My Android Killer Apps for 2012

posted Saturday, April 7, 2012 in resources

I'm very picky when it comes to Android apps; unlike a lot of people, I don't have a ton of crap installed on my smartphone. I'm starting this blog entry with the Android apps I have right now, and I'm going to update and republish it at the end of the year to see what has continued to make the cut throughout the year.

Server-Side Error Logging on IIS

posted Friday, April 6, 2012 in web development

I ran across a great article the other day on HN about how to log client-side errors using Google Analytics. This is brilliant, and I've already implemented it for my biggest site. I'd like to hope everyone is logging their server-side errors too! Sadly, I bet many web developers aren't because I know that I wasn't doing it for years. When I first did, I quickly realized it was an invaluable tool for ensuring the robustness of my websites, because I immediately became aware of several page errors and bugs I had no idea existed in my apps. What happens when a user gets an error on your site? Do you have a system in place to tell you about it? Because I guarantee you can't test every possible use case on your webapp if it's even moderately complex. Here's how I monitor server-side errors in IIS.

Minecraft to the Speed of Light

posted Thursday, April 5, 2012 in gaming

Notch, the author of the bestselling Minecraft game, officially announced his next creation: a space MMO called 0x10^c. No, that's not scientific notation for zero times 10 to the power of the speed of light; rather, it's the hexadecimal code for 16 raised to the power of 12. This is 2⁴⁸, or a really really big number that presents the backstory for the game: people go into stasis in sleeper ships from the 1980s and wake up a trillion years in the future due to a computer glitch. The universe is in the final days of entropy, so there are black holes everywhere and little else. Energy is at a premium, since almost all the stars have burned out, but your spaceships are governed by 16-bit computers designed when the Super Nintendo was popular.

Amazing Online Clones of Famous Retro Games

posted Sunday, April 1, 2012 in gaming

If you've been a gamer for a long time, you probably remember these blasts from the past. If any of them are new to you, then you should definitely check them out because they are all genuine classics that helped to define or redefine their genres. These online video game remakes are so amazing, they're just like playing the originals - only better in some cases!

Giant Free Web Icon Sets

posted Friday, March 30, 2012 in web development, resources

A picture is worth a thousand words, and icons are a great way to visually convey information in a small space. Any web project can find a use for them, but if you're like me - more of a programmer than a designer - they can be invaluable. Icons are especially helpful when you need to make menus, categories, lists, or action links more eye-catching, so I've used them often in CMS's and various backend web apps. However, even the front end of some of my sites use them because they can go a long way to making up for my obvious bias towards function over form. Frankly, I have a site or two that would look absolutely awful without icons because they would be all text and no graphics without them. Here are my all-time favorite icon libraries that I find myself using over and over again - what I consider to be the best icons ever.

CNAME on a Domain Root Does Work, and It's Not Evil

posted Friday, May 27, 2011 in web development

CNAME is a DNS record ("canonical name") that allows you to define a domain as an alias of another, such that the second domain determines needed information such as what IP address to connect to during an HTTP request. When you access a domain www.xyz.com and your DNS server finds a CNAME record for it pointing to www.abc.com, the DNS server takes note of the relationship and converts all future requests behind-the-scenes. This all happens in the background, and you never notice. Your browser still shows that you are accessing www.xyz.com even though the information is coming from somewhere else.

Obviously this is a very useful trick, especially these days when so many websites/hosts are small and virtualized or large and have a need for load balancing. With the growing trend of leaving off the “www”, the question gets raised from time to time by web developers about using a CNAME record not just for a particular subdomain of a domain, but for the entire second-level domain itself. The general consensus has been that you can’t/shouldn’t do this (CNAME xyz.com directly instead of www.xyz.com), but in fact not only can you do it, but it works just fine in the real world and isn’t necessarily a "bad thing".

The Internet is Still the Wild West, and It's Every Man for Himself

posted Saturday, April 9, 2011 in web development

The internet is still in a period of relative lawlessness, and no one can protect your interests but you. I found this out the other day when I discovered I was the victim of Grand Theft Website.

Cataclysm Dungeon Bosses Guide

posted Thursday, January 6, 2011 in gaming

If you play World of Warcraft, you've probably been pleasantly surprised that the latest expansion has upped the difficulty level considerably. The 7 new dungeons present a decent challenge even on normal difficulty, and require your group to have a basic understanding of each fight. Here's a quick-reference guide for each of the bosses in all the new Cataclysm dungeons that you can refer to until you remember them.

Ten Commandments of Business and Life

posted Thursday, December 16, 2010 in philosophy

Some life lessons that have served me well thus far. A work in progress, always.

#1 - Make progress every day.

Perseverance wins, more than talent, more than luck, more than anything. You’re going to have successes and failures. What matters is that you keep getting back on the bike, time after time.

Jesus Christ, Use a Password Manager Already

posted Tuesday, December 14, 2010 in technology, web tools

Another day, another website security breach. Fortunately for me, I didn't have an account at Gawker, but even more fortunately, it wouldn't have mattered to me much if I did. I use a strong password for every website account I have, and every password is unique for each and every account. So not only do I have strong passwords, but if one is compromised the damage is minimized because that password is not used anywhere else. This is standard password "best practices", but millions of people don't adhere to it.