Codeshal

http://chrislord.net/index.php/2013/02/11/tips-for-smooth-scrolling-web-pages-edgeconf-follow-up/

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 15:10:28 -0500

http://chrislord.net/index.php/2013/02/11/tips-for-smooth-scrolling-web-pages-edgeconf-follow-up/

http://platformsandnetworks.blogspot.ca/2012/12/heres-my-compilation-of-2012s-best.html

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 09:20:02 -0500

http://platformsandnetworks.blogspot.ca/2012/12/heres-my-compilation-of-2012s-best.html

Great Git video

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 12:28:55 -0400

Great Git video

Awesome Chrome DevTools Tips

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 20:54:42 -0400

Awesome Chrome DevTools Tips

How RESTful is your API?

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 00:41:16 -0400

How RESTful is your API?

What makes a good engineer?

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 00:40:00 -0400

The more time I spend evaluating engineers (or anything really), the more I come back to three core things: execution, initiative, and personality.

Execution. The people we all respect the most get a lot done quickly. And that work is of high quality - builds on a strong knowledge base, well documented, thought out, performant, correct, not overwrought.

Initiative. Seniority is really marked by an engineer constantly learning about technology and the company, looking at the company’s goals, identifying high-impact things on their own, and coming up with a plan to build them, all with little supervision.

Personality. To be really effective, a good engineer has the personality to persuade, discuss, and mentor, as well as collaborate and be open-minded.

Does this miss anything? I’ve already found this framework pretty useful, and usually when somebody seems almost-but-not-quite ready to be a leader, it’s easy to spot one of three that needs some more work.

How Netflix manages RPC latency and failures

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 11:53:09 -0400

How Netflix manages RPC latency and failures

Linux tips

Wed, 16 May 2012 21:02:52 -0400

Linux tips

Awesome slides about reducing latency in large fanout systems

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:43:18 -0400

Awesome slides about reducing latency in large fanout systems

Changing Android emulator's /etc/hosts

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:40:35 -0500

If you’re trying to Wireshark to observe SSL traffic (for example, to see if connections are being reused and SSL sessions being resumed), you’ll find yourself needing to filter by ip.addr = XXXX. Unfortunately, Amazon Route 53 appears to pretty aggressively vend different IP addresses every time you ask, which means you’ll want to pick one and throw it in your /etc/hosts so that you can know what your client is using as an IP.

If your client happens to be an Android emulator, though, you might be in for a rude surprise. It seems (?) like it ignores you local /etc/hosts file. Instead, I had to change the /etc/hosts in the emulator itself. I ended up following some great instructions from Brad Curtis. Be sure to pay attention to step 1! Otherwise you’re in for a head scratcher. In Eclipse, you can enter that parameter in Run > Run Configurations > Target > Additional Emulator Command Line Options. And if you’re on a Mac, you’ll probably find adb in ./android-sdks/platform-tools

Dear Google, Please Stop Hitting Yourself

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:14:00 -0500

I’m really rooting for Google.

I believe in Android as a bulwark against iPhone’s greedy closed system of iTunes and its hypocritically Orwellian “freedom from porn” (and its “we’ve already solved podcasts” (and its love of Hitler (and its intolerance for satire))). (Plus Android’s Gmail, Maps, Calendar, OTA syncing, nimble navigation, and fast app release cycles are all superior.)

I believe in App Engine as a way of letting developers easily build apps that make people’s lives better.

I believe in Google Docs and Gmail for making enterprises and individuals more efficient.

I believe in Google Maps as a platform for visualizing geographic data and making the world more accessible.

But then the past couple of years happened.

Android continues to look like ass. It has long-standing issues of runaway battery use that haven’t been rectified. (In addition to these mysteries, why would it autoupdate apps (yay!) during the day, when the phone is unlikely to be plugged in, instead of at night? The mind boggles.) Fragmentation has eaten it alive. It’s uninterested in improving its geolocation APIs. It hangs when I try to answer calls.

App Engine came up with pricing that had no basis in reality, and then lost revenue and increased costs for Google by failing to respond.

Docs and Gmail got slower and slower, and, for a year, were nearly impossible to log in to.

Reader was eviscerated for the unproved Plus.

Maps came up with pricing that drove people away again and again, obviously exceeding the cost for even small organizations to just run their own maps. These prices also have no basis in reality. (For context, AdSense pays ~ $1 per thousand page views. Maps tries to charge ~ $4 per thousand page views.)

I don’t get it. Is there a department of self-sabotage at Google that, seeing success, gets to work right away trying to erode it? That, having earned good will, attempts to destroy it? That, having read the new Steve Jobs biography, ignores the great advice about avoiding division P&Ls? That, faced with two sides of a balance sheet, haplessly ramps up costs and then scavenges for revenue? That, having built a brand and a user base, tries to alienate it? Google should probably shut that department down.

How Netflix runs on AWS

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:59:54 -0500

How Netflix runs on AWS

kschoeck: What Users Do Online Hot visualization

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:01:42 -0400

kschoeck:

What Users Do Online

Hot visualization

Why is Google squeezing developers?

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:29:00 -0400

There have been a lot of crazy prices coming out of Google lately.

App Engine Pricing (since revised to be less insane)
Maps pricing
Analytics (not exactly a developer-focused product, and the prices aren’t that crazy for the target tier)

Here are some things I don’t understand about this

Given the number of overpaid MBAs at Google, how did nobody evaluate this pricing against competition (e.g. EC2 vs. App Engine) or sanity (e.g. maps cost per page view vs typical CPM)? Maybe these prices are an attempt at price discrimination and behind the scenes they’re negotiating aggressively?
Does Google really see these as being relevant revenue streams given their revenues?
App Engine drives adoption of Google Accounts, Maps furthers the Google brand, and Analytics furthers Google ads. Does undercutting these by charging really outweigh the harm to the overall business?
If Google is fighting for the hearts and minds of developers with Android and other platforms, why show itself to be tone-deaf and heartless toward platform consumers?
Google used to talk a lot about trying to make the web better with various free services and making money through search. Did they get bored with this?
Google is sitting on a gigantic cash cow with Apps. Companies pay less for Apps than they do for fogbugz or Campfire or various other services that are less indispensable. Why undercharge for the one service for which enterprises are willing to pay and which has no real competition? Especially if this money could also go to making these applications better and faster (multiple pricing tiers?) instead of the gradual decline we witnessed once Google cleared the market of realistic alternatives. Google could even make money offering one-click billing for App Engine apps used by Google Apps domains. Why is Google trying to make money in the hardest way available? I assume this is some sort of terrible cost center accounting, and the end of an era.

Two fun performance talks

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:30:50 -0400

These were making the rounds at work

http://www.parleys.com/#st=5&id=2662&sl=0

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Scale-at-Facebook

App Engine Receiving Email Caveat

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 22:09:00 -0500

The sample code makes this totally non-obvious, but the sender is actually a noisy string like “Joe Blow <joeblow@example.com>”. You need to parse it using email.utils.parseaddr(message.sender)[1]

Copying files as root

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 17:14:03 -0500

rsync -avz —rsync-path=’sudo rsync’ FILE SERVER:REMOTE_FILE

Tweaking the git post-receieve-email hook

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:57:00 -0500

For whatever reason, Git’s post-receive email hook is a hassle to configure, and ugly. How we do it.

cd ~git/repositories/XXXX/hooks
locate post-receive-email
cp YYY/post-receive-email .
emacs post-receieve-email
change recipients=YOUR MAILING LIST
change
describe=$(git describe $rev 2>/dev/null)
to
describe=$(git log -1 —pretty=%s $rev)
change
Subject: ${emailprefix}$projectdesc $refname_type $short_refname ${change_type}d. $describe
to
Subject: [${emailprefix}$projectdesc $short_refname] $describe
change emailprefix=”
below “via $rev”, add echo “https://YOUR_CGIT_SERVER/cgit/REPO/commit/?id=$rev”
emacs post-receive
uncomment sourcing of post-receive-email and include fully path to your new post-receive-email file
if committing is really slow / hangs, uninstall sendmail, install postfix

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4139379/http-keep-alive-in-the-modern-age/4141920

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 15:40:07 -0500

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4139379/http-keep-alive-in-the-modern-age/4141920

What are some useful tips for tuning programs running on the JVM? - Quora

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:14:33 -0400

What are some useful tips for tuning programs running on the JVM? - Quora