Author Archives: David Megginson

Canadian Geocoder + XML API

Posted on July 9, 2005 by David Megginson

A geocoder is a system that takes a street address and converts it to an (approximate) latitude and longitude for use in GPS navigation, online cartography, and similar applications. MapQuest has a nice online tutorial for different geocoding algorithms, with … Continue reading →

Tagged web | 3 Comments

VE Day, v.2

Posted on July 6, 2005 by David Megginson

The European Commission has voted against software patents overwhelmingly. Only a few months ago, things looked desperate — Poland was the only European country with the courage to keep on fighting — but now the technology world can celebrate its … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 4 Comments

Flight Planning with Google Maps

Posted on July 3, 2005 by David Megginson

I threw together a very short demo of a partial flight route — the low-level airway V316 from Ottawa to Sault Ste. Marie — overlayed on Google Maps using the new Google Maps API (I’ve also mentioned this in a … Continue reading →

Tagged programming, web | 1 Comment

Sean McGrath's obit for SOA

Posted on July 2, 2005 by David Megginson

In his obit for service-oriented architecture (SOA), Sean McGrath draws lessons from the demise of WS-*. Here are what Sean considers the key characteristics of something that might actually work: The noun/verb inversion in REST Temporal decoupling A “lets get … Continue reading →

Tagged programming | 2 Comments

The case against easier feed subscriptions

Posted on June 13, 2005 by David Megginson

As weblog syndication moves into the mainstream, people are complaining more and more about how difficult it is for an average user to subscribe to a weblog (here’s a recent example, but it’s only one of many I’ve read). One … Continue reading →

Tagged blogging | 2 Comments

Rails vs. PHP: MVC or view-centric?

Posted on June 11, 2005 by David Megginson

This week, I decided to try PHP and Ruby-on-Rails for prototyping web applications (I’d never used either before). These are both web-application frameworks that serious J2EE-type developers tend to sniff at, claiming that they may be fine for simple toys … Continue reading →

Tagged programming, web | 60 Comments

Collateral Damage, part 2

Posted on June 4, 2005 by David Megginson

A short while ago, I wrote about how my megginson.com domain has suffered severe collateral damage from security flaws in Microsoft Outlook, even though I’ve never used the product and do not run Windows. Today, I noticed that my IP … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Vicipaedia latine legi possit

Posted on May 30, 2005 by David Megginson

Sciveram vicipaediam linguis barbaris (exempli gratia anglice, francice, et ceteris) legi potere, sed non latine. Iam tenet super duo milia articulorum. Quid artis!

Tagged web | Comments Off

Admin: Moving to Full Text Feeds

Posted on May 27, 2005 by David Megginson

I’ve decided to switch Quoderat to a full-text feed, as I’ve already done with my other weblog, Land and Hold Short. I don’t use Google ads in my weblogs to try to earn revenue, and I’m too lazy to read … Continue reading →