Peter Havercan's miscellania

I retired in 2011 from a job as a mainframe software developer. My employer called me a software engineer, but I preferred to think of myself as an artisan computer programmer.

Since I retired from full-time work, I've had a chance to work on some interesting projects. Here is a hotchpotch of links to some of them.

Computing

Even after leaving work, I continue to be enthusiastic about computing, both coding software and writing about it.

• My favourite editing tools. You can't get far in software without some decent editing tools. These are the ones I use.
• Java security setup for Windows 7. Browser based Java programs (a.k.a. applets) are now so heavily secured that it now seems almost impossible to execute them. This article might help.
• Preparation of the ShowCircle and ShowSphere Java programs. This is really a bug report that I submitted to Oracle (without response). It compares developing for Java Swing 2D graphics and JavaFX 3D graphics. It is also a useful guide for how to construct and deploy JAR files into a JNLP environment.
• Configuring the Synology NAS for SSH. A step by step description of how to install SSH on a Synology DiskStation.
• Configuring the Synology MailServer. Work in progress, very incomplete.

Secure Sockets Layer

Installing and maintaining SSL on CICS occupied a great portion of my working life. I thought I understood it then, but since retiring, I've been able to study it more deeply.

• A plain person's guide to Secure Sockets Layer. A comprehensive description of all the components of SSL.
• Adding private SSL support to a Synology server.

Mathematics

I have always enjoyed Mathematics, and studied it at University, but didn't pursue it in depth after I discovered computing. I am now catching up again, post-retirement. Here are some interesting topics at a level of secondary school maths.

• The parabola and the simple quadratic equation. Graphical identification of the coefficients, in a Java applet.
• Geometric visualisation of the vector scalar product, in a Java applet.
• Geometric visualisation of an Elliptic Curve, in a Java applet.
• Solving the cubic equation.

Genealogy

We have been investigating our family tree since long before our retirement. The research results are recorded here.

• The Havercan-Louttit family tree
• The Furnivalls of Sandbach

Our Holiday Home

We bought our holiday cottage in North Wales as a holiday destination, and we also rented it out to visitors. But keeping it in tip-top condition was a project in itself, which we reluctantly ceased in May 2018. Until then, I maintained a website promoting its virtues, which is now closed down, but there is an archive copy of it in the Wayback Machine:

• 5 Cae Glas, Dwygyfylchi, Conwy — Self-catering holiday cottage in North Wales

Favourite quotations

Many famous people are associated with famous aphorisms. Here is a list:

• My favourite quotations.
• A few of my favourite poems, remembered from schooldays.

• St Edward's College Magazine, 1959-1960. Nuclear Physics [Page 266]. My first school magazine article.
• St Edward's College Magazine, 1963-1964. Symbolic Logic [Page 429]. Another school magazine article.
• Subsystems for All. An article on MVS subsystem interface, written when I worked at Daresbury Laboratory (1983).
• Articles on the MasterTerminal CICS blog.
• Peter E Havercan, Inventor. My meagre patent history.
• Taking CICS Web Support to the next level.
• Taking CICS Web Security to the next level.
• New CICS support for Secure Sockets Layer.
• My Facebook page.
• My Twitter account.

Here are some links to sites that are not authored by me, but reflect some of my interests.

• VTOCLIST. A write-up by Jay Moseley about a utility program I wrote in the early 1970s for listing the Volume Table Of Contents of mainframe disks. It is now recommended for Hercules users.
• Securing Access to CICS. The continuing story of CICS Security after I left the development team. [Archived]
• Let's encrypt. A new, widely trusted, certificate authority. It’s free, automated, and open.
• No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto. A mathematical epiphany realising that most of the mathematical literature since Euler has got it wrong about the constant π (pi).
• Position is Everything. Informal guide to CSS style sheets and layout problems with older browsers. [Archived]
• Readability score. Measures the ease of readability of a piece of text or web page, using various readability indices. This now redirects to readable.io, which is chargeable, so see below.
• Readability Test Tool. Not quite as comprehensive as readable.io, but it is still free of charge.
• The Corbyn Project. Jeremy Corbyn's Peace & Justice campaign.
• Skeptical Science. Debunking climate change denial.
• Thoughtscapism. Science blog by Iida Ruishalme.
• Radiation and Reason. Wade Allison's website.
• Energy from Thorium. Safe and efficient nuclear energy.
• New Horizons – NASA's mission to Pluto and Arrokoth. The final frontier.