Category: Miscellaneous

Page 1 of 7

Posts that didn't fit in any other categories.

This page lists all posts in the category, in reverse chronological order.

  • Accurately Calculating Progress in Goodreads

    Posted January 9, 2022 in Miscellaneous
    I track the books I read in Goodreads, and this post describes a solution I created to deal with an annoying problem with Goodreads page counts and how they differ dramatically from reality. In this case I highlight a web app I created to convert a reader's current page to one adjusted for an inaccurate total page count in Goodreads.
  • Reviewing the Wrong Book

    Posted April 20, 2021 in Miscellaneous
    I read a review of one of my books on Amazon today and I'm always surprised by what different people want from books. In this case I had to respond because it felt like the reviewer wasn't reviewing my book.
  • Firebase Functions Deploy Helper

    Posted April 3, 2021 in Miscellaneous
    Between jobs, I spent most of my free time working for a startup building a sales automation tool in the cloud. I built the application on Firebase and encountered some problems deploying my Functions project reliably. To fix this, I created a utility that allows me to batch deployment updates to Firebase.
  • Talking Myself Out of a Job

    Posted April 2, 2021 in Miscellaneous
    I had some interesting experiences looking for a new job this time. My favorite one was an interview with an Engineering VP at one of the largest software companies in the world. He took a completely different approach in reading up about me before the interview and he made me completely rethink what kind of job I was looking for.
  • Starting a New Job Monday

    Posted April 1, 2021 in Miscellaneous
    After being out of work since September, I finally found a new job and this is my announcement that I finally found work.
  • Interesting Domain Registration Scam

    Posted January 12, 2021 in Miscellaneous
    I'm always amused by the random scams I get from time to time. and a long time ago I started documenting them here. This one's about a site contact form submission letting me know my domain registration would be terminated soon. So scary.
  • Useless Machines

    Posted July 15, 2020 in Miscellaneous
    I always wanted a useless machine and I finally built one. This post describes the kit I used and shows the final result.
  • Pandemic Lockdown Fun

    Posted May 7, 2020 in Miscellaneous
    After settling in after the start of the Pandemic, I began work on a lot of different projects and this post describes a bit about what I'm doing.
  • Amazon Release of Learning Progressive Web Apps Delayed

    Posted March 21, 2020 in Miscellaneous
    A quick post announcing that Amazon reported that availability of my Learning Progressive Web Apps was delayed due to COVID.
  • Open Source 101 2020 (Columbia)

    Posted February 14, 2020 in Miscellaneous

    The fine folks at Open Source 101 selected me to present at the Columbia, SC event on March 3, 2010. I'll be presenting on Open Source tools for building Progressive Web Apps. Stop by if you're nearby.

  • Automating Creating Flutter App Project Folders

    Posted December 6, 2019 in Miscellaneous
    I recently started working in earnest in Flutter. I poked and prodded at it for a while, but I finally worked through a couple of books and articles and have a good feel for the framework. This article describes a little command-line utility I created to automatically setup a Flutter project folder structure.
  • Learning Progressive Web Apps Cover

    Posted August 22, 2019 in Miscellaneous

    I received the cover for Learning Progressive Web Apps today, what do you think?

  • Time for a New Book

    Posted June 4, 2019 in Miscellaneous

    I've been really interested in Progressive Web Apps for the last couple of years, and I finally convinced my publisher it was time for a new book on the topic. The book is called Learning Progressive Web Apps and it will be available around Christmas time.

  • Building My First App Store App

    Posted May 22, 2019 in Miscellaneous

    For the last few months, I've been working on my first app in smartphone app stores. I had an idea in my head for a few years now, and I finally got around to building the app. I'm fascinated by Ionic, and learning Ionic 4 got me started with this app.

  • Microsoft Announces Plans to Acquire GitHub

    Posted June 28, 2018 in Miscellaneous

    A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced its intention to acquire GitHub, and I don't understand what the fuss is all about.

  • SiteLock's Deceptive Sales Tactics

    Posted June 19, 2018 in Miscellaneous
    FatCow uses SiteLock to protect sites and their tooling is not compatible with Joomla sites. This article explains the unsavory techniques SiteLock uses to convince customers to spend more money with them.
  • Super Short Tutorials Failure

    Posted May 8, 2018 in Miscellaneous
    Describes my issues with the super short technical articles in magazines that don't explain enough for the reader.
  • Pug and JavaScript Functions

    Posted May 5, 2018 in Miscellaneous
    I started playing around with Pug and had a problem with JavaScript functions, this article describes how I solved my problem.
  • Editing Content in Screenshots

    Posted February 19, 2018 in Miscellaneous

    I take a lot of screenshots for my books, magazine articles, blog posts and product documentation. I've gotten pretty good at it, not because I have any special skills, instead its all about the tools I use.

  • My First Digital Hotel Key

    Posted February 17, 2018 in Miscellaneous

    I'm staying in San Francisco this week and when I checked into my hotel, they offered me an opportunity to use a digital key to get into my room. That seemed like a fun and interesting thing to do, so I said yes and began the process.

Page 1 of 7