Monday, August 20, 2007
Photoset from Germany
I've uploaded the pictures from the Germany trip. Dumb flickr has a 200 picture limit, but I think all the recent trip pictures are still visible. Note that most of the pictures were taken with my iPhone.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Back in germany
I enjoyed seeing Paris, truly I did. Yet I left early to return to Germany. I simply enjoyed Germany more. I'm back in Frankfurt now and have enjoyed wandering around the city. This town certainly has the buildings. It reminds me a lot of wandering around the business district of San Francisco. Lots of tall and new buildings. Lots of glass. Hope they don't get an earthquake here anytime soon.
Paris was good. I saw Le Louvre and Mona - she was the main attraction, yet there were far superior paintings in my humble (and totally uneducated) opinion. What wasinteresting was to see how may people were packed in front of her. Of all the exhibits she drew the most.
I also wandered around the streets and stopped at shops. The coffee was great and though there were rude and impatient people (like most of the drivers) I found the people charming. The waiter at one of the shops moved so quick I hardly saw him. I asked for a coffee and he was gone before I could ask for a menu. He dropped my coffee off while I was looking the other way and was gone by the time I tuned. A minute later I was wondering if I would need to hunt him down to pay and turned and my bill was sitting on the table - when he came with it I don't know. He didn't bring it with the coffee. It reminded me of the butler in that Garfield movie (woosh).
I'll upload pictures later. The iPhone won't work (for some reason) with the wireless in this cafe. Oh, and speaking of iPhone: if you travel by train from Paris to Germany - be sure to turn off and back on your phone. It won't automatically find the new carrier...
Paris was good. I saw Le Louvre and Mona - she was the main attraction, yet there were far superior paintings in my humble (and totally uneducated) opinion. What wasinteresting was to see how may people were packed in front of her. Of all the exhibits she drew the most.
I also wandered around the streets and stopped at shops. The coffee was great and though there were rude and impatient people (like most of the drivers) I found the people charming. The waiter at one of the shops moved so quick I hardly saw him. I asked for a coffee and he was gone before I could ask for a menu. He dropped my coffee off while I was looking the other way and was gone by the time I tuned. A minute later I was wondering if I would need to hunt him down to pay and turned and my bill was sitting on the table - when he came with it I don't know. He didn't bring it with the coffee. It reminded me of the butler in that Garfield movie (woosh).
I'll upload pictures later. The iPhone won't work (for some reason) with the wireless in this cafe. Oh, and speaking of iPhone: if you travel by train from Paris to Germany - be sure to turn off and back on your phone. It won't automatically find the new carrier...
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Webkinz are fun
My son jumped on the Webkinz bandwagon. Actually, I finally bought him one after trying to keep him away after having other parents tell me it was like crack for their kids. As a one-time EverQuest II player, I totally understand.
I also have my own webkinz per Blake's request. Actually, it's a neat environment. Here's my room so far:
We've planted gardens: Blake has harvested his tomatoes:
Froggie's gonna be eating some nice juicy tomatoes. That's "Puggie" next to him.
My garden's coming along too. I already harvested a Pumpkin but didn't capture a pic.
It's a pretty neat business idea. Take a 50 cent stuffed animal, partner with a software environment and sell the animal for $12-14. The software is all flash and mostly pretty simple, but neatly designed for kids. It's safe since there is no possibility of free-form chat communications. (I guess they had it initially but have closed that area.) It crashes sometimes and Blake has a plant floating in space and can't move it. But over all, pretty neat. It's sort of a Second Life type of environment, but on a much smaller scale.
I also have my own webkinz per Blake's request. Actually, it's a neat environment. Here's my room so far:
We've planted gardens: Blake has harvested his tomatoes:
Froggie's gonna be eating some nice juicy tomatoes. That's "Puggie" next to him.
My garden's coming along too. I already harvested a Pumpkin but didn't capture a pic.
It's a pretty neat business idea. Take a 50 cent stuffed animal, partner with a software environment and sell the animal for $12-14. The software is all flash and mostly pretty simple, but neatly designed for kids. It's safe since there is no possibility of free-form chat communications. (I guess they had it initially but have closed that area.) It crashes sometimes and Blake has a plant floating in space and can't move it. But over all, pretty neat. It's sort of a Second Life type of environment, but on a much smaller scale.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
It's all good...wasn't it?
I had lunch recently with a a former co-worker. Nice guy. We used to have laughs and (as I recall) he was a pretty good developer. He's on the hunt for a new gig these days, hoping to capitalize on the hot job market. (Too bad he wasn't a Java developer - I get a lot of those emails.)
Trouble is, he's got this dark cloud following him around. I had forgotten that about him, and was reminded that he wasn't only a "half empty" sort, but that he seemed to be hooked on bitching about the company he worked for. Even after we left our company (they went under) he bitched about it, and about the new one he worked for. The market was bad back then, so he hated that he had to work for a company that didn't really match his tastes. "Leave" I'd say. Can't he'd say. I think he just liked that there was so much to complain about.
That got me thinking about the places that I've worked since landing here in Atlanta some 9 years ago. Most are out of business, which is why we left. Most had a pretty good idea, and some really great people. The business world is just like that. Timing is everything. Marketing has got to be superb. Your product has to reach right to where your target market itches. Luck helps too. They were pretty good companies, and most of them were a lot of fun. Sure, we worked major hours at most since they were startups, but I loved the rush of trying to beat the challenge; to rush trying to do the impossible. Did we fail? Naw - we just ran out of money usually. Like Vince Lombardi - never lost, just ran out of time every now and again.
Maybe this is like the romantic memories of former lovers. We forget about the little things that annoyed us and remember the good times. "Why'd I ever break up with her?" Well, there were good reasons, but mostly we remember the good times.
I remember the late night discussions over a white board nurturing a cup of coffee. I remember the debates over the best approach to solving a problem. I remember the ping pong games, the softball leagues (dead last, generally), and the rollerblading. I remember the Unreal Tournament sessions, blowing your friend's head off. I remember the euphoria when we accomplished what "they" said was impossible.
I feel sorry for my friend. It's much more fun to remember just the good and forget all the dull stuff. Selective memory really comes in handy in this case. How will we remember our current company? There's bound to be problems; but gather up the great things and turn your perspective to how you'll remember it 5 or 10 years from now, and it'll be a pretty good time. Hopefully we won't go out of business. Hopefully we'll actually accomplish the impossible. Hopefully I'll forget the little things that trip up some days. It's all good...
Trouble is, he's got this dark cloud following him around. I had forgotten that about him, and was reminded that he wasn't only a "half empty" sort, but that he seemed to be hooked on bitching about the company he worked for. Even after we left our company (they went under) he bitched about it, and about the new one he worked for. The market was bad back then, so he hated that he had to work for a company that didn't really match his tastes. "Leave" I'd say. Can't he'd say. I think he just liked that there was so much to complain about.
That got me thinking about the places that I've worked since landing here in Atlanta some 9 years ago. Most are out of business, which is why we left. Most had a pretty good idea, and some really great people. The business world is just like that. Timing is everything. Marketing has got to be superb. Your product has to reach right to where your target market itches. Luck helps too. They were pretty good companies, and most of them were a lot of fun. Sure, we worked major hours at most since they were startups, but I loved the rush of trying to beat the challenge; to rush trying to do the impossible. Did we fail? Naw - we just ran out of money usually. Like Vince Lombardi - never lost, just ran out of time every now and again.
Maybe this is like the romantic memories of former lovers. We forget about the little things that annoyed us and remember the good times. "Why'd I ever break up with her?" Well, there were good reasons, but mostly we remember the good times.
I remember the late night discussions over a white board nurturing a cup of coffee. I remember the debates over the best approach to solving a problem. I remember the ping pong games, the softball leagues (dead last, generally), and the rollerblading. I remember the Unreal Tournament sessions, blowing your friend's head off. I remember the euphoria when we accomplished what "they" said was impossible.
I feel sorry for my friend. It's much more fun to remember just the good and forget all the dull stuff. Selective memory really comes in handy in this case. How will we remember our current company? There's bound to be problems; but gather up the great things and turn your perspective to how you'll remember it 5 or 10 years from now, and it'll be a pretty good time. Hopefully we won't go out of business. Hopefully we'll actually accomplish the impossible. Hopefully I'll forget the little things that trip up some days. It's all good...
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Java in 2007
As one of the first wave of neophytes - some would say acolytes - to tinker with Java it has a special place in my heart. It was the first language in modern times to incorporate some of the academic purity of Smalltalk in a pragmatic and useful way while retaining much of the syntax and approach of the familiar C++. It was/is a managed platform an as such operated as a sort of proving ground to the concept leading to .Net. For those first 5 years or so I grew to enjoy the language and see it perform wonderfully.
Unfortunately, the initial exuberance that led to cool applets and later to incomprehensible user interfaces wore off for many people as they started to realize that "write once" only meant once if you never intended A) any user interface code, and B) to run on a single platform. Portability was only marginally better than C/C++. However, as the months and years passed and with the introduction of 1.1 Java started to become a usable and productive platform.
I've spent the last several years mostly doing C#.Net (and still feel like I've had a 3 year affair with the houselady) and over the past several months wandered back into the Java fray. I've missed the much more "purist" and eclectic mentality of the Java development world. In C# you are playing in Microsoft's playground. While the Sun's and Weblogic's of the world have become the several hundred pound gorilla's in the Java world, they still do not have the leverage given the well-organized projects such as Apache, Eclipse and others. There is just too much freely available code for any one company to bully developers like Microsoft can (can you say Team Foundation Services and what happened to us smaller MSDN Universal subscribers?)
Speaking of well run projects I'm very impressed with Hibernate, Spring and JSF. These have leveraged well thought-out software techniques and have really put together productive and reliable platforms. While I had used Struts, I like the approaches Spring and JSF take much better. And Inversion of Control - why wasn't everyone developing in that way (many of us were).
I'm pleased and nostalgic with Java. Unfortunately my current employer (no offense if they're reading this) still has a mountain of C++ spaghetti, ASP and COM to endure. I fear that too many Microsoft based projects have simply not nurtured an appreciation for the development and design methodologies that have taken firm root in the Java world. Certainly they have not had the benefit of a wide variety of choices when considering how to solve the many common problems that arise in laying out a software architecture.
Java in 2007? Looking good. Looking good.
Unfortunately, the initial exuberance that led to cool applets and later to incomprehensible user interfaces wore off for many people as they started to realize that "write once" only meant once if you never intended A) any user interface code, and B) to run on a single platform. Portability was only marginally better than C/C++. However, as the months and years passed and with the introduction of 1.1 Java started to become a usable and productive platform.
I've spent the last several years mostly doing C#.Net (and still feel like I've had a 3 year affair with the houselady) and over the past several months wandered back into the Java fray. I've missed the much more "purist" and eclectic mentality of the Java development world. In C# you are playing in Microsoft's playground. While the Sun's and Weblogic's of the world have become the several hundred pound gorilla's in the Java world, they still do not have the leverage given the well-organized projects such as Apache, Eclipse and others. There is just too much freely available code for any one company to bully developers like Microsoft can (can you say Team Foundation Services and what happened to us smaller MSDN Universal subscribers?)
Speaking of well run projects I'm very impressed with Hibernate, Spring and JSF. These have leveraged well thought-out software techniques and have really put together productive and reliable platforms. While I had used Struts, I like the approaches Spring and JSF take much better. And Inversion of Control - why wasn't everyone developing in that way (many of us were).
I'm pleased and nostalgic with Java. Unfortunately my current employer (no offense if they're reading this) still has a mountain of C++ spaghetti, ASP and COM to endure. I fear that too many Microsoft based projects have simply not nurtured an appreciation for the development and design methodologies that have taken firm root in the Java world. Certainly they have not had the benefit of a wide variety of choices when considering how to solve the many common problems that arise in laying out a software architecture.
Java in 2007? Looking good. Looking good.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Mamma says...
Wonderful insights can be had simply by recounting an experience to someone with a pleasant sense of humor and terrific memory for movie lines. I'm convinced that all life lessons can be illustrated by some movie line. If it's been thought, there's probably a line in a movie that said it.
I was sharing how I felt my first couple of years in a public university after having been brought up in Seventh-day Adventist schools all my life. Schools, church, and home - that was where I learned about life and all that is. Enter real-world stage right and my perceptions of what is true is constantly in conflict with a world never was. I signed up for Anthropology 101 because everyone said it was as easy A. The first class brings the subject of an old Earth and evolution and I'm at the registrars office that afternoon dropping the class and switching to Biology 101 instead (a much harder class, that also talked about evolution...). Never mind all my misconceptions about religion and other denominations.
As my friend listened he started laughing and said that it sounded like...well, you'll see:
I was sharing how I felt my first couple of years in a public university after having been brought up in Seventh-day Adventist schools all my life. Schools, church, and home - that was where I learned about life and all that is. Enter real-world stage right and my perceptions of what is true is constantly in conflict with a world never was. I signed up for Anthropology 101 because everyone said it was as easy A. The first class brings the subject of an old Earth and evolution and I'm at the registrars office that afternoon dropping the class and switching to Biology 101 instead (a much harder class, that also talked about evolution...). Never mind all my misconceptions about religion and other denominations.
As my friend listened he started laughing and said that it sounded like...well, you'll see:
Friday, May 4, 2007
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