Contracting 101 or that letter I’ve been meaning to send
Part 1.
You’re a hot, young software developer, fresh out of college and it’s time to make a living. Problem is, odds are likely you’re working at a job that forces you to maintain code older than you are. Don’t worry, unless you accepted a job at a start-up, or work at one of the bleeding edge […]
A few tricks that work, when trying to break through writer’s block
I try to write for about an hour each day in two 30 minute long power sessions, but sometimes even when I’m following along with my outlines or trying hard to keep to my scene cards, I just can’t quite get there. It’s during these times that I reach for a few tried and true […]
Good Habits for Novelists and Independent Developers I
Many developers are best described as lazy. Not lazy in the fat slob on a couch, eating potato chips while they don’t even throw enough effort into playing World of Warcraft, but rather they’re like lizards on hot rocks. They will not move from a comfort zone, aim for elegant, no maintenance solutions, and generally […]
The Business Side of Technology Contractors I
Making 200,000 a year and spending like you’re making 120,000 a year is a great way to save money for lean times and grow your business.
Dev Helper 2: The Windows XP box
There are at least two main reasons I need a Windows XP guest to run in VirtualBox on my Desktop. If I’m running Linux, sometimes I need to run Windows software, like a MS-SQL server or Visual Studio to complete my work on a specific target that only works on Windows As Web development is […]
The Joys of Virtual Box hosted, Dev helpers
Virtual Box is a flexible, currently free, Virtualization environment not unlike VMWare or Hyper-V . If you’re a user of Windows 2007 Ultimate, you may have used a virtual copy of Windows XP, hosted locally before, VirtualBox is a similar solution and a similar tool to work through and try out. Many others can give […]
Simple tips in running Jetty on Linux
This is mainly just a short article to get me back in the habit of posting regularly. Recently, I’ve been working a bit with fine tuning Jetty, a light weight and configurable AppServer from Codehaus sponsored by Eclipse. Jetty gets production support from MortBay Consulting, who handle the heavy lifting for Codehaus. MortBay is also […]
Basic Security, Where are you going, where have you been?
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a fairly famous story by Joyce Carol Oates. In it, Oates’ character Connie ends up being convinced to walk outside and go off with Arnold Friend and his companion. The story was inspired by the three murders committed by Charles Schmid, Schmid’s inspiration for the murder […]
Don’t work yourself Sick
Software development has for some time been a personal, introverted and lonely profession. Teamwork is essential to the modern development environment on large projects, but there are still lone wolves out there hacking out 10,000 lines of code an evening. If you’re a developer, and if you aren’t this is still good advice, just not […]
Lessons Learned About Velocity Templates
Four different companies I’ve worked for used Velocity Templates. The technology isn’t a corporate secret, it’s a popular way to get that JSP/PHP style of template based development back into your Java. There are a few lessons I’ve learned from developing in Velocity that I’d like to share.