Blog
Apr 10, 2015
What is gulp.js and why use it?
There’s no point in investing your time into learning a new tool if you don’t even know what problem it solves. Gulp solves the problem of repetition. Many of the tasks that web developers find themselves doing over and over on a daily basis can be simplified by becoming automated. Automating repetitive tasks = more time to do non repetitive tasks = more productivity. Gulp is a javascript task runner that lets...
Mar 16, 2015
Using AngularJS services to broadcast messages between controllers
Two handy functions built into the angular.js api are the $scope.broadcast and $scope.emit functions. Both of these functions are similar in the sense that they allow you to propagate messages up or down your html controller nesting. Please note that this applies to angular 1.x versions and does not apply to angular 2, as it is much different. Emit will allow you to propagate messages up to controllers to which...
Mar 15, 2015
Connecting to a Cisco IPSec VPN on Mac OSX with a PCF File
When connecting to a Cisco VPN on Windows, we typically take the route of using third party VPN software such as the Cisco VPN client or Shrew Soft. Each of these products allow you to specify a .pcf file, which contains the VPN information, in order to connect. When trying to accomplish the same goal on Mac OSX, the process isn’t as straight forward, however, it also doesn’t require a...
Mar 12, 2015
What is dependency injection and why is it useful?
A dependency is an external entity that a class, or function, needs to do it’s job. Just as I am writing this blog post, I also have dependencies on my computer. Remove the computer and I surely would not be able to finish the post. Injecting dependencies that a class needs is a good way to decouple our classes. Sure, any class can new up an object and call methods...
Mar 10, 2015
What is a Singleton? How do I implement it? And when do I use it?
This explanation will use C# to explain the basic ideas of a singleton and the singleton pattern. Keep in mind that if you’re using a programming language that doesn’t support classes, this explanation may require a bit more analysis. What is a singleton? A singleton is simply a class which only allows a single instance. You can’t new up instances of a singleton class. Static classes in C# are a good...