Make a web page screenshot service

I'll take you step by step into how to make a service that takes screenshots of webpages and returns them as an image.

A little VIM hacking

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.

Experiments in making money online

Is it possible to make money on the internet, if you try really hard? I want to find out. I have always been interested in getting money for doing nothing.

C++: A language for next generation web apps

On Monday, I was pleased to be an uninvited speaker at Waterloo Devhouse, hosted in Postrank's magnificent office. After making some surreptitious alterations to their agile development wall, I gave a tongue-in-cheek talk on how C++ can fit in to a web application.

Exploiting perceptual colour difference for edge detection

Think colour isn't important in image processing algorithms? Let's try it both ways, and see for yourself.

Bending over: How to sell your software to large companies

For a micro-ISV, selling to businesses can be more lucrative than selling to consumers. Instead of making a few dollars per sale and hoping for thousands of sales, you sell to only a few customers, and charge much higher rates. But the rates are high for a reason. It takes more time and money to sell to businesses.

Simulating freehand drawing with Cairo

Succinct Data Structures: Cramming 80,000 words into a Javascript file.

jQuery creator John Resig needs a little help storing lists of words in his side project. Let's go overkill and explore a little known branch of computer science called Succinct Data Structures.

Experiment: Deleting a post from the Internet

Once you post something on the Internet, it is hard to get rid of it. As an experiment, I deleted one of my past posts, and I tried to remove all traces of it.