Website on Dave Nelson

Udemy Course: All about Node.js

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 11:30:33 +0000

I am working on a personal side-project for some friends and decided to build it using Node, Express, Mongo, and Passport.

About the time I was working on the database architecture I received a coupon via email for the Udemy course “All about Node.js” taught by Sachin Bhatnagar. The full price for the course is currently $150 but it comes up on-sale from time-to-time and coupons are often available.

Concatenate and Optimize Your JavaScript & CSS

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 13:18:40 +0000

Just how important is it to concatenate and optimize your javascript? In reading this article about the healthcare.gov article “Analysis: IT experts question architecture of Obamacare website” it is apparently extremely important.

Among other problems it was found that a large number of JavaScript files were being requested and then parsed by the customer’s web browsers causing an overload of requests from the server and an overtaxing of the web browser.

Delicious Library 3

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 04:00:20 +0000

My wife and I read a lot of books. Now that our son has gotten a little older and needs less attention, I go through more than a book a week on average, Bobbie doesn’t go through as many books in number, but she is reading much larger non-fiction books and taking copious amounts of notes.

Many years ago I bought Delicious Library 2 (DL2) as a part of a bundle deal. Bobbie and I used it to catalog all of our fiction and collectable books. It worked well enough and with some simple PHP and YUI coding I built a simple web page we could use on our phones to check our library while out and about.

Codecademy JavaScript Courses

Fri, 24 May 2013 04:00:20 +0000

CodecademyI first learned about Codecademy last year and I immediately jumped into it and completed a few of the JavaScript courses and promptly forgot about it.

Lately I have been writing more and more JavaScript and jQuery to make interactive prototypes for work. I rate my JavaScript skills somewhere around intermediate and I am challenging myself to work my way up to expert by the end of the year. As a part of that personal challenge I have been reading a lot of JavaScript, jQuery, and Git books and websites, this is how I ended up back on the Codecademy website.

Responsive Design in Practice

Fri, 10 May 2013 04:00:38 +0000

What the heck does “Repsonsive” mean when it comes to a web site?

For my own practical purposes it means that I have a single web site with one set of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript being served to all web browsers, but the appearance of the website changes based upon the width of the web browser’s window to give a great viewing experience to everyone.

Haha, that is a mouthful.

I Changed Web Site Hosts

Fri, 03 May 2013 04:00:14 +0000

Dreamhost’s Web SiteAfter 4 years at my previous host I had become pretty unhappy with them.

I was running a WordPress blog and a PHP/MySQL based app to track an office football pool along with a handful of pictures for clients to download and prototype websites for conducting usability tests. But I was regularly having issues, mostly based around the web site being really slow.

So after reading a post in Lifehacker about the best personal web host which highlighted Dreamhost as the best option, I decided to make the jump.

97 Things Every Programmer Should Know

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:01:27 +0000

This book is a part of O’Reilly’s 97 Things series where individuals contribute short entries to a wiki, which are then edited, from which 97 items are selected for a book.

I found this book on the shelf at Fry’s and after paging through it a bit decided buying it and having a hard copy to let others borrow was worth the cover price as opposed to reading it online. The series is different from most books as the entire contents are available to read for free at https://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/

Photogrpahy Blogs

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:27:15 +0000

Almost every day I use Google Reader to read RSS feeds from many different web sites, 44 of them today, and I would like to share the photography feeds.

The Big Picture

The Big Picture is a blog over at boston.com where they post some of the most amazing pictures of the week. These picture regularly inspire me to get out there and do that thing that I do.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

Hollywood Stock Exchange

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:10:06 +0000

The Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) is a web based stock trading game that trades in the success and failure of movies. The game is free to play and can provide some real insight into how a stock exchange works and what makes for a successful movie.

By creating an account you receive $2 million HSX dollars to buy and sell stocks, bonds, and funds with. It is plenty of money to jump right in and create a portfolio that can take off but not so much money that you cannot lose most of it in one bad weekend.

Financial Peace

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:21:22 +0000

About four years ago I found myself deep in debt to the point that I spent many nights laying awake worrying about it. I was making enough money to pay the bills that came in the mail every month, but there wasn’t a lot of money left over for having fun. I was fed up and sick of it all.

I sat down with my computer and worked out a written budget, I included everything I spent money on every month, all of the bills, food, gas, rent, etc… Putting everything in a spreadsheet where I could see exactly where the money was going made it much easier for me to funnel more money to my largest bills. After two years I had made a very nice dent in the mountain of debt.