Grant Winney

chrome

A new Chrome extension for hiding comments (and what I learned)

Frequently, when I read an article from a major news outlet or watch a YouTube video, I find the comments far more upsetting than the content. Here's a new Chrome extension I created that hides many comments, and what I learned in the process.

technical debt

10 ways I'd explain technical debt - what are yours?

Technical debt is any unaddressed opportunity to improve a codebase. If a non-programmer asked though, how would you explain it? Here's 10 ways I might try.

refactoring

It's just a tiny refactor. What's the worst that could happen?

Ever gone on a refactor binge? Ever had it bite you? Check out these code "fixes" in 5 different languages - can you figure out what each fix breaks?

chrome

Making Your First Chrome Extension

We all have our favorite web browser with our favorite extensions loaded, but have you ever considered writing your own? In the past few months I've created a couple extensions to suit my own needs. Here's what I've learned!

chrome

Creating a Tiny Chrome Extension for Ghost

I just created the world's smallest Chrome extension! Well, maybe not, but it's pretty darn small. I self-host the Ghost platform for this blog, and there's a nice feature where you can type

security

When you close an online account, don't forget to check any other connected accounts

There's a huge incentive for a site to request access to my other sites, and absolutely *no* incentive to disconnect from them when they're done. How often do you check which of your sites are still connected?

motivation

Staying motivated to maintain an online presence

Sometimes when I'm feeling unmotivated or overwhelmed, or that continuing to learn while raising young kids is more than I can balance, the universe tosses a bunch of motivational stuff in my lap, like this...

cloud

10 Ways to Explain "The Cloud"

What do you say when someone asks you what "The Cloud" is? You could go with the "someone else's computer" explanation or, well... here's a few other comparisons I came up with.

quoting

Quotes 'n Notes #9

So many interesting articles, so little time! Here are a few links to thoughtful posts I stumbled across this week. What's the best career decision you've ever made? Ben Halpern, creator of The

git

Don't (git) Blame Me!

It's funny how git blame has an unusually negative connotation... like a witch hunt. With that happy thought in mind, here are some other aliases for the more nefarious among us. ;)

ghost

How to build on top of the Casper theme in Ghost

This blog runs on the Ghost platform, and I've done a bit of customization to the styling. Nothing major. I was mildly surprised when I ran a "ghost update" the other day and

api

What do we mean by API?

An API is an Application Programming Interface, but what's that really mean? In a more practical sense, it's one programmer hiding the (possibly messy) details of their own code behind a nice veneer, in order to make it easier for another programmer to consume it in their own program.

timezones

A few tips for handling and manipulating timezones

Some issues transcend programming language, equally tripping up developers across the board... Regular expressions (try validating an email address...) SQL injection (NEVER run a user's input through your database without sanitizing it) Using

visual studio

How to Unit Test using Visual Studio for Mac (it's easy!)

Last month at the AkronCodeClub they selected the magic square kata, which was a new one for me. Basically, you arrange 9 unique numbers in a 3x3 grid such that they add up

SocialMedia

The Culture of Likes and Hearts and Faves

I rejoined Facebook a couple weeks ago after a long hiatus, and though I haven't posted much yet, it's been fun to see what everyone's up to. I'm terribly horrible at keeping in

#30DaysOfBlogging

Tech is fun, tech is amazing... but it's not the end-all be-all

One of my coworkers tweeted an important question a few weeks ago. She asked, what about "techies" who just do what they do to survive? After all, why do most of us work,

erlang

Comprehending "List Comprehensions" in Erlang (a comparison with C#'s LINQ)

Any time we learn something new, we tend to make sense of it in relation to what we already know, one thing building on top of another. Since I started learning Erlang a

#30DaysOfBlogging

Maybe building a robot..? Four magic words... It's For The Kids!

Short post tonight. My 10 yo came to me the other day and said she'd like to build a robot. This is good for two reasons. I've been meaning to do something like

#30DaysOfBlogging

Finding your niche is figuring out what drives you and letting the world know

There are some phrases that come up so often that I tend to reject them as if they're "dirty" or have some negative connotation. "Networking" used to be one. Before I had ever

quoting

Quotes 'n Notes #8

Just a few of the inspirational and thoughtful stories and quotes I ran across this week. Come across any of your own that you'd like to share? I'm always looking for something interesting

#30DaysOfBlogging

Unable to renew LetsEncrypt certificate using certbot - 404 for HTTP-01 challenge request

When I woke up this morning, I decided to hack away at a blog post for a little bit. As soon as I opened the site, my heart sank. This is the PITA

#30DaysOfBlogging

Doin' Manly Stuff (kids are so funny)

Manly stuff. That's what my 8yo son said he wanted to do yesterday, lol. We were getting ready for my daughter's bday party and he told me he wanted to help out with

#30DaysOfBlogging

GitHub... a tool for collaborative list making

GitHub is beyond doubt the number one place for sharing code and collaborating on projects right now. I share a lot of my code on GitHub when I'm writing a more technical post,

#30DaysOfBlogging

The Curse of Knowledge

TIL the phrase "The Curse of Knowledge" from a 10-year old article by that name. The article focuses on leadership, discussing how executives tend to summarize years of knowledge and experience into vague

quoting

Quotes 'n Notes #7

Just a few of the inspirational and thoughtful stories and quotes I ran across this week. Come across any of your own that you'd like to share? I'm always looking for something interesting