Archive for the 'Programming' Category

Teaching C#

Posted by Tom on May 28th, 2010

I’m teaching beginning programming using C# to university business students (CIS) in the upcoming Fall semester.
It’ll be doubly fun, as I’ve never used C# until about a month ago. Sure, I’ve used plenty of other languages, but for some reason, never anything from .NET. (Partly it’s because I’ve used a Mac as my primary machine [...]

Images inside a CSS file

Posted by Tom on May 28th, 2010

I was experimenting with my own version of the CSS3 Awesome button, when I noticed one of the commenters share the base64 encoded version of the semi-transparent PNG image they were using as a substitute for a gradient.
I was using a smaller image, and want to run a conversion of my own (it saves an [...]

Books worth their weight in gold

Posted by Tom on September 21st, 2009

For years, I’ve kept a personal (and unfortunately, unwritten) list of books I think every manager, programmer, and [insert category here] should read.
A book every programmer should read
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. Every programmer I hired was required to read this book. It’s a great resource for people managing programmers too. The book [...]

Flaws with Utah Reporting System

Posted by Tom on October 20th, 2008

I was surfing John Gruber’s Daring Fireball, and he linked to an article on programming and journalism.
The article itself didn’t do anything for me, but the way John described the link connected some synapses for me. (I wish I could recover what it was—something about exposing government APIs to journalists.)
Utah does pretty well with [...]

Hand-rolled gallery automation

Posted by Tom on July 12th, 2007

The Senate Site asked about a good way to quickly post a gallery of images. I’m a programmer, so I answered the query by rolling my own solution. (If your only tool is a hammer…)
I happen to like Litebox, although it requires a bit of manual setup: moving specific files to the web server. [...]

Integrating Mantis and Subversion

Posted by Tom on November 29th, 2006

Do you want to know how to integrate Mantis and SVN? I did, but could never manage the right Google query to return a page written for someone unfamiliar with customizing Mantis. (I’m still learning SVN too.) This is the documentation I wish I’d had. This process is easier if you know [...]

CAPTCHA the Internet

Posted by Tom on February 21st, 2006

CAPTCHA (an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”) has been on my mind ever since Phil Windley suggested a graphical CAPTCHA would make a good web service. I thought there might be those willing to pay to use it. Well, it’s been done.
There is a need for this [...]

IE DOM Bugs

Posted by Tom on February 7th, 2006

I’ve been working on a Javascript project where it’s necessary to create input elements (radio buttons and checkboxes) dynamically. With a functional DOM, it takes only a couple of lines of code, and works fine in Firefox and Safari. Too bad IE isn’t as DOM compatible as it claims to be.
After several searches, I discovered [...]

Safari “Debug” menu

Posted by Tom on February 7th, 2006

While trying to track down a Javascript bug in Safari, I was lamenting the lack of a Javascript console and DOM explorer. Then I found a tip on MacOSXHints.com, explaining how to enable the Debug menu. From the terminal command line, enter the following:
% defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

PHP Bugs, Headers, and Such

Posted by Tom on January 10th, 2006

We just resolved a series of related bugs in the web product we’re developing. I’m hoping by documenting the symptoms and solutions it may ease someone else’s fruitless search.
The application has a “skin” feature allowing non-technical users to customize colors, font, and a handful of other things easily accomplished with CSS. Rather than edit more [...]