Explosive Tutorial With Unity3D and VRTK

Robert Rice .NET, Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, Tutorial Leave a Comment

Opinions on the emerging Virtual Reality market vary. One one end, there are those who say it’s just a gimmick and will pass shortly. On the other end, there are those who herald it as the birth pangs of a paradigm shift in how we interact with technology.

I sit somewhere in the middle. I own an HTC Vive and it is pretty dang awesome. The experience is not perfect, of course, but with interest growing and prices coming down, it’s just going to get better.

One expression of VR’s growing popularity is that Unity3D supports VR programming. And, with the free VRTK (Virtual Reality Tool Kit) framework, it’s becoming much easier to get started programming for VR. VRTK implements many basic components, such as various movement implementations, object interaction, and projectiles.

Working on a fun little side project, I noticed one implementation it did not have: a virtual reality bomb. So, I set upon to create one myself. This post details the process I went through for creating a timed, throwable, explosive object for virtual reality using Unity3D & VRTK.

Development: JavaScript Brewery Solution

Keyhole Software JavaScript, New Development, Retail & eCommerce

Keyhole Consultants designed and developed a repository of beers, ingredients, and characteristics of the product lines for an international brewery conglomerate that had purchased various micro-breweries.

This repository provides public access via a RESTful HTTP API that provides a singular, consistent way for Marketing and/or other interested parties to access and update detailed information as their portfolio evolves – including breweries, products, and packaging.

React v16.0 Release Overview and Migration

Luke Curran Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, React Leave a Comment

React v16.0 was released by Facebook on Tuesday, September 26th. This version introduces performance boosts and other very helpful features.

React 16 brings some significant internal changes features to the table. In my opinion, one of the most interesting thing about this release is that React has been rewritten. Luckily, in terms of upgrading, if your app runs in 15.6 without any warnings, it should work in 16 (with minor exceptions).

In this blog I highlight some of the new features introduced in React v16.0, in addition to demonstrating how to update your current React applications to v16.0 using a Keyhole open source application for reference…

Could the Equifax Hack Have Been Prevented by a Microservices Architecture?

David Pitt Architecture, Articles, DevOps, Java, Microservices, Opinion, Security Leave a Comment

When I heard that the Struts Open Source framework played a role in the recent Equifax hack, I wanted to do some research to understand how it happened. Struts is a commonly-used Java framework that I have applied in the past. And Iโ€™m not alone in that: it is reported that in 65% of Fortune 500 companies currently implement Struts in some way.

So, I did a little digging and performed a thought experiment asking myself the following question: โ€œIf Equifax had a pure-play Microservices Architecture in place, would it have solved the problem?โ€

Using Docker + AWS to Build, Deploy and Scale your App

Brandon Klimek Articles, AWS, Cloud, DevOps, Docker, Python, Spring, Spring Boot, Tutorial 8 Comments

I recently worked to develop a software platform that relied on Spring Boot and Docker to prop up an API. Being the only developer on the project, I needed to find a way to quickly and efficiently deploy new releases. However, I found many solutions overwhelming to set up.

That was until I discovered AWS has tools that allow any developer to quickly build and deploy their application.

In this 30 minute tutorial, you will discover how to utilize the following technologies:
– AWS CodeCommit – source control (git)
– AWS Code Build – source code compiler, rest runner
– AWS Codepipeline – builds, tests, and deploys code every time the repo changes
-AWS Elastic Beanstalk – service to manage EC2 instances handling deployments, provisioning, load balancing, and health monitoring
-Docker + Spring Boot – Our containerized Spring Boot application for the demo

Once finished, you will have a Docker application running that automatically builds your software on commit, and deploys it to the Elastic beanstalk sitting behind a load balancer for scalability. This continuous integration pipeline will allow you to worry less about your deployments and get back to focusing on feature development within your application.