Dustin

HTML5 Color Picker

Dustin Marx — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:16:00 -0500

As I stated in my post HTML5 Date Picker, Opera 11 is ahead of some of the other non-beta web browsers in implementing some of the expected HTML5 tags. In this post, I look at Opera's implementation of the HTML5 "color picker" as an illustration of what is possible when the other browsers begin adding their own implementations.

I use the following simple HTML code to demonstrate Opera 11's color picker.

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HTML5 Date Picker

Dustin Marx — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 01:13:00 -0500

I recently posted that I had decided to use Opera in my HTML5 demonstrations for RMOUG Training Days 2011. As I stated in that post, a big reason for adding the Opera web browser to the set being demonstrated is that it supports some of the HTML5 features better than the other browsers.

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Inspired by Actual Events: My Blog's New Name

Dustin Marx — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:58:00 -0500

I began writing this blog in October 2007 and it has been called "Dustin's Software Development Cogitations and Speculations" from the beginning. The name has definitely reflected a primary purpose for this blog: to cogitate and speculate on various software development topics. However, I've been thinking about changing this blog's name for a while and have finally decided to do it.

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Detecting Class Innards in Groovy

Dustin Marx — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:03:00 -0500

When using a new language or using new features of a language that I have not used before, I like to know what fields and methods are supported by various classes and objects in that language. This has certainly been the case as I have learned and used Groovy. In this post, I look at the many ways one can find out what a Groovy class/object has to offer.

Javadoc API Documentation

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Recent HTML5 Links of Interest

Dustin Marx — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:20:00 -0500

HTML5 is all the rage right now. There seems to be an increasing number of blog posts and articles on HTML5 each day. In this post, I look at some of the recent posts on HTML5 that I have found particularly interesting.

Chrome Dropping Video Codec H.264

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MySQL and Other Topics in RMOUG SQL>Update Winter 2010 Edition

Dustin Marx — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:04:00 -0500

MySQL and Other Topics in RMOUG SQL>Update Winter 2010 Edition

Recent Postings of Interest - 10 January 2011

Dustin Marx — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:32:00 -0500

I have read numerous blog posts recently that I wanted to make note of because I have found them interesting and because I'd like to keep a reference to them. Because one of my blog's purposes is as a glorified bookmark, this post points to these useful posts and adds a little detailed description. Topics covered by the referenced posts include HTML5, Java, Perl, perception of what's cool in software development.

Top Ten Rising Web Technologies in 2010

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HotSpot JVM Options Displayed: -XX:+PrintFlagsInitial and -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal

Dustin Marx — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:57:00 -0500

Inspecting HotSpot JVM Options is a great post for those wishing to understand better the options provided by Oracle's (formerly Sun's) HotSpot Java Virtual Machine.

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Revisiting My HTML5 Posts with Opera 11

Dustin Marx — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:26:00 -0500

When I first wrote my abstract for my upcoming RMOUG Training Days 2011 presentation "A First Look at HTML5," I wrote that I'd demonstrate HTML5 in versions of the three most commonly used web browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. By the time the abstract was accepted, I had decided to add Safari to the list.

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Software Engineering is the #1 Job in the United States in 2011

Dustin Marx — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:43:00 -0500

The software engineering / software development / programming profession often receives high rankings in various career surveys. Although I do think there are some differences in these various job titles, they're used interchangeably enough that I intentionally mix them here.

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HTML5 Local Storage: Web Storage

Dustin Marx — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:00:00 -0500

Cookie Monster is not the only one looking past cookies.

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HTML5 Geolocation API: Your Browser Knows Where You Are

Dustin Marx — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:20:00 -0500

One of the pieces of functionality commonly discussed when distinguishing HTML5 from previous versions of HTML is the standardization of geolocation via the Geolocation API. Although some browsers supported geolocation functionality prior to HTML5, it is the standardized API that brings new value.

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Most Creative 404 HTTP Response Ever?

Dustin Marx — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 23:04:00 -0500

Happy New Year 2011!

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My Ten Most Popular 2010 Blog Posts

Dustin Marx — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:02:00 -0500

One of my annual traditions with this blog is to post a summary of my top ten blog posts of the year in terms of "hits" on the blog post. A post with more hits isn't necessarily better than a post with fewer hits, but the former certainly gets more attention. Some of the top posts in 2010 were not actually written in 2010). For example, the tenth most popular post of 2010 listed here was actually the 16th most accessed post on my blog in 2010. Seven posts from other years had more hits than it! I don't count these in the 2010 Top Ten and don't count them against that 2010 list either.

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Regular Expressions in Groovy (via Java)

Dustin Marx — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:47:00 -0500

The people who attended my presentations at RMOUG Training Days 2010 asked several good questions. One question that was asked in the Groovy presentation that I really wish I had included a slide on was "Does Groovy support regular expressions?" The focus of my presentation was on using Groovy for scripting, so this was a very natural and relevant question.

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Significant Software Development Developments of 2010

Dustin Marx — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 12:30:00 -0500

With the end of 2010 rapidly approaching, it is time to summarize what I believe are the ten most significant developments in 2010 in the software development community. As I have disclaimed before, this is entirely biased toward my interests. It is difficult to gauge the importance of events in spaces one is not familiar with, so I tend to favor areas that I do know and am able to make some educated (albeit anecdotal) conclusions about their significance.

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The Best Decisions are Those We Must Live With

Dustin Marx — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 10:54:00 -0500

We have all been the victims of others' poor decisions. This is especially painful when we, and not those making the decisions, are the victims. I have seen many times in my career when a particularly bad idea was implemented because the person making the decision had no relevant experience to understand the consequences of his or her decision. These same people often don't have to implement the poor decision and therefore don't learn from their mistakes. In this post, I look at ways to reduce or avoid this effect.

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$15 Off Today Only at Manning

Dustin Marx — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 09:44:00 -0500

Manning is offering $15 off any "pbook" (printed book), "ebook" (electronic book), or MEAP (Manning Early Access Program) for today only (27 December 2010). Use the code dotd1227 at the Manning site to get this discount.

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Using Generic 'log' Methods in Java Logging

Dustin Marx — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 23:37:00 -0500

When developing Java applications, it is easy to get used to invoking logging on the provided logger via its log level-specific methods.

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Lightweight Persistence with Java Serialization

Dustin Marx — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:59:00 -0500

The Java SE 6 documentation on Object Serialization states the following about the uses of Java serialization:

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Java toString() Considerations

Dustin Marx — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:23:00 -0500

Even beginning Java developers are aware of the utility of the Object.toString() method that is available to all instances of Java classes and can be overridden to provide useful details regarding any particular instance of a Java class. Unfortunately, even seasoned Java developers occasionally don't take full advantage of this powerful Java feature for a variety of reasons.

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HTML5 Form Placeholder Text

Dustin Marx — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:57:00 -0500

When developing web applications, my preference is to use HTML tags rather than JavaScript solutions whenever possible. HTML tags tend to be cleaner and simpler and will often work whether JavaScript is enabled or not in the user's browser. Because of this preference for HTML over JavaScript, I really like HTML5's new form support that provides standard HTML tag support for many behaviors that formerly required JavaScript.

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Stringifying Java Arrays

Dustin Marx — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:18:00 -0500

J2SE 5 provided significant new language features that made Java significantly easier to use and more expressive than it had ever been.

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Java's System.identityHashCode

Dustin Marx — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:08:00 -0500

The java.lang.System class provides many useful general utilities including handles to the standard output stream, the standard input stream, the standard error stream, and the

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Java 7 and Java 8 JSRs Released!

Dustin Marx — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 01:53:00 -0500

There has been a lot of big news in the Java world as of late. The recent announcements that IBM is backing OpenJDK and Apple is backing OpenJDK were huge in and of themselves.

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