Upcoming Speaking Engagements, and Code Break / / No Comments With full-time employment being a bit up in the air this year, I’ve not submitted to nearly as many conferences as I have in the past (but hey, my rejections are at an all-time low!), but I’ve actually got not one, but two upcoming talks this month. First up I’ll be giving an introduction to BoxLang to the Mid-Michigan CFUG user group on October 21st. You can find details here, https://mmcfug.org/. This meeting is 100% open to the public so if you’ve been curious about BoxLang from my posts here, you can get yourself a good intro later this month. Next, and this is somewhat new for me, but I’ll be giving a presentation on something near and dear to my heart, developer... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Break, code, Engagements, Speaking, Upcoming
How to Create a Birdsong Map / / No Comments Diario SUR has created an interactive that allows you to listen to Málaga birds singing directly from a map. Mouseover any of the markers on This is how Málaga sings and you can listen to a sound recording of a Málaga bird species submitted by users of the website Xeno-Canto.Xeno-Canto is a community-driven online Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Birdsong, create
BoxLang Quick Tips – Better Web Debugging / / No Comments Today’s BoxLang Quick Tip is incredibly quick, but also, really darn useful and something I had wished I knew earlier. The BoxLang MiniServer is a lightweight web server that you can use to test your web applications. I say lightweight but it’s gotten some really good improvements over the past few months, including flexible URL rewriting. Today I’m going to talk about something that’s going to be really useful to those of you who, like me, make mistakes from time to time. As with most of my BoxLang Quick Tips, you can skip to the video version at the bottom of the post. Let’s consider a BoxLang web application that consists of a grand total of one file: <bx:script>... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: better, BoxLang, Debugging, Quick, tips
Stories of Displacement & Return / / No Comments Journeys of Resilience of Refugees from Ukraine is an interactive map tracking the movements of refugees from Ukraine amidst the ongoing war. Created for the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), the map captures both the immense scale of forced migration and the stories of return and resilience that continue to unfold.Since Russia’s invasion, around 11 million Ukrainians Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Displacement, Return, Stories
30 Day Map Challenge / / No Comments November’s 30DayMapChallenge is fast approaching – and the daily themes for this year’s event have just been released!The #30DayMapChallenge is an annual, community-driven event that brings together mapmakers from all over the world. Started by Topi Tjukanov in 2019, it’s become a global celebration of cartography, creativity, and data visualization. Each day in November, participants Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: challenge
I Know What You Did Last Summer (with val town) / / No Comments With Halloween a few weeks away, it’s officially spooky season. My wife and I usually plan our costumes months in advance (mine’s been ready since July or so) and we love decorating the house (and yard) with all kind of fun and darkly horrific decorations. Two years ago, I built a great Halloween-themed web app using Glitch and Cloudflare: I Know What You Did Last Summer (With Glitch and Cloudflare) Unfortunately, Glitch is no more. These things happen and I have to thank the Glitch folks for creating an incredibly cool resource and also helping people safely migrate off their platform. One of my projects was the Halloween project from two years ago. While the serverless function... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: know, last, summer, Town
Mapping Russia’s Attack on Europe / / No Comments Each symbol on this interactive map represents an attempt by the Russian state to destabilize European democracy. The map visualizes Russia’s hybrid warfare against the West, which involves tactics as diverse as cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, physical sabotage, and even possible assassinations — actions that might seem minor in isolation but form part of a broader strategy to undermine Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: attack, Europe, Mapping, Russia's
Creating a GenAI Document Summarization Workflow in ColdFusion / / No Comments So this post comes from – I’m mostly sure – me forgetting to show a simple, but powerful demo at my presentation recently at the ColdFusion Summit. It’s nice and simple, but pretty darn useful so I decided to write a quick blog post about it and highlight the code. What’s a Document Workflow? Simply put, a document workflow is any process you would use to handle incoming documents. As an example, and one I’ve built many times over the past few years, you can use a workflow to convert all your incoming documents into PDF for easier handling. pdfRest has APIs for this and I’ll likely share a demo of them soon. (ColdFusion itself can convert HTML, PPTX,... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: ColdFusion, creating, Document, GenAI, Summarization, Workflow