter, Christopher Judd, who is President of Judd Solutions and coordinator of...
EclipseCon 2006 - Day 1 - Tutorial Day March 2006
EclipseCon 2006 has now started! Today is tutorial day and I'm sitting in Tutorial 32 The Eclipse De...
Win in Halo and get an Eclipse feature March 2006
While planning my EclipseCon 2006 schedule, I ran across the Halo Feature Challenge which is during ...
Going to EclipseCon 2006 March 2006
I'm going to EclipseCon 2006 next week. I'm pretty excited. It will be my 4th in a row. There are on...
DC Mac Programmer Meeting - February 23rd February 2006
Calling all Mac programmers in the DC area! We're going to have the first DC Mac Programmer Meeting ...
RailsConf 2006 registration is open and selling fast February 2006
RailsConf 2006 is the first conference for Rails. It's capped at 400 participants and there were alr...
Creating a branch in Subversion from a specific older revision January 2006
Branches in Subversion are quite easy and really lightweight. I think the technical term for this is...
2005 Prediction Recap: Washington Redskins January 2006
Last year I made 10 predictions, with one bonus prediction about the Washington Redskins: 11. Gibbs ...
Cocoa Search Engine December 2005
If you're programming in Cocoa, Brian Cooke created a custom search engine for Cocoa using Rollyo th...
Ruby on Rails is 1.0! December 2005
Congrats to the entire Ruby on Rails team! Also - if you want to try out a Rails-powered site and yo...
If you can't add a directory to SVN December 2005
If you try to add a directory to Subversion and it tells you: svn: warning: 'yourDirectory' is alrea...
How to fix certain SVN commit errors December 2005
If you're getting an error message that looks like: subversion/libsvn_client/commit.c:832: (apr_err=...
Poor Man's FeedBurner December 2005
I wanted to get an idea of how many subscribers I had to my new blog MacHappy. It's a blog I started...
Surf around. Write a little. Remember it all. November 2005
In my spare time, I like writing apps. Mac apps. Stuff that I'd use. Stuff that makes me even happie...
Eclipse tip: How to build features that require Java 5 November 2005
So you're trying to create an Update Site and you hit the Build or Build All button. This is dependi...
Ruby on Rails Programmers Needed in Herndon, VA November 2005
Looks like Rails fever has spread to Northern Virginia. There's two listings, though I think they ar...
Changes I've made to help heal my carpal tunnel problem November 2005
Vik asked about my carpal tunnel problem: Just curious if you're going to make any changes now. As i...
Mac Programmer Meeting in Northern Virginia - November 17th November 2005
We're having a meeting of the Programming SIG of the Washington Apple Pi, which is the big local Mac...
I'm feeling MUCH better November 2005
I'm back! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. My hands are feeling great. I'd say about 70%. S...
Sidelined with some hand problems October 2005
Sorry if I haven't replied to your email and that I haven't posted too much in the past two weeks. I...
Wow - video iPods! October 2005
And you buy music videos and TV shows... Very cool. Oh yeah... iTunes 6 came out as well.
NetNewsGatorWire October 2005
Newsgator continues to buy up some of the top talent and products in the shareware industry. A few m...
Review: My Job Went to India September 2005
The Pragmatic Programmers just released a great book. It's titled My Job Went to India (and all I go...
Fellow Mac blogger in the path of Rita September 2005
I was looking for good resources on how to design and create Mac icons, specifically the slick and h...
Google finally groks RSS September 2005
3. Google groks RSS: Instead of just being satisfied with hosting blogs via Blogger, Google realizes...
Podcasting is good, but... September 2005
...it really is kind of inefficient. I wonder if there is any sort of speech-to-text web service whi...
must. have. nano. September 2005
It's amazing to me how Apple continues to innovate. They obviously have read The Innovator's Dilemma...
Apple Special Event - Live September 2005
MacWorld is covering the Apple Special Event - Live. The big rumor is that there will be an iTunes p...
Act like a business to keep your job September 2005
Chad Fowler, who maintains RubyGarden and... well, actually let me just quote from THE Ruby book, th...
Help Hurricane Katrina survivors September 2005
Today my family and I held a yard sale to raise money to help the Hurricane Katrina survivors. Watch...
Buy Mac stuff, help the hurricane victims September 2005
In my previous post, I wrote about how I had a yard sale to try to raise money. Well, the folks at M...
Sneak peek of SWT and Swing in Vista September 2005
Here's a screenshot of Eclipse (using SWT) on Vista, courtesy of Carolyn MacLeod and Ed Burnette. An...
Finally found a DC Mac Programming Group August 2005
Last week, I finally found a DC Mac Programming Group. It is the Programming SIG of the Washington A...
EclipseWorld was a success August 2005
Looks like EclipseWorld was a success. I didn't get a chance to go, even though it is on the same co...
RCP from my readers August 2005
I got two comments from my readers recently on RCP: Henry wrote "Why Eclipse RCP is going to ru...
How to have a stable hostname in OS X Tiger August 2005
I've got DHCP at home and at work. Its definitely a lot easier than the early days of network admini...
Dependency Injection in both Ruby and Java August 2005
Dependency Injection: Vitally Important or Totally Irrelevant? by Jim Weirich at OSCON 2005. This is...
Business is starting to like OS X July 2005
Jupiter Research reports that 17% of medium businesses (250+ employees) and 21% of large businesses ...
Quick tip: How to call parent outer class methods from an inner class July 2005
A friend of mine asked me about this and googled: "java inner class parent methods". Hopef...
Getting more plugged in locally July 2005
Once upon a time, there was this new technology called Delphi, which was meant to be a Visual Basic ...
Any good online book forums out there? July 2005
So I'm reading Freakonomics, which is an addictive read and exposes the real world as to how it actu...
Eclipse Mac: over 500 programmers served July 2005
The Eclipse Mac user group is humming along. Just a few months ago, we were at 200 members and now w...
Rails Beta Book is now at 1.0 July 2005
Just got the word that the Rails book is now finished. I guess we should stop calling it the "B...
Officer, I just saved a bunch of money by switching to... wait... where'd I put my insurance card? July 2005
I got this in an email today from my insurance company: Effective July 16, 2005, District of Columbi...
We need tool builders July 2005
"We need to get (students) to the level of creating original works with their skills," Stephenson sa...
Anyone own a MacWizards PowerBook AC Adapter? June 2005
I'm thinking about buying an extra PowerBook AC Adapter for my 17" PowerBook. The design of the...
Eclipse 3.1 released! June 2005
Hear ye, hear ye, Eclipse 3.1 has been released! It was officially released today June 28th, 2005 at...
Reading the Rails beta book June 2005
I got the Rails beta book (aka Agile Web Development with Rails) and am reading the PDF on my 17&quo...
Moleskine full - what to do? Make a Gridster PDA June 2005
I've been using a Moleskine pocket notebook for the past few months. I got it after reading Getting ...
OSNews interviews Steve Northover June 2005
OSNews has an interesting interview with Steve Northover, the principal architect behind SWT. He's a...
Does your wrist hurt? Try using a Pil-O-Splint June 2005
I've got a bit of wrist tendinitis. I think it is somehow related to my compulsive computing. Also I...
WWDC 2005 Recap June 2005
WWDC was great. It was my first time attending and will probably not be my last. At first it was a b...
Eclipse opening in Illinois June 2005
SourceGear is looking for an Eclipse Developer over in Champaign, Illinois.
WWDC 2005 Keynote Revisited June 2005
As everyone on the planet and their mother knows by now, Apple is officially stopping the use of Pow...
It's true! June 2005
What a wacky world we live in. First Microsoft switches to using customized PowerPCs in Xbox 2 and n...
I'm at WWDC 2005 June 2005
It's less than an hour until Steve Job's keynote and the place is buzzing. There is a HUGE line to g...
ActiveRecord Associations / Relationships June 2005
When you first start with ActiveRecord, it all seems so straightforward: has_one, has_many, and belo...
Calling all Mac developers in Washington DC / Virginia / Maryland May 2005
I want to start up a Mac developer group in the DC Area that would bring together Mac programmers, f...
Iterating over OrderedCollections May 2005
One of the things you want to do after having an OrderedCollection (aka List or Array) is to iterate...
Comparison of OrderedCollections in Smalltalk, Java, Objective-C, Ruby, Python, and C# May 2005
In my last post, I compared the collections classes at a high level. Now I'm diving into the one tha...
Comparison of Collections in Smalltalk, Java, Objective-C, Ruby, Python, and C# May 2005
Why look at collection classes? Well, after reading a bit about the language syntax and writing &quo...
How to find out what you like to do May 2005
When I was in 5th grade, I took a test in school that would tell me what career I would be best suit...
Eclipse 3.1M7 released May 2005
Like clockwork, the Eclipse team has released Eclipse 3.1 M7, which is the last milestone build befo...
Everybody loves Command-Space May 2005
I'm running Tiger full-time now and its great. Spotlight is one of the best new features in it and I...
Washington Wizards make it to the 2nd round! May 2005
Finally, after a long drought of 23 years, the Washington Wizards win a playoff series. They beat th...
Nerds don't have to be unpopular May 2005
Graham lent me this great book Hackers and Painters which I just finished reading. I highly recommen...
Java 5 for OS X 10.4 Tiger is here April 2005
Apple released Java 5 for OS X today. (Also known confusingly as both "Java 2 SE 5.0 Release 1&...
Gauging market demand for different IDEs via SimplyHired.com April 2005
I was perusing the popular delicious links and found a new job site: SimplyHired, which bills itself...
Nice graphic on the cycle of blogging April 2005
I blog. I read blogs. I upload my blog posts from my PowerBook to a TypePad server via MarsEdit. I r...
Why Sun should join forces with the Eclipse Foundation April 2005
The Butler Group recently wrote an opinion article titled: Sun and Eclipse - A Marriage Made in Heav...
Why did I add Cocoa and Rails? April 2005
Astute readers may have noticed that the title of this blog changed this past month from "Eclip...
Tiger World Premiere - Friday April 29th April 2005
Apple is throwing a big bash for their new OS, known as both Tiger and also OS X 10.4 to us geeks wh...
64 bit JVM, here we come April 2005
I'm planning my WWDC trip and I noticed that the preliminary schedules are up now. BTW, if you're pl...
Put your Mac to sleep with this keyboard shortcut April 2005
I like to put my PowerBook to sleep when I'm done using it, but when I'm at home and "docked&qu...
How to upgrade a Mac mini by yourself April 2005
I read the enjoyable "Forcibly Test-driving a Mac mini" by fellow Mac user and Northern Vi...
Ian's got a blog April 2005
In case you don't know who I'm talking about, the Ian that I'm referring to is Ian Skerrett, Directo...
I'm going to WWDC 2005! April 2005
I did it. I booked my hotel, my flight, and then signed up early for WWDC 2005 with the Tiger Early ...
Eclipse Mac now listed in Eclipse Community Resources April 2005
The Eclipse Mac user group is now listed in the Eclipse Community Resources. Here's a screenshot: Th...
Tips for giving blood April 2005
I like to give blood. Its a great way to help other people. I highly recommend it. It always seems l...
A tour through the Eclipse start-up options April 2005
I was tweaking the start-up options on Eclipse 3.1M6 on my PowerBook and I was curious what all thes...
How to get better memory settings for Eclipse on Mac OS X April 2005
In Eclipse 3.1M6, the default memory settings were increased. This was done by putting in the eclips...
Eclipse 3.1M6 released! April 2005
Here's where you can download 3.1M6. As always, it takes the mirrors a day or two to pick it up, so ...
Eclipse Easter Egg: Heap Monitor March 2005
Here is a nice little Easter Egg. OK, not exactly, since you do have to download it by itself. But i...
Eclipse Mac tops 200 members! March 2005
The Eclipse Mac user group is now over 200 members strong. We started the group back on October 29th...
The state of Java on Mac OS X March 2005
James Duncan Davidson wrote about the state of Java on Mac OS X and I saw a comment that was dead-on...
Eclipse 3.0.2 is out March 2005
Get it (Eclipse 3.0.2) while it's hot! Not convinced yet? Consider that 3.0.2 contains 337 bug fixes...
Yay - Kim's got a blog! March 2005
Kim Horne, who gave a nice presentation on "Addressing UI Scalability in Eclipse" at Eclip...
Eclipse 3.0.2 due on Wednesday March 2005
Eclipse 3.0.2, which contains 70 bug fixes over 3.0.1 will come out next Wednesday, March 23. It was...
PowerPC inside March 2005
Mac OS X runs on PowerPC (G4s and G5s). Linus Torvalds runs Linux on a dual 2Ghz PowerMac G5. Ninten...
The Eclipse revolution will be persisted (in a SQL database) March 2005
Eclipse seems like this big snowball rolling down the software industry hill, picking up code, contr...
Want to see more programming languages supported in Eclipse? March 2005
One of the interesting things I noticed at EclipseCon 2005 was that developers want to see more prog...
Eclipse Easter Egg: Plugin Dependencies View March 2005
One of the great things about EclipseCon is that you get to talk one on one with the Eclipse Committ...
EclipseCon 2005 may be over... March 2005
...but I'm still going to blog about it. The pace of the conference seemed to pick up day by day and...
The Eclipse Phenomenon - Lee Nackman March 2005
This keynote covers the history of Eclipse. Started off with a vision, which was discussed within IB...
Urs Hoelzle - A look behind the scenes at Google - liveblog March 2005
8:10AM - Google's mission is much bigger than search. It is to make the world's information availabl...
Safely Manipulating Files in Eclipse March 2005
Thanks to Kai-Uwe Maetzel for the code and the presentation. Here are the useful nuggets that I got:...
RCP plenary March 2005
Nick Edgar and Jeff McAffer are presenting. They're relating RCP releaeses to popular TV shows. Ecli...
GEF session March 2005
Randy and Pratik are presenting again, this time in the big room (where the keynotes/plenaries are h...
EclipseCon on Mac March 2005
Today, one of the big themes was Patterns contained in the Keynote by Tim O'Reilly titled "Open...
Eclipse on Mac demos March 2005
Here's the PowerMac G5 (hidden) with 30" Cinema Display and 15" PowerBook, both running Ec...
WTP - not just a tutorial, but a sprint March 2005
If RCP was the big surprise hit of last year's EclipseCon and I think it was, then I predict that th...
Welcome to EclipseCon March 2005
Tim O'Reilly Keynote - live March 2005
"Patterns are all the brain knows about." - Jeff Hawkins Tim is going to talk about "...
The Hyatt Regency Atrium @ EclipseCon 2005 March 2005
GEF In-Depth Tutorial March 2005
I love GEF (Graphical Editing Framework). Maybe secretly I'm homesick for Swing. I mean, you can dra...
End-to-end RCP Applications March 2005
One of the nice things about RCP is that you can pull in selected plug-ins into RCP from any of the ...
EclipseCon itself is EPLed March 2005
I'm in the End-to-End RCP Solutions session with David Orme and one thing that sticks out at me is t...
EclipseCon 2005 - Tutorials Monday March 2005
Today was Tutorials Monday and I took advantage, delving into two of my favorite Eclipse projects: W...
Any extension point browsers out there? March 2005
I'm sitting in the "Extend web tools server tooling for your application server" session a...
Just got to EclipseCon 2005 February 2005
Just got to the Hyatt Regency, site of EclipseCon 2005. It was a pretty decent flight, although ther...
Fixing Derby connections on OS X without using derby.properties February 2005
To get Derby connections to work on OS X from within your Java code, you need to use the following p...
Creating/Modifying Derby databases on OS X February 2005
If you're trying to create or modify a Derby database on OS X and you get the error message: ERROR X...
EclipseCon 2004 notes February 2005
Just some notes from EclipseCon 2004, to get my head cleared for EclipseCon 2005: The keynote by Eri...
A brief history of EclipseCon February 2005
Here's a brief history of EclipseCon, with unofficial titles (that I came up with) along the officia...
EclipseCon 2005 is sold out! February 2005
EclipseCon 2005 is sold out! (I can't remember any software related conference I've been to that sol...
Eclipse 3.1M5a is out February 2005
Everyone should get this instead of the original 3.1M5. This includes a bug fix to the Properties Vi...
The night owl gets the milestone build (Eclipse 3.1M5 is here!) February 2005
Eclipse 3.1M5 is here! I like this quote from Kim Moir, the Master of Eclipse Build Ceremonies (OK, ...
Stay tuned for Eclipse 3.1 M5 A February 2005
The Platform UI team found a problem with EMF-based editors and the Properties View and they worked ...
Memories of EclipseCon 2003 February 2005
I was at EclipseCon 2003. What's that you say? The first EclipseCon was EclipseCon 2004? I beg to di...
Xbox Power Cords recalled February 2005
Maybe it's time to buy the kids that Nintendo Gamecube they've always wanted. Then again, they've be...
Eclipse Tip: Use Bookmarks to track important places in your code February 2005
A nice feature in Eclipse that is somewhat hidden is the bookmarking feature. It lets you keep track...
43 Things February 2005
43 Things is a cool site that lets you keep track of your goals, share them with others, see what ot...
Welcome Ben to the blogosphere February 2005
Ben is a buddy of mine who also is into Eclipse and Java, and whose Programming Ruby (the pickaxe bo...
Liveblogging the Super Bowl February 2005
Since I'm here at home w/the family, and not riding w/a friend in a stretch limo (which he won in a ...
Get the weather via RSS February 2005
Light Snow 34°F It's snowing here in Northern Virginia (or it was just a little while ago). How do I...
Expanding to TextDrive February 2005
This blog is going to stay here at TypePad, which is a great blog host. I haven't had to worry about...
Will Apple be supporting Eclipse and SWT better in the future? January 2005
Marcello pointed out this Apple job posting for a Java Frameworks Engineer in the Eclipse-Mac Google...
Google Translate beats Altavista Babelfish January 2005
I wanted to read Marcello's blog, but I don't read Italian. He's a fellow Eclipse on Mac developer w...
PC Magazine recommends the Mac mini January 2005
"If you've been thinking of switching to a Mac but have been put off by the high price of a new...
Mac mini - the first few days January 2005
It's been two and a half days since I brought the mini home from the Apple store and I thought I'd s...
My Nerd Score: 94 January 2005
I searched my NetNewsWire feeds and only found one other score: James Robertson with a right down th...
Setting up the Mac mini - an illustrated guide January 2005
Ahh... home sweet home. Here's all my new Apple stuff (minus the printer) on the desk where my PC cu...
Mac mini frenzy at Tysons Corner Apple Store January 2005
I woke up at 8AM and got on the road just when the snow started falling. It's predicated that we'll ...
Eclipse at Amazon DevCon January 2005
Amazon is having the Amazon DevCon, which is an internal conference for its developers. That's a nic...
Mac mini - camp out / meet up - Tysons Corner, VA - Jan 22 January 2005
I saw Russell is thinking about camping out overnight so he can be one of the first to get the Mac m...
Free To Do Lists - well actually, Ta-Da Lists January 2005
From the makers of Basecamp, 37 Signals, is a new free web app that lets you create To Do lists. It'...
Proposal for a Mac mini switcher commercial January 2005
Erik of NSLog() asks: "Did Apple position the Mac mini appropriately (i.e. well enough to avoid...
Eclipse JFace tip: How to add column headers to a TableViewer January 2005
So you've created a JFace TableViewer, via: TableViewer tableViewer = new TableViewer(parent); The s...
Tim Bray's getting a Mac mini for his mom January 2005
Tim Bray (who is a computing legend) is getting a Mac mini for his mom. His only complaint is that M...
Mac mini on my mind (and apparently a lot of other minds too) January 2005
I was going to blog about my first day of implementing Getting Things Done (which is going really we...
I'd like a Mac... Mini size it, please. January 2005
Steve Jobs gave his annual keynote at MacWorld today and announced several new products from Apple. ...
Why blogs succeeded where homepages didn't January 2005
I was in the doctor's office the other day and a cover caught my eye: Fortune magazine had a "B...
My predictions for 2005 January 2005
John Batelle started it, Scoble gave us his 19, Don Box ran with it, Carlos kept the ball rolling, a...
Manchurian Candidate December 2004
Just finished watching the remake of the Manchurian Candidate (2004). Do yourself a favor and don't ...
Book page meme December 2004
Merry Christmas everyone! I was combing through my NetNewsWire backlog and trying to get to 0 items ...
Eclipse 3.1 M4 - an early Christmas gift from the Eclipse team December 2004
Eclipse 3.1 M4 is out. It was released right on time, last Friday, December 17th. This is a nice ear...
Project Post-mortems December 2004
Post-mortem (noun) - what a good programmer writes after he's released a product. Also known as proj...
I'll be playing football video games again in 2010 December 2004
The very first blog that I wrote was part of a website for a video game that I was passionate about:...
Why Quicksilver rocks December 2004
I was going to blog about how Brent wrote up a project retrospective (which he called an after-devel...
ActionSomnia December 2004
A new sniglet, to describe my current condition. Definition: This is what happens when you either a)...
MarsEdit 1.0 released December 2004
MarsEdit 1.0 was released today. I wonder if Brent will do a post-mortem of it like Gus Mueller did ...
IdeaSomnia December 2004
In my previous post, I wrote about how Brent had coined two new words: Shower dementia and Shampoo v...
Back in Blogosphere with MarsEdit December 2004
I've been busy with work and family and side projects. There never seems to be enough hours in the d...
Azureus - killer SWT app November 2004
I'm helping out a friend by helping him install Fedora Core 3. I'd rather get him to use OS X, but F...
Proposal to reduce repetition with Swing and SWT listeners November 2004
DRY - Don't Repeat Yourself We know that this is good, since it reduces code maintenance, so why do ...
Back from a week of studying Cocoa November 2004
As a wise man (Brent Simmons of NetNewsWire fame) once said in a blog post explaining MySQL to Front...
Any other Eclipse user groups out there? November 2004
I just got back from the kick-off meeting of the Eclipse SIG (Special Interest Group) of the NOVAJUG...
Eclipse - not just for developing Java November 2004
Most folks who use Eclipse use the wonderful Java Development Tooling (JDT) and thus associate it as...
No Fluff Just Stuff November 2004
I spent the last few days at what's called either a) the Northern Virginia Software Symposium (the b...
Eclipse 3.1 M3 is here! November 2004
You have to love the Eclipse developers. They are like clockwork, hitting their milestones on ...
Eclipse 3.1M3 due out today / Java GUI Builders November 2004
Per the Eclipse 3.1 Project Plan, Eclipse 3.1M3 should come out today. It looks like there is great ...
A Desktop Java Renaissance November 2004
I finally got used to the new look of JavaLobby and am glad that the gliding nav toolbar stopped gli...
Native Browsers in Java on Windows (and Linux) November 2004
Last night I looked at embedded native browser components in Java, focusing on Mac OS X. Tonight we'...
Browser components in Java November 2004
I'm currently putting together an application that will be implemented in SWT/JFace/RCP/Java, Swing/...
Calling all Eclipse users on Mac OS X! November 2004
I formed a new Google Group called "eclipse-mac" where people can discuss topics specific ...
What to do when you get an UnsatisifiedLinkError when running an SWT or JFace application October 2004
So you're trying to run an SWT application (or JFace, since JFace relies on SWT) inside Eclipse and ...
Things I wish I knew when I first started using SWT on Windows October 2004
SWT on Windows was probably the "killer app" or "killer feature" of Eclipse. When Eclipse 1.0 came o...
Things I wish I knew when I first started using SWT on a Mac October 2004
I've got a friend who I persuaded to try Eclipse and is just learning how to use it. So it got me th...
How to run Eclipse from the command line in OS X (and Windows and Linux) October 2004
The Mac is very easy to use due to its innovative packaging system for applications, where it hides ...
Why your car stereo needs a joystick October 2004
I think that user experience is important for software, but also for hardware. Think about it: the m...
The Trouble with Common Names October 2004
Have you ever tried to search for Eclipse related info with Google? You'll find your results clutter...
Whatever happened to Cloudscape? (or what is Derby?) October 2004
Have you ever used Cloudscape? It's a relational database that is written in Java. It's been in deve...
Unofficial Guide to Eclipse 3.1 (Part 3) October 2004
Tonight, I'll wrap up my look into the plans for Eclipse 3.1. I had planned at going sub-project by ...
Unofficial Guide to Eclipse 3.1 (Part 2) October 2004
Today I continue looking at the plans for Eclipse 3.1 by looking at the Eclipse Tools project. I con...
Unofficial Guide to Eclipse 3.1 (Part 1) October 2004
I'm a big believer in looking and planning ahead. So, since I depend on Eclipse as an IDE and as an ...
Redskins win a close one in the windy city 13-10 October 2004
Disclaimer: I am a diehard Redskins fan and sing "Hail to the Redskins" after every touchd...
Hello World! October 2004
With every new language you learn, you really should learn how to write "Hello World" in i...