Digital Bunker (Page 7)

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Implementing Unix’s compress

Let’s take a look at the compression algorithm behind Unix’scompressand most .gif compression. The Lempel Ziv Welch [LZW] algorithm is a greedy lossless compression algorithm that works by replacing recurring patterns with shorter codes in order to save space. > Lossless is a form of compression where no

Creating An Open-Source Translation Memory

I’ve always wanted to localize my personal apps, but I found it to be too expensive. Since many apps share the same vocabulary (News Feed, Dashboard, Forgot Password, Take Photo), it seemed silly to pay to translate words that some other development team must have previously paid to translate.

Understanding Contrast Algorithms

As a hobbyist photographer, I’ve always wondered how Apple Photos, Lightroom, and Photoshop implement image contrast adjustments. After spending some time reading into it, the approach is worth sharing. Let’s start with the basics. > A histogram is simply a bar chart representing [in this case] different frequencies

Understanding How UUIDs Are Generated

Introduction You’ve likely used UUIDs in projects before and assumed them to be unique. Today, we’ll take a look at the main aspects of the implementation and understand why UUIDs are practically unique, though an incredibly small potential for duplication exists. The modern-day implementation of UUIDs can be

Understanding Gaussian Blurs

Let’s take a detailed look at the implementation behind Gaussian blurs. It’s the image processing algorithm that enables image manipulations like this: We’ll start by reviewing Gaussian distributions and image convolution – the driving forces behind Gaussian blurs. Then, we’ll implement our own Gaussian blur algorithm from

How Do Computers Generate Random Numbers?

Anyone with any programming experience understands that computers are deterministic machines. If you provide the same input, you’ll always get the same output. That’s why having computers generate something by chance is trickier than it may seem. Computers use random numbers for everything from cryptography to gambling, generative

Understanding Daemons

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at daemons. We’ll understand exactly what they are, how they’re implemented, and the scope of their responsibility. Overview Simply put, a daemon (pronounced dee-mon) is an intentionally orphaned background process. Additionally, daemons are detached from the terminal in which

Automating My San Francisco Studio (Part 1)

With the increased amount of time I’ve spent in my apartment over the last few months and my new found electronics hobby, I thought it’d be fun to try and automate my studio apartment. Here’s a picture of the apartment (above) in all of it’s 450

iOS Interview Assessment (Part 1)

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing interviews for an iOS developer role in San Francisco. I eventually went onsite to interview with 4–5 companies in the area, but before inviting me onsite, they all gave me a take home assessment to complete. The take home assessment

Create iMessage Stickers (Remote Images + Analytics)

Starting in WWDC 2016 with the release of iOS 10, Apple allowed iOS developers to create their own iMessage sticker packs for the App Store. So, last week, I started to look into it; a little late to the game, I know. Initially, I wanted to create a sticker pack