Word Jumble Game: Part 3

The first thing I did was made sure that the word list would be cached on application start. This was as simple as creating an Application.cfc cfcomponent and implementing the onApplicationStart function. This function reads the dictionary in (described in the last entry) and caches the word list in a ColdFusion array. There are other […]

Word Jumble Game: Part 2

In my last entry, I described the concept behind the Word Jumble game. In this entry, I will describe initial steps in creating the game. Firstly, I needed some dictionary of words. The Unix flavors have built-in dictionaries, and I develop on OSX, so I Googled the location of its dictionary: I knew I wanted […]

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-14

mathoverflow! //icio.us/zijzp4 # Ubuntu changing logo! //www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/ubuntus_circle_of_friends_gets_smaller.php # @hectcastro I know someone at an auditing firm that has to do this exact thing using SQL Server in reply to hectcastro # google public data visualizations //icio.us/jhwcp0 # I favorited a YouTube video — ICU64: Real-time Hacking of a C64 Emulator //youtu.be/tjcvR5McmSg?a # I favorited a […]

Word Jumble Game: Part 1

For a recent Regular Expressions Tech Talk at Wharton, I wrote a Word Jumble game. I will be describing the game and some of the key concepts used in making the game. Here’s the github repo. The premise of the game is to transform one word into another by replacing a single letter in the […]

Mediawiki-Usage/Changes Storage and Visualizations

A coworker and I have been doing some work on visualizations of wiki updates. The server-side code, written in Ruby, stores changes from a media-wiki feed. I got a chance to use the Google Visualization API, which is really simple and useful for a wide variety of domains. He also turned me on to HAML, […]

Connie Duckworth Talk

I went to hear Connie Duckworth speak today. I thought she was a great and inspiring speaker. There were two main takeaways that I got from the talk were that one should treat every job as a learning experience and that people are their own roadblocks. These are two ideas that I try to live […]

Date Validation in ColdFusion

Someone asked me about Date Validation the other day. Here are two simple approaches for use in your CF apps. Assume that the strDate variable contains your date. On the server-side, you may use IsDate(strDate). On the client side, !isNaN(new Date(strDate)). I don’t know for sure if the client-side code is the best way to […]

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-07

I subscribed to HuskyStarcraft's channel on YouTube //www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft?feature=autoshare_twitter # watir automated web browser testing framework //icio.us/gw03rf # vg boxart //icio.us/yemrpa # @dalig @hectcastro google burn! in reply to dalig # @hectcastro lol, touche! in reply to hectcastro # New comment this week on "We Will Beat the Top 5 Games In This Thread (without sleeping)" […]

4-Ball Juggling Practice

The next trick I am trying to work on is 4-ball juggling. Here are some practice takes:

Tech Talk: Regular Expression Recap

Yesterday I presented a tech talk on regular expressions. Overall, the feedback was very helpful! One thing I need to work on is making sure that my examples are work 100%. I know it can be very confusing when someone stumbles through an example. Another thing which I need to work on is pacing. Unfortunately, […]

MacBook Pro Desktop

My MacBook desktop. Is there such a thing as too cute?

Bubble Breaker Using Canvas!

I wanted to try out some canvas element functionality, given that I have a feeling it will steal a lot of Flash’s thunder. I whipped up a bubble-breaker game (the mechanic should be very familiar to you) in a few hours. Enjoy the demo! I may do a quick write up at a later point. […]

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-28

//icio.us/tbfdxv # jsFiddle web IDE //icio.us/21oj0o # codemirror in-browser editing //icio.us/qlwyr4 # New comment this week on "We Will Beat the Top 5 Games In This Thread (without sleeping)" //bt.io/EYZW # doom iphone code review //icio.us/kb1ycy # Powered by Twitter Tools

Summary: The Checklist Manifesto–Chapter 9: The Save

Even after all this research Gawande still doesn’t instill all his faith into the checklist as a tool for surgeons. Then, in the spring of 2007, he has a close call with a patient, who experiences complications. Thanks to the checklist, they have a supply of blood ready that is able to keep the patient […]

Summary: The Checklist Manifesto–Chapter 8: The Hero in the Age of Checklists

Even though checklists seem like a simple, effective solution to the problem of mistakes in procedure, there are behavioral problems to surmount in adoption. Institutions seem more willing to pay for multimillion dollar surgical robots with limited cost-benefit than try to imprlmeent checklists. Doctors are reluctant to accept them, and see the true spirit of […]

Jamie Ly

Developer, student, person