I’ve spent time over the last three weeks working on a new website for the Northwest C++ Users’ Group. I blogged about the NWCPP website refresh over there. In brief, I moved the website from an instance of the Joomla Content Management System at Just Host to a static website generated by Pelican and hosted at Github Pages, and I’m happy with the results.

Not only am I the Webmaster (and Secretary) of NWCPP, I am also the webmaster for several other or­ga­ni­za­tions:

• Wild Geese Players of Seattle, a static HTML site badly in need of a makeover (I’m the Director, Dramaturg, and Webmaster).
• Freely Speaking Toast­mas­ters, a dynamic site based on the horrid Free­ToastHoast 2.0 …continue.

30 years ago today, I sat down at a computer for the first time, and I wrote my first program.

I was in Fifth Year of secondary school in Ire­land—the equivalent of eleventh grade. Personal computers were just coming into Ireland; few people had them. I had been taking an ex­tracur­ric­u­lar course in computer pro­gram­ming, in the school’s physics lab. We wrote code on paper at our desks, as there were no computers in the room. Somehow, I hadn’t realized that there was another room with computers, in a normally off-limits part of the school, until late January.

Once I sat down at a computer, I was hooked. PRINT 2+2? 4! Writing code on …continue.

Tra­di­tion­al Irish Christmas Pudding.

This recipe comes from my mother, who has used it for many years. I added the soaking of the fruit in hot water.

This amount makes one large pudding and two smaller ones (4–5 quarts), so scale down to your needs.

Stick a sprig of holly in the top before bringing to the dinner table. When it’s placed on the dinner table, heat a tablespoon of brandy or whisky over a flame until it catches fire, then pour over the pudding. Turn down the lights to enjoy the blue-tinged flames.

Serve with Brandy Butter.

I just finished another post at the Cozi Tech Blog, Se­ri­al­iza­tionEx­cep­tion: the con­struc­tor was not found

The Cozi Tech Blog needed some love, so I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago on Security 101 for Developers.

It’s the 100th an­niver­sary of the 1911 census of the United Kingdom, which was taken on the night of Sunday, April 2nd. Ireland was still part of the UK and hence was included in the census.

The census results are online. The Irish results are freely browsable. The UK results cost money.

Three of my grand­par­ents were born in the 18 months following the census.

George Clery

My maternal grand­fa­ther, George Victor Clery, was born on March 30th, 1900. He died on March 3rd, 1965, twelve days before I was born. I am called George after him and Vincent after my father.

Gen­er­a­tions of Clerys worked for the Munster & Leinster bank, which became Allied Irish Bank …continue.

Sequel to The Yellow Admiral.

Sequel to The Commodore.

The Napoleonic wars are drawing to a close. Jack Aubrey is beset with legal problems on land and Stephen Maturin’s fortune has been seized by the Spanish au­thor­i­ties. They are sent to sea to be part of the blockade of the French port of Brest, where they are in disfavor with the admiral leading the blockade.

Perhaps the slowest of the Aubrey-Maturin books, it ends with Napoleon being exiled to Elba and then the news that Napoleon has escaped.