Saturday, July 08, 2006

Really Getting Into Flickr

I have had a Flickr account for ages... but finally started to really use the thing. You can check out all of my photos here. Many of them are great visuals to go along with the many posts I have put here.

Monday, May 22, 2006

JavaOne SF 2006

JavaOne 2006 is now over... phew. What a wild ride!

The Java Posse was a great hit this year, and we met a lot of folks that listen to our podcast. It was really fun for us to get the live feedback that folks appreciate what we've been doing. Wow. I guess a whole lot of folks fill their spare time with our geek-speak.



Dick ordered some crazy-ass hats for us to wear and they really added to the ambiance of our BoF (Birds of a Feather) session. Folks really got a good laugh out of them, and apparently one person liked them so much that Tor's was stolen right off of his head! At least it happened at the bar after our session - and not during the session itself! Of course, perhaps that would have been even funnier...

I'm getting back into the swing of things here at work... so back to the grind. Long live the posse.

Friday, May 05, 2006

TopCoder Open 2006

Hello folks... long time no talk.

I am at the 2006 TopCoder Open in Las Vegas. The Java Posse was invited to attend the conference and record our podcast here live. Well, semi-live. We still have to mix audio and upload. The recording part is live, however - which come to think of it is always live. I am also here on official Apple business doing recruiting for the online Apple Store.

This competition is crazy. There are two tracks of the competition, component design and algorithms. The design competition has a much longer lead time - several months before the finals, so the "finals" are really just design review and appeals. The algorithms competition is a total pressure cooker. The competitors have an hour to code up solutions to a set of tough problems while the audience watches. At the end, they have a "challenge phase" where they get to bang on eachothers' code and steal (or lose) more points. Then a system test runs on the code and the winner is determined.

These folks are really hard-core. Impressive.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Testing Blogger Widget

This was entered using the new Blogger.com supplied Mac OS X widget.  Hopefully it works correctly...

Sunday, February 12, 2006

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

I went to the pebble beach pro-am golf tournament today courtesy of my friend Steve Rossi who scored free tickets. I really enjoy golf, but have never been to a pro event as a spectator (or otherwise, of course). We saw a bunch of crazy good golfers swing their clubs and whack their nuggets. We also saw a lot of people will a rediculous amount of money. Wow. Pebble Beach is a rich place.

Afterwards, we went to the Hog's Breath bar in Carmel (owned by Clint Eastwood) and had a drink. Good times! I swear that Monterey/Carmel is the most beautiful place in the world.

Monday, January 23, 2006

JavaPosse 027

I participated in my first regular Java Posse newscast this weekend. The results just got posted today! Have listen to the latest Java Posse podcast!

99.8 degrees and counting...

The seasonal sickness has strutted onto the scene... this time around it consists of a very nasty head-cold and a dizzying fever. I get sick very rarely, but I think the mass exposure at MacWorld a few weeks ago took down several of my co-workers. Now it's spreading around... Uuuugh.

In (almost) the words of Dave Chapelle: "My head is strong!"

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Excellent Interview of Bill Goggin from TopCoder

On today's Java Posse PodCast, there is a great interview of Bill Goggin from TopCoder. He makes some really good points about component-based development, and how the market seems to be burning a lot of time developing frameworks instead of creating individual components. I couldn't agree with Bill more! There are so many frameworks out there, most of which have a somewhat closed (or at least limited) component set. It would be *far* better for Java and the market as a whole to focus on building individual components in *one* framework.

That would be one *standard* framework, of course. There isn't a single standard component framework for Java web applications at the moment - but the closest to standard is clearly JavaServer Faces. I'd like to see folks focus on making JSF components to flesh out the component marketplace. The .NET side of the fence has a huge head-start in that they have a single unified framework that works for desktop, web, and mobile. Their marketplace is already flooded with thousands of usable components that you can download and use to get your work done quickly!

Java is sooooo behind in this space!

Monday, January 16, 2006

Joining the Java Posse

This weekend was a very special one for me. I got to spend Friday evening with some great friends that I have worked with for many years (though not currently). I had dinner (and drinks) at my good friend Carl Quinn's house. Joining us were Tor Norbye and Dick Wall.

Up to today, Carl, Dick, and Tor made up the Java Posse - which is a very popular PodCast on Java technology. We had talked for a long time about me possibly joining the Java Posse - but I was working at Sun (with Tor), and they didn't think it would be good to have too much Sun representation on the Java Posse. Well... I'm at Apple now, so it's open season! We recorded the 25th (silver) episode of the Java Posse together that night, and I will be joining the Posse as a full-fledged member from now on. I am very stoked!

Long live Java! Long live the Posse!

Monday, January 02, 2006

Happy New Year

Hey folks...

Happy New Year! I spent New Year's Eve with good friends and all of their screaming kids! It was actually really fun! It is hard to believe how much energy little kids have. We even piled the kids into the hottub outside around 1am. Eventually they burned out and dropped like flies. Night night kiddies!