Author Archives: Jeff Fitzsimons

About Jeff Fitzsimons

Jeff Fitzsimons is a software engineer in the Pacific Northwest. Technical specialties include C++, Win32, and multithreading. Personal interests include rock climbing, cycling, motorcycles, and photography.

Source Control Use: Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, DARCS, Subversion, Team Foundation Server, CVS

What version control system is really most popular? Not in terms of getting mentioned on blogs, but in real-world terms of jobs? git, hg or mercurial, bzr or bazaar, darcs, svn or subversion, tfs or "team foundation server", cvs Job … Continue reading

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Getting Started with Android Deployment and Debugging

As usual with Android, getting started on a process usually involves a few hiccups. Here is a complete list of the steps it took for me to get started with deploying apps directly to my Android phone from my Windows … Continue reading

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Saving Money on Arduino Basic Starter Kit

Several sites are selling Arduino “basic starter kits” for around $55. That’s not a bad deal, but they tack on around ten dollars in shipping! These kits generally include: Arduino UNO board “Getting Started with Arduino” book Breadboard Jumpers USB … Continue reading

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Eclipse for Android: No Build Targets

I installed the Android SDK and the Eclipse IDE for Java and Report Developers, but when I tried to create a new project, the Build Target list was empty. I had already followed the instructions given in this newsgroup post: … Continue reading

Posted in Technology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Enabling Wake-On-LAN on a Toshiba Satellite A505

This post describes how I fixed my Wake-On-LAN problem using the powercfg tool. My Toshiba Satellite A505-S6986 wouldn’t respond to magic packets sent over the network. Before using powercfg, I first checked the following: Wake-On-LAN was enabled in the BIOS. … Continue reading

Posted in Technology, Windows | 1 Comment

Job Demand: Java, C#, C++, and Windows Compared

As a long-time Windows/C++ developer, I’m curious to know what technologies are in demand. I’ve personally used Dice.com almost exclusively in the past, but they don’t provide a good interface for viewing job trends. Indeed.com is an aggregating website which … Continue reading

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iTunes COM SDK for Windows and Encrypted File System

The “iTunes COM SDK for Windows” archive from the Apple Developer Center contains files which are marked as encrypted. Shortly after extracting the files to my libraries folder, I was surprised to receive a popup dialog from Windows 7, “Encrypting … Continue reading

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Where is the iTunes SDK?

The Apple iTunes SDK (“iTunes COM SDK for Windows”) is astonishingly difficult to find. It can be found on the

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Domain Registrars as Recommended by Hacker News

If you’re looking for domain registration/DNS reviews, you probably know how hard it is to find pages that aren’t just poorly concealed spam or astroturfing ‘affiliates’. While for a registration option better than GoDaddy, I found a bunch of suggestions … Continue reading

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id3v2: Command Line MP3 Tag Editor Compiled for Cygwin

id3v2 is a powerful command line tool for editing MP3 ID3 tags.  Getting it to compile on Windows under Cygwin, though, took a bit of effort. For the convenience of others, here is id3v2 0.1.12 compiled under Cygwin.  It depends … Continue reading

Posted in Cygwin, Technology, Windows | 2 Comments