Andrew Cassell is a Web Application Developer in Herndon, VA http://www.andrewcassell.com/blog/atom 2012-04-13T02:04:58Z Andrew Cassell 2011/hello-world 2011-06-17T12:06:00Z

10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD!" 20 GOTO 10 A hello world [1] program is usually the first program a developer makes when either learning to program or testing out a new language or framework. I have been playing with computers since I was 3 and developing software since I was 6 so I've written many Hello World programs over the years that I'm not going to try and recount count them. This is my "Hello World" blog post because it is the first entry in my new blog. As a Web Application Developer, consultant, and serial "Wannapreneur" (repeatedly failed entrepreneur) this first post is guaranteed not be the last, first blog post I write. I'm a Web Application Developer living in Herndon, Virginia whose primary focus is front end development and user experience. I'm an experienced JavaScript developer and work with the Mootools [2] and jQuery [3] libraries. I hold my own on the backend in many different languages such as PHP, Ruby, .NET, and Python and I have experience using SQL and NoSQL databases. I'm a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University [4] with a degree in Computer Engineering [5]. At Penn State I developed energy monitoring hardware and software, a website, and communications materials for a solar powered home [6]. I gained experience in the manufacturing industry doing robotics PLC programming and manufacturing data processing on two separate 9 month Co-Ops with R.A. Jones [7] and Sony [8]. Now I work full time for a non-profit environmental company as an internal software developer. I also moonlight as a consultant at SweetRadish [9]. Woot! First Post! (Obligatory) Links: ------ [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_world [2] http://www.mootools.net [3] http://www.jquery.com [4] http://www.psu.edu [5] http://www.cse.psu.edu [6] http://solar.psu.edu/2007/default.aspx?lang=en [7] http://www.rajones.com [8] http://www.sony.com [9] http://www.sweetradish.com

2011/techzing-tech-podcast 2011-07-14T12:07:00Z

138 episodes can't be wrong. Jason Roberts [1] and Justin Vincent [2] are the hosts of the TechZing tech podcast [3], one of my favorite podcasts to listen to. Jason and Justin interview guests with a genuine interest to learn, and by listening and taking notes I have learned a ton along with them. The guests they select are an excellent sampling of experts in the startup field and offer a great amount collective wisdom. Jason and Justin are both in the midst of doing their own startups, and because I am attempting to do the same (on nights and weekends), many of the questions they ask are the same questions I would have for those guests. Some of my favorites have been (alphabetical order): James Altucher, Jeff Atwood, John C Dvorak, Ruben Gamez, Patrick McKenzie, Rob Walling, Andrew Warner, and Gabriel Weinberg. Not only do they interview guests but they also have a weekly discussion show. Jason and Justin discuss topics from previous interviews, give their unique perspectives on the topics, and give real examples of how they have worked (or not) for them in their startups. They also give their viewpoints on a wide range of topics from Hacker News and the world of tech in general. Give them a listen by subscribing in iTunes [4] or visiting their website at techzinglive.com [5]. Links: ------ [1] http://www.codusoperandi.com [2] http://www.justinvincent.com [3] http://www.techzinglive.com [4] http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/techzing-tech-podcast/id318567721 [5] http://www.techzinglive.com

2011/static-blogging-engine 2011-11-01T12:11:00Z

I'm not a fan of having to do constant maintenance upgrades, when using something like Wordpress, to keep my site from being hacked. I could host this blog on TypePad [1], Posterous [2], or Tumblr [3]. However, there are a few downsides to using a blog hosting company: The blog must be on another subdomain (blog.example.com) and styling the blog using the built in template language sucks. The basic functionality is that you write up the blog in Markdown syntax [4] and then it generates static html files from the php that can be uploaded to a server. Visit my Amazon S3 Static Site Baker for PHP [5] project on GitHub. Links: ------ [1] http://www.typepad.com/ [2] http://www.posterous.com/ [3] http://www.tumblr.com/ [4] http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ [5] https://github.com/alc277/Amazon-S3-Static-Site-Baker-for-PHP

2011/amazon-s3-static-site-baker 2011-12-15T13:12:00Z

You can now host an entire website on Amazon S3. I wrote a publishing script that generates static .html files from PHP files and then uploads those to Amazon S3. Hosting .html files (instead of PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, etc. connected to a database backend) means your hosting options are practically limitless, hosting is nearly free for sites that generate small quantities of traffic (this site costs me about 2 cents a month), and sites that generate a lot of traffic can scale almost infinitely. Visit my Amazon S3 Static Site Baker for PHP [1] project on GitHub. See this blog entry on the Amazon Web Services Blog for more information on storing HTML files on Amazon S3. Host Your Static Website on Amazon S3 [2] Links: ------ [1] https://github.com/cassell/Amazon-S3-Static-Site-Baker-for-PHP [2] http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/02/host-your-static-website-on-amazon-s3.html

2012/remember-mac-window-positions 2012-02-08T13:02:00Z

I use a Mac and switch monitor configurations multiple times a day (I'm either using just my laptop display, or using my huge monitor + laptop display). I typically use a couple of different window configurations (Safari, Vim, Eclipse, Xcode, Terminal, etc.) but it's different depending on whether my laptop is connected to my external monitor. So I wrote a couple of Apple Scripts that automatically position my windows on my screen based on the coordinates provided. Here's an example of it running as a published app on my laptop. I just go down to my dock and click on the app and presto my windows are arranged. /video> I've put a couple of examples on GitHub: https://github.com/cassell/Mac-Window-Posititioner [1] Links: ------ [1] https://github.com/cassell/Mac-Window-Posititioner