https://stephen-masters.github.io/Recent content on stephen.devHugoen-gbMon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/the-css-specificity-trap-that-killed-my-paragraph-spacing/Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/the-css-specificity-trap-that-killed-my-paragraph-spacing/How a routine margin reset overrode the owl selector and made all my prose paragraphs run together — and the one-line fix.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/building-an-about-page-in-hugo-without-touching-single.html/Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/building-an-about-page-in-hugo-without-touching-single.html/How to use Hugo&rsquo;s layout key to give a standalone page its own template, rather than bending a shared layout with conditionals.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/adding-a-hover-preview-tooltip-to-leaflet-markers/Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/adding-a-hover-preview-tooltip-to-leaflet-markers/How to build a floating thumbnail tooltip for Leaflet photo markers — shared DOM element, edge-flip positioning, hover delays, and keyboard accessibility.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/touch-events-and-focus-on-mobile-the-two-tap-trap/Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/touch-events-and-focus-on-mobile-the-two-tap-trap/Why the &lsquo;first tap previews, second tap acts&rsquo; pattern is broken on touch devices, and what to do instead.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/validating-hugo-front-matter-with-nodetest/Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/05/validating-hugo-front-matter-with-nodetest/A lightweight, zero-dependency test that walks your Hugo content tree and catches broken image paths before they reach production.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/rules-engines-on-the-jvm-in-2026/Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/rules-engines-on-the-jvm-in-2026/Drools is no longer the only game in town. A look at Easy Rules, RuleBook, and when you should reach for a rules engine at all.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/adding-copyright-watermarks-to-images-with-hugos-asset-pipeline/Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/adding-copyright-watermarks-to-images-with-hugos-asset-pipeline/How to stamp a copyright notice onto every image at Hugo build time using images.Text — including the font trap, the shadow technique for readability, and how to keep multiple shortcodes in sync.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/embedding-gps-photo-markers-at-build-time-with-hugo/Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/embedding-gps-photo-markers-at-build-time-with-hugo/How to replace browser-side EXIF GPS reading with a pre-build Node script that embeds coordinates directly in the HTML — faster maps, no async loading, no browser EXIF parsing.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/hugo-image-processing-gotchas-what-the-docs-dont-warn-you-about/Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/hugo-image-processing-gotchas-what-the-docs-dont-warn-you-about/A collection of non-obvious traps in Hugo&rsquo;s image processing pipeline: the ASCII-only default font, the strings.TrimLeft argument order, stale image caches, and why two shortcodes processing the same image can produce different URLs.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/building-a-gps-photo-map-with-hugo-leaflet-and-exifr/Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2026/04/building-a-gps-photo-map-with-hugo-leaflet-and-exifr/How to build an interactive map for a Hugo static site that reads GPS coordinates directly from image EXIF data and plots photo markers alongside a GPX route — with all the gotchas.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2021/10/moving-to-hugo/Sat, 02 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2021/10/moving-to-hugo/Switching the blog to Hugo on GitHub Pages after years on various platforms.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2021/03/computing-in-armenia/Tue, 16 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2021/03/computing-in-armenia/Armenia&rsquo;s pivotal role in developing computers in the Soviet Union — written in preparation for an Armenian Institute event on Women in Science.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2020/08/digitizing-surmelian/Thu, 06 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2020/08/digitizing-surmelian/In 2020, the Armenian Institute republished I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen by Leon Surmelian. This is the story of how I got involved in digitising it.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2017/03/using-the-kie-workbench-api-to-create-a-project/Mon, 20 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2017/03/using-the-kie-workbench-api-to-create-a-project/The KIE Workbench REST API lets you automate project setup in a fresh container — useful when VirtualBox keeps changing your IP address.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2016/01/multiple-databases-with-spring-boot-and-spring-data-jpa/Tue, 05 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2016/01/multiple-databases-with-spring-boot-and-spring-data-jpa/Connecting a Spring Boot application to two separate databases with Spring Data JPA, working around Boot&rsquo;s default autowiring behaviour.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2015/02/a-minimal-spring-boot-drools-web-service/Fri, 06 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2015/02/a-minimal-spring-boot-drools-web-service/Just the essentials: a Spring Boot application exposing a Drools rules engine as an HTTP API, nothing more.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/10/bundling-project-dependencies-with-the-shade-plugin/Wed, 16 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/10/bundling-project-dependencies-with-the-shade-plugin/The Maven Shade plugin bundles all dependencies into a single fat jar — handy for deploying libraries into Drools Guvnor or running self-contained FitNesse fixtures.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/01/a-web-service-powered-by-spring-and-drools/Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/01/a-web-service-powered-by-spring-and-drools/A reference project wiring Spring and Drools without the heavyweight KIE integration — hand-cranked and straightforward.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/01/a-bigdecimal-accumulator-for-drools/Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/01/a-bigdecimal-accumulator-for-drools/Drools&rsquo;s built-in sum accumulator silently converts BigDecimals to doubles. A custom accumulator to fix that before it corrupts your financial calculations.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/01/getting-the-latest-snapshot-from-sonatype-nexus/Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/01/getting-the-latest-snapshot-from-sonatype-nexus/A Ruby script to parse the Nexus REST API and reliably fetch the latest snapshot artifact, sidestepping the timestamped filename problem.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/01/multiple-databases-with-spring-data-repositories/Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2013/01/multiple-databases-with-spring-data-repositories/Configuring a Spring application with two separate data sources using Spring Data JPA — separate @Configuration classes and EntityManagerFactory beans for each schema.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2011/05/playing-around-with-apache-camel/Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2011/05/playing-around-with-apache-camel/First impressions of Apache Camel for implementing Enterprise Integration Patterns — a content-based router and a CSV-to-XML transform with almost no code.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2008/04/weblogic-scripting-tool-scripts/Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2008/04/weblogic-scripting-tool-scripts/Useful WLST resources and Gist examples for scripting WebLogic domain creation and server administration.https://stephen-masters.github.io/2007/02/weblogic-scripting-tool/Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/2007/02/weblogic-scripting-tool/BEA&rsquo;s Jython-based scripting tool for automating WebLogic server administration — create domains, manage deployments, and handle disaster recovery without restarting.https://stephen-masters.github.io/about/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/about/<p>I&rsquo;m a software developer and architect. For the last fifteen years I&rsquo;ve been building systems for places that move things around — energy grids, commodity trading desks, settlement banks. I&rsquo;ve shipped a lot of Java and a fair bit of regret.</p> <p>This blog is where I write the post I wish I&rsquo;d found three days into a problem. Long-form, no clickbait, no SEO games. I post irregularly but I&rsquo;m trying to be better about that.</p>https://stephen-masters.github.io/feed/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://stephen-masters.github.io/feed/