As 2018 starts to draw to a close let’s look at some of the highlights from the past year. New Home - I started 2018 with the goal of buying my own home and I managed it. At the end of October I actually moved in but it was months of looking at houses, speaking to estate agents, saving, packing and unpacking. There is...
Recently I have been investigating what all the fuss is about Docker and it has been well worth my time as Docker is pretty awesome for automating stuff. My development environment has typically required installing SQL Server. SQL is a bit of a beast with lots of options and takes time to setup how you want. However...
Remember me? I used to write blog posts but somehow life got in the way. So much has happened this year, lets have a look at my goals for 2018 and see how far we have got with them. Buy a house My first goal for 2018 was to buy a house. Well so much progress has been made with this goal. We looked at a few houses, and...
Recently I was asked how to convert a number to a string. Let’s look at a few ways of approaching this problem. Most objects in c# have a method called ToString() which displays the string representation of that object. This is because of inheritance, all objects inherit from System.Object which defines ToString()....
Let’s Encrypt is a free way to get a SSL certificate onto your website and until recently I had never tried it. It is very easy and I think it is awesome. IIS is the web server software the Microsoft include with Windows 10 and Windows Server. I have it installed on my laptop and it displays the default IIS page. It is...
DNS is the backbone of the internet and as such I believe every developer should know something about the basics and not just leave it for the sysadmin to sort. What is DNS? DNS or Domain Name System is what translates Domain names to IP addresses and vice versa. Wait what is an IP address and what are domain names?...
Reviewing code is a great habit to get into. Code reviews help share knowledge between your team members and help catch bugs before they get into production. But how do you get into the habit of reviewing and avoid the we don’t have time to do this mentality? Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) has some great options...
A friend asked me how to get started in Android Development and I thought I might have a go at answering that question here. I am by no means an expert in Android development, I do have an app in the play store so I know something. Manifest File This is probably the easiest option and also doesn’t actually create an...
For a while I have been mentoring a friend and I thought I might share some top tips I have implemented in my career so far. Hard Work At school I was told: “Only in the dictionary does Success come before Work“. Yes it is a bit of a corny saying however it has stuck in my head and it’s true. If you want to get...
Who was your hero growing up? Mine was Stephen Hawking. What is a hero? A lot is said in the media about “Heroes”. Often the sportsperson of the hour is described as a hero. I don’t like this definition and I think there is far more to being a hero than that. One definition I saw describes a hero as A person who is...