Category Archives: Hacking

How to Test File Upload Parsing in Django

Posted on April 30, 2011 by James

I didn’t start testing software until recently. Of course I tested my software to make sure it works and is stable, but it was a very manual process. This was very time consuming and sometimes subtle bugs were let through … Continue reading →

Posted in Django, Hacking, Python | Leave a comment

How to Create Realistic Buttons with CSS3

Posted on March 9, 2011 by James

In a modern web application we don’t really use buttons (ala the input tag) so much. More often than not, we use some kind of div or link that when combined with some javascript behaves as a button. I’m not … Continue reading →

Posted in CSS3, Development, Hacking, Web | 2 Comments

How to Make an Accessible Multiline NSMenuItem (without any custom drawing)

Posted on February 11, 2011 by James

In developing a new application, I ran into the need for a NSPopupButton for selecting a preference. The menu that you see popup when you click on a NSPopupButton is really just an NSMenu full of NSMenuItems. The same menu … Continue reading →

Posted in Accessibility, Cocoa, Hacking, Mac OS X, Objective-C | 3 Comments

Choose the Right Tool (Everything is not a nail)

Posted on January 27, 2011 by James

Picking the right tool for the job is often rather difficult for software developers. As software developers,We tend to find a hammer we like and treat everything like a nail, even if it’s a screw. Sometimes we’re reluctant to learn … Continue reading →

Posted in Hacking, Objective-C, PHP, Python | Leave a comment

8 Things I Learned About Software Development (Without writing code)

Posted on January 12, 2011 by James

In 2009 I set out to make a major elease of my Japanese-English dictionary Jisho 4.0. Jisho 4.0 was to be a complete overhaul of the existing codebase and a 100% new interface. After a scrapped interface and a few … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Hacking | 3 Comments