tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21687562011-11-28T00:16:11.931ZThis is my personal blog, primarily covering technical material about software development, but also occasionally touching on other areas of interest - Geoffrey GlazeGeoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.comBlogger191100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-49990983947421947582009-04-23T22:29:00.002Z2009-04-23T23:33:21.048Z

Now that we've got our market data proxy layer in place, we need to look at actual market data provider adapters. There are a number of ways we could retrieve market data. The most brute force mechanism would be to just screen-scrape html from websites directly. This is obviously subject to unexpected html format changes on the site, or unpredictable responses when we query for things we haven't

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-62686259837701304572009-04-22T22:01:00.000Z2009-04-23T00:07:13.826Z

Last time we looked at just putting in place the basic infrastructure to support our RTD component. Now we dive in to the details of our actual market data provider implementation.For this particular function, we need to find alternative data sources for our financial data because we don't want to necessarily depend on having Bloomberg available at all. There are plenty of good sources of free

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-48489939825176943612009-04-21T22:24:00.003Z2009-04-21T22:45:00.338Z

Since I left my previous job, I have lost my access to Bloomberg real-time data, and so now I have a lot of spreadsheets that use the BDP function for real-time lookup of stock prices, fx rates, etc. - and I don't have the Bloomberg plugin to make them work anymore. Rather than going back to the world of manually filling this data in periodically, I decided to see if I could create my own Excel

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-81619149355290266692009-04-20T22:59:00.000Z2009-04-21T00:01:14.554Z

While researching some other stuff, I came across a blog framework called BlogEngine.net, and was so impressed I thought it would be worth grabbing it and giving it a try. In fact, I've been wanting to add blogging and other features to my Big Chief Golf website for some time now, so this might be the perfect technology for it. The guys that maintain this also run their own blog, and have written

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-50687314964518883142009-04-18T14:52:00.003Z2009-04-18T18:16:21.364Z

Ever since I got my new Thinkpad x301 about 6 months ago, it has been making some terrible noise from the fan. I assumed it was probably just a defective fan, and I would eventually just need to get around to sending it in to Lenovo. I have a solid-state drive, plus it's not like I'm sitting here burning up the graphics chip with video games or anything - so I couldn't imagine what is causing

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-80347633647151150532009-02-04T17:47:00.002Z2009-04-18T18:14:47.770Z

Well I wrote about snow in London back in 2007, and here it is again. Here are some photos:

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-59828351507294185252008-01-31T12:49:00.000Z2008-01-31T13:18:11.546Z

I've been doing a lot of work on my investment portfolio lately, trying to reposition myself on more secure footing for the recession. In doing so, I've tried to incorporate information and advice from a variety of sources. I'd like to mention a few of them here:1. Jim CramerCramer seems to get a really bad rap everywhere you look - I guess because every trader has had a bad experience listening

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-58069175310918532662007-03-11T03:54:00.000Z2007-03-11T04:05:50.625Z

Every time I have a fresh install of Windows XP, one of the million tasks on my todo list is to add in the "Command Prompt Here" context menu. This time I did some searching around, and came across a few interesting results. First, I found this. Now, this page is very informative, and explains several different techniques for installing the shortcut. It also mentions that in Windows Vista, this

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-18730118254985289012007-02-21T01:18:00.000Z2007-02-21T17:45:31.192Z

I was just digging through some old emails, and I came across this gem. This was a follow-up discussion I had with Nigel Shaw, author of Not Another C# Versus VB Article posted on CodeProject.Date: May 26, 2005 1:05 PMSubject : RE: Not Another C# Versus VB ArticleHi Nigel,I just finished reading your article, "Not Another C# Versus VBArticle", and first of all let me say thank you for this work -

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-68046065333248409542007-02-08T11:36:00.000Z2007-02-07T18:10:16.933Z

For most people in London, snow is just another regular yearly occurence. But where I come from, it's quite a novelty!

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-50248024581577618432007-02-07T01:46:00.000Z2007-02-07T10:59:26.123Z

Here is the cool gadget of the day:these are apparently available now at this site:http://www.usbcell.comThe price is also cheaper than I would have expected - £12.50 for a 2-pack of AA batteries.They also have AAA and 9V batteries, and are apparently developing cell phone batteries.I've seen some discussion about these. Apparently the USB design means they are really only half as efficient as

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-39617302838007625632007-01-31T01:32:00.000Z2007-02-05T12:31:00.351Z

I use a few gadgets on a daily basis. Here are a few of my favorites:1. Sandisk Sansa e280 Mp3 Player I get a lot of mileage out of this mp3 player. It has 8 gigs of internal memory, plus a miniSD slot for extra swappable memory. Most of my friends have some kind of iPod or iPod Nano, but for my purposes I think the Sandisk player suits me better. I'm not so concerned with how flashy it looks,

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-90652528544784258032007-01-30T01:50:00.000Z2007-01-30T02:12:07.111Z

A recurring topic where I work is how to improve performance of code that exports data to Excel for reporting. Lately I've seen a lot of interesting advice on different options, so I thought I'd post some of it here.Approach #1: C# with interop for Excel COM APIThe fundamental problem with this approach is that the COM API is inherently slow, and all of the marshalling (especially with variant

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-19750334397972391812007-01-29T01:00:00.000Z2007-01-29T01:28:22.662Z

One of my longest-running side projects is a website called BigChiefGolf.com. This website provides a free service to golfers, helping them to maintain their golf scores and view a trend-line of handicap improvement over time.The most amazing thing about this service is that it has been up and running for almost 15 years in various forms, with amazingly little maintenance or revision. There have

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-77007924152200844602007-01-27T21:21:00.000Z2007-01-27T21:15:00.635Z

One thing I've never understood is how there can be so much hype about AJAX, and so much hype about Web Services, and yet no one seems to realize these two are naturally suited for each other. Web Services provides an open XML way to send data over the HTTP protocol, and AJAX provides a client-side mechanism for making HTTP calls to ask for data. What more does it take to make it obvious that

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-49424920678065883662007-01-26T02:09:00.000Z2007-01-26T14:53:17.038Z

I wrote this up last year, as we were just beginning a phase to re-architect a core piece of the system. New resources had just been brought into the team, and so lots of ideas were flying around, some very good, and some not so good.One big idea being pushed was to change everything to run as Web Services, in an attempt to create a sort of SOA architecture. Now, in principle I certainly wouldn't

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-31298722597800954232007-01-25T02:30:00.000Z2007-01-25T02:44:20.183Z

The latest fad for techies seems to be this new Waterfall 2006 site, which was appropriately scheduled on April 1, 2006.I first heard about this last week via some of my company's internal chat rooms, and since then it seems to be growing at an impressive rate, with more and more contributors presenting new material. Some of my favorite headlines include:Eliminate Collaboration: Get More Done

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-54047883490540686032007-01-24T02:18:00.000Z2007-01-24T13:08:14.080Z

I opened this blog back in 2001, when the blogger.com service had just started to become well known. At the time I had no idea what blogs were, but it was a big buzzword at the time, so I figured it was the next big thing.Since then I've never really had a chance to come back and get my blog started. Well, it's about time. And what better topic to start with than Personas, probably my most

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168756.post-21687792001-01-29T23:01:00.000Z2009-04-02T22:31:20.958Z

Welcome to my "Blog" site. I have no idea what this blogging stuff is, but we'll find out!

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06658447798116131047noreply@blogger.com0