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For a number of years I've been answering the same question from my wife: "What is the biggest file size that I can attach to an email?" Now the answer to this is straight out of the consultant handbook: "It depends." It depends on your smtp server's limits, the reciever's limits/security policy/attachment filtering/etc. Even Google Docs has limits for file sizes. There are a number of sites that already provide a service whereby someone can upload a file and get a link to paste into an email, so that the recipient can then download the file later....

Its the curse of the internet age: we all have to remember user names and passwords to a whole host of web sites and programs. If you do a web search, you can find a legion of different password keeper programs available for any platform. Open-source, free, or commercial, take your pick. A few years ago, as an exercise in writing a non-web-based program, and because I did not (and still don't) trust anyone else with my passwords, I decided to write my own version of a password keeper, that also helps me to generate some "...

Erk, Avalanche is not as nice as I originally thought. It seems that it tries too hard to keep an average load rate. When responses take too long to return, it sends out more requests. The end result is that it overloads the application server. Damn it, why can't someone write a testing tool that sends out requests at a specified rate. Oh, hang on, that's what Thumper is supposed to do....

Timesheets are the bane of all software developers and consultants. Nobody does them on time, and I for one have difficulty remembering what I did during the week. I know I could simply fill in the timesheet each day, but heck, I am lazy. Over a few years, I've been writing and rewriting scripts to keep a timesheet in a CSV file, so that I can query it at the end of the week to see what I have been up to....

Excel drives me nuts. I have to keep on searching the web just to remember that in a spreadsheet cell you need to press <CTRL><ALT><ENTER> to type in a new line, since simply pressing enter moves you out of the cell. Now that I've blogged about it, I may actually remember how to do it later....

Over the years I've been involved with writing a number of web applications. Some I am proud of, some I never want to see again. During each project, testing of the application's performance, stability under load, and regression testing of user journeys always comes up. There are a number of great bits of hardware (eg. Avalanche), and software (eg. Grinder) that help you test applications. I've even had a fun time using a room full of Grinder clients to test web services for a client - a great way to run a denial of service attack :-)...

Woke up this morning and checked my email. Lo' and behold, a gazillion moderation requests from my blog to allow somebody to post comments with ads for erection drugs. Hello reCAPTCHA. Sorry folks, but you now have to go through an eye exam to post here. All thanks to some nasty people who don't play well with others....

Just use this magical incantation: RAWTOHEX(SYS_GUID())...

Ever been asked to estimate something without any information? Rather than just stare back with a blank look on your face, simply go and ask the estimate goat and you’ll have your answer. UPDATE (August 2016): I wanted to experiment with javascript and canvas so I made a slighly different looking estimate goat....

Hello and welcome to my blog. Why do I have a blog? Not sure yet. Perhaps I am just a sheep following the rest of the herd, or this may an exercise to see if I can actually synthesize my thoughts in a concise and understandable manner. Only time will tell. What will I blog about? Pretty much on whatever topic makes me feel passionate. It may be something geeky about Ruby on Rails, Python and Django, Java or software_dev in general....