Matthew Russell

Biography

Matthew Russell is a computer scientist from middle Tennessee. Hacking and writing are two activities essential to his renaissance man regimen.

Books

Dojo: The Definitive Guide
by Matthew Russell
June 2008 (est.)
$39.99 USD

Dojo Fundamentals: Creating Object-Oriented Widgets
by Matthew Russell
October 2007
$9.99 USD

(Read Reviews)

Articles

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The Mojo of Dojo
Publish Date: Nov. 1, 2007Few use raw JavaScript anymore if they can possibly avoid it, in the same way that few people code in assembly language. Dojo is one of a group of powerful JavaScript toolkits that can do a lot of the work for you, and Matthew Russell has put together this introduction. Building a Game Engine with Cocoa, Part 3
Publish Date: Feb. 2, 2007In this third and final installment of Matthew Russell's series on building a game engine with Cocoa, we learn how to implement a game tree search called negamax--a variant of minimax that uses alpha-beta pruning to reduce the search space. Building a Game Engine with Cocoa, Part 2
Publish Date: Jan. 5, 2007In this second part of Matthew Russell's series on building a game engine with Cocoa, we learn how to program the logic for generating valid moves and improve the overall usability of our board game by highlighting squares on the board that correspond to valid move locations. Building a Game Engine with Cocoa
Publish Date: Dec. 19, 2006Matthew Russell shows how to use Xcode and a little artificial intelligence to build a small game engine for playing board games like Checkers and Lines of Action. This first article describes how to build a generic, minimalist framework for setting up a board and moving pieces around using a standard Cocoa design. Making a Smooth Move from .Mac to Google
Publish Date: Nov. 1, 2006Matthew Russell presents a practical approach for a smooth move from .Mac to a Google-centric web experience. Getting your email, address book, calendar, online storage, online photos, and blog squared away are all covered in this detailed transition plan. Miglia TVMicro and EyeTV: Easy TV on Your Mac
Publish Date: Sep. 12, 2006The Miglia TVMicro is a small USB device and comes bundled with a remote control and the renowned EyeTV app, which makes it trivial to pull up program listings, schedule recordings, and more. Costing roughly $100, this is a purchase that might just pay for itself sooner than you think. Matthew Russell reviews. Unify and Synchronize Your iTunes Libraries
Publish Date: Aug. 22, 2006Last June, David Miller published an article that explained how to synchronize playlists on iTunes. Today, Matthew Russell extends this idea by investigating and presenting three different ways to synchronize the actual contents of your iTunes music libraries when they are scattered across multiple machines. Then in the second half of the article, Matthew lays the foundation for a custom Python script that you can extend across multiple platforms and in various other ways. How Does Open Source Software Stack Up on the Mac?
Publish Date: Jul. 25, 2006Apple does a great job of providing elegant software for its platform. But there are plenty of good offerings beyond the fruits of Cupertino. In this amazing survey of proprietary and open source software, Matthew Russell attempts to organize what's available on both fronts and even dares to assign grades. Has he missed anything? What Is Vim (It's Easier than You Think)
Publish Date: Jul. 11, 2006If you've had a less-than-agreeable experience with Vim in the past and are willing to give it another shot, please ponder these points: 1) there's generally a learning curve involved with any powerful tool, 2) Vim is much more than just your run-of-the-mill text editor, and 3) the effort required to become a proficient Vimmer isn't as much as you'd think: it's comparable to that of learning to touch type. Matthew Russell explains. Digital Bookmark Mods
Publish Date: Mar. 15, 2006Matthew Russell shows you how to add better bookmarks to your audio books, add slideshows to your music files, create enhanced podcasts, and share your favorite mods with others--even if they're on protected audio. What Is TurboGears (Hint: Python-Based Framework for Rapid Web Development)
Publish Date: Nov. 8, 2005TurboGears is a Python-based framework that enables you to quickly build database-driven, ready-to-extend web applications. In this article, Matthew Russell takes you inside this framework for a look at its internal mechanisms, then introduces you to its creator, Kevin Dangoor. An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Publish Date: Oct. 21, 2005Have you ever thought about using an iSight to take and classify images, such as those of a user sitting at the iMac? (Face-sensing engines have been in the news lately.) We have. And while we're working on that tutorial, we thought it might be a good idea to first publish a background piece on artificial intelligence. Check it out. What Is Quartz (or Why Can't Windows Do That)
Publish Date: Oct. 11, 2005Quartz is the heart and soul of Mac OS X's graphics layer, which directly supports the defining features of the Aqua desktop experience. In this article, Matthew Russell gives you a short history lesson on Quartz, then shows you how it's implemented in Mac OS X. What Is Darwin (and How It Powers Mac OS X)
Publish Date: Sep. 27, 2005Darwin provides the underlying foundation for Mac OS X. In this article, Matthew Russell takes you to the core of Apple's OS and explains how it powers your Mac. What Is Automator (and Can It Make Your Life Easier)
Publish Date: Sep. 6, 2005Automator provides an intuitive drag-and-drop workbench for quickly streamlining repetitive tasks. Here's a look at creating workflows and working around Automator's inherent limitations.

Blog

Dojo Goodness, Part 7 (Injecting Dojo After Page Load)

May 12 2008

On a recent consulting gig, a client had the requirement that a JavaScript deliverable needed to run in a self-enclosed script tag that would be arbitrarily placed within the body of a page. In other words, I needed to deliver a JavaScript... read more

Dojo Goodness, Part 6 (A Million Records in the Grid)

April 23 2008

This column provides a lightweight demo of Dojo's increasingly popular data grid and demonstrates it serving up a million records. The intent of this little demo is to demonstrate the basic pattern for putting the grid to work and save you from... read more

Dojo Goodness, Part 5 (Simple Network I/O)

April 10 2008

The last column introduced some of Dojo's AJAX machinery where we fetched content from a server using the dojo.xhrGet function. One thing that wasn't mentioned, however, is that there is an underlying abstraction called a Deferred at play. Since the entire Dojo... read more

Dojo Version 1.1 Landed

April 01 2008

Whether you're a Dojo veteran or a developer who is just starting to kick the tires, you should be excited about Dojo 1.1! I'll leave you to the announcement and the release notes for now, but rest assured that we'll be all... read more

Dojo Goodness, Part 4 (Easy AJAX)

March 27 2008

This week's installment of Dojo Goodness demonstrates dojo.xhrGet, an easy way to sprinkle some AJAX into your application and one of the biggest staples in Dojo. (In case the "xhr" part of that API call is a curve ball, it simply refers... read more

Dojo Goodness, Part 3 (Animation Station)

March 18 2008

A dose of animation can give your app that extra bit of pizzazz that it sometimes needs to impress the customer/ladies/gentlemen/whatever-floats-your-boat, so I thought it might be a good idea to quickly showcase some of Dojo's animation facilities. If you're just now... read more

Dojo Goodness, Part 2

March 10 2008

In my last post, I ran through the fundamentals of getting Dojo loaded into the page via AOL's Content Delivery Network and showed just how easy it is to query the DOM with dojo.query. In this post, I wanted to briefly show... read more

Dojo Goodness, Part 1

February 29 2008

Since I'll suddenly have copious free time on my hands once I turn in my final book manuscript this weekend, I decided that it might be helpful to start a short column on some of the fundamental Dojo building blocks. Although I... read more

Dojo on Adobe AIR

February 25 2008

Dojo is now compatible to run on Adobe AIR, which shipped as of today. The press release does a great job of summarizing, but this excerpt is worth repeating: The updates to the Dojo Toolkit make it even easier for Ajax developers... read more

Hot New Dojo API Docs

February 25 2008

Just this past weekend, dojotoolkit.org rolled out significant improvements in presenting documentation. Better documentation has been one of the most common requests for the project, so this update is at least a partial delivery on that front. The hope is that continued... read more

Why Don't You Use Dojo?

February 22 2008

I've slaved away for the past 8 months or so writing a book on Dojo. It's definitely not a lot of fun moonlighting for such an extended duration on a single project, but my hope is that it's all going to be... read more

Comet is more than a household cleaner - it's the next big thing

February 15 2008

You have probably heard of AJAX, but have you heard of Comet? Yes, they are both household cleaners you might find under your kitchen sink, but that's only part of the story. In the web realm, Comet refers to an... read more

Dojo Fundamentals: Creating Object-Oriented Widgets

December 20 2007

After a batch of feedback about the way that our previous Short Cut on Dojo was titled and marketed, we decided to update it for version 1.0 (the previous version targeted 0.9), make the title more descriptive of the Short Cut’s focus on creating custom widgets, and try it all… read more

Get Up and Running with Dojo

October 25 2007

After a lot of article writing over the past few years, I’ve managed to put together a slightly longer piece in the form an O’Reilly Short Cut: Get Up and Running with Dojo. As it turns out, this Short Cut is the forerunner to my upcoming O’Reilly book that’s targeted… read more

Solution Submitted for the notMac Challenge

September 26 2007

Nearly a year ago, I posted about the notMac Challenge, an effort to come up with a replacement for .Mac. Just recently, I received some encouraging news that I wanted to share with you: Several months ago I started the notMac Challenge to generate incentive for a developer to create… read more

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