External Publications

Over my career, I published articles in a variety of different print and online publications. The following list is all articles in reverse chronological order.

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  • Industry Analysts Must Get Their Facts Right

    Date: 2021-08-10 | Publication: Medium | Format: Online | Link to Article I read a recent Gartner report and noticed that they published some deliberately misleading and incorrect information in their argument about a particular vendor's product. A later read showed that the repeated the falsehood repeatedly throughout the publication. I wrote this article to highlight the error and, of course, prove why their statements were incorrect.
  • But I Don’t Know Dart

    Date: 2021-08-10 | Publication: Medium | Format: Online | Link to Article I did a lot of research this year into Flutter and React Native and every time I mentioned Flutter to a developer, they'd immediately respond that they weren't interested in using Flutter because that meant they'd have to learn Dart (the language Flutter uses). I wrote the article to highlight that I've been an active Flutter developer for more than a year now and I really don't 'know' Dart.
  • Submitting Questions on Stack Overflow as a Last Resort

    Date: 2021-04-08 | Publication: Medium | Format: Online | Link to Article In trying to get some help with some development issues, I either received no response to my questions, or Stack Overflow actively deleted my posts for a variety of ridiculous reasons. I wrote this article to share my views on the situation.
  • It’s Almost Impossible to Get Real Developer Support Anymore

    Date: 2021-03-31 | Publication: Medium | Format: Online | Link to Article At the time I wrote this, I was doing a lot of cloud development and needed help with some issues I was having. At the time I was very frustrated with how the cloud service providers pushed support out to the community even though I was paying for the services I used. The article promotes my view of how this should work.
  • Arduino Programming: Variables, constants, and more

    Date: 2018-03-01 | Publication: Hackspace Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article This was my last article for Hackspace Magazine; an introduction to variables, constants, and defines on Arduino.
  • Make the Switch

    Date: 2018-02-19 | Publication: Make Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article I've always been fascinated with relays and I love putting them into projects. Whenever I found a relay board for a particular single board computer or microcontroller, I bought it and figured out how to use it. This article came from a proposal I made to Make Magazine about a general article that covered all sorts of relays and relay boards. For the article cover photo, I sent all of my relays and boards to California and the Make team did a professional photo shoot of them all lumped together.
  • A Better Way to Exercise Cordova Plugins

    Date: 2018-02-02 | Publication: PhoneGap Blog | Format: Online | Link to Article This was my first (and only) PhoneGap blog post, describing how to build support into your Apache Cordova Plugins for the Cordova Simulate plugin simulator from Microsoft. This was also the topic for my presentation at the very last US PhoneGap day (in 2017).
  • Arduino Programming: Reading Data From Devices

    Date: 2018-02-01 | Publication: HackSpace Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article This article covered measuring information on an Arduino device using simple digital devices and use the data to control hardware - in this case, turning on an LED when the temperature crosses a threshold.
  • Reading digital data on the Arduino platform

    Date: 2018-01-01 | Publication: HackSpace Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article This article highlighted how to read external data on an Arduino, in this case reading the state of a button.
  • Add Arduino power to your projects

    Date: 2017-12-01 | Publication: HackSpace Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article An introduction to Arduino development.
  • Pi Zero Visual Appointment Reminder

    Date: 2017-06-01 | Publication: The MagPi Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article For this project, I took my Pi Remind and modified it for the Pi Zero device (and a much smaller LED array - the Pimoroni Blinkt!). For some reason, the original article was deleted and this one is a reprint under another author's name (with original credit to me).
  • Solder Together a Fairy Lights Mason Jar

    Date: 2017-06-01 | Publication: Make Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article This article shows how to make a July 4th themed (US Independence Holiday) Fairy lights in a mason jar. For this, I used three strands of LEDs (Red, White, and Blue - of course) and a little Arduino code to fade the different strands up and down.
  • Collect and Display Weather Data with a Raspberry Pi

    Date: 2016-11-02 | Publication: Make Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article I've always been interested in hosting my own weather station, but I've never been interested in plunking down the cash to buy one of the professional stations. For this article, I wired up a Raspberry Pi device and the Astro Pi Sense HAT to build a little inexpensive weather station that posts weather data to Weather Underground.
  • Get a Flashing Meeting Reminder with a Raspberry Pi

    Date: 2016-06-14 | Publication: Make Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article At the time I wrote this, I worked at home (I still do) and I spent a lot of time on the phone talking to colleagues, vendors and customers. My employer used Google Calendar and Gmail but the appointment notification capabilities were not very robust. Well, they’re robust, but not enough to get me to actually show up for calls on time. I often missed notifications when I’m busy doing something else or I notice the notification, but quickly forget about it just a few minutes later and ultimately miss some meetings or join late. I built the project described in this article to give me a visual reminder when I have appointments. Its 2021 and I still use it every day.
  • Apache Cordova and Server-Side Technologies

    Date: 2016-02-18 | Publication: InformIT | Format: Online | Link to Article I saw a lot of Stack Overflow questions asking about how to attach an Apache Cordova application to different server-side technologies, so I decided to write an article talking about the different options.
  • Which to Use: Cordova or PhoneGap?

    Date: 2016-02-16 | Publication: InformIT | Format: Online | Link to Article I found a reason to refer to this article just last week (July, 2021) because apparently people still don't understand the difference between Apache Cordova and Adobe PhoneGap.
  • What's New in Apache Cordova 4?

    Date: 2015-04-29 | Publication: InformIT | Format: Online | Link to Article An introduction to the new features and capabilities in Apache Cordova 4.
  • Arduino-Powered Pinewood Derby Race Car

    Date: 2015-03-28 | Publication: Make Magazine | Format: Print | Link to Article At the time, my son was in Cub Scouts, and for many years built Pinewood Derby cars. For the most part, I let my son do what he wanted to do with his car but after watching one parent spend hours painstakingly cutting, sanding, and grinding his kid’s car, my son and I decided we’d kick it up a notch. I built an Arduino-powered Pinewood Derby car with an accelerometer and LEDs. The car flashes the lights differently depending on the angle of the car.
  • Mobilizing Domino Data Using Sencha Touch, Part 3

    Date: 2013-05-01 | Publication: The View Magazine | Format: Print Sencha Touch was a popular framework at the time and this article wrapped up my introduction to the topic.
  • Comparing Approaches to Mobile Development

    Date: 2013-02-01 | Publication: The View Magazine | Format: Print In this article I tried to compare and contrast the different approaches to creating mobile applications I'd been writing about.

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