Advogato: Personal info for robocoder

robocoder is currently certified at Journeyer level.

Name: Anthon Pang
Member since: 2002-11-28 18:27:54
Last Login: 2008-08-02 13:42:58

Notes:

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An expert in C, and a proficient/competent programmer in many other languages (including, C++, Java, VB, Perl, PHP, Javascript), my involvement with open-source dates back to my Amiga days. I have contributed to a number of projects, participating in a variety of roles, including advocate, patch submitter, developer, and maintainer. My (eclectic) computing interests include data communications and networking, compiler construction, configuration management, user interface/interaction design, software maintenance, and software quality improvement.

After many years at a leading provider of mobile workforce management solutions, supplying companies in the energy, telecommunications, broadband, public safety, transportation, and field service industries, I am now the principal software developer / software consultant at VIP Software Technologies Inc. I have held a number of IT positions, including Programmer/Analyst, Engineering Team Lead, and Technical Manager, in addition to earlier stints in accounting, sales support, shipping and receiving, and inventory management. My expanding domain knowledge also includes equities and forex trading, and real estate. In fact, I'm a registered real estate sales representative in Ontario.

Location: Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Ontario, Canada (after many years in Greater Vancouver, BC)

Affiliations:

[ ACM ][ IEEE Computer Society ][ Toronto Real Estate Board ]

Geek Code »

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- GAT d-(++) s: a C@ ULAHS P++ L++ E--- W++ N+ w(++) PS(+) PE@ Y+ t 5 X R- tv+ b+>++ DI+ D G e+>+++ h---- r+++ y+++ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Web-Ring:

[ Robocoder (Web Design) ][ Domain names and Web Hosting ][ Software Development (Vancouver | Toronto | Canada) ][ Wiki: Anthon Pang ][ Anthon & Elizabeth ]

Recent blog entries by robocoder

Syndication: RSS 2.0

2 Aug 2008 »

CAPTCHAs as a usability improvement? As a defense against automated attempts to harvest our MLS database (e.g., screen scraping), our MLS now uses reCAPTCHA So instead of being booted off the system (and redo'ing whatever it was you were in the middle of), you'll be prompted to enter the two words shown.

19 Jun 2008 »

In the upgrade to Ubuntu Hardy, users began complaining when Nautilus no longer preserved a file's timestamp when copied.

After protracted debate about "the right way" and rationalizing "that's how cp works" -- whether right or wrong -- Nautilus developers listened to the users and pushed out a fix.

A new File Management Preference (under the "Behaviors" tab) would have been my preference, but that's just me...

4 May 2008 (updated 4 May 2008 at 06:01 UTC) »

Ran into a weird bug (applies to Apache httpd 1.3.39 and 2.0.40 -- not sure about later 1.x and 2.0.x releases -- but certainly doesn't apply to 2.2.8, where it appears to work correctly) where mod_rewrite exposes the absolute path in the redirect (which then fails).

In a subdirectory off my web root (and root of a virtual host), I have a .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^anthonpang\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://anthonpang.com/$1 [R,L]

The URL (yes, I left off the trailing slash):

http://example.com/anthonpangcom

Mysteriously becomes:

http://example.com//home/robocoder/public_html/anthonpang

I say mysterious, because the behaviour depends on the domain I use in RewriteRule. For example, anthonpang.ca does get rewritten correctly.

That said, it's probably "minor" as I don't expect to publish or link to the subdirectory-based URL when this goes "live".

30 Apr 2008 (updated 1 May 2008 at 15:48 UTC) »

Thanks sneakums. My bad. DomainKeys != DKIM. I'm amending my previous blog comment as follows:

DomainKeys is dead. Long live DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail).

Oh goody...it looks like cpanel does have support for setting up DKIM. I'll have to ask my hosting provider if it's available on shared hosting accounts.

24 Apr 2008 (updated 24 Apr 2008 at 02:59 UTC) »

Taking a page from the domain cybersquatter playbook, I registered typos of my name, Anthon -- because the 'h' is silent. But rather than a simple redirect or creating a CNAME, I threw up some single page web sites, ala Wikipedia dab pages: Anton Pang.com and Anton Pang.ca. I also embedded a little analytics tracking code, so I could gauge the utility (or futility, as the case may be) of this exercise. (The self-deprecating reference to typo-squatting is in jest.)

I can't say this was a welcome/needed distraction, given everything else on my plate, but this was "low hanging fruit", so to speak, and I needed to feel like I accomplished something today.

305 older entries...

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superant certified robocoder as Journeyer
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lerdsuwa certified robocoder as Apprentice
richdawe certified robocoder as Journeyer
mglazer certified robocoder as Master
joshuat certified robocoder as Journeyer
pasky certified robocoder as Apprentice
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scrottie certified robocoder as Journeyer
pjcabrera certified robocoder as Journeyer
alejandro certified robocoder as Journeyer
e8johan certified robocoder as Journeyer
daverd certified robocoder as Apprentice
pvanhoof certified robocoder as Journeyer
Alphax certified robocoder as Apprentice
nixnut certified robocoder as Journeyer

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