Jeffrey Magder – Developer Extraordinaire ;-)

Today while at work, my HTC Hero started flashing incessantly as I received email after email about moderating “new blog comments”. Normally I’d welcome such an occurrence but in this case every single one was spam.

I thought, “No problem, I’ll just look at the IP and block that IP”. Unfortunately, each of the messages was somehow coming from a different IP! Perhaps they were being generated from a network of spambots, or perhaps a lot of people suddenly hate me. Regardless, I wanted it to stop.

This is when I came across the free Akismet WordPress plugin. You can of course read about it at the official website or at Wikipedia. But what you really need to know is: continue reading…

I’ve recently had many discussions with numerous developers about the importance of fluid, aesthetically pleasing and functional user interfaces. While there are many opinions and trains of thought on the subject, I’ve tried to categorize them into three discrete groups.

Group #1 – “Whats the point? Why do you need your application to look good?”

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All professionals have their tools of their trade that are essential to their productivity and efficiency. Electricians have their multimeter, Biologists have their microscope. We the humble Software Developers, have the Debugger.

As the web continues its trend from static pages to rich interactive content and applications, the role of a software developer only grows.   As this movement continues, our need for becoming fluent with web-based debuggers is undoubtedly of the utmost importance.

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Putting my old phone through the wash was probably the best mistake I ever made, for it brought me to the HTC Hero, the Android operating system, and with it, mobile computing. Since then I have gone from thinking of smart phones as a luxury device to an essential part of every day.  It has largely replaced my eee pc as a way of making use of the daily public transit commute dead time.

In the process I’ve grown a new passion for the possibilities of mobile computing. I’ve come to believe this will be the basis for a slew of innovative ways for us all to connect and share our lives.  Being the eager software developer I am, I’ve read through much of the Android developer documentation, and hope to find the time to develop some kick-ass applications for others to enjoy.

Welcome to the Linux section on my blog.  Here you will find articles on anything Linux related.