Words, code, and information security in Portland, Oregon

This is the website of Erik L. Arneson. I am a freelance writer and software developer in Portland, Oregon.

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Blog Posts

  • An English-language Stemmer for OCaml

    A stemming algorithm attempts to reduce words to their stem. For instance, “swimming” would be reduced to “swim”, and “avocados” would become “avocado”. This is useful in a number of situations, most especially in searching text. This library is a direct port of the Porter English stemming algorithm.

  • Handling Widows and Orphans in EPUB Files

    For a little over a year, I’ve been working with the EPUB format to build electronic books. I’ve been working on a software package to build EPUB files in Emacs, in fact. This has required learning more about design, and a great deal more about book layout. As with many design elements, once you’re made aware of them, you notice them all of the time. EPUBs, for instance, are not very good at handling widows and orphans.

  • Official Release of Libbucket 1.0.4

    I’ve tagged version 1.0.4 of libbucket over on GitHub. You can download a tarball at this link. If you’d like to read more about libbucket, see my post from earlier this week.

  • Small Team Software Change Management

    Until October, I’d been using a paid GitHub account to manage source code changes and issue tracking for private projects. GitHub is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product providing a web-based interface for source control management and various project tracking tasks. Some people love it and some aren’t fond of it.

  • Modernizing libbucket

    If you’re here to learn about my experience in software development, you’ve probably poked around my GitHub page. One the older projects on there is libbucket, a very fast dynamic string buffer library. I originally wrote it while working for Musician’s Friend, and was given permission to release it as an open sourced library in 2005.

  • Bootstrap and WordPress

    I’ve used Twitter Bootstrap many times in web applications. It really makes building an application interface fast and easy, primarily because I don’t have to worry much about design. Bootstrap makes things a lot easier for a developer who doesn’t do good design work.

  • PunchlinePDX Event Manager

    PunchlinePDX is a slow-motion video booth for events and parties based out of Portland, Oregon. Earlier this year, I helped them develop event management software that would allow them to upload and curate video.

  • OpenPGP.js and WordPress

    Near the end of November, I began fiddling with OpenPGP.js and building a WordPress plugin. My goal is to create a method by which visitors can encrypt messages to me on my Contact page using my public key.

  • Camlprime Now on OPAM

    My first OCaml Package Manager (OPAM) submission has just been accepted. You can now find Camlprime, a prime number library, on OPAM here.

  • Handy Tools for the Bourne Again Shell

    If you’re a Unix geek, you’ve probably used bash, the Bourne-Again Shell. If you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably spent a lot of time customizing bash.

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