I decided that it is time for some changes. When I started this blog, I decided to use WordPress. My goal was to be able to write posts without having to focus on anything other than actual writing. Wordpress was the tool of my choice due to its simplicity. Nevertheless, I wasn’t always really happy with the CMS. Problems occurred again and again, mainly in connection with performance, loading times and general page speed. Not to mention incompatible plugins and various little things. I don’t want to discuss this here at all, I was simply looking for something faster. ...

Once again, it’s time to announce one of my side projects: Pefeggt - A boiling time calculator for eggs. Actually, I’ve been sitting on this one for quite a while and I decided to complete a working release this weekend. The app is built for Android and it helps you to calculate the perfect time you need to boil eggs to your preferred consistency. Functionality & Usage To calculate the time, I’m using Charles D. H. Williams formula from his paper “The Science of boiling an Egg”. This calculation requires the weight and temperature of the egg, the height above sea level at the place where it is cooked and the desired internal temperature of the egg to determine its consistency. ...

In today’s article I would like to give you an insight into the usage of a tiling window manager, which I will illustrate with the example of i3. A tiling window manager divides the screen into non-overlapping areas. You are probably more used to a stack-based system where windows can overlap. However, the concept of avoiding overlapping offers a major advantage: Due to the pure operation of the computer via keyboard, it is possible to work at a faster pace after a short training period. ...

While being fun, programming is not easy. To be able to dive into a flow state in which you’re completely focussed on the topic, you need to cut off all distractions. With this article I would like to introduce you to my methods of working in a more focused manner and give you some tips that might make your life much easier. My experiences mostly come from the programming area, but the following tips can be extended to various other topics. ...

In the context of I/O 2017, Google released the Room Persistence Library, an intermediate layer between application logic and Android’s SQLite database. Using Room, you no longer have to handle stuff like network connection errors or caching yourself. Today’s article will help you get started with the library and teach you all the skills you need to implement Room in your own applications. Background of my sample application The following code snippets are part of one of my side projects. This application manages shopping lists, which in itself can have entries. Actually, this is a very simple application, but it illustrates the functionality of Room very well. ...