I do the majority of my development work on a Mac. As anybody familiar with Mac-based or Linux-based development knows, one accumulates a variety of “hidden” files in ones root directory, many of which are critical for development purposes. Examples: .bashrc – development paths and shell variables .ssh – keys for SSH .m2 – Maven […]
Embedded Jetty for Integration Testing
In a previous post, I mentioned using Jetty as part of testing a web application. The basic idea is that you can embed Jetty within your application (or at least within your test code), have your tests fire it up as required, and then perform “live” queries against your site. The purists would argue, of […]
Maven and the Google Web Toolkit (GWT)
I admit that I was a bit slow to see the value of Maven. Perhaps I had too many years steeped in Unix and make, but ant felt comfortable and Maven did not, at least initially. Suffice it to say that I’m a convert, and now find myself disappointed when I can’t manage a project […]
iOS Code Coverage Redux
In iOS Unit Testing – Part 4 – Code Coverage, I discussed how you can evaluate how well your unit tests are exercising your app’s code by using code coverage techniques. With the advent of iOS 7 and Xcode 5, there is an additional step that needs to be done in order to have all […]
reCaptcha and Google Web Toolkit (GWT)
In designing web applications, CAPTCHA tests are sometimes necessary to help prevent Bad People from automating attacks on your site. reCAPTCHA, a free service offered by Google, is a popular CAPTCHA service. While reCAPTCHA provides “plugins” for many client technologies, Google Web Toolkit (GWT) isn’t one of them. Fortunately, it’s quite straightforward to integrate using […]
OpenGL ES 2.0 – Matrix Madness
In a previous post, I talked a bit about the context in which OpenGL ES 2.0 shaders “live.” Aside from having to write shaders, the other big change between OpenGL ES 1.x and 2.0 is that applications have to manage their own matrices. There are many tutorials out there – the problem is that some […]
OpenGL ES 2.0 Shaders – Some Context
I love graphics programming. Don’t get me wrong – writing, say, a stored procedure for a database is perfectly respectable and responsible work, but there’s nothing like colored pixels on the screen to make me say “Woo-hoo!” I recently started re-educating myself on OpenGL ES 2.0 in anticipation for a project I’m planning. I’ve done […]
Using Android AsyncTask to initialize a database
When it comes to keeping user interfaces “lively,” threads are our friends. But Threads are a real pain in the neck. Such is the life of a programmer. It’s important that we design applications so that the user interface stays alive. Not only does this improve our user’s experience with our apps, but it keeps […]
Themes for the Android ActionBar – ActionBarItems
So far, we’ve covered theming tabs on an Android ActionBar, as well as drop-down navigation lists. The final item to be covered are buttons embedded within the ActionBar.
Themes for the Android ActionBar – Drop-downs
In the previous post, we dealt with theming tabs in the Android ActionBar. The ActionBar provides an alternate type of navigation – a drop-down list. You can specifically request this via: or you can sometimes unexpectedly find yourself in this situation if you try to create a lot of tabs, since Android may choose to […]