Memoirs of a Simple Man

This is my new blog, which will be written differently than my older blog on Blogger. It will primarily be written as if writing a letter to a friend. This blog unlike the older one isn't only dedicated to technology, it will contain thoughts and ramblings on everything in my life. You won't find code examples here, for that I will continue to use the old blog or post on one of my many topic specific sites.

Technology Blog @ Blogger

I have been blogging on and off for several years now. At one time I was blogging nearly five times a week, but I have slowed down quite a bit as I am busy working on other projects in my off hours. The blog is a mish mosh of articiles related to technology including tutorials, ideas, rants, and reviews. Some of the more popular entries include tutorials for the Prototype JavaScript library, and using the RPC mechanism in the Google Web Toolkit.

Penlets.com

In July of 2008 I launched Penlets.com, a site providing tutorials and resources for the Pulse pen from Livescribe. The story behind the site is that a co-worker and myself were at JavaOne and were blown away by a demonstration that showed off the capabilities of the pen. We were especially intigued by the possibilities of using Java to program the pen, so we each bought one. When we got back from the conference we started hacking the pen, and decided to start this site to share some of what we learned.

GWT in Action

In the summer of 2006 I was hired by Manning to author a book on the newly released Google Web Toolkit (GWT). This being my fist book I decided that I didn't want to do it all on my own. As luck would have it, I had been trading emails with Adam Tacy, who was also interested in writing something about GWT. I recall Adam asking me if I would be interested in writing some tutorial articles with him, and I responded "how about a book instead". A year later GWT in Action was released, weighing in at over 600 pages.

GWT Widget Library

One of the reasons that Manning approached me to write GWT in Action was because I had started an open-source library of GWT widgets and tools, which had provided me with some notoriety in the GWT space. I started the library with some of my own creations, then started asking other developers to donate code that they had written. This is how I met Adam Tacy, co-author of GWT in Action, among others. Another one of those developers, George Georgovassilis, became a partner in this project.

GWTSandbox.com

While working with GWT I often found myself experimenting, and although these projects were not "beta" quality I wanted to share them along with an article discussing them. I started GWT Sandbox to fill this need. Here I post my "experiemnts" with GWT along with demonstrations of their usage. My favorite so far is the Viewport Viewer, which provided a Google Map like viewport where you can pan an image (or map) using the mouse. For the project Gears ORM #2, I was joined by Jason Essington, a well known GWT personality in his own right.

Programmer's Cookbook

While developing applications I often find myself needing to do something that I have done before, but it has been so long since the last time that I don't quite remember the details. This is what prompted me to start the Programmer's Cookbook, a blog of small mini how-to posts. When I started the blog I was joined by John Reynolds, a co-worker at the time, and more recently another co-worker Harry Wong has joined the author list.

Quality Technology Services

I have been working for Quality Technologies since 2006, when they purchased my division from Globix Inc. I am the Manager of Application Development, and my role is to set the standards and ensure the quality of application development projects. I bring to the table roughly 12 years of professional programming experience, backed-up by another 10 years of programming as a hobbyist. The majority of the development that I oversee is for web-based applications, from specialized internal applations to massive consumer websites.

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