https://grantwinney.com/Recent content on Grant WinneyHugo -- gohugo.ioen© 2026 Grant WinneySat, 16 May 2026 11:55:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/ebay-edgesuite-akamai-error/Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:49:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/ebay-edgesuite-akamai-error/When eBay went down the other day, everyone started getting edgesuite errors. I was kinda curious what those were.. here’s what I found.https://grantwinney.com/cleaning-up-hide-comments-everywhere/Tue, 28 Apr 2026 18:51:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/cleaning-up-hide-comments-everywhere/I spent a weekend cleaning up a personal project, and learned more about JavaScript in the process.https://grantwinney.com/visual-studio-mystery-version/Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:52:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/visual-studio-mystery-version/On installing VS 2026, I noticed the year’s missing on the shortcut. It’s no bug, and the way VS is being developed, released and supported is changing in a big way.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-null-conditional-assignment/Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:09:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-null-conditional-assignment/The null conditional operator just got an upgrade.. we can do assignments with it now! Let’s see it in action.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-extension-members/Tue, 02 Dec 2025 12:58:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-extension-members/Extension members take extension methods to the next level. Let’s see how to use this new C# 14 feature.https://grantwinney.com/new-old-beginnings/Thu, 27 Nov 2025 08:39:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/new-old-beginnings/A month into a new job, and a return to a company I was at 20 years ago, there’s a lot to be thankful for.https://grantwinney.com/pull-requests-are-not-a-stamp-of-approval/Sun, 02 Nov 2025 01:04:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/pull-requests-are-not-a-stamp-of-approval/Pull requests are a chance to ask, learn, and make sure that the code being merged is something EVERYONE is comfortable owning.https://grantwinney.com/contact/Sat, 01 Nov 2025 10:14:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/contact/https://grantwinney.com/csharp-datetime-vs-datetimeoffset/Sat, 06 Sep 2025 17:16:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-datetime-vs-datetimeoffset/Should you use DateTime or DateTimeOffset? Well, it depends…https://grantwinney.com/webview2-a-browser-for-winforms/Fri, 17 Jan 2025 22:41:08 +0000https://grantwinney.com/webview2-a-browser-for-winforms/In .NET 5, WinForms got a WebView2 control for displaying web pages.. even ones we create on-the-fly while the app’s running. Let’s kick the tires.https://grantwinney.com/using-taskdialog-in-winforms/Tue, 31 Dec 2024 23:41:30 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-taskdialog-in-winforms/In .NET 5, WinForms got a major upgrade to the MessageBox called TaskDialog. It’s way more flexible and powerful - let’s check it out!https://grantwinney.com/selecting-multiple-directories-with-the-winforms-folderbrowserdialog-in-dotnet/Thu, 19 Dec 2024 22:41:10 +0000https://grantwinney.com/selecting-multiple-directories-with-the-winforms-folderbrowserdialog-in-dotnet/One of the smaller updates to make it into .NET 9 for WinForms was allowing multi-selection in the FolderBrowserDialog. Let’s see how.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-use-getstockicon-for-winforms/Wed, 18 Dec 2024 15:50:31 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-use-getstockicon-for-winforms/Buried deep in the list of .NET 8 improvements for WinForms is the GetStockIcon method. It gives us a way to access stock Windows icons at runtime for the OS the app is running on. Let’s check it out.https://grantwinney.com/using-raw-string-literals-in-csharp/Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:32:43 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-raw-string-literals-in-csharp/C# 11 added raw string literals, not a life-altering new feature, but they could be useful in the right circumstances. Let’s see how to use them.https://grantwinney.com/using-primary-constructors-with-classes-and-structs-in-csharp/Fri, 13 Dec 2024 02:05:42 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-primary-constructors-with-classes-and-structs-in-csharp/As part of C# 12, we got a new feature called primary constructors. Let’s see how they work and what we can do with them.https://grantwinney.com/records-classes-and-equality-in-csharp/Tue, 10 Dec 2024 12:35:55 +0000https://grantwinney.com/records-classes-and-equality-in-csharp/The record modifier can define properties and equality in our classes for us, saving time and keeping our code cleaner. Let’s see how it works!https://grantwinney.com/set-based-linq-exceptby-intersectby-unionby-distinctby/Sun, 08 Dec 2024 22:59:12 +0000https://grantwinney.com/set-based-linq-exceptby-intersectby-unionby-distinctby/The .NET team has made some helpful additions to LINQ in recent years. Today let’s check out the various set-based updates from C# 10 / .NET 6.https://grantwinney.com/using-minby-and-maxby-in-csharp/Thu, 05 Dec 2024 22:24:55 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-minby-and-maxby-in-csharp/The .NET team has made some helpful additions to LINQ over the last few years. Today let’s check out MinBy and MaxBy from C# 10 / .NET 6.https://grantwinney.com/using-linq-countby-and-aggregateby-in-csharp/Tue, 03 Dec 2024 19:23:03 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-linq-countby-and-aggregateby-in-csharp/It’s great to see Microsoft still giving us new things in LINQ. With C# 13 / .NET 9, we get CountBy and AggregateBy, so let’s see how to use them.https://grantwinney.com/async-in-5-short-examples/Mon, 07 Oct 2024 02:43:55 +0000https://grantwinney.com/async-in-5-short-examples/Async code isn’t always intuitive, but practicing helps. Let’s take a look at Async, CancellationToken, and IProgress, in a few short examples.https://grantwinney.com/using-timeprovider-and-faketimeprovider-in-winforms/Mon, 05 Feb 2024 05:07:51 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-timeprovider-and-faketimeprovider-in-winforms/Testing .NET code involving time has always been a pain, but the TimeProvider class (backported to the .NET Framework) gives us awesome new tools.https://grantwinney.com/ssrs-wont-show-the-updated-default-value-for-a-parameter/Wed, 31 Jan 2024 02:40:31 +0000https://grantwinney.com/ssrs-wont-show-the-updated-default-value-for-a-parameter/Changed the default value for a report parameter, but it’s not actually updating in SSRS? That’s by design. Let’s find a way around it.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-use-timeprovider-and-faketimeprovider-to-test-timers/Thu, 11 Jan 2024 04:34:20 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-use-timeprovider-and-faketimeprovider-to-test-timers/Testing timers in C# is difficult, but .NET 8 (C# 12) adds an abstract TimeProvider class that makes it easier. Let’s take a closer look.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-use-timeprovider-and-faketimeprovider/Sun, 07 Jan 2024 04:14:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-use-timeprovider-and-faketimeprovider/Testing time in C# is difficult, but .NET 8 (C# 12) adds an abstract TimeProvider class that makes it easier. Let’s take a closer look.https://grantwinney.com/diligence-laziness-or-both/Mon, 04 Dec 2023 22:22:49 +0000https://grantwinney.com/diligence-laziness-or-both/Funny how a little due diligence mixes so well with a healthy interest in avoiding unnecessary future work.https://grantwinney.com/swirly-mass-of-code/Tue, 14 Nov 2023 04:31:52 +0000https://grantwinney.com/swirly-mass-of-code/https://grantwinney.com/if-else-vs-switch-case-pattern-matching/Fri, 03 Nov 2023 16:35:50 +0000https://grantwinney.com/if-else-vs-switch-case-pattern-matching/A look at if/else, switch/case, pattern matching, other options … and which is best. (spoiler: none ;) )https://grantwinney.com/whats-a-list-pattern-in-csharp/Thu, 31 Aug 2023 23:04:38 +0000https://grantwinney.com/whats-a-list-pattern-in-csharp/C# has been getting a lot of pattern matching love in recent years, like with list patterns in C# 11. The problem is knowing where and how to use it.https://grantwinney.com/even-in-failure-success/Thu, 24 Aug 2023 21:30:16 +0000https://grantwinney.com/even-in-failure-success/When what we’re trying to accomplish fails, the extra knowledge and clarity we get just by making the attempt is a win all by itself.https://grantwinney.com/what-are-generic-attributes/Wed, 23 Aug 2023 15:52:21 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-are-generic-attributes/Generic attributes increase the flexibility of a very early .NET feature. Let’s try using them and see how it keeps our code DRY.https://grantwinney.com/other-ways-to-notify-user-besides-messagebox/Wed, 16 Aug 2023 01:35:54 +0000https://grantwinney.com/other-ways-to-notify-user-besides-messagebox/When sending notifications in a WinForms app, a MessageBox is the only way to go… or is it? Let’s get creative and see what else we might do.https://grantwinney.com/call-an-async-method-from-a-synchronous-one/Fri, 11 Aug 2023 03:59:55 +0000https://grantwinney.com/call-an-async-method-from-a-synchronous-one/Writing async code whenever possible is great, but how do we do it when we’re stuck with legacy (and very synchronous) code?https://grantwinney.com/difference-between-singleton-scoped-transient/Fri, 28 Jul 2023 21:41:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/difference-between-singleton-scoped-transient/It’s trivial to register a dependency in a .NET API, but it’s important to clarify a few terms that drastically change a dependency’s lifetime.https://grantwinney.com/how-can-i-generate-a-new-guid/Thu, 27 Jul 2023 22:12:21 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-can-i-generate-a-new-guid/GUIDs are heavily used in the world of development, so let’s look at a few quick and easy ways to generate them whenever we need them.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-compare-files-using-vs-code/Wed, 26 Jul 2023 22:15:20 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-compare-files-using-vs-code/VS Code is a great editor with a lot of useful features, like being able to compare two random files for differences. Let’s see how.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-log-messages-to-multiple-targets-with-nlog/Sun, 02 Jul 2023 03:09:24 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-log-messages-to-multiple-targets-with-nlog/When it comes to finding a bug in an app, few things beat a good trail of logs. And for writing those logs, few tools beat NLog in simplicity or flexibility. I rarely appreciate just how flexible it is though, so it’s worth spending a little time taking a closer look.https://grantwinney.com/nunit-constraint-model/Mon, 26 Jun 2023 10:45:44 +0000https://grantwinney.com/nunit-constraint-model/I recently discovered the constraint model in NUnit. It’s been there for years, hiding in plain sight! What is it? Is it worth using? Let’s check it out.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-deconstructors/Thu, 15 Jun 2023 22:12:31 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-deconstructors/We can deconstruct tuples in C#, but does it work with other types? And assuming it does (spoiler - it does), is it worth bothering with?https://grantwinney.com/csharp-generic-math-support/Wed, 05 Apr 2023 03:50:14 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-generic-math-support/What is Generic Math support in C# 11, and how do we take advantage of it? Let’s dig in and find out! (part 3 of 3)https://grantwinney.com/csharp-overload-arithmetic-equality-comparison-operators/Sat, 01 Apr 2023 03:54:20 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-overload-arithmetic-equality-comparison-operators/What’s it mean to overload operators in C#? And what’s that have to do with Generic Math in C# 11? Let’s find out! (part 2 of 3)https://grantwinney.com/whats-a-static-abstract-interface-method-in-c/Fri, 31 Mar 2023 03:59:47 +0000https://grantwinney.com/whats-a-static-abstract-interface-method-in-c/What are static abstract members (new in C# 11), what can we do with them, and how are they related to Generic Math? (part 1 of 3)https://grantwinney.com/whats-the-point-of-points/Wed, 22 Mar 2023 10:32:44 +0000https://grantwinney.com/whats-the-point-of-points/Points aren’t hours, but they sorta represent hours. Or do they? 🤔 If you’re as perplexed as I used to be, here’s a few thoughts about points.https://grantwinney.com/why-doesnt-vs2022-show-my-winforms-ui/Sat, 14 Jan 2023 20:36:55 +0000https://grantwinney.com/why-doesnt-vs2022-show-my-winforms-ui/Someone at work asked about whether we’d be able to use VS 2022 to work on our main WinForms app. It works just fine in VS 2019, so it should work in VS 2022, right? Except it doesn’t. What we get is white screens of brokenness whenever we try to open a Form in the designer. But why?https://grantwinney.com/using-tuple-and-deconstruction-to-return-multiple-values/Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:38:03 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-tuple-and-deconstruction-to-return-multiple-values/A big challenge with any language is trying to group and organize things sensibly, and returning multiple values is no exception. Let’s check out Tuples and deconstruction, and see how they can help us out.https://grantwinney.com/why-do-i-need-to-install-an-extension-just-to-copy-paste/Sat, 31 Dec 2022 17:18:11 +0000https://grantwinney.com/why-do-i-need-to-install-an-extension-just-to-copy-paste/I was creating a document in Office365 the other day, and when I tried to paste with their custom right-click menu I got a popup telling me to download a browser addon. Well, that’s weird.https://grantwinney.com/convert-backgroundworker-to-task-with-taskcompletionsource/Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:20:13 +0000https://grantwinney.com/convert-backgroundworker-to-task-with-taskcompletionsource/Sometimes the safer way to “update” old code is to leave it be and paint over it with a newer construct. Let’s see how to modernize a BackgroundWorker using Tasks and TaskCompletionSource.https://grantwinney.com/my-experience-migrating-to-mv3/Sat, 19 Nov 2022 22:09:03 +0000https://grantwinney.com/my-experience-migrating-to-mv3/I migrated my addons to MV3, and learned that version numbers increase, DRY is overrated, and 3 and 15 are probably important but I have no idea why. What I didn’t learn is how MV3 made my addon better.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-named-arguments/Wed, 12 Oct 2022 22:09:47 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-named-arguments/Named arguments in C#.. they’ve been around a long time, but does anyone use them? Let’s check out another feature that helps tame wild code.https://grantwinney.com/local-functions-in-csharp-aka-nested-methods/Sat, 08 Oct 2022 18:40:48 +0000https://grantwinney.com/local-functions-in-csharp-aka-nested-methods/C# 7 introduced a new tool for the belt - local functions. Let’s take a look at what they are, how to use them, and why we might not want to.https://grantwinney.com/null-conditional-and-null-coalescing-operators/Tue, 27 Sep 2022 01:13:39 +0000https://grantwinney.com/null-conditional-and-null-coalescing-operators/Checking for nulls in C# is tedious, but C# 6 gave us the null-conditional operator. Let’s see what we can do with it!https://grantwinney.com/using-string-interpolation-to-craft-readable-strings/Mon, 19 Sep 2022 10:30:18 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-string-interpolation-to-craft-readable-strings/The longer I write software, the more I come to appreciate clear code. String interpolation in C# is just one more way to help us do that.https://grantwinney.com/6-space-related-apis-to-check-out-ahead-of-the-artemis-i-launch/Sun, 28 Aug 2022 18:23:48 +0000https://grantwinney.com/6-space-related-apis-to-check-out-ahead-of-the-artemis-i-launch/The week of NASA launching Artemis I is a good time to check a few of the many APIs that make tons of raw space data accessible for anyone to use.https://grantwinney.com/displaying-an-iis-hosted-site-in-cefsharp/Tue, 16 Aug 2022 03:56:47 +0000https://grantwinney.com/displaying-an-iis-hosted-site-in-cefsharp/Thanks to CEFSharp, we can finally bring WinForms to the web! That didn’t sound right. Okay, let’s just look at hosting a site in IIS and showing it.https://grantwinney.com/enjoying-the-wins-accepting-the-losses/Tue, 09 Aug 2022 13:07:49 +0000https://grantwinney.com/enjoying-the-wins-accepting-the-losses/When our code isn’t clicking, negativity can quickly overshadow all the positive. That’s when we need to remember our victories!https://grantwinney.com/hosting-a-simple-webpage-in-winforms-with-cefsharp/Tue, 28 Jun 2022 23:07:09 +0000https://grantwinney.com/hosting-a-simple-webpage-in-winforms-with-cefsharp/WinForms and the web. Like oil and water, they don’t mix well. But with CEFSharp, they mix a LOT better. Let’s check it out.https://grantwinney.com/what-is-manifest-v3-and-why-is-google-pestering-me/Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:30:43 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-manifest-v3-and-why-is-google-pestering-me/https://grantwinney.com/beware-the-refactor-bug/Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:45:01 +0000https://grantwinney.com/beware-the-refactor-bug/Refactoring code is part of the dev life, and can even help keep the code healthy, but going too far can do more harm than good. Ever after a decade of writing code, I still have to remind myself from time to time!https://grantwinney.com/mocking-messagebox-in-winforms/Fri, 07 Jan 2022 04:12:17 +0000https://grantwinney.com/mocking-messagebox-in-winforms/Unit testing a WinForms app is an uphill battle in the best of times, before you add in classes like MessageBox. Let’s make the best of it.https://grantwinney.com/using-nameof-to-avoid-magic-strings/Thu, 30 Dec 2021 01:53:29 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-nameof-to-avoid-magic-strings/There’s a lot of ways to make our code work for us. Let’s check out using the nameof operator to avoid magic strings.https://grantwinney.com/sunk-costs-timeboxing-asking-for-help/Mon, 20 Dec 2021 12:00:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/sunk-costs-timeboxing-asking-for-help/One of the biggest struggles I have with programming is knowing when to ask for help. A little struggle is necessary for growth, but when am I just wasting time when I could be learning from others?https://grantwinney.com/the-helpful-exception-box/Tue, 07 Dec 2021 15:37:03 +0000https://grantwinney.com/the-helpful-exception-box/If you’re in a legacy codebase with a centralized “message box” form, why not add some features that make it work for you? 😏https://grantwinney.com/were-all-contractors/Tue, 19 Oct 2021 03:37:36 +0000https://grantwinney.com/were-all-contractors/Seeing my full-time job as a long-term contract has helped me improve and contribute, without taking things personally or falling into complacency.https://grantwinney.com/log-errors-in-winforms-with-nlog/Sat, 09 Oct 2021 15:53:15 +0000https://grantwinney.com/log-errors-in-winforms-with-nlog/Logs are a great tool for squashing bugs and tracing errors. Let’s see how to add NLog to our project.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-move-a-subdirectory-of-one-repo-into-its-own-repository/Fri, 30 Jul 2021 03:38:23 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-move-a-subdirectory-of-one-repo-into-its-own-repository/Need to pull a subdirectory out of repo A and create a new repo B out with it? Including full history and branches? Okay, here’s how.https://grantwinney.com/can-i-write-my-own-html-tags/Thu, 15 Jul 2021 21:46:32 +0000https://grantwinney.com/can-i-write-my-own-html-tags/Can you create your own HTML tags? The answer is….. sorta. Yes and no. Not completely, but a little. Typical, I know.https://grantwinney.com/avoiding-tribal-knowledge-in-programming/Mon, 05 Jul 2021 19:20:06 +0000https://grantwinney.com/avoiding-tribal-knowledge-in-programming/When I was less skilled as a developer, it was enough to just stay afloat, learning what I needed for the current day or project. As my skill and confidence grows, I’ve come to appreciate the extra things in life - like a decent set of docs.https://grantwinney.com/its-possible-to-test-a-winforms-app-using-mvp/Wed, 09 Jun 2021 02:12:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/its-possible-to-test-a-winforms-app-using-mvp/If you find yourself supporting a WinForms application, you’re likely to notice the tests… or lack thereof. Just because we may not have been so focused on automated tests and continuous integration when WinForms was younger, that doesn’t mean we can’t introduce them now. Better late than never!https://grantwinney.com/using-async-await-and-task-to-keep-the-winforms-ui-more-responsive/Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:56:43 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-async-await-and-task-to-keep-the-winforms-ui-more-responsive/Using the async/await pattern in WinForms is an easy win, helping prevent one of the most annoying user experiences - a frozen UI.https://grantwinney.com/what-is-dotnet-try/Sat, 29 May 2021 21:40:16 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-dotnet-try/Do you prefer reading or doing? How about both? DotNet Try pulls in C# code from your project and turns your docs into an interactive experience.https://grantwinney.com/be-ready-to-explain-your-code/Wed, 03 Feb 2021 13:28:48 +0000https://grantwinney.com/be-ready-to-explain-your-code/Does the mere thought of explaining your code cause anxiety? Be confident! We should all understand what we’re writing and why. It’s an opportunity (for everyone) to learn!https://grantwinney.com/scratch-that-itch-for-coding/Tue, 19 Jan 2021 04:28:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/scratch-that-itch-for-coding/Learning a little about programming could benefit anyone. If you want a fun intro to coding and logical thinking, check out Scratch!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-mocking-a-dependency/Wed, 09 Dec 2020 13:19:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-mocking-a-dependency/When you’re writing tests, you generally don’t want to write to the database, email customers, and hit third-party API’s. That’s why we need to know how to mock dependencies!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-a-code-review/Sat, 28 Nov 2020 04:15:10 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-a-code-review/Does the idea of submitting to a code review make you sweat bullets? Or do you brush it off as a necessary evil? It should be a (hopefully positive) conversation, wherein the team agrees to the code they’re all going to have to help maintain, and maybe learns something new too.https://grantwinney.com/the-transient-nature-of-code/Sun, 11 Oct 2020 03:00:46 +0000https://grantwinney.com/the-transient-nature-of-code/I just deleted my coworkers code. 😱 It was good code that wasn’t needed anymore, and he understood why. The nature of coding is that it’s a progression, and any individual code is transient by nature. Today’s code is subject to tomorrow’s refactoring.https://grantwinney.com/rethrowing-an-exception-in-csharp/Thu, 17 Sep 2020 04:08:32 +0000https://grantwinney.com/rethrowing-an-exception-in-csharp/All programming languages have gotchas to trip you up, and C# is no exception. Today, let’s check out the subtle (but significant) difference between “throw” and “throw ex”.https://grantwinney.com/how-do-you-know-when-youre-a-programmer/Tue, 15 Sep 2020 03:52:08 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-do-you-know-when-youre-a-programmer/How do you know when you’ve finally arrived, and are officially a programmer? Is it a set of skills, a certain amount of time? Can you ever really arrive, when it’s a race of one with no finish line?https://grantwinney.com/30th-anniversary-zelda-tribute/Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:28:52 +0000https://grantwinney.com/30th-anniversary-zelda-tribute/A few years ago, on the 30th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda, Scott Lininger and Mike Magee open sourced a 3D version of the original LoZ. The site was taken down, but the code’s still available to run!https://grantwinney.com/dev101/Sat, 04 Jul 2020 17:43:45 +0000https://grantwinney.com/dev101/Saying somone can’t learn to tell a computer what to do and how to do it, or learn any other skill for that matter, is selling them (or yourself) short. It’s about the right tools, a desire to learn, and setting aside the time to make it happen.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-make-a-word-cloud-in-python/Thu, 04 Jun 2020 21:43:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-make-a-word-cloud-in-python/We’ve all seen word clouds, like in the sidebars of blogs, but let’s see how we might create our own with a little bit of code!https://grantwinney.com/where-should-i-store-app-data-in-windows/Fri, 22 May 2020 03:59:32 +0000https://grantwinney.com/where-should-i-store-app-data-in-windows/Windows sets certain locations aside for apps, and makes them easily discoverable for devs to use. Let’s see how.https://grantwinney.com/the-law-of-demeter-a-practical-example/Sat, 02 May 2020 03:59:22 +0000https://grantwinney.com/the-law-of-demeter-a-practical-example/https://grantwinney.com/13-addons-that-power-up-your-github-game/Sat, 04 Apr 2020 19:01:02 +0000https://grantwinney.com/13-addons-that-power-up-your-github-game/GitHub is an amazing set of tools around Git, but it’s lacking in certain areas. Where it fails to impress, browser addons often pick up the slack. Here’s 13 addons (plus a few honorable mentions) that will take your GitHub experience to the next level!https://grantwinney.com/how-to-find-the-ical-address-for-a-public-google-calendar/Fri, 28 Feb 2020 03:42:32 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-find-the-ical-address-for-a-public-google-calendar/Every Google calendar URL has an iCal file you can use… here’s how to find it.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-make-a-dark-mode-with-css/Thu, 13 Feb 2020 23:50:42 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-make-a-dark-mode-with-css/Every time I learn some new piece of CSS I’m amazed at how flexible and powerful it is. Like how easy it is to tailor your site for your visitor’s “dark mode” preference!https://grantwinney.com/read-me/Wed, 12 Feb 2020 18:10:41 +0000https://grantwinney.com/read-me/https://grantwinney.com/requestbin-deploy-in-5-minutes/Sun, 05 Jan 2020 12:39:14 +0000https://grantwinney.com/requestbin-deploy-in-5-minutes/If you need to consume a webhook from another service, or verify the payload being sent from your own REST API endpoint, RequestBin can help. It intercepts and displays the contents of any call made to it. Here’s how to deploy your own instance in just a few minutes.https://grantwinney.com/websites-requesting-access-to-motion-sensors/Mon, 30 Dec 2019 17:49:59 +0000https://grantwinney.com/websites-requesting-access-to-motion-sensors/I was checking the status of a FedEx order when Brave warned me that “this site has been blocked from accessing your motion sensors”. I’m struggling to understand why a website would need that access. Do I get a different experience if I drop my device? Tip my monitor over? Spin the mouse around?https://grantwinney.com/hands-on-ansible-using-digitalocean-ubuntu-droplets/Wed, 18 Dec 2019 22:21:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/hands-on-ansible-using-digitalocean-ubuntu-droplets/Today I’m wrapping my head around a build tool called Ansible, used for deploying machines in a scriptable, repeatable manner. Follow along as I step through an excellent tutorial from DigitalOcean, applying what I learn to a couple DO Ubuntu VMs… the $5/mo ones - nothing fancy needed!https://grantwinney.com/replacing-gmail-with-mailbox-org/Mon, 09 Dec 2019 23:44:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/replacing-gmail-with-mailbox-org/Google provides some amazing tools, but at what cost to privacy? One of the biggest blockers in eliminating them has been finding a reliable and affordable replacement for email (and ideally, calendar, documents, tasks, etc too). Well I may have finally found it, in Mailbox.org.https://grantwinney.com/how-do-i-add-seconds-minutes-or-hours-to-a-datetime-structure-in-erlang/Sun, 01 Dec 2019 01:51:59 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-do-i-add-seconds-minutes-or-hours-to-a-datetime-structure-in-erlang/I was trying to add times in Erlang, but couldn’t find an existing function, so I wrote my own.https://grantwinney.com/only-assignment-call-increment-decrement-await-and-new-object-expressions-can-be-used-as-a-statement/Thu, 14 Nov 2019 17:25:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/only-assignment-call-increment-decrement-await-and-new-object-expressions-can-be-used-as-a-statement/This error might look a little cryptic at first glance, but it’s fairly descriptive in explaining what’s wrong. You’re likely to come across this one before your first cup of coffee.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-assign-code-to-a-variable/Wed, 13 Nov 2019 17:45:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-assign-code-to-a-variable/Did you know most languages have a way to pass around code to other functions, so you can call (invoke) it in other parts of your application? In C#, it’s called a delegate.https://grantwinney.com/how-can-i-find-the-state-of-numlock-capslock-scrolllock-in-wpf/Tue, 12 Nov 2019 00:30:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-can-i-find-the-state-of-numlock-capslock-scrolllock-in-wpf/If you’re writing a WPF application and need to find the state of the Num Lock, Caps Lock, or Scroll Lock keys, you’re in luck - there’s a method for that.https://grantwinney.com/what-is-the-opposite-method-of-any-t-in-linq/Mon, 11 Nov 2019 23:36:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-the-opposite-method-of-any-t-in-linq/One of the many nice functions in LINQ is a single word that iterates through a collection, returning true if at least one item in the collection matches the condition you specify. But what’s the opposite of the Any keyword in LINQ?https://grantwinney.com/where-are-my-logs-in-aws-lambda/Thu, 07 Nov 2019 18:04:08 +0000https://grantwinney.com/where-are-my-logs-in-aws-lambda/In a new AWS Lambda function, logging is initially disabled. Lets see how to enable it, for those times where additional detail is needed.https://grantwinney.com/first-look-github-package-registry-beta/Sun, 06 Oct 2019 03:55:19 +0000https://grantwinney.com/first-look-github-package-registry-beta/Most of us host something (and some of us everything) on GitHub, especially since they host private repos for free too now. I’ve been eager to try the GitHub Package Registry since they announced it last May. Well, I just got access to the beta, so let’s see what we can do!https://grantwinney.com/whats-a-package-manager/Thu, 03 Oct 2019 17:09:27 +0000https://grantwinney.com/whats-a-package-manager/If you’ve heard the term package manager, especially with GitHub announcing their own, you might be wondering what exactly it is. Well, it’s a way to find, reuse, and share code, among other things.https://grantwinney.com/using-graphiql-to-access-a-graphql-api/Thu, 26 Sep 2019 03:38:30 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-graphiql-to-access-a-graphql-api/GraphQL is bundled with GraphiQL, which lets us run queries right in the browser! Let’s see how GitHub uses it and try kicking the tires.https://grantwinney.com/what-is-graphql-and-how-does-it-differ-from-rest/Sat, 21 Sep 2019 02:48:40 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-graphql-and-how-does-it-differ-from-rest/GraphQL is an alternative for REST, not a replacement. Let’s take a brief look at how they differ.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-create-a-2fa-code-for-your-app/Tue, 13 Aug 2019 03:54:37 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-create-a-2fa-code-for-your-app/I use 2FA on every site that supports it, but I’d never given much thought to how a 2FA code is generated. Let’s learn how!https://grantwinney.com/hide-comments-everywhere/Mon, 08 Jul 2019 20:14:34 +0000https://grantwinney.com/hide-comments-everywhere/Hides various commenting systems across the web, including (but not limited to) Disqus, YouTube, various news sites and forums, etc.https://grantwinney.com/generate-links-for-headers/Mon, 08 Jul 2019 19:16:16 +0000https://grantwinney.com/generate-links-for-headers/Ever wanted to share a link, not just to a webpage, but to a particular section of a webpage? This extension automatically generates links for all headers on the page, to make it easier to share links that jump to a specific section.https://grantwinney.com/minification-vs-obfuscation/Fri, 14 Jun 2019 16:14:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/minification-vs-obfuscation/Mozilla announced they’ll no longer accept extensions with obfuscated code. It’s good news for users, maybe not so much for developers. Obfuscated code is (intentionally) nearly impossible to understand, and could easily be malicious. Let’s unpack and break down a few concepts.https://grantwinney.com/keeping-your-github-code-secure/Wed, 22 May 2019 02:23:58 +0000https://grantwinney.com/keeping-your-github-code-secure/GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket just released a joint statement on a widespread ransomware attack that resulted in compromised accounts. That got me thinking, what can a person do to protect his or her code on GitHub? As it turns out, a lot…https://grantwinney.com/how-to-modify-a-config-file-in-erlang/Thu, 16 May 2019 11:22:49 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-modify-a-config-file-in-erlang/Modifying an Erlang config file at runtime wasn’t as easy (or obvious) as I’d thought it’d be. So I wrote a script to hopefully make it easier.https://grantwinney.com/running-windows-xp-in-virtualbox/Sat, 04 May 2019 14:35:40 +0000https://grantwinney.com/running-windows-xp-in-virtualbox/Just got an MSDN account, which always comes with some old treasures (hey, beauty’s in the eye of the beholder). Take a trip back with me, to the days of Windows XP, the beginning of the .NET Framework, and even further… ;)https://grantwinney.com/how-to-use-an-app-config-file-with-a-net-standard-app-and-nunit-3/Mon, 15 Apr 2019 14:37:19 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-use-an-app-config-file-with-a-net-standard-app-and-nunit-3/Porting .NET Framework code to .NET Standard has been a learning experience, with some challenges too. This time I had a .NET Standard library that expected an application config file, but loading one from an NUnit test suite proved to be more difficult than it sounded at first.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-constant-datetime-format-inside-string-interpolation/Thu, 04 Apr 2019 20:06:50 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-constant-datetime-format-inside-string-interpolation/I was upgrading some code to use string interpolation, a feature introduced in C# 6, when I ran into a small snag with DateTimes and a format string stored as a constant.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-attributes/Thu, 04 Apr 2019 15:57:19 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-attributes/Ever thought it’d be convenient to attach metadata to your code at design time, then read it at runtime? Attributes let you do just that - to methods, classes, tests, enumerations, and more. Use reflection to read them at runtime and take some action. Here’s a few examples for the uninitiated…https://grantwinney.com/how-do-i-view-the-dev-console-in-my-browser/Tue, 26 Mar 2019 14:47:54 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-do-i-view-the-dev-console-in-my-browser/Most people will never even know their browser hides a great set of tools, mostly used by web developers, but which can be useful for anyone trying to figure out why their browser is misbehaving.https://grantwinney.com/keep-your-eunit-teardown-logic-as-simple/Thu, 14 Mar 2019 11:03:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/keep-your-eunit-teardown-logic-as-simple/Ever had an EUnit test fixture fail with meck reporting it was “already_started”? Well I did, and here’s why…https://grantwinney.com/lost-access-to-your-mozilla-addons-account/Wed, 13 Mar 2019 03:29:29 +0000https://grantwinney.com/lost-access-to-your-mozilla-addons-account/I recently realized that somehow, in the 6 months since I last logged into my Mozilla developer account, none of my short list of emails would let me back in. Here’s how I regained access.https://grantwinney.com/using-the-ip-geolocation-api-to-find-info-about-an-ip-address/Tue, 12 Feb 2019 11:47:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-the-ip-geolocation-api-to-find-info-about-an-ip-address/Last year I caught an article about a simple, free service called ipify that returns your IP address. It became so popular the author soon found himself dealing with billions of requests per month! Here’s a look at that API and the IP Geolocation API that it spawned.https://grantwinney.com/web-comics-for-devs/Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:58:54 +0000https://grantwinney.com/web-comics-for-devs/Need a comic break? Here’s some web comics I’ve stumbled upon over the years - the funny, sarcastic, informative, and just plain weird.https://grantwinney.com/common-dialyzer-errors-and-solutions-in-erlang/Sat, 09 Feb 2019 21:10:27 +0000https://grantwinney.com/common-dialyzer-errors-and-solutions-in-erlang/When dealing with a dynamically typed language, any effort to tame the beast can pay off. For Erlang that means Dialyzer specs, but they can be a pain. Here’s some warnings I’ve seen and how to solve them.https://grantwinney.com/cool-markdown-tricks-for-github/Wed, 06 Feb 2019 11:54:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/cool-markdown-tricks-for-github/Here’s a few tricks for rendering markdown in GitHub that most people wouldn’t know about. Oh, and they work for new Issues, Pull Requests, and in the Wiki too!https://grantwinney.com/hosting-a-github-wiki-remotely-on-ubuntu/Mon, 29 Oct 2018 12:19:38 +0000https://grantwinney.com/hosting-a-github-wiki-remotely-on-ubuntu/I’ve always been a fan of wikis, but GitHub’s is so poorly designed it doesn’t get much love. I once wrote about cloning a wiki locally and editing it using Gollum, but now I’m taking a look at hosting it externally on DigitalOcean, using Gollum and keeping it in sync with the repo hosted on GitHub.https://grantwinney.com/a-few-thoughts-on-datetime-handling-in-erlang/Mon, 03 Sep 2018 14:48:51 +0000https://grantwinney.com/a-few-thoughts-on-datetime-handling-in-erlang/Handling date and times is a thorn in every experienced developer’s side. If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, you will. ;) Coming off a week of standardizing some datetimes across an Erlang app, here’s a few personal thoughts.https://grantwinney.com/installing-earlier-net-versions-on-visual-studio-for-mac/Mon, 20 Aug 2018 16:20:12 +0000https://grantwinney.com/installing-earlier-net-versions-on-visual-studio-for-mac/Despite its marketing, Visual Studio for Mac is not the Visual Studio that millions love, ported to the Mac. Something that’s absolutely trivial in standard VS, switching between .NET Frameworks, wasted several of my evenings. Maybe it’ll help someone else.https://grantwinney.com/how-do-i-convert-my-code-from-c-to-vb-net-or-vice-versa/Wed, 18 Jul 2018 04:41:38 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-do-i-convert-my-code-from-c-to-vb-net-or-vice-versa/If you work with the .NET Framework long enough, you may eventually find yourself tasked with converting one language to another, either by request or necessity. But conversion isn’t always necessary - it’s possible (and easy!) to have one solution with multiple languages.https://grantwinney.com/how-to-calculate-easter-and-other-holidays-in-erlang/Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:32:52 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-calculate-easter-and-other-holidays-in-erlang/I wrote a small library for calculating Easter and other holidays in Erlang. Here’s how I did it and what I learned.https://grantwinney.com/access-yesterdays-internet-with-the-wayback-machine-apis/Sun, 24 Jun 2018 20:02:24 +0000https://grantwinney.com/access-yesterdays-internet-with-the-wayback-machine-apis/The Wayback Machine, a product of the Internet Archive, is an ambitious tool that’s been documenting websites for many years. It’s useful when a page you need is removed by the original author. Let’s take a look at their API and how we might make use of it.https://grantwinney.com/a-look-at-the-many-ways-apis-can-authorize-access/Tue, 19 Jun 2018 13:45:34 +0000https://grantwinney.com/a-look-at-the-many-ways-apis-can-authorize-access/After writing about so many APIs and having to figure out the auth process for each, I wanted to compare and contrast how some of these services approach authentication and authorization, and why they might’ve decided to do it the way they did.https://grantwinney.com/writing-a-random-selection-algorithm-that-factors-in-the-age-of-an-item/Thu, 07 Jun 2018 03:44:14 +0000https://grantwinney.com/writing-a-random-selection-algorithm-that-factors-in-the-age-of-an-item/Have you ever had a collection of items and needed to select a random one from the lot? What if you have a class with some property (i.e. ‘age’ or ‘weight’) that you want to take into account when doing the random selection? Let’s see how we might approach that…https://grantwinney.com/getting-rid-of-unused-function-errors-when-using-timers-in-erlang/Wed, 06 Jun 2018 18:18:06 +0000https://grantwinney.com/getting-rid-of-unused-function-errors-when-using-timers-in-erlang/Have you ever tried to execute a function at some future time in Erlang? You can, with a timer, but the compiler may complain that the function you’re calling via the timer is unused. Why is that and what can you do?https://grantwinney.com/using-aws-lambda-to-tweet-random-posts-from-an-rss-feed/Sat, 02 Jun 2018 12:32:54 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-aws-lambda-to-tweet-random-posts-from-an-rss-feed/If you’ve got a Twitter account, and a blog with a lot of content, sharing your posts can be a nice way to help someone out, and drive a little extra traffic to your site. If your site generates an RSS feed, here’s how you can automate the process - for free!https://grantwinney.com/using-aws-lambda-and-tweetinvi-to-tweet-a-random-ghost-blog-post/Fri, 01 Jun 2018 17:28:01 +0000https://grantwinney.com/using-aws-lambda-and-tweetinvi-to-tweet-a-random-ghost-blog-post/If you’ve got a Twitter account, and a blog with a lot of content, sharing your posts can be a nice way to help someone out, and drive a little extra traffic to your site. Here’s how you can automate the process on your Ghost blog - for free!https://grantwinney.com/are-property-accessors-possible-in-erlang/Tue, 22 May 2018 16:55:18 +0000https://grantwinney.com/are-property-accessors-possible-in-erlang/I ran into a problem in Erlang yesterday that made me think… is there anyway to implement a property accessor on a record?https://grantwinney.com/creating-your-own-secure-wiki-using-dokuwiki/Sun, 01 Apr 2018 02:46:32 +0000https://grantwinney.com/creating-your-own-secure-wiki-using-dokuwiki/I’ve been thinking for awhile now that I wanted to setup a wiki. I wanted something light-weight, with support for uploading images and files. And I wanted to retain control over the data and configuration, as well as encrypt access to it. Here’s how to install DokuWiki on Ubuntu with DigitalOcean.https://grantwinney.com/automatically-adding-links-next-to-all-headers-on-the-page-a-chrome-extension/Sun, 25 Feb 2018 21:33:09 +0000https://grantwinney.com/automatically-adding-links-next-to-all-headers-on-the-page-a-chrome-extension/Ever needed to link directly to one section of a webpage? You can, as long as there’s a header (or another element nearby like a div) with an ID assigned to it. Let’s see how.https://grantwinney.com/passwordrandom-api/Tue, 06 Feb 2018 12:36:34 +0000https://grantwinney.com/passwordrandom-api/The PasswordRandom API provides random values - and not just passwords as the name would seem to suggest. It also generates GUIDs, random numbers, characters, etc.https://grantwinney.com/creating-a-table-of-contents-for-your-blog/Sat, 03 Feb 2018 14:08:21 +0000https://grantwinney.com/creating-a-table-of-contents-for-your-blog/A table of contents is convenient for visitors, so I wrote a script to generate one for any blog automatically!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-the-google-books-api/Wed, 31 Jan 2018 00:07:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-the-google-books-api/The Google Books API provides access to Google Books, which lets you search for any book and, at a bare minimium, see meta data about it. Depending on copyright status, you might also be able to see sample pages or read the entire book. You can also buy books.https://grantwinney.com/what-is-an-api-wrapper/Thu, 25 Jan 2018 04:59:32 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-an-api-wrapper/When you find an API to use in your app, you’ll need to access it in a specific language - not always an easy or straightforward task. As long as you’re doing all that work, why keep it to yourself? Let’s look at creating an API wrapper that you can share with others!https://grantwinney.com/ghost-blog-autolink-images-to-full-resolution/Mon, 22 Jan 2018 03:41:27 +0000https://grantwinney.com/ghost-blog-autolink-images-to-full-resolution/https://grantwinney.com/what-is-internet-game-database-api/Mon, 01 Jan 2018 05:00:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-internet-game-database-api/The Internet Game Database is a community-driven site that collects and shares information about games and game-related data. Let’s check out the IGDB API!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-penguin-random-house-api/Sun, 31 Dec 2017 20:20:17 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-penguin-random-house-api/Penguin Random House is a book publisher, and their API can be used to get data about books, authors and events. Let’s check it out!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-us-census-bureau-api/Sat, 30 Dec 2017 23:01:30 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-us-census-bureau-api/The US Census Bureau APIs provide free access to geolocation data, as well as American census data, demographics, housing stats, etc. Let’s check them out!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-openweathermap-api/Fri, 29 Dec 2017 15:33:04 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-openweathermap-api/OpenWeatherMap provides free access to extensive weather data - current conditions, 5-day forecast, uv index, weather alerts, etc. Let’s check out their API!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-iss-notify-api/Thu, 28 Dec 2017 12:03:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-iss-notify-api/The ISS Notify API (or is it the Open Notify API?) was written by Nathan Bergey for a Science Hack Day competition, then released to the public. You can use it to find the location of the ISS, or to find when it’ll pass over a location! Check it out.https://grantwinney.com/what-is-trello-api/Wed, 27 Dec 2017 20:45:59 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-trello-api/Trello is a virtual kanban board… or a nice to-do list if you’re going solo. I like it, maybe you will too, and their API makes nearly all areas accessible to devs.https://grantwinney.com/what-is-nasa-api/Sun, 24 Dec 2017 19:06:14 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-nasa-api/NASA’s API makes their data (such as Mars rover photos) available to anyone who wants to consume it. It’s an unprecedented wealth of knowledge, so let’s dig in!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-noaa-api/Sun, 24 Dec 2017 03:44:02 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-noaa-api/The NOAA API lets us query weather and climate data from NOAA, an agency that studies and charts conditions in the oceans and atmosphere. Let’s check it out!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-google-maps-api/Sat, 23 Dec 2017 04:10:01 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-google-maps-api/The Google Maps API is a series of APIs for multiple platforms, each focused on a small set of tasks. At first it all seems a bit overwhelming, but each of them is pretty easy to use. Let’s check a few out!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-slack-api/Thu, 21 Dec 2017 18:09:09 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-slack-api/Slack is a popular communication and collaboration tool, and their API gives us access to channels, messages, and more. Let’s check it out!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-dropbox-api/Wed, 20 Dec 2017 04:59:25 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-dropbox-api/Dropbox provides file storage that syncs between your devices, and their API gives you access to that. Let’s check it out!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-backblaze-b2-api/Sun, 17 Dec 2017 19:37:29 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-backblaze-b2-api/The Backblaze B2 Storage API, built on top of Backblaze’s cloud storage, lets you access and manage your buckets. Let’s check it out!https://grantwinney.com/what-is-twitter-api/Sat, 16 Dec 2017 04:58:47 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-twitter-api/The Twitter API lets you access tweets, users who tweet, metadata, manipulate lists, and more. Let’s check it out!https://grantwinney.com/taming-the-erlang-beast/Wed, 01 Nov 2017 16:50:27 +0000https://grantwinney.com/taming-the-erlang-beast/Becoming an Erlang developer has not always been easy, but over the last couple of years I’ve learned a few ways to tame the beast. It doesn’t need to become any other language, but there’s definitely room for improving the developer experience!https://grantwinney.com/erlang-concatenate-binaries-and-strings/Tue, 26 Sep 2017 16:09:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/erlang-concatenate-binaries-and-strings/Concatenating strings and binaries in Erlang can get ugly quick. Let’s make it easier.https://grantwinney.com/making-your-first-chrome-extension/Wed, 16 Aug 2017 10:27:33 +0000https://grantwinney.com/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!https://grantwinney.com/safely-customize-a-theme-in-ghost/Mon, 24 Jul 2017 18:57:36 +0000https://grantwinney.com/safely-customize-a-theme-in-ghost/https://grantwinney.com/what-is-an-api/Sun, 23 Jul 2017 19:41:19 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-an-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.https://grantwinney.com/visual-studio-for-mac-tdd/Thu, 06 Jul 2017 12:15:51 +0000https://grantwinney.com/visual-studio-for-mac-tdd/Are you a Mac user and .NET fan? Did you know there’s a native VS app now? Writing tests is important, so I decided to try out NUnit in @vs4mac.https://grantwinney.com/5-quick-hacks-for-your-ghost-theme/Sat, 01 Apr 2017 18:47:23 +0000https://grantwinney.com/5-quick-hacks-for-your-ghost-theme/These “hacks” for Ghost add some cool features to any blog, and should be usable with any theme.https://grantwinney.com/migrating-a-blog-from-wordpress-to-ghost/Sun, 26 Mar 2017 02:43:14 +0000https://grantwinney.com/migrating-a-blog-from-wordpress-to-ghost/https://grantwinney.com/how-to-evaluate-a-string-of-code-in-erlang-at-runtime/Sun, 05 Mar 2017 18:56:30 +0000https://grantwinney.com/how-to-evaluate-a-string-of-code-in-erlang-at-runtime/https://grantwinney.com/what-is-charlieplexing-a-short-demo-using-the-raspberry-pi/Fri, 17 Feb 2017 09:03:29 +0000https://grantwinney.com/what-is-charlieplexing-a-short-demo-using-the-raspberry-pi/On past projects, when I needed multiple LEDs, I just connected each to its own GPIO pin. I knew the current only worked in one direction, but I didn’t think to take advantage of that fact. Charlieplexing is a method for arranging multiple LEDs so as to use the minimal number of pins possible.https://grantwinney.com/creating-a-git-alias/Sat, 28 Jan 2017 13:07:51 +0000https://grantwinney.com/creating-a-git-alias/If you’re unfamiliar with Git’s “alias” feature, it provides a way to create shortcuts for other Git commands, which can save you a lot of time. They’re easy to setup and maintain too. Let’s see how.https://grantwinney.com/5-things-you-can-do-with-a-locally-cloned-github-wiki/Mon, 16 Jan 2017 07:52:51 +0000https://grantwinney.com/5-things-you-can-do-with-a-locally-cloned-github-wiki/There’s a feature of every GitHub repo that in my experience doesn’t get a ton of love, and that’s the wiki. In all fairness, I’m not sure how much love it deserves - it’s sorely lacking in features. But did you know it’s a separate repo that you can clone and manipulate locally?https://grantwinney.com/csharp-compare-two-objects-for-equality/Mon, 31 Oct 2016 13:23:44 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-compare-two-objects-for-equality/It’s common to compare two objects in C# for equality, such as for a save operation. Let’s take a closer look at how we define what equal means.https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-analog-joystick/Sat, 24 Sep 2016 13:30:49 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-analog-joystick/https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-flickering-candle/Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:34:44 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-flickering-candle/https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-pulse-width-modulation/Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:28:52 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-pulse-width-modulation/https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-simon-game-clone/Thu, 28 Jul 2016 08:09:41 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-simon-game-clone/Let’s recreate the Simon game of the 1980s using a Raspberry Pi and Sonic Pi!https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-create-music-with-sonic-pi/Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:02:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-create-music-with-sonic-pi/After watching Scott Fradkin live-code Sonic Pi for an hour at a conference, it inspired me to make a little music of my own.https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-virtual-machine-in-virtualbox/Wed, 08 Jun 2016 06:01:18 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-virtual-machine-in-virtualbox/I was flipping through The MagPi back-issues and came across an article about setting up a virtual Raspberry Pi environment. It got me thinking… I’ve been playing around a lot on the Pi itself, but it’d be nice to experiment with code even when I don’t have access to a physical Pi.https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-flash-led-for-new-email/Sat, 28 May 2016 21:19:25 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-flash-led-for-new-email/Let’s learn how to flash an LED on the Raspberry Pi when someone sends us a new email.https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-morse-code-transmitter-v2/Thu, 19 May 2016 06:10:28 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-morse-code-transmitter-v2/I created a morse code generator before based on entering a string at the console. Now I extended it to generate a message by clicking a button.https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-using-pullup-and-pulldown-resistors/Mon, 09 May 2016 07:30:30 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-using-pullup-and-pulldown-resistors/When you start out creating circuits with the Raspberry Pi and its GPIO pins, there’s an unexpected but important concept to understand, called “floating”. To adjust for it, you need to understand how to use pullup and pulldown resistors.https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-morse-code-transmitter/Sun, 03 Apr 2016 09:03:25 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-morse-code-transmitter/Making the Pi blink an LED a few times is thrilling, but what about building something.. more? Let’s build a morse code transmitter!https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-making-an-led-blink/Sat, 26 Mar 2016 16:37:30 +0000https://grantwinney.com/raspberry-pi-making-an-led-blink/I unboxed my Raspberry Pi a few weeks ago and started learning Python. Let’s code the “Hello World” of the Pi, and make an LED blink.https://grantwinney.com/building-a-4-stroke-internal-combustion-engine-with-the-smithsonian-motor-works-model/Sat, 06 Feb 2016 11:55:48 +0000https://grantwinney.com/building-a-4-stroke-internal-combustion-engine-with-the-smithsonian-motor-works-model/Last summer, I found this “Smithsonian Motor-Works” set at a garage sale. Once built, it models a 4-stroke internal combustion engine. I’d shelved it for a rainy day and rediscovered it last weekend while cleaning the basement. Time for a little father/son bonding!https://grantwinney.com/hacktoberfest-and-making-my-first-oss-contributions/Thu, 12 Nov 2015 07:27:00 +0000https://grantwinney.com/hacktoberfest-and-making-my-first-oss-contributions/I made my first OSS contributions during HacktoberFest, gaining experience (and swag!) with the help of DigitalOcean and GitHub. :)https://grantwinney.com/csharp-implicit-vs-explicit-conversion/Wed, 11 Feb 2015 19:42:36 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-implicit-vs-explicit-conversion/We use implicit and explicit conversion in C# all the time, without even realizing it. Let’s learn more about them and look at examples of each.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-obsolete-attribute-on-class-ignored-when-interface-is-involved/Wed, 04 Feb 2015 17:49:31 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-obsolete-attribute-on-class-ignored-when-interface-is-involved/The Obsolete attribute on a class is ignored when an interface is involved. It caught me by surprise, but makes sense. Let’s see why.https://grantwinney.com/csharp-extension-method-to-pass-column-name-to-getfieldvalue/Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:45:22 +0000https://grantwinney.com/csharp-extension-method-to-pass-column-name-to-getfieldvalue/Let’s combine the SqlDataReader’s GetFieldValue and GetOrdinal methods into an extension method that lets us pass a column name and get back a specific type.https://grantwinney.com/winforms-passing-data-between-two-forms/Fri, 12 Dec 2014 07:57:57 +0000https://grantwinney.com/winforms-passing-data-between-two-forms/Passing data between two Forms is very common in WinForms. There’s a couple ways to do it, and one’s better than the other. Let’s take a look.https://grantwinney.com/wpf-filtering-listview-using-textbox-and-collectionviewsource/Sun, 07 Dec 2014 09:13:17 +0000https://grantwinney.com/wpf-filtering-listview-using-textbox-and-collectionviewsource/In WPF, a ListView allows for quite a bit of flexibility. Let’s take a look at filtering a ListView, using input being typed into a TextBox.https://grantwinney.com/installing-windows-3-1-in-vmware-player/Thu, 24 Oct 2013 22:14:08 +0000https://grantwinney.com/installing-windows-3-1-in-vmware-player/While looking for a copy of Windows 98 on MSDN to install some old software (compatibility mode under Windows 7 didn’t work), I came across Windows 3.11. Installing it was a little tricky though…https://grantwinney.com/installing-dos-6-22-in-vmware-player/Wed, 23 Oct 2013 01:26:46 +0000https://grantwinney.com/installing-dos-6-22-in-vmware-player/While looking for a copy of Windows 98 on MSDN to install some old software (compatibility mode under Windows 7 didn’t work), I came across Windows 3.11. I just had to try installing it! But first, DOS 6.22…https://grantwinney.com/about/Sun, 22 Sep 2013 14:15:46 +0000https://grantwinney.com/about/