Replace XML Entities with Elements
Stuffing XML into someone else’s system is always a treat when there is no schema or DTD. It’s even more fun when the original dev teams on both sides have moved on, leaving no documentation whatever. The particular system I’m…
Holiday Books
I had been expecting to do some development work on my Android project over the holidays, but I ended up taking a break from programming altogether. I made some little notebooks at my kitchen table instead. I needed a break,…
Homemade Bookcloth
Bookcloth is lovely but hard to find exactly what you want. Making your own is easy, and opens up a whole world of textiles for use your bookbinding projects. Here is the procedure I have been using. Materials: Fabric Rice…
Lancaster B II Footage
Here is some colour footage of Lancaster B IIs from 426 squadron. Unlike other marks, the B II was fitted with radial Hercules VI engines. These engines were popular with crews because they offered a smaller target from below than…
Generated Fonts in LibGDX Skins
Font scaling in a messy business and LibGDX is no exception. It can take a lot of effort to get a crisp rendering. There are a number of strategies for getting the result you want, and utilities like Hiero are…
Presenation on Jenkins
Here is a Prezi presentation I made to explain Jenkins and the advantages of using it for process automation. The audience was mostly non-technical. Jenkins CI: What it Is, What it Does, and Why it Matters
Programming Post
In this post I will discuss a simple programming problem which I have solved. Writing it allows me to pad out my blog. I’ll write about how the super-cool project I’m working on was nearly derailed by the problem. I…
Cuban Cue Chalk Challenge
I spent some of the holidays at a resort in Veradero, Cuba. I collected about 50 pounds of seashells and spent a lot of time doing nothing at all. One afternoon, I saw a an example of the legendary Cuban…
Technical Resolutions for 2014
I can proudly report 2013 was a sterling success. I met a whopping 16% of my technical objectives. Some may scoff at this success rate, but I can guarantee 2013 will end on schedule at 23:59, December 31st. For this…
Reflections on Talend
I just finished a project using Talend ODI to push around mountains of XML and am pleased to say it is well-suited to this kind of grunt work. The learning curve was steeper than I had expected, and it has…