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Richard Downer
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Latest posts
Minecraft for Children
Minecraft can be a fun game for young children, but not when there’s monsters in the dark. Here’s how to set up Minecraft games just for fun and creativity, without the scary stuff.
Memory in the MS-DOS era
MS-DOS memory management always was confusing for teenage me. But with the hindsight of a couple of decades, it’s actually not as difficult to understand as I first thought.
AWS CodeDeploy, Blue/Green Deployments, and CloudFormation
Subtitled, “Learn from my failures!”
Understanding collectd and rrdtool
I recently had reason to collect metrics on a Linux server that was to be posted to an analysis service. My requirements were to collect minimum, maximum and average measurements of several key metrics. Shouldn’t be too difficult in this day and age, right?
IPv6 and OpenWRT
Thanks to OpenWRT, I have a fully-functional IPv6 home network
Amiga 1200 adventures on Ebay
Here I restore my childhood computer back into its original glory.
Richard's Ideal Workstation in 2016
Yes, it’s time for one of those “here’s how I configure my workstation!” blog posts! A colleague recently asked how what were all those strange aliases I was using - so here’s a full description of how I set up my developer workstation to my idea of near-perfection.
Presenting Apache Brooklyn in 2015 at ApacheCon Core Europe
Once again I had the chance to join ApacheCon Europe, this time to the new “Core” conference. Once again I was presenting on Apache Brooklyn - this time, with two talks!
Presenting Brooklyn at ApacheCon Europe
I’m very pleased to be able to present my first major conference talk, talking about the Apache Brooklyn incubator project, at ApacheCon Europe 2014 in November.
Reverse engineering the Amiga 600 keyboard
Operation “turn an old Amiga 600 into a Raspberry Pi”
Using SSH on Amazon EC2 Windows servers
Amazon EC2’s images for Windows servers can be made accessible with passwordless SSH login, just like Linux, without requiring custom images.
A Raspberry Pi cloud thought experiment
Could you build a cloud using Raspberry Pis? Let’s think this through…
Taking tools to the max. With BASIC?
“Know your tools” is one of the key rules serious software developers live by, because it can make you highly productive. How far you can take this rule?
Using Java to get the Administrator password of a Windows EC2 instance
Windows instances on Amazon EC2 are given a random password. This post will show how to use Java to retrieve this password.
Enabling WinRM Windows Remote Management in one step
My earlier script to enable WinRM in one step has been cleaned up and is now on GitHub.
Using OverThere to control a Windows Server from Java
XebiaLab’s OverThere project recently appeared on GitHub. I’ve recently been doing some work on jclouds, where it was noted that OverThere could address a gap in jclouds - controlling Windows Server virtual machines. So I decided to dust off my braincells concerned with Windows Server and take a look at OverThere.
First steps with Cloud Foundry on Amazon EC2
How do you run Cloud Foundry if you don’t have a spare cloud lying around? Use Amazon EC2.
Hello Ladies! Patrick McKenzie's talk on software for underserved markets
I don’t usually write articles that are just linking to another article, but this is so good it was worth an exception.
Cloud Computing, for those who have to implement it
SaaS, PaaS and IaaS? Cutting through analyst-speak and explaining the taxonomy of cloud services.
All change
Last year I changed jobs. I’m now working for a startup company specialising in cloud computing - a very exciting place to be!
Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0
ASP.NET Web Forms is dead, only it isn’t really, because ASP.NET MVC is just different, and not a replacement. This book explains what ASP.NET MVC is all about.
From Visual SourceSafe to Subversion
A few years ago, we (at the company I work for) decided to move away from Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS) to Subversion. This post describes how you can get started down the same route.
Of Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, and why to get rid of it
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe is the tool used by a great many small Microsoft software development shops. Unfortunately SourceSafe is one of the weakest version control systems around.
Great start…
After promising two-weekly updates, it’s now been over a month since my first, real, post. Such is the life of many blogs. I plead not guilty!
Ship It!, from the Pragmatic Programmers series of books
This book isn’t about project management, requirements or scheduling - it’s about getting your code working reliably, your coders working together, and your software completed."
Welcome to Frontier Town
Hello! I’m starting a blog. While the rest of the world is starting to catch on to Twitter, and social networking is now a normal part of life for many, I’m just entering the 21st century with a blog.
About Richard Downer
I am a software engineer and AWS expert, resident in Scotland.
Disclaimer
The original content on this website, except for comments (see below), is the personal opinion of Richard Downer and may not be the opinion of his employer.