Hello world!

Software is my passion. I also love Big data and Analytics. My goal in life is to make great products and do great things.

I use Java for “desktop programming” and I’m well versed (self-promoting) in multi-threading techniques and related Java libraries and frameworks like Executors. I came from a strong C/C++ background but not many people seems to be using these archaic languages anymore!!

When I’m writing web applications, I use PHP on Apache or lately, NginX. I discovered Node.js while at school and have been attempting to learn it since I find it difficult to switch between PHP to JavaScript regularly when writing applications. I have a opinion about most things, and I don’t like Callbacks. However, on the other hand, I love coding JavaScript.

I mainly use OSX for casual tasks like email, editing documents and for some development and CentOS for development. Linux is much fun but little frustrating at times (backwards driver compatibility, anyone?)

The Database system of choice for me was always MySQL. I always sucked at SQL when it came to JOINs. I was then introduced to the whole NoSQL movement by one of my professors at the University and without even knowing what it was, I fell in love with the idea: not having to write complex SQL using JOINs. My first NoSQL use case was when I used Redis for school project and subsequently Cassandra to scale the project out to multiple AWS data centers.

This blog is my way to explain things the way I see them and as much as I would like to share my knowledge with the world, I’m writing this blog mainly as notes to self. I love taking notes about the things I’m learning so what better way to do it than an online, persistent blog 😉

In late 2014, I started working on a mobile document scanning app with an excellent group of people.

– Umer Mansoor
Calgary, Alberta. Canada