Fuzzy Egg Sandwich

I have somehow become a legend in my home for my egg sandwiches. My belated Christmas present to my readers is the recipe. You of course will not be able to replicate exactly, but you can try ;)

1. One pad of butter to the frying pan (lowish heat)
2. One organic egg cracked open to the frying pan (sunny side up) - cover
3. 2 pieces of Dave's Killer Bread to the toaster
4. When toast is done, egg is generally done. Turn off heat to egg
5. One slice of Horizon Organic Cheddar Cheese to the top of the egg - cover
6. As the cheese is melting (1 minute), start the toaster again to maintain crucial bread-heat-ratio
7. Remove egg and place on one piece of toast
8. Place ample amounts of hot sauce (either Marie Sharp's Habanero or Bali Spice Hot Chile Sauce) on the other side of toast
9. Put hot sauce side on top of the egg side
10. Slice in half
11. Hand out to your family / devour
12. Bask in the glory of your egg-sandwich-making-prowess

Remember the Milk = Neat

People who have worked with me may remember me getting all excited about various task management approaches. I liked Getting Things Done and other techniques before that.

I typically go through phases of being very organized & very disorganized as I'm in various states of work flow/learning levels. Well I'm in an organized state right now as I have a lot to do for CSI and am learning at a high rate (Ruby, JRuby, the Rails way, etc).

I saw on somebody's del.icio.us a link to Remember the Milk. I remember hearing about it from Jive's Bill Lynch in the spring.

I gave it a try the other day and am pretty happy with it so far.

Here is why:

• You can have as many lists as you want. Categories don't work for me.
• It can IM you when things are due
• It has an offline mode with Google Gears
• It works well with my phone
• You can email it tasks - for instance I was on a plane yesterday and I mailed it like 20 tasks. I categorized them today
• You can render it by URL (like Evolution's task manager)
• Very searchable
• Integrates your task lists into views across them well

Time will tell if I stick with it, but so far so good on Remember the Milk.

Update 30-DEC

I forgot to mention perhaps the best part: Keyboard Shortcuts.

Changing the rules of enterprise software

I had a good conversation with Matt Asay yesterday about open source moving up the stack & CSI. I got to know him a bit over the last few years via blogs, OSCON, OSBC, & Alfresco. He's a lot of fun to talk to about open source & everything else.

2008 is going to be an exciting year.

Starting to think about 2008 Predictions

I had fun making some predictions last year.

I plan to do the same thing this year in a week or so.

It is a bit funny looking back at what I thought for 2007.

I was spot on for some of it, but way off for others. I voted with my feet with one of them ;)

Recruiting == Lots of Work

One of the things that I like to think I'm good at is putting together lethal software teams.

Whenever I have had the opportunity to build a team, it consumes me entirely until the team is in place. My logic is you can't do jack until you have the team. Once you identify the need for people, there is no priority that is more important than getting the best people you can find.

I think I'm close to being done for this round, but I suspect we'll be doing a lot of hiring in the future.

Stay tuned.

I hope that this round is nearly over. Although I like putting together teams, it exhausts me.

JRuby Book

I read Practical JRuby on Rails Web 2.0 Projects: Bringing Ruby on Rails to Java over the past couple 2-3 days.

It is a pretty good book. It was released in September and is already a bit out of date. JRuby & the Ruby world in general seem to move pretty fast.

The topics I liked the best were:

• Nuts & bolts of Java & JRuby integration
• Talk of REXML limitations and the (nice) option to just bang out to the multitude of Java XML APIs should you need extra features
• JRuby & JMX
• JRuby & MOM (Message Oriented Middleware) - ActiveMessaging

After reading it and messing with JRuby a bit, I'm more certain of what I thought in May (ok I didn't say that exactly & I've lost track of Scala - focus on the JVM :) ).

There clearly is a very bright future for Ruby in general & in particular Ruby on the JVM.

What (obviously) makes JRuby + Java so compelling is:

• There is a Java API for *everything*. I hope to stay in Ruby code as much as possible, but it sure is nice knowing that the APIs I have been using for the past 10 years are easily available
• The majority of companies run Java in their data center & are very comfortable deploying to it. Many are also not comfortable adding platforms (e.g., C Ruby)
• The JVM has had a tremendous amount of engineering put into it
• Ruby is a fantastic language that truly is a joy to work with
• Ruby has heaps of momentum & enthusiasm behind it

Job Opportunity

Please contact me if you are interested & have the skills (mike at-sign csinitiative dot com:

Collaborative Software Initiative

Web application developer(s) to join an all-star team building a high quality, commercial open source, platform neutral, public health application utilizing state-of-the-art FOSS tools. This is an opportunity for a self-starting individual to participate in a ground-breaking effort that combines non-technical subject matter experts with skilled professional developers in a major, well-funded, open source community and project.

Job Details

Reports to: Project Program Manager

* Compensation: Salary & Benefits or Contract

* Location: North America work from home (if out of Portland, OR) with occasional US travel

Responsibilities

* Develop high quality test cases and application code

* Contribute to release planning, iteration planning, and retrospectives

* Communicate clearly via strong oral and written communication skills

Technical Skills

Required

* Ruby

* Java

* Testing frameworks

* Relational databases (Postgres experience preferred)

* XHTML

* Javascript

* CSS

* XML

* Ajax

* Linux

Desired

* JRuby

* RESTful Web Services

* Java GUI / Java Web Start / Eclipse RCP

* Systems integration

Methodology

* Open Source Software Development Best Practices

* Lean Software Development / Agile

* Test Driven Development

Update 11-DEC-2007 I got several questions on preference of Ruby vs. Python. Ruby is the preference. To make that clear I removed Python and Jython. Sorry for the confusion. I also added systems integration as there will be a fair amount of that as well.

Rails 2.0 - gem install actionwebservice

I'm kicking it in Sunriver before starting full time at Collaborative Software Initiative Monday.

Rails 2.0 is out.

From the link:

ActionWebService out, ActiveResource in

It’ll probably come as no surprise that Rails has picked a side in the SOAP vs REST debate. Unless you absolutely have to use SOAP for integration purposes, we strongly discourage you from doing so. As a naturally extension of that, we’ve pulled ActionWebService from the default bundle. It’s only a gem install actionwebservice away, but it sends an important message none the less.

Take that WS-* !!

Next Chapter

I am going to start the next chapter of my career at Collaborative Software Initiative.

As I get my feet under me there in the coming weeks I'll say more about it.

I have had a fantastic time in my current position & have learned a ton. I have worked with wonderful & brilliant people. Leaving is definitely bittersweet.

But this opportunity is where my heart is. I am passionate about open source and more specifically open source in vertical markets & government.

You only live once & you only get a shot at fulfilling your dreams a couple times. When opportunity knocks you must jump with both feet.

Wish me luck.

Ubuntu Thinkpad

I spent part of my evening installing Ubuntu on my new Thinkpad.

The download of Ubuntu went fine. Burning a CD/DVD took 6 tries!

After that, though, it was smooth sailing. Ubuntu found my wireless network & prompted me to install the proprietary NVIDIA driver for my graphics card.

Yay.

Disconnected Client Alternatives

I want to build a *simple* cross platform fat client application. It will allow users to enter data while disconnected and then upload it to a server when they have a connection.

I'd prefer not to use Java (black magic) or AIR (not ready?).

I'd prefer to hurt the web as little as possible (i.e., the more web technology in it the better for skills transfer)

I'd prefer it to be open source.

I'd prefer to not have to hire specialist ninjas to be able to build it. Every day web programmers should be able to get up to speed with it.

What are some good choices?

XUL? Mozilla Prism (some day)? Google Gears?

Update - Nov 27

This post got some helpful comments - thanks! And a nice post from Erik Onnen - thanks! There is much love for AIR. I went to the Adobe Bus Tour and generally like Adobe. The proprietary nature of it is tough pill to swallow - opening Flex was a step in the right direction, but I'd like to see more more more.

Release It!

What Steve Vinoski said:

Release It! is truly excellent.

REST UML Drawing

Nice REST UML drawring style by Benjamin Carlyle.

Kenny and Zukes

I went to Kenny and Zukes yesterday. I had a pastrami sandwich. It was freakishly good.

Erik Onnen claims it is better than NYC. I have to (gasp) agree. Dang good. And right down the street from me. Yum.

RESTful Web Apps

Nice post by Matt Raible on RESTful Struts. One thing Matt, code gen is a bug ;)

I have been thinking about this for a couple 2-3 weeks. How do you build apps that are apps and RESTful services vs. building an app and then a RESTful service bolt-on-side-car?

Pete Lacey had a nice demo with a Ruby on Rails demo of this type of thing last week.

I find it really entertaining that more and more people are having the REST light bulb go off in their heads. It is like - wait! I have been hurtn' the web for how many years!?!? You mean it could be this simple and I can have all this reliable, scalable, security booya because the web works so well? Holy s%*#!!!!

Java based Atompub Options

I know of the following Java based Atompub impls:

• Apache Abdera
• Atomojo
• Rome Propono

The Restlet folks have also talked of implementing basic Atompub support which is appealing.

Am I missing any other impls?

Anybody have any happy experience with these or other impls?

We looked at several a couple 2-3 months ago, but all have changed since then.

QCon REST

I had a great time at QCon Connecting SOA and the Web: How much REST do we need?.

The presentations / discussions were great. I learned a couple new things. It was definitely the best conference I have been to in a long time.

Having dinner with Dan Diephouse, Stefan Tilkov, Steve Vinoski, Sanjiva Weerawarana, Pete Lacey, Glen Daniels, Jim Webber & Patrick Logan was also a lot of fun. I have known many of them virtually for a long time. It was nice to talk in person and share some great laughs.

Stefan Tilkov - REST Talk

Good stuff.

Ducks

For whatever reason I stopped watching sports when I moved to Oregon 6 years ago. I think it was because I started getting into my own sports more here (fly fishing, hiking, biking) & it was hard to see the teams I liked on TV here.

I have followed Oregon State and Oregon a little bit, but not very much.

Yesterday was the first time I felt myself becoming a Duck Fan.

My dad called me from the Michigan - Michigan State game to report that Michigan State was coming back - I was watching the Oregon game completely unaware. I grew up a fairly big Michigan State fan.

I think that the fact that Oregon is doing so well is a big part of my interest. But as I make more and more Oregonian friends (who are fanatics for Oregon), I find myself caring a bit more. It is funny how the longer you live somewhere the more it feels like home.

That Dixon dude is ridiculous - very exciting QB to watch. I hope his knee isn't canned.

Update PS. I am still very sad that Michigan beat Michigan State. I hate it when MSU loses to Michigan or Notre Dame.

PM

Good stuff on Project Managers & Project Administrators by Dave Christiansen. He links to Are you a leader or a tracker? by Scott Berkun.

See also Dave's post on The Meaning of Rigor in Project Management