Latest Posts

Mac Out Of Date? Install Linux (and make it look like Windows)!


Mac out of date?  Install linux!In my previous post, I described adding an SSD to boost the speed of my mid-2011 Mac mini.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the only issue.  It won't let me upgrade the Mac OS past version 10.12. Apple refuses to let me upgrade to the latest version (10.15 at the time of this writing) without buying a newer computer. 

So, rather than go out and buy a new Mac to keep up, I installed Linux (plus Cinnamon to make it look like Windows) and now have a fast and fully up-to-date computer.

Ubuntu on Mac looks like windows

Make Your Old Mac Run Like New With An SSD


Change HD in mac mini to SSDLike most of you out there, I have a handful of old computers sitting around, getting more and more out of date by the day.  The worst of my collection, though, was my Mac mini from 2011.  I originally bought it for iOS development, and it ran fine at the time. 

But, Apple forces you to keep upgrading to the latest version of both the OS and XCode, and before long, the Mac mini was running horribly slow.

Make Chrome Auto-Accept Your Self-Signed Certificate


Make Chrome auto-accept self signed certificateAs developers, sometimes it's necessary to create self-signed certificates on our servers, but it sure is annoying every time you visit the page and you have to click through Chrome's privacy warning screen. 

Luckily, there is a simple way to let your copy of Chrome always trust your own SSL cert.

Please note: you'll want to view our previous blog post, on how to create a Self-Signed "SAN" Certificate, which is required for Chrome to auto-accept it.

Creating a Self-Signed SAN Certificate on Ubuntu (Which Makes Chrome Happy)


Creating a self-signed SAN certificate on ubuntu, which makes chrome happyAs a developer, you often need to create a secure environment on a real server (not just localhost) while you test things out, prepare for demonstrations, etc.  This blog post will go over how to create not just a self-signed certificate (which is free), but how to also configure it as a "SAN" or Subject Alternative Names certificate. 

This so-called SAN certificate is important later, if we want to let our desktop Chrome automatically accept it and not show a privacy warning screen.

Oracle_query() and Other Oracle Convenience Functions


Oracle_query() and Other Oracle Convenience FunctionsIf you're used to using MySQL with PHP, you already know of the simple and easy to use functions like mysqli_query(), mysqli_fetch_object(), mysqli_affected_rows() and so forth.  But, if you've ever gone to query from an Oracle database, you've no doubt noticed that Oracle's oci_* functions are much less pleasant. 

So, I decided to create a set of functions similar to mysqli.

Why Your Applications Should Look "Cute"


Why your applications should look cuteSince computers first entered the workforce, business applications (that is to say, all applications which weren't games) have been boring and to-the-point. 

This seems to be a holdover from the stark green-on-black mainframe screens, which themselves were holdovers from printed paper forms. 

Read on to see why having a "cute" UI needs to be featured in all your applications-- and not just the ones for kids or millennials.

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