Developer Tools

My Three Note-Taking App Criteria – and Why Boostnote Meets Them All

Recently, my schedule has become quite busy, with various responsibilities competing for my time and focus. I find myself trying to hold onto as much context about these responsibilities as I can, but I can’t seem to remember all of the necessary information. After some careful reflection, I’ve found that I need to take more notes in both my personal and professional life. Read more on My Three Note-Taking App Criteria – and Why Boostnote Meets Them All…

Spawn Virtual Browsers Effortlessly with Firefox Containers

You may have heard of Mozilla’s Facebook Container, an add-on for Firefox that keeps Facebook isolated whenever you open it. It’s an easy-to-use and simple tool for defending user privacy.

But you may not have heard much about the Firefox features that make the Facebook Container possible. They’re called Firefox Containers—and they represent a useful tool that sets Firefox apart in a powerful way. Read more on Spawn Virtual Browsers Effortlessly with Firefox Containers…

My Git Branching Strategy – Graph Gardening

If you've ever worked on a team with more than a couple of people, you've probably been involved in a discussion about branching strategies. Git-flow, GitHub-flow, Microsoft-flow, and many others all try to minimize disruption and conflict when making changes to a large codebase.

Recently, I've been playing with a new strategy that may help your team avoid time-expensive merge conflicts and maximize commit history readability for easier diagnostics later on. I call it graph gardening. Read more on My Git Branching Strategy – Graph Gardening…

Fake or Mock an API with JSON Server

JSON Server is an easy and quick-to-set-up module that you can use to fake or mock an API. You can find the basics in the documentation, and many articles regurgitate the same info. In this post, though, I intend to cover a few of the more complex things you can do with JSON Server. Read more on Fake or Mock an API with JSON Server…

Getting Started Unit Testing with Kotlin

I’ve recently been playing around with Kotlin in my free time, particularly as an alternative to Java for Android development. Figuring out where to start exploring a new language can be difficult, but knowing that Atomic Object practices test-driven development (TDD), I figured that learning to test in Kotlin would be the best option. Read more on Getting Started Unit Testing with Kotlin…

Compressing 3D Model Files with Draco

Historically used for CAD and video games, 3D computer models are working their way into the mainstream. This is, in part, due to the rise in popularity of things like augmented reality and 3D printing.

My current project uses 3D model data, and my team was looking for an efficient way to upload this data to our server. The file sizes for 3D models can often be very large, so compressing the files was a requirement. We initially tried using standard compression approaches (e.g., gzip, 7-Zip, etc.) and were able to make some progress, but even the compressed files were still pretty large. Then we discovered Draco. Read more on Compressing 3D Model Files with Draco…