Recent Articles

Video Watching Shortcuts

I like to watch how to videos at double speed. I loose concentration when things move too slowly. Here's some commands I use when watching videos.

Things I can never remember

Here's a collection of snippet and one liners that I can never seem to remember.

Open ports to docker container

Let's say you create a container and want to run something like a Spring Boot app on it. The container gets a private ip accessible to the virtual machine running it, your desktop or laptop only knows the address of that virtual machine and nothing in it.

Java 8 Runnable Examples

Here's a few examples of the new features in Java. I'm the type of the developer who really benefits from seeing this sort of stuff run in an IDE. This list is far from complete, but I think it should help you get started.

Swagger / SpringFox Walkthrough

Swagger is an API framework that allows for interactive documentation, client SDK generation and discoverability. SpringFox is a SpringBoot application that sits on top of your api and allows you to explore it from your web browser.

Spring Cloud at Netflix Notes

These are notes I'm leaving for myself after making my way through a demo project provided by Netflix at SpringOne2GX. At the time of this writing the project is about a year old, but covers the groundwork for a reliable distrbuted MicroService application architecture.

Building Microservices Oreilly - Summary and Notes - Chapters 1 - 4

Here's a copy of my loose notes from this great introduction to Microservices. It's a really novel way of looking at an old problem. It's also increasily relevant as I am becoming responsible for larger and larger systems. The world has come a loooooong way since I started working with Apache in 1999.

Git tag quickstart

Tags are basically a way to... well, tag a point in time on a git branch. Don't just leave a comment in the git log, tag it!

Kubernetes walkthrough notes

These are my notes from walking through the Kubernetes introduction. I recomend starting with the video overview then running through the tutorial.

Docker QuickStart (Mac Tutorial)

Docker is an application that allows you to package up an OS and deploy it to a machine. You could put your entire application on it along with all the files required to run it.

(Book) Good to Great

Leaders who think long term, get people who care about a concept to join their company, then think extremly hard about a solution. They then start pushing everybody in the same direction of the solution over a long period of time.

Head First Java - Sockets and Threading Chapter

This is a great chapter for a quick overview of the basic concepts of sockets and threading. It would be nice if it was just a plain threading chapter, but the socket example helps explain the concept of the blocking state really well.

Brain teaser interview questions

Here's a quick list of common brain teaser questions that come up on technical interviews. They're fun exercises, and usually that have on AHA moment that gives away the whole trick. The real question is how can you train your brain to be flexible enough to recognize those tricks.

Trivia style interview questions

Technical interviews have quite a bit of, for lack of a better term (or maybe not), trivia type knowledge. Questsion that test your depth of understanding of common concepts. Here's a quick overview of the major themes you'll be asked.

Design pattern notes for technical interviews

Here's my expanding lists of notes for Design Patterns, I'm pretty familiar with them so this may be on the more advanced side of things.

Algorithm Notes

Here's a collection of my notes while attempting to implement some of these solutions myself. I've noted where I was tripped up along the way, and hopefully using these tips, I'll be better prepared to recognize the patters that work.

Java passing by value and autoboxing

Some important things to keep in my when passing around objects in Java. Java is pass by value which really means "pass by a copy of something". However this confuses people because you're not passing a copy of an object in java, you're passing a copy of a pointer to an object.

Cracking the Coding Interview Chapter 04 Java Solutions - Trees and Graphs

These days I'm seeing graph problems pop up more and more, maybe that's just the result of getting into tougher technical interviews. Still, there are the types of questions that separate the men from the boys. Nail these and you're well on your way to that dream job.

Guide to converting recursive functions to iterative and vice versa

This guide will give you tips for converting iterative solutions to recursive solutions. Find out how to spot when a recursive solution may be beneficial.

Cracking the Coding Interview Chapter 2 Java Solutions - Link Lists

These examples are dealing with Linked Lists. Remember to ask if singly or doubly linked, if you have a pointer to previous, if not then keep track of it.