How to run a linux based home web server

Sometimes you need complete control over the server, and don't want to pay $20 to $40 a month for a VPS. In this article, I'll describe step by step how to set up a home web server using Ubuntu, capable of handling modest spikes in traffic.

My thoughts on various programming languages

Some ill-informed remarks on various programming languages.

Tool for Creating UML Sequence Diagrams

If you have to draw something called "UML Sequence Diagrams" for work or school, you already know that it can take hours to get a diagram to look right. Here's a web site that will save you some time.

Cross-domain communication the HTML5 way

Making a web application mashable -- useable in another web page -- has some challenges in the area of cross-domain communications. Here is how I solved those problems for Zwibbler.com, using HTML5 cross domain communication.

Yes, You Absolutely Might Possibly Need an EIN to Sell Software to the US

After many months, your software sale is complete! You've got a purchase order, sent the invoice, delivered the software. You're already handling some support issues from users at BigCorp. Then BANG! Martha from Procurement emails back, as a favour, just to let you know that BigCorp has not received your W8 form with a valid tax id, and therefore will be withholding 30% of the purchase price of your multi-thousand dollar product for taxes.

0, 1, Many, a Zillion

It's common wisdom that there should only be three numbers in source code. But there's actually four. Here's why.

Finding Bieber: On removing duplicates from a set of documents

Using a locality sensitive hash, you can mark duplicates in millions of items in no time.

Zwibbler: A simple drawing program using Javascript and Canvas

Now it's a commercial product, but Zwibbler was once a fun side-project, and here's some details on its implementation.

Let's read a Truetype font file from scratch

Walkthough of reading and interpretting a TrueType font file in a few lines of Javascript.

The PenIsland Problem: Text-to-speech for domain names

Recently, I was contracted to run a list of domain names through the custom-built pronunciation engine that powers my rhyming web site. On the first attempt, I found that the results were embarrassingly bad. A quick inspection revealed the problem: most domain names are severalwordsstucktogether.