Building healthcare applications with Alexa

November 14th, 2017

Smart speakers are continuing to become more popular in people’s homes. They are incredibly affordable and offer a natural way of communicating with your favorite applications with your voice. Alexa has now surpassed 20,000 skills in its store…

Iain Coffield

High Availability With A Single Instance

November 10th, 2017

High Availability With A Single Instance

Aaron Hanson

Development After Scrum

November 6th, 2017

Development After Scrum

Aaron Hanson

Getting XML Directly from PostgreSQL

September 22nd, 2017

There was a discussion on our company Slack recently about databases and XML, and someone pointed out that PostgreSQL has some nice XML functions . I’m a Postgres fan and knew that it had some XML functions but haven’t dug into them yet. Using my…

Mike Hostetler

ABAC or RBAC

June 16th, 2017

With the arrival of ABAC, companies are considering the switch from RBAC. Is this the right call or can RBAC still be relied on as a security solution?

Matt Schroeder

Real Time Data Methods

June 14th, 2017

Real Time Data with RethinkDB and CouchDB/PouchDB

Corey Webster

Building a Microservice Organization

May 18th, 2017

Moving from a traditional monolithic application to a microservice platform provides many challenges for organizations.

David Reines

Real Time Database Triggers with Firebase Functions

April 20th, 2017

A recent Android application I worked on required storing the latitude and longitude of a user’s location. I was asked to convert that latitude and longitude into a user-readable address. I could have written the code in Java, which would convert…

Joseph Roskopf

Spark Job Server for Persistent Contexts and Low Latency Jobs

March 7th, 2017

Spark Job Server for Persistent Contexts and Low Latency Jobs

James Dodson

Building Scalable IoT Applications with AWS IoT

November 21st, 2016

With the explosion of IoT devices across the world, handling communication with those devices in a secure, scalable and globally distributed manner is becoming increasingly important. Protocols such as MQTT offer a means for communicating with these…

David Reines

The Human Side of Code Reviews

November 2nd, 2016

The Human Side of Code Reviews

Brandon Fish

Simplifying Distributed Systems Using Apache Kafka

October 28th, 2016

Simplifying Distributed Systems Using Apache Kafka

Object Partners

Rest Services with Node, Mongo, & Express

September 30th, 2016

Demonstrating how easy it can be to build our RESTful webservices with Node, I will live code a full CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) REST service with NodeJS. We will utilize MongoDB as our presistent backend, Mongoose as our ODM (Object…

Object Partners

Automating your garage door with MIMOlite

September 20th, 2016

A brief overview and guide of setting up a MimoLite module to monitor and control a garage door.

Igor Shults

Getting started with Z-Wave

August 23rd, 2016

Discussing the various aspects of using, configuring, and debugging Z-Wave devices.

Igor Shults

Working with the Postman REST Client

July 12th, 2016

Recently at one of my clients, I found myself looking for a different setup for building and managing REST calls to various APIs I was working with.

Nathan Haines

Setting up nginx and SSL for Home Assistant

May 26th, 2016

A tutorial for configuring a reverse proxy via nginx and SSL using Lets Encrypt for a home automation server like Home Assistant.

Igor Shults

Automatically download OS-specific WebDriver executable

April 20th, 2016

Automatically download and setup OS-specific Webdriver executables.

Object Partners

Setting Up the Raspberry Pi 3 for Home Assistant

April 12th, 2016

A guide to set up a Raspberry Pi 3 with Home Assistant

Igor Shults

Using OAuth 2.0 With Google APIs

January 21st, 2016

Google has been updating their APIs to require OAuth 2.0. One of our clients makes considerable use of the Google Webmaster Tools APIs instrumented for 14,629 individual websites (and growing). I recently had the opportunity to help this client…

Object Partners

Celebrating our 20th year in business!

January 6th, 2016

At the end of January, Object Partners will have officially been in business for 20 years. While that sounds like a very long time, it’s gone by quickly for some of us old timers. When we started OPI, we wanted it to be the kind of place where…

Chris Spurgat

My JavaOne Experience

November 11th, 2015

Last week I had the opportunity to attend my second JavaOne conference. It was my first since 2009 and thus my first since Oracle took the reigns from Sun. It was also the first where I was invited as a “speaker”. The reason for the quotes around…

Object Partners

Complex UI elements in Geb browser functional tests

September 22nd, 2015

Examples of interacting with complex UI elements in Geb browser functional tests.

Object Partners

Gr8Conf US 2015 Conference Recap

August 3rd, 2015

Recap of the workshops and talks at the Gr8Conf US 2015 conference.

Object Partners

A Unix Guy looks at Powershell

July 28th, 2015

A Unix Guy looks at Powershell

Mike Hostetler

Getting smarter with git

June 23rd, 2015

Review some command-line hits for more fine-grained git control

Mike Hostetler

Gr8Conf Europe 2015 Recap

June 17th, 2015

During the first week of June, I had the opportunity to speak and attend Gr8Conf EU in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference was relatively small but had many amazingly talented speakers and attendees. Just check the agenda and you’ll see many of the…

Object Partners

Conquering With CLOBs

June 16th, 2015

A tutorial on the CLOB data type in Oracle

Object Partners

Make Shell Aliases Easy

May 5th, 2015

if you run a command with at least one argument twice a day, then you should make an alias for it.

Mike Hostetler

Goodbye Google Code

March 24th, 2015

Google Code is shutting down  (because everyone uses github anyway) So long and thanks for all the fish.  It has been a good ride — thank you for pushing open collaboration forward! Its been a good transition to git. If you haven’t yet, consider…

Object Partners

Travis Build Matrix Badge

February 17th, 2015

Currently, Travis doesn’t have a way to display a build status badge for individual jobs in a matrix build. You can only get an individual badge which displays “passing” if all the jobs pass or “failed” if one job fails. I’ve created a small open…

Brandon Fish

Setting up your own Apache Kafka cluster with Vagrant - Step by Step

May 6th, 2014

This step-by-step walk-through will guide you through building an Apache Kafka cluster from the ground up, with vanilla Debian as a base on Vagrant boxes.

Object Partners

OPI Hires Consultant Jeremy Schacherer

March 27th, 2014

Object Partners is pleased to welcome Jeremy Schacherer to their technology consulting staff. Jeremy has 19 years of technology experience working in the food packaging, government, internet auctions, insurance and direct mail industries. Jeremy has…

Object Partners

Finding a Buggy Commit Using git bisect and curl #git

March 11th, 2014

Describes a recipe for using git bisect and curl to find where in the commit history a bug was introduced.

Patrick Double

Single Sign-on With Rails, Wordpress and Oauth2

February 18th, 2014

Implementing Single Sign-on Using Rails, Oauth2 and Wordpress as an Oauth Provider

Object Partners

Recovering a commit from Githubs Reflog

February 11th, 2014

Gits reflog is a powerful feature that allows a user to recover from almost any error. Github doesnt offer direct access to the reflog of the backing repository but using a couple of Githubs APIs, we can recover a commit from the remote reflog.

Object Partners

Getting started with git svn

February 4th, 2014

Getting started with git svn

Object Partners

The Creatives on Agile and QA teams

January 10th, 2014

Agile and QA teams both have their compliment of Creatives who don’t fit the mold yet provide tremendous value to the team through the very traits that set them apart.

Object Partners

Alternative Test Data Strategies for Automation

January 7th, 2014

The test data you have available creates a major design constraint for your automated tests, impacting both test coverage and validity. You can address this challenge in several ways.

Object Partners

The Joy of Oracle XML type

November 26th, 2013

The Oracle XML type functions (e.g. updateXML, EXTRACT) can be applied to xml formatted data in any column type by using the XMLType() conversion function.

Object Partners

And the iPad Mini Retina goes to....

November 8th, 2013

We had a great time at Mobcon, as well as the time leading up to it! We had a lot of congenial conversations, got to show off some of our many accomplishments within our mobile practice, and in general had a fun time mingling with the local business…

Object Partners

Does anyone really know what time it is? Best Practices for handling time and intervals.

August 27th, 2013

Presents a new approach for date and time processing that solves almost all Daylight Savings Time issues as well as decreasing the size of a JSON stream.

Object Partners

Triggering a Youtube Video from Clicking a Button Image and Replacing when Ended

August 22nd, 2013

This post will discuss how to solve the problem of playing a Youtube video from a press from an initial starting image, and then replacing the image when the video has ended playing. Over the last two years on a few different web projects, I have had…

Object Partners

How to implement Advanced Process Control (APC) in a manufacturing facility to improve process ca...

June 14th, 2013

How to implement Advanced Process Control (APC) in a manufacturing facility to improve process capability and product quality

Kevin Beatty

Technical tips and pitfalls in Jive SBS

March 20th, 2013

Object Partners

Connecting to the built-in Mac VNC server from a Windows machine

February 26th, 2013

Connecting to the built-in Mac VNC may cause the host machine to freeze up when connecting from Windows. Included are some potential fixes.

Igor Shults

Caching with JCS

December 19th, 2012

Learn how to use JCS to cache data in your application.

Brendon Anderson

Recovering from Merge Errors in Mercurial with Sub-Repositories and Named Branches

March 8th, 2012

Recovering from Merge Errors in Mercurial with Sub-Repositories and Named Branches

Object Partners

Introduction to Servlet 3.0

January 16th, 2012

One very nice thing Servlet 3.0 brings us is a set of annotations to declare Filters and Servlets and Listeners. With these annotations, the configuration of applications is removed from the web.xml file and put into the applications JARs and WEB-INF/classes.

Object Partners

Filtering Log Messages from Abstract Classes

January 9th, 2012

Properly configure Log4J, SLF4J, and Logback to not emit logging events from abstract classes.

Object Partners

JSTL Core Set Tag Gotcha

January 3rd, 2012

JSTL 1.2 Core Set tag removes attributes from other scopes when the value is null and the names overlap!

Object Partners

Getting Juniper Network Connect VPN Client Running on Mac OS X 10.6+

December 19th, 2011

Step-by-step instructions for uninstalling Juniper Network Connect VPN client and installing and configuring it to run in OS X 10.6+. Addresses issues with the default install, 64 bit kernel, and coexistence with VMWare or Parallels

Object Partners

Simple Single Sign-On

October 4th, 2011

It is possible to create a single sign-on system using only the Java jdk and its built-in support for public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital signatures.

Object Partners

How Much Linux Cluster for $6000?

September 27th, 2011

As a thought experiment, I muse what could be done to make a cluster to run locally.

Object Partners

Setting Up Google Analytics on localhost

May 26th, 2011

How to Set up Google Analytics on localhost for testing in development.

Object Partners

Helpful git-svn cheatsheet

April 28th, 2011

In my previous post A successful git-svn workflow, I wrote about starting out with git-svn. This post is a followup with notes on more advanced topics.

Object Partners

Firebug in Other Browsers

April 26th, 2011

Using Firebug to tweak layouts is incredibly easy. With Firebug Lite, that functionality is available in just about every web browser.

Object Partners

Remote administration of Linux VirtualBox® Guest Virtual Machines

April 19th, 2011

This article is to cover the process of setting up a virtual machine in such a way that you can remote administer it and connect to it like any server on your network. This example will be running and OS X host with a Ubuntu Server 10.10 guest.

Object Partners

JSP: To @include or jsp:include?

April 14th, 2011

A quick discussion on the difference between @include and jsp:include tags when trying to include one JSP in the rendering of another.

Object Partners

SSH without passwords (Public/Private Keys)

March 31st, 2011

A quick tutorial on how to setup password-less ssh-logins with public/private keys

Object Partners

A Successful git-svn Workflow

March 17th, 2011

My experience diving into git and git-svn on a larger team.

Object Partners

Why GIT: Local Developer Branches

March 11th, 2011

Git has a lot of tools in its shed but in my opinion, none is more powerful and useful than local developer branches.

Object Partners

Reflections on Jive SBS

December 16th, 2010

I’ve been working with the Jive SBS platform for about 6 months at my current client. SBS stands for “Social Business Software“. At its heart, Jive is a portal product, with an emphasis on supporting social networking.  Jive is a licensed product. It can be used effectively out of the box, but licensees have access to the source code (as well as the source of any open-source projects that Jive leverages). Jive provides a robust mechanism for customizing the functionality of the product via plug-ins that developers can create and install. I have found that the platform has some very useful functionality, as well as some substantial shortcomings. In this posting, I’ll describe some of the pros and cons of the platform (as I see them).

Object Partners

Performance tuning-when, how and who

October 29th, 2010

Taking care performance requirements for applications and planning for those are as important as managing other functional requirements of an application. If not done properly, it can break your application even after building a functional application (but not performing one). In this posting I try to outline a practical approach of handling performance requirements.

Object Partners

FireFox Development Tools that Actually Get Used

October 22nd, 2010

A list of FireFox extensions that I use (daily, weekly, or monthly) to streamline web application development.

Object Partners

How to write a Technical Resume

September 24th, 2010

Writing a resume can be challenging, and you probably get tons of varying advice from lots of different people. There really isnt one way to write a resume, but there are a lot of ways to write an incorrect one. Take bits and pieces of the advice you get, and mold that advice into your own style and resume. Ill cover the basics (cover letter, summary, technical skills section, professional experience, education, and font/formatting), but dont be afraid to add your own touch beyond the basics.

Object Partners

Remotely Back-up Subversion Repository

September 2nd, 2010

It happens from time-to-time and for a variety of reasons that one might want to have a back-up of a Subversion repository.

Object Partners

Mimicking External Actions With EasyMock

August 19th, 2010

Validate the information contained in a local object when passing through a mocked method, and afffect it as an external system would be expected to.

Object Partners

Developer Bits on Sustainable Computing

August 9th, 2010

Thoughts on what software developers can do to advance the concept of sustainable computing.

Object Partners

The Complete Team

July 27th, 2010

In a team environment, the better a developer is at collaborating and working with others, the better the project will turn out.

Object Partners

Dojo Layout Tips

July 14th, 2010

Laying out UIs with Dojos Layout Containers

Object Partners

How To Become More Effective, or Why Some Are 10X As Productive As Others

April 26th, 2010

I am sure that you have heard the often quoted “great developers are 10 times more productive than average developers”.  As a consultant, I have seen this in practice many times, over the course of many projects at many clients.  I am sure that you…

Steve Banks

How do I know if an open source software product is right for my organization?

March 18th, 2010

More and more organizations are relying on open source software to build, test, deploy, and run mission critical IT applications. From small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, organizations worldwide are continuing to find open source as a cost effective means to deliver quality business applications. With a wealth of commercial and open source software options widely available, how does an organization know if an open source product is right for them?

David Reines

Agile Project Inception, Success and Pitfalls

January 21st, 2010

Agile projects have been around for years now, but for companies that are still new to the concepts and process, some simple pitfalls can delay your project. I have seen projects at companies that have run into challenges so here are some ideas for successful starts and pitfalls to avoid.

Object Partners

Nine Simple Tips for Greener Consulting

January 14th, 2010

As consultants we often find ourselves in a new office several times a year and it is up to us to carry our green habits with us as we go. Programs offered at offices are most often by, for, and about employees leaving consultants and contractors out of the loop on available facilities and programs. With this just being the way of things, here are nine simple, portable things we can do to perpetuate a green lifestyle wherever we find ourselves working on a given day.

Object Partners

Employment predictions for 2010

January 8th, 2010

Tis’ the season for predictions into 2010. After researching data from various sources, and talking with many colleagues over the past year and into 2010, I’ve put my finger on a handful of things that popped out at me. None of these predictions are groundbreaking, they’re fairly common sense. But, I think they’re important to keep an eye on, and with the media and government telling us that the recession is over, we shouldn’t become complacent in preparing for the upcoming year.

Ehren Seim

Relationships Matter

August 31st, 2009

Perhaps Minnesota politician Al Franken’s character on Saturday Night Live said it best when Stuart Smalley declared “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” A good consultant is not just measured by their productivity…

Object Partners

A Generic Way To Create a Collection

June 23rd, 2009

How many times do you find yourself creating this code over and over again in tests or even production code? Rather than writing this same code over and over again, there is an easier way to create a simple generic list of objects in one method…

Object Partners

Object Partners, Inc. approach with agile methodology

April 16th, 2009

What brought us to Agile? The most common software management technique in the past and today is called “waterfall” Software Development. As defined by Wikipedia, the definition for Waterfall development is a sequential development process, in which…

Ehren Seim

How to write a Technical Resume

March 13th, 2009

There are a lot of different ideas, questions, and discussions going around about resumes and cover letters, so I thought I’d jump in the mix. I’ve seen literally tens of thousands of resumes in my day, some terrible, some great. But all are…

Object Partners

Another Failure To Use Code Coverage Numbers Correctly

February 23rd, 2009

I’ve been approached recently by members of various projects about how to improve code coverage numbers. In an abuse of the numbers or a misunderstanding of their purpose, there’s mandates to keep code coverage at 80%. Other team’s have been closer…

Object Partners

Fire Up VMWare

January 12th, 2009

A Slashdot story pointed out the Windows 7 Beta release was made public, so I downloaded the DVD image, made up a quick VMWare image, and installed the new Windows for play. Sometimes I’d have a spare PC laying around that I’d use as a lab to install…

Object Partners