Blogs

During the last few weeks I've gone down a very different road with my computer programming business here in Alaska's Mat-Su Valley. Thanks to my sisters, I'm currently programming something called an "Arduino board", which is essentially a small, inexpensive computer system you can wire together and then program.

Though it's small and inexpensive, the Arduino is an entire computer system, and with a breadboard and a huge selection of sensors and other electronics you can connect to the main processor, you can build many, many types of custom computer systems with an Arduino.

Totally unrelated to computer programming, but completely related to living in Alaska, I went up to Hatcher Pass today for a long hike. Some friends mentioned that berry-picking at Hatcher Pass is something of a tradition this time of year, so I did my best to find some fresh berries.

I just wrote about how to use the Linux find command to find files by modification date, and I thought I'd follow that tutorial up with a quick example of how to find one or more files and then execute a command on those files. You do this with the Unix/Linux find command and the very powerful exec option.

I don't write about Unix and Linux very much on this website, but when I just used a Linux find command to find files that had been modified in the last seven days, a friend said I should write a quick blog post about it.

Finding a file that has been modified in X days

Here's a simple Linux find command that shows how to find a file or directory that has been modified in the last seven days:

Just a quick note here that I've created a website for my Cato CRUD Generator app. Cato is a template based code generator that works with any programming language or tool, including Java, PHP, XML, Spring Framework, Drupal, and pretty much any other programming tool.

As you'll see on that website, Cato is a simple PHP app, and after you take about a minute to configure the connection to your database, Cato is ready to start generating source code based on your database table definitions.

Would you like to win a free copy of a terrific HTML5 programming book?

Over on the devdaily.com website I'm giving away a free copy of Introducing HTML5. Please see that URL for more contest and prize information.

If you're a computer programmer you've probably seen this book in the bookstores. Here's what it looks like:

As a business analyst, I'm always asked how I get from (a) having absolutely nothing but a project charter or mission statement to (b) having a complete design of a software system. People are amazed that just by talking (and working together) we can build a terrific computer software system that meets their needs.

Back in the fall of 2006 I participated in meetings related to the International Institute of Business Analysis, or IIBA, in Louisville, Kentucky. It started when I gave a series of presentations on Function Point Analysis, eXtreme Programming, and Agile programming, and as it turned out, other business analysts were in the audience at those presentations.

I just released my Java Xeyes application, which you can download using the link below. If you've used the old Unix/X-Windows "xeyes" application, you'll know what this app does. If not, here's a link to a one-minute YouTube video that demonstrates how this works: