I was browsing the usage statistics for exubero.com, when I came across some rather surprising information: search engines were directing users to this domain when they were searching for things like "animal porn", "cameltoe" and much worse. Yes, it was the return of the wikispammers, looks like a different group to the last bunch, but … Continue reading I Hate Wikispammers →

Spotted on Brad Appleton's ACME blog: Rule #0: Change is Inevitable Rule #1: Resistance is Futile Rule #2: Change is like quicksand - Fighting only makes it worse Rule #3: Embrace change to control change There's a lot more detail on Brad's article, well worth the read.

I have a relatively dormant wiki I set up to keep track of classmates from school (see JoeysWiki). Although the wiki isn't really active, I didn't really want to take it down (at least, not yet) because it still has some quite relevant information. However, in the last few months the wiki has come under … Continue reading Stopping WikiSpam →

I went to the first day of XPDay 5 this week, the major London conference on the practice and techniques of agile development (such as extreme programming or scrum). This was my first appearance among the agile crowd, and I was really interested to see what I could pick up from the speakers and other … Continue reading XPDay 5 →

I'm getting ready to head off to this year's XPDay conference for some agile development fun. If anyone's heading there and would like to catch up, send me a line. (I'll only be attending on the Monday, though)

I've just finished overhauling the blog pages on Exubero, to make them more consistent with the other blogs about. The major new feature: there is now an Atom feed for those of you who prefer your readings to via an aggregated feed. Just to give myself more work, I hand-rolled the entire thing myself without … Continue reading Atom, Ruby and ERB →

It's time to confess, I've become Yet Another Ruby Convert. I've been interested in the language for a long time now. My Perl background gives me a lot of sympathy for scripting languages in general. My C++/Java background gives me a keen desire for good OO languages. Ruby gives me all of this and more, … Continue reading YARC →

Over the last month, I've been working with the fine group of scientists at the ANU on a design for their new website. Well, we've finally reached a stage where we can let everyone take a peek. Presenting the new website for the Center for Antimatter-Matter Research! There is still a number of tweaks to … Continue reading Center for Antimatter-Matter Research →

There have been a number of occasions in the last few weeks where I've been explaining to non-developers the benefit of using a version control system. Unfortunately, many of them don't understand what a version control system does, or how they can be useful. I think that the time is ripe for version control systems … Continue reading Version Control for Non-Developers →

After working nearly three years at Legal and General, I finish my notice period there tomorrow, and will be moving swiftly onwards. It's been a fun few years, and I think I've managed to meet a lot of interesting people and extend my skills in many useful areas. For those (soon to be ex-) colleagues … Continue reading Moving Swiftly Onwards →