Niche Software

Welcome to Niche Software, a MicroISV based in Wellington, New Zealand.

The primary goal of the site is as a host to my writing - mostly entries in my blog, but also including more detailed articles and the occasional highly opinionated editorial. A secondary, but still important, goal is to be a place to post some tools, utilities and toys that I have written. As I tend to develop applications that "scratch my own itch," most of these are fairly technical in nature. Please check out the license on any item you download - while many are free, some are not.

A Developer's Blog

Don't be that person

Dec 05 2020 professional

Nearly 15 years ago, I found myself with a particular problem at work. I felt like I was not being very productive, so I started closely tracking where my time was going.

Weapons of mass (privacy) destruction

Jul 04 2020 professional

It seems that the details of the eighteen people in New Zealand with positive COVID-19 tests have been disclosed, and officials are speculating that it may have been due to human error:

Caching without Race Conditions

Jun 13 2020 wordtutor-redux csharp

It wasn’t very long after my prior update on caching that a friend informed me that the code has a race condition. Yes, the same friend who persuaded me to update it last time. Worse, during a Skype call, we identified code that would outright fail for an independent reason.

Sharpen The Saw - June 2020 06 Jun 2020
Automated Inbox Cleanup with PowerShell 30 May 2020
Don't Gloss Over Complexity 16 May 2020
Improved Caching 09 May 2020
Sharpen The Saw - May 2020 05 May 2020
Caching Speech 25 Apr 2020
More blog posts »

Software

Mandelbrot Screensaver

Mandelbrot Screensaver is a screensaver that automatically generates images from Mandelbrot fractal, generating a never ending display of fractal images on your screen.

WordTutor

WordTutor, a tool for running interactive spelling drills: the easy way to ove your spelling.

OOS Alarm

OOS Alarm is a repeating alarm clock which pops up regularly to remind you to appropriate breaks during your work each day.

Becoming a Better Developer

In this talk I pass on some of the things I've learnt about being a better developer.

Static Analysis for the Win

We all know that the earlier we find a bug, the cheaper it is to fix. Shouldn't we therefore be doing everything we can to identify bugs as early as possible?

The Pragmatic Programmer

Unusually for a technical book published in 1999, The Pragmatic Programmer remains thoroughly relevant to the modern developer. I present a review of this book, looking at how it is relevant to the modern developer.

Writing Maintainable Code

One core skill that every developer should cultivate is the ability to write Maintainable Code - code that can be easily understood.

Geek Communication

In June 2014, presenting to the first cohort of the Enspiral Devacademy talking about the nature of "geeks" and how to communicate effectively with them.

Unit Testing 101

A beginners introduction to unit testing, based on Roy Oscherove's book Art of Unit Testing. Presented to both Software Quality New Zealand and to Statistics New Zealand.