mjmeyer's blog

Agile Estimation & Planning with User Stories, Product Backlog and Release Management in Scrum | Mitch Lacey & Associates, Inc.

2009-05-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

I really need to revisit the campaign for getting our Project and Development Managers in tune and trusting the concepts behind Agile estimation.

It doesnt have to be as painful as it is today.

Agile Estimation & Planning with User Stories, Product Backlog and Release Management in Scrum | Mitch Lacey & Associates, Inc.

Anyone had any good experiences firms to help with education and adoption?

Trestle Table

2009-02-23T23:04:00.001-08:00

Since shortly before xmas I've been working on a Stickley inspired trestle table. It's coming along nicely and I managed to take a few photos along the way.

Gladys has been patient with my obsession over it and Miguel has been a big help and is now Chief shop-vac operator.

A few details about the table:
Quarter Sawn White Oak
Quadralinear posts
Floating key Wedged cross brace
Wedged tenons on trestle posts
Breadboard ends

[If anyone shows interest, I'll update this post sometime with notes and links to some things that helped me along the way.]

Going to need some finishing advice soon.

www.flickr.com

More of mjmeyer_2k2's stuff tagged with trestle

Where to place Unit Test source

2009-01-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

A subject of some debate around our shop lately is where unit test source should be kept relative to production source.

One camp believes the habits evident in tools like Eclipse and Maven where unit test code is in a completely separate directory than your application source is best.

I'm favoring the opinion that keeping the test source in the same location as the production code is preferable.

My primary reasons include:

- forcing the tests to be seen as first class elements. Not relegated to a special case.
- makes it impossible for someone to compile source from IDE and NOT compile the tests along with. (reduces broken builds)
- when viewing source by path, makes tests proximate and conveniently right next to the classes they test.
- supports refactoring. When you move a class due to refactoring it's all but impossible to forget to move the test along with it.

The drawbacks include:

- Some tools like Maven's default script and the create test features in IDEs like Eclipse assume a separate Test directory.

- The release build script needs to explicitly exclude the tests from compile.

Neither of these are significant to me relative to the benefits. Tweaking the build scripts for release targets to exclude test classes is trivial and the convienience tools to create tests in IDEs are rather anti-TDD in that they assume you have a class first to generate test from. Test infected devs should be creating test classes BEFORE the prod class anyway.

Here are a few links to others who have grappled with this question:

Project directory structure that facilitates all kinds of developer testing (Testing forum at JavaRanch): "functional"

Unit Testing Guidelines

Term Extraction Tools

2008-12-31T14:41:00.000-08:00

Revisiting my long dormant toy that uses analysis of song lyrics and Flickr or Google Images to do contextual visualizations. I have implemented a simple ti.idf frequency counter and am getting decent results but wanting for more. In this web 2.0 world maybe I should be looking for services to do this?

Consider:

Yahoo Term Extractor API
Topicalizer
OpenCalais
Alchemy

and mabye Wordnet for synonyms.

Also, possibly relevant is Echonest's colossal db of music metadata intended to spur research into music recommendation / discovery tools.

Why we Iterate

2008-12-17T23:24:00.000-08:00

The struggle continues. Faced with being increasingly outnumbered by PMI habituated and prediction minded project managers we've hired lately I'm returning to this question of why we iterate.

People are using the word. But too often not groking the motives.

We have things like 9 month long
efforts to build an internally deployed version of a currently external system being called an iteration. To me that's a whole other project or a "phase" but certainly not an iteration.

We have PM candidates that my peers are gushing about. I get asked to interview. I ask about things like how they think requirements work should progress in an iterative methodology. I get back ideas about getting tomes of requirements first and then planning iterations.

We have months long breadth first swipes through the requirements for a whole system being called an iteration along side plans for a second iteration to do "design".

We have business users insisting that it's pointless to test an incomplete system. "I dont want to see it until it's done".

We have directors asking for MS project plans in the first weeks of a project detailing how many iterations it will take and what will be done in each.

Seems like we have a future destined for many more failed projects and missed "estimates" before we start to figure this out.

I have dreams about some speech, presentation or as of yet un-conceived prop that will suddenly bring the idea home to folks. But in waking life am running thin on optimism that we can get this concept across and make it work.

So, maybe one more time I'll try to collect some nuggets of persuasion and contemporary thought about why emergent software planning is more healthy than predictive planning.

Maybe something will come of it.

Coding Horror: Boyd's Law of Iteration is a good summation of the detail in Roger Sessions' A better path to EA

The neglected practice of iteration Jeff Patton sends a reminder that software developers who neglect the practice of iteration will get caught either delivering poor quality software or delaying schedules in order to make time to iterate. We kick ourselves, or others, for not "getting [software] right up front" when we all know that the hardest part of software development is figuring out what to build. But there's hope, and it comes in the form of prototypes and frequent iterations

Good quip about devs not being the constraint From David Anderson's blog article Why We Lost Focus on Development Practices
In my Zen of Agile Management class, I teach participants about constraints. I then ask them, in a collaborative exercise, to speculate about the bottleneck in their organization and discuss how they would prove it and what they would do about it. In almost 3 years of teaching this class, over 4 continents, and around 12 occassions with groups ranging from 16 people to 250 people (at Javapolis in 2007), I have concluded that developers are the constraining factor on project and team performance less than 10% of the time. In some groups it is as low as 3%.

My belief around this is quite simple. Basic agile practices focusing on quality including collaborative working such as pair programming, and a strong focus on unit testing and early defect detection with continuous integration and test automation, have greatly improved software development to the point where initial software quality (i.e. bug insertion rates) is not the constraining factor on team performance. With immature teams, with sloppy development practices and poor initial quality (i.e. high defect insertion rates) development is the constraint. Agile has successfully fixed this!

So we can declare victory!

In this sense, the crowd who argue for a continued focus on better development practices are fighting the last war.

The rest of the community moved to other areas - most notably project management and business analysis / value-based software engineering. The community tends to get sucked to where the constraining problems are occurring. This is the natural and correct behavior. And it shows that many in the community interpret better ways of developing software in the broad sense rather than the narrow programming-centric sense.

Metaphors & Quips
OOPA - Observe, Orient, Plan, Act (or maybe P really should be Decide)
Shoot, Move, Communicate
Fail early and often.

YouTube - How to prepare for civil Unrest

2008-11-30T23:03:00.000-08:00

The classic imperitive of those predicting the impending police state is a call for citizens to acquire guns. To stock pile ammunition, water, dried food, and prepare to take up arms to defend your life and property.

YouTube - How to prepare for civil Unrest is a limp wristed example. (not recommending watching it, but if you must...)

I favor my right to own arms and think any reasonable person should have put some effort into emergency preparedness, whether from natural disater or civil unrest.

But I wonder if guns will be enough in the future some imagine. The inevitable outcome of dueling it out against the police, SWAT or some paramilitary group would almost certainly mean death...and probably little impact in the hearts and minds of other citizens.

The "offical" story would be told through the increasingly conglomerated and well sanitized media. Memories of Waco, TX would be invoked. You and your god would know you made a nobel stand. But that's about the end of it.

It has often surpised me that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanisan during this hyper-connected internet era have not produced some game changing privately submitted bit of video. Something that never would have made it past the media censorship or at least pushed the envelope.

Maybe it's there. Maybe I havent been paying attention. Maybe YouTube and its ilk are just so full of noise it wouldnt matter, or be credible, or would be taking down promptly.

We may have an option short of the last resort of taking up arms that the doomsayers havent quite got figured out.

How about Google Civil Disobedience as the next beta feature?

Many police cruisers have had video cameras for years. Following the tradition of the UK, the US is investing heavily in large scale surveilence systems in every major city. Good, or bad, one thing about these systems is that they are closed. They are not accessible by the public. The privacy arguments dont help here. It's one thing to have a duly authorized governement actor monitoring citizen activities and another to know anyone could be watching. Which is worse?

What if we all had our own google streetview cars? What if we had our homes wired with our own cameras? Millions of video capture capable PDAs and iPhones are out there.

What if these devices could regularly upload their content to a LimeWire-like distributed network of other citizens computers. Not one copy to one server, but to many private machines.

The owners of those private machines wouldnt be able to access the video. Some electronic equivalent of the "open this letter if something ever happens to me" would seal it from them.

It would remain sealed and private until either you released it, or perhaps didnt respond to some regular email tickle; "are you okay".

When things were okay, you could dispose of the video, use it for your next video scrapbook, or you might just set it to evaporate if nothing interesting happens.

Maybe you could set a group of friends who would be able to review your feeds before it went public?

The choice to make a last stand against tyranny is a deeply personal one I hope nobody has to face. Whether you take up arms or submit to their dominion, I think anything that can be done to increase the odds that someone will know what really happened is powerful.

So perhaps those out shopping for a new AR-15 will think about buying webcams and working out some ways to distribute feeds to trusted friends and patriots.

Back to the Blazer

2008-11-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

With the need to drive the blazer again as a daily driver (4 mile commute) and this weekend's focus on unfinished projects I came up with some need and nice to haves for the'71 Blazer.

Need

Fix front drag link

fix pass. side D44 hub seal

fix upholstery @ front seats

Bottle jack w/ saddle

Nice

Air Conditioning

custom cage / roof rack / soft top

lighten up rear rack / add tool mounts & hi-lift mont

interior bed boxes (side & floor)

jump seats intead of heavy suburban 3rd row

Rover Connection-Land Discovery Jump Seat

DAP inc

Two Inch Art Tiles

2008-11-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

Someday I'll get back to woodworking and to remind myself of that, I forced myself to take some time this weekend to clean up and re-organize the workshop a bit.

Among the unfinished projects I dusted cobwebs from I found a small jewllery box that is finished except for a 6" x 2" relief in the face I'd been planning to fill with some nice 2" art tiles.

I havent gotten around to finding the right ones as yet, but found these today.

Verdant Tile Co. - Two Inch Art Tiles

The coming RIA wars

2008-07-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

The thin vs. Swing wars are old news for us. We still keep reaching for desktop apps and mistakenly compare their merits vs. html or dhtml (ajax) clients.

RIAs are pretty compelling but frighteningly proprietry. I favored OpenLazlo for some time but am starting to see some apeal in Flex/Air.

This post is simply a catalog of good reads in the area. Cannon fodder, perhaps.

schematic » Flex Vs AJAX - How Forrester got it wrong

O2 unveils pedal-powered mobile charger - News at SmartPlanet.com

2008-07-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

O2 unveils pedal-powered mobile charger - News at SmartPlanet.com

I want to know more about the design. I think this would be fun to build.

A vending Machine for Crows

2008-06-16T00:12:00.000-07:00

Simply amazing in concept. He's trained captive crows to collect spare change. Now posits a device to train wild crow to do the same...and more! Forget the sharks with frickin laser beams! I scream for crow! [Beefheart] I've got an enourmous murder of crow here and am willing to bet that this wouldnt be taxable income! Joshua Klein, Mobile, Personal, and Future Technology Specialist

Iterative vs. waterfall software development: Why don't companies get it?

2008-06-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it seems my entire career as a software professional has been framed in this long suffering debate about development methodologies. I think I subscribed to the big planning, big requirements, big design upfront concept for a few early years. Eventually I noticed the soul crushing death marches, huge overruns, and scandalous politics so common to PMI/waterfall projects and nearly went back to law school.

It was my good fortune to work on several dot com startups and the works of Booch, Rumbaugh on UP and later Ambler, Beck and Fowler on agile approaches that convinced me that there was indeed a more profitable and humane way to produce software.

It worked well when the focus was on innovation and entrepreneurial ventures. When there was a mix of people focused and actually engaged in delivering product, not satisfying prediction. Once the companies dragged in a few too many investors and the obligatory sr. management that things started to come off the rails and the focus became, to my mind, too much focused on prediction, rigorous estimation, and unrealistic expectations.

Again I find myself in an organization struggling with how to manage the software process. In this case we are playing from a technical deficit and have a service orientation rather than a product orientation. We try to say yes to everything and often over commit and under deliver. We have the typical mix of middle management that has, to my mind, spent dangerously little time involved in the craft of software development and tends to see software as a manufacturing problem, not a creative one.

This debate will heat up in the coming months and I'm not sure I have the strength to fight it again. Scott Ambler once told me "You either change your organization or you change your organization."

This post is both a place for me to dmup some links and fodder for the coming discussions and a plea to anyone who's listening to chime in on which end of Ambler's paradox I should take up.

[]

Iterative vs. waterfall software development: Why don't companies get it? [Computerworld]

[]

The problem with waterfall methodologies is that they don't work all that well. Trying to create complete, perfect system specifications before you start any coding simply ensures you've wasted a bunch of effort, because once developers start coding, design flaws become evident and require that you revisit earlier stages.

Except that you can't, because that stage is complete and there's no budget for going back.

This isn't something that can be fixed by getting better at design and specification, because the more you try to design everything before you start coding anything, the longer the delay between requirements and production. That delay means some of the design "flaws" aren't flaws at all - they're changes that are the result of the future not looking exactly like the past.
[Infoworld: What "waterfall" means ]

[]

Perhaps not authoritative but a good bullet list of when iterative makes sense and a (shorter) list of when waterfall makes sense: [http://www.joisinc.com]

[]

Good, if cheesy, flash video contrasting Agile vs. Waterfall: [A Tale Of Two Teams]

[]

Good metaphors for incremental vs. iterative and some witty agilist thoughts: [agileproductdesign]

[]

Fabulous origins of "The New Methodology" by Fowler. Plainly lays out the motivations for agile & iterative.

[]

Ambler's rants about agile planning. Explains the problem with WBS, GANTT, PMI and MS Project.

Explains the schedule by value vs. task here:
Agilists typically schedule the development of requirements (user stories, features, use cases, ...) into iterations as the line items, not tasks such as design, test, .... For example, the line items of iteration 5 might be "Implement Search for Books", "Implement Search for DVDs", "Implement Process Mastercard Payment", and "Implement Capture Different Billing and Shipping Addresses" for an online e-commerce system. These line items would stretch the length of the iteration, I would trust the team to schedule the actual work appropriately and wouldn't go into any more detail in the project schedule.

[]

In the end, laughter might be necessary: waterfall2006

LM Remote KeyMap for Firefly PC Remote

2008-05-29T18:30:00.000-07:00

I have often been frustrated by the lack of config. for Firefly. Perhaps this will help?
LM Gestion : LM Remote KeyMap for Streamzap, Firefly, Firefly Mini, USB-UIRT, TechnoTrend or MCE PC Remote

Whole house audio/media

2008-04-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

I've been really happy with my Roku Soundbridge radio. Great management of fav internet radio stations, plays my mp3s and podcasts from iTunes running on my HTPC system. No, it doesnt play the Apple protected stuff since Apple wont license that to anybody. So I just say NO to DRM.

I'd like to add players in the kitchen, living room and back yard but not convinced of Roku's longevity with Logitech getting in the game with their acqusition of Slim Devices and the release of the Squeezebox Duet.

There's also competition from Sonos with a fairly expensive but robust multi-room offering.

So...which of these to consider? I like Roku but they seem to be lagging in features now. Sonos looks sexy with their controller and multi-room control. But spendy.

Then there's the fact that all of these are audio only solutions and fairly closed systems. With the Snapstream PVR and iTunes on the HTPC I might just as well build cheap toaster PCs for the barn, kitchen and living room.

Because Roku does it's internet radio favorites through a web portal I could access them from any PC with a browser. With a Snapstream BeyondTV client I'd be able to play recorded shows from the PVR and even access live TV.

Hmmm...choices. Audio only seems limiting.

Calais

2008-02-12T10:59:00.000-08:00

Reuter's new Calais API/service provides ontology generation for your docs. They tout it as a tool for the vaulted semantic web. This might be a worthwhile alternative to the simple frequency analysis I've been doing on my iTunes / Flickr mashup tool which presents a slide show of pertinent images from the lyrics of the now playing song.

java.net: Service Provisioning Through ESB

2008-02-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

java.net: Service Provisioning Through ESB

java.net: Exploring ESB Patterns with Mule

2008-02-04T22:01:00.000-08:00

java.net: Exploring ESB Patterns with Mule

Mule: A Case Study

2008-02-04T20:08:00.000-08:00

TSS has a good meaty write up on Mule ESB. Mule: A Case Study

We're planning an IBM MQ deployment to aid in some 15 or so ERP integration points and I'm pondering whether we should plan on an ESB now.

Are you this arrogant?

2008-01-29T19:41:00.000-08:00

Survey finds Apple users have sense of superiority from [Engadget]

Understanding art for geeks

2008-01-25T17:00:00.000-08:00

Understanding art for geeks - a photoset on Flickr

Very clever techie annotations on famous art works!

How to move rocks for landscaping?

2007-11-26T13:04:00.000-08:00

I still need to buy and move several tons of rocks to my backyard to complete some landscaping. I thought a wheelbarrow and lots of gatorade would suffice but I think this may help...or at least a scaled up version. Trebuchet.com

FARK.com

2007-11-02T18:42:00.001-07:00

Digg-like aggregator? FARK.com Not sure I get it, but did enjoy the trip. Afraid I've come back feeling a bit lost. These branded aggregators and social networks of the month have me feeling old.

Tools: T-N-T Multi-Tool

2007-10-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

...helps Firefighters Kick Ass and Break Stuff. I want one too. Maybe two. [ Gizmodo ]

Bluetooth headset? Bahhh!

2007-08-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

Who needs em?

via [Gizmodo]

Now that's a hardcore tat!

2007-07-26T23:34:00.000-07:00

This dude gets a BSOD message tat'd to his inner arm.
Windows: The Blue Screen of Death Tattoo on Gizmodo.

Gadget fetish

2007-07-26T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'm more than a little attracted to this thing. Crypto Hardware 4GB USB drive called the
IronKey

Steven R Kutcher - Bug Art - Gallery

2007-06-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

PVR's let you sample some wierd shit you wouldnt normally waste your time on. In this case I'm still not sure what I've got.

I use BeyondTV, a splendid PC based PVR (think Tivo in your PC). Every once in a while I get frustrated with my apathy to TV and decide there must be something worthwhile if only I was paying attention to what's on. I am a recovering History Channel burnout. At 500+ channels and a personal avoidance of most pop culture and all network TV it's tough to wade through the archaic TV Guide style listings of all that crap...but BeyondTV (like most PVRs) at least offers some decent searching and surfing options via the fast scrolling and ad free in-program listing guide. The web interface is handy too for scheduling remote recordings or taking a minute out of the day at the mill to do a quick search for something random to grab that might be worth a peek.

Yesterday I perused the guide for documentaries and made 2 quick selections. Random and Riveting on something called the Current TV network. And some George Stephanopoulos talk show I vaguely remember as passable for news.

I've only had it on in the background while while working but, Random & Riveting seems to be a collection of viewer contributed video pod casts with G4-esque hosts...(possibly backed by Google? Odd stuff. Some of it felt after school safe, but one random and local gem poped up.

A piece, hopefully self produced, on Steven R Kutcher's Bug Art

I think the Cat painting thing was sold out as the sham that it obviously was, but this is indisputable genius at work! He even has the PETA rebuttal planned!

Sadly, Current TV decided this is availble "only on TV". So much for convergence, eh?

I want my MP3 and Apple has me by the balls

2007-06-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

This DRM debacle is still annoying. I've resisted replacing my long defunct Creative Zen (circa 2000!) with a modern mp3 player for too long. It's an itch i havent scratched mostly due to a stubborn sense of principle and other questionable motives...but the itch persists and I'm in agony!

It should be an easy choice, right? Market and mind share leader is clearly the iPod. The upcoming iPhone (aka. jesus phone )is riding the shockwave of the market making and beloved iPod. So why not?

At a gut and possibly anti-social level, maybe I'm just plain freaked out by the popularity of the iPod. The consumerization of technology in the last ~10-15 years has really dumbed things down and we're not getting nearly what we could in just about any product area where there is such dominance. Add to this the hegemony and heritage of Apple's tight grip on their proprietary stuff and it adds up to a bad smell I'd rather avoid.

I call it practical, some say paranoid, but a feature I cant believe Apple hasnt bothered with yet is a simple FM tuner. It bugs me that all that comes out is what I put in. As my pal Tess says, it should be called a mePod...a cocoon you close around yourself and nothing comes in, except what you select. Sure, I like to hear my stuff...but if this is my personal media device and it's all I've got, how will I catch breaking news of the impending apocalypse? Radio, particularly public radio, connects me to so much local and contemporary stuff that my audio world would seem a hollow echoing space without it.

So, that brings me to the Zune, or some of Creative's new offerings? I'm close.

The bad news is, I've limped along with iTunes on my laptop long enough that I've succumbed to the impulse to grab a song here or an album there to the tune of some 300 songs. Currently there is no way to play these on anything without an Apple logo. The only way to move them is to burn them to an audio CD and rip them back in....oh, and somehow recreating all of the tag info. Bastards!

Hobbled as it is by Roku's inability to strike a deal with Apple to license DRM playback from a shared iTunes source, I still love my SoundBridge.

It'll play my Napster/Limewire era library and the stuff I've ripped but it only plays a fraction of the pod casts and none of the AAC protected files in my iTunes library.

Not being able to play my music/audio on devices not made by Apple annoys the hell out of me.

I thought there was some hope in the new iTunes Plus offering for DRM free music, but after upgrading to iTunes 7.20.35 and checking to see what it would cost to convert my library to DRM free I was horrified to note that only 5 songs were eligible for the $0.30 per song upgrade. Pitiful.

A few minutes hunting around in the FAQs to find out what the story was...Apple only says it's "because they have not been provided in iTunes Plus format from the music label." Lip service, if you ask me. I can see the mock sincerity in Jobs' shrugging shoulders as he approved this line.

My prediction is that Apple will sit on their DRM fortress until the iPhone takes off, and then likely announce an iPhone only streaming service or compression scheme...leaving the spoils of the static player to others to pick clean.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to find a virtual CDR driver to be able to pragmatically rip back what Apple forces me to burn while I scrape the tag info from whatever export nonsense iTunes might provide.

S3 Standby Done Right

2007-04-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

Good article at www.exoid.com on how to use S3 low power standby AND still keep file server /upnp access alive. The trick seems to be to use static IP, set BIOS to wake on LAN, and look for power management options on the net adapter config properties.

I'll have to try this on the HTPC vista rig I built recently. I have S3 standby running but do notice that the Roku SoundBridge and the Xbox 360 loose connection after sleep. Also, I havent yet tested to see if BeyondTV causes wake up before scheduled recordings.

Farecast | Airfare Predictions, Find Cheap Flights, Airline Tickets

2007-03-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

Very sweet analytics and visualizations of cheap airfare...bye bye Orbitz!

Many Eyes : Browsing Visualizations

2007-03-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

Many Eyes : Browsing Visualizations

Ted Sladowski's Voyageur Art

2007-01-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

I just finished a site for my uncle at Voyageur Art. Set him up with yahoo hosting and showed him a bit how to manage it.

I was confined to pure html/js and felt uncomfortable without some server side environment. I decided to stretch away from old and mostly bad habit of client side dev and commit to using pure CSS driven layout, no tables, no imagemaps, barely anything layout in the html.

I usually dont like client side development but this was something fun and a good excercise in learning more about CSS and some sane ways to use it. I spent a lot of time meditating over at CSS Zen Garden and brushed up on my photoshop skills a bit.

I found a really elegant little Firefox plug-in for debugging and tweaking client side code in Firebug. Wish I had found it earlier in the project!

Conservative Doubt?

2007-01-11T21:44:00.000-08:00

NPR's All things considered today had a sobering essay from Rod Dreher who I know nothing about but who's words captured well the horror and bewilderment I hope many convservatives are feeling today.

I wanted to email it to friends and family but couldnt find it published anywhere except as a paid transcript from NPR or audio at their site. It's worth a listen for free or a read, if you want to pay...

NPR Transcript: Bush, Iraq Lead a Conservative to Question: "Commentator Rod Dreher has been a conservative ever since he was a teenager. He came of age in the 1980s. A Generation X’er who never understood the Baby Boomer protest generation. Well, now on the cusp of turning 40, he's still a conservative, but he’s so dismayed at the way President Bush is handling the Iraq war, many of his prior beliefs have come into question,..."

2006 Rally X Cards - a photoset on Flickr

2006-12-28T00:36:00.000-08:00

moo.com, in affinity with Flickr, provides a unique photo printing twist.
They let you print sleek, tiny, glossy, little cards (about half a biz card) from your flickr photostream.

The genius part is you get 100 cards for ~$20 and its the same price whether you have them print 1 image 100 times or 100 images 1 time each. As many imgs as you like (2006 Rally X Cards - a photoset on Flickr

More Pummers

2006-12-20T17:39:00.000-08:00

I finished 5 pummers as gifts for co-workers and friends this xmas. Definately an evolution from the first to the last. I learned a lot and my soldering skills improved quite a bit. The first were done on printed circuit boards and then I managed to create a couple in the air and then the final one uses no wires connecting the IC but rod to bridge the pins. Very clean!

People seemed to appreciate them and they were plenty fun to build and give away. The nest is empty now, time to make some more.

More photos on flickr!

Dreamy Electric Sheep

2006-12-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

A co-worker turned me onto the nifty distributed rendering project called Electric Sheep which turns out really nice mpegs of wiggly screen savers.

Idle cycles on machines with the saver installed are used to render frames from submitted work. Renderings are stitched into mpegs and sent out to client machines.

Users can vote their favor which feeds back into the gene pool for alteration and future renders.

Very nifty stuff. It would be nice to see an infrastructure like this to do more useful computation of any time problems...like atmospheric modeling, attaching proteins to cancer cells, etc....but eye candy is good too.

My First Pummer

2006-11-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

Been playing around with making some BEAM robots as xmas trinkets for the few friends and family that would appreciate such things. I was inspired by a nice article in Make magazine about these kind of non-ambulatory bots.

Made plenty of mistakes and still have some tweaking to do but it turned out ok. The pic here is a bit old and doesnt show the final LED placement on the stalk. Have some other aesthetic things to add still.

It's been may years since I played with electronics and I have to say, I'm glad Im in software where things are easy to change without the risk of burnt fingers or the acrid smell of burning plastic. A found a good electronics reference by Tim Surtell at Electronics in Meccano that helped me know what was heat sensitive and how to orient some of the components.

I have enough parts to make 2 more and have seen some really amazing pummers others have done here. Ho Ho Ho!

machine project » Edible Estates

2006-10-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

machine project » Edible Estates. Great diatribe somewhat akin to reclaiming a kind of Victory garden.

I always thought cactus was a sensible and eco-responsible front lawn/easement design. Fried cactus anyone?

Good idea and I'm going to have to check out this Machine Project space.

About KrazyDad

2006-10-01T23:30:00.000-07:00

I think I took a Mac toolkit programming class from this guy around 1993 or so? Solid guy...I had tons of fun in that class. Nice to see what he's been up to.
About KrazyDad

I think he may live near me as well, judging by the density of pics taken in my neighborhood!

(courtesy of fabulous geotagging feature @ flicker)

Treeline Rally - Treeline 2006

2006-07-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

I volunteered as a timing control worker at the Treeline Rally - Treeline 2006 this past weekend. It was viciously hot but I was lucky to get an assignment on stage 1/6 which was mostly shaded and near a stream. The heat wasn’t so bad but the bugs sure were aggressive. Bug spray seemed to incite them more than repel them.

Worked with some cool people and got some great tips on co-driving and how to go about getting into that. I may try to take the training and get licensed sometime next year with a goal to do some co-driving by 2008.

Next rally cross race is July 29th at Glen Helen and then Volunteering again at the Gorman Ridge rally sometime in August.

Rally-X coverage in Press-Enterprise

2006-07-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

Some minor press coverage of the Glen Helen Rally Cross Event including some quotes from yours truly here PE.com | Inland Southern California | Sports | Recreation

Also some video coverage here

Glen Helen Rally Cross & new CRS standing

2006-05-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

Wooo Hoo! The Glen Helen rally cross event this past weekend was a fantastic time for me. I had put a lot of effort into preparring and made it out to some lake beds the weekends before to get some more seat time. It paid off nicely....3rd place finish in street stock class and 16th of 56 cars overall.

Good enough to earn me 100 points toward the California Rally Series championship in street stock and bump me up to first place in the standings.

One glitch in the organization at this event is that we never got to see our times until the next day. Four runs and no way to know if you were improving or how you were doing compared to the other drivers. Oddly, my morning runs were both the same time and my evening runs also the same, but 10+ secs better than the morning runs. Complete times for all classes are here: http://www.socalrallyx.com/

Next event is July 11th at Thunderhill in Willows. Going to be a loooong drive but I hear it's one of the best venues.

More photos up on my flickr site here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjmeyer/

Rim of the World Rally 2006

2006-05-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

I volunteered to work the Rim of the World Rally this past weekend in Antelope valley, CA. I worked the Service and Fueling areas, keeping cars on tarps, chasing fuel out of the public areas, and generally trying to do whatever I could to be helpful to the various ametuer and professional rally teams there to compete.

On sat I got to start cars on the Del Sur North stage and then man the stopwatch for the return run on the Del Sur south stage. We had 43 cars to start with 1 minute intervals and what a hoot it was to see them up close and be part of such a well organized event.

Functional vs. Unit tests

2006-04-03T14:13:00.000-07:00

Excellent article on JavaRanch Journal about Evil Unit Tests: clarifying some similar thoughts we've been having about functional vs. unit tests.

Ridgecrest RallyCross & 2006 Points standings

2006-02-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

Ran the Ridgecrest Rallycross this weekend. Being the first points event of the season the competition was a bit stiffer than the San Diego rallycross. Still, I ended up 4th and was very happy with my improvement in times.

I still need to push harder, left foot braking has improved quite a bit but I need to stay in the throttle more, look further down the track, and hang it out more.

Points standing for the California Rally Series Rallycross championship are here. I'm third right now and plan to stay in the street stock class for the season.

More pics

Final Results, #1 - Del Mar RallyX - January 20, 2006

2006-01-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

Final Results, 1st annual - Del Mar Rally Cross - January 20, 2006

I did go...and decided to run...and met some really cool and vastly more experienced drivers who helped me a ton.

First run was pretty scary on street tires but I got the feel for it and the track got quite a bit faster by the last run of the day.

I didnt think I hit a cone on the last run, but must have missed that info at the gate. An experienced driver told me "if you dont hit at least 1 cone today, youre not pushing hard enough".

Judging by the results, it seems that not hitting cones was key to my success.

Ended up with a 2nd place finish in the street stock class!!! Recouped my entry fee and had enough left over for a coffee!

Some shots from the event on flickr by Christopher Keach

...and a slideshow which has some actual pics of my runs here!

Next event is the CRS rally school and competition Feb 11 & 12 in Ridgecrest. Going to need to get some better tires before hand. Word was the BFG KDWS are a good way to stay street.

Four Star Motorsports

2006-01-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

Four Star Motorsports: "2002 Subaru group N Impreza STi Rally Car" for only $85K CDN...heh...only.

I think the build out is pretty reasonable. Not sure how the USDM 6 speed in the STi stacks up against the Spec "C" dogbox...but build vs. buy is an interesting puzzle.

Considering scrambling out to the San Diego Rally Cross event this weekend...might just spectate...limiting factors include:
- My helmet is expired! :-{
- rules seem to call for a 32mm restrictor on the STi!
- The RE070s are really going to suck in the dirt and even chasing some snow tires here in So Cal seems dicey.

Hmmm...maybe just grab a digicam and go spectate? Might go grab a helmet in case they have room for any fun runs!

Trestle Table

2006-01-15T23:58:00.000-08:00

Been planning to make a trestle table for my dining room. Rockler seems to have some slides specifically designed to allow extention leaves to be used at the ends of a trestle table.

See also pdf spec sheet

Other design ideas:

10x10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris

2005-11-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

Nice information visualization taken by montioring RSS feeds from various news sources and analyzing the content to find the top 100 words and representing them in a 10 x 10 grid of photos.

The www.tenbyten.org site has a nice flash control to render and navigate the content.

HubbleSite

2005-10-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Very nice galleries, vids, and other great Hubble shots at hubblesite.orgthat I ought to get onto my HTPC to compliment Celestia.

More extreme weather is predicted

2005-10-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

Purdue University scientists say extreme weather events, such as floods and heat waves, may increase in frequency and severity during the next century.

"The more detail we look at with these models, the more dramatic the climate's response is." - Noah S. Diffenbaugh, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, Purdue Climate Change Research Center.

"Critics have complained that climate models lack sufficient spatial detail to be trusted. In terms of looking at the whole contiguous United States, we've quadrupled the spatial detail and, as a result, it appears that climate change is going to be even more dramatic than we previously thought. Of course, we can never be completely certain of the future, but it's clear that as we consider more and more detail, the picture of future climate change becomes more and more severe."

Getaway, in the city

2005-09-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

James Irvine Garden, Little Tokyo

The James Irvine Garden in Little Tokyo tells a story that's worth hearing. But first you have to find the space, on a recessed plot at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo. Take the lobby elevator to the basement and walk through an institutional-looking hallway to the doors that open to the garden. The painstakingly landscaped Japanese-style sanctuary is hidden just enough so that it's often empty.

Cross its perfectly manicured lawn, traverse two wooden bridges and you'll discover the fountainhead. The spring represents "the immigrants coming from Japan," says Robert Hori, director of board and donor relations at the center. Then the stream divides.

"One path is a turbulent, chilly path, and the other moves slowly, contains more placid waters," says Hori. "These are the two sides of the immigration experience: those who saw Japan as their homeland, and those who saw this as their own country." In the end, the two streams merge into a pond that symbolizes the great American melting pot.

What's Your Brand Mantra?: Brand as Ecosystem

2005-08-31T01:09:00.000-07:00

What's Your Brand Mantra?: Brand as Ecosystem: "Right now we're focusing so much on the customer that we've lost sight of the big picture. When we focus on the customer, we see a person out there separate from us that we need to identify, label and categorize. "

"We need to move beyond a focus on a specific department (silo mentality) to a focus on the interconnections between individuals (system mentality). What are the most critical connections in your company? Why not have VPs over key connections instead of components?"

Teradata Magazine | IN THE BEGINNING: An RDBMS history

2005-08-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

Teradata Magazine | IN THE BEGINNING: An RDBMS history: "'SQL is no longer a language for real users, if it ever was,' says Date. 'It has become a developer's language.' "

Nice retrospective of the massive research effort going on decades ago to bring us SQL.

newsmap

2005-08-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Nice tree map view of the Google News aggregations here: newsmap .

Sandia National Labs:: Nonlethal weaponry-Active Denial System for security applications

2005-07-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

Sandia National Labs: News: Team investigates Active Denial System for security applications: Sandia researchers Willy Morse and James Pacheco fine-tune the small-sized Active Denial System.

Rumored to be ready for deployment in Iraq by 2006. What's that burning smell?

Disclaimer to view California's Registered Sex Offenders - Megan's Law - California Dept. of Justice - Office of the Attorney General

2005-06-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

"Legal and Illegal Uses. The information on this web site is made available solely to protect the public. Anyone who uses this information to commit a crime or to harass an offender or his or her family is subject to criminal prosecution and civil liability.

Any person who is required to register pursuant to Penal Code section 290 who enters this web site is punishable by a fine not exceeding $1,000, imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment. (Pen. Code, � 290.46, subd. (i).) "

A friend with limited internet access asked me to check their neighborhood. My first hits from Google were for PAID sites that give you a samle report for free but charge for a full report that puports to include photos! These are people who, while obviously convicted of the unthinkable, have been through the justice system...they served their time.

How does this help them, after hopefully being reformed by prision, return to try to become a functioning member of society?

What's the avergage rate of repeat offenses? Would the effort and money be better spent on treatment instead of simply incarceration?

Also spooky and confusing, the disclaimer for the CA offical site above seems to mean either:

A) that if youre on the registry, you are barred from using the web site ??

or

B) if youre supposed to be on the registry and, presumably, havent registered yet, you can go to jail for checking to see if you're already registered ???

Does this thing have an expiration, or are you forever to be listed?

A bizzare new flavor of FEAR.

Imagined conversations

2005-06-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

The Huffington Post | The Blog: "HP EXCLUSIVE: An Intercepted IM Conversation Between Bush and Blair"

43 Things

2005-06-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

43 Things.com: "What do you want to do with your life?" and who else is doing it. A global goal blog.

though...One thing is clear: The people posting their hopes, dreams and aspirations to 43 Things probably don't realize that they're effectively whispering them in the ear of the Web's biggest retailer, a multibillion-dollar, publicly
traded company.[Amazon]...from a Salon.com article archived here

PostSecret

2005-06-06T16:40:00.000-07:00

See a Secret...Share a Secret
at
PostSecret
What Are Your Secrets?

Real-Time Forecast of Earthquake Hazard in the Next 24 Hours

2005-05-18T22:58:00.000-07:00

USGS now provides Real-Time Forecast of Earthquake Hazards in the Next 24 Hours

Sharepoint blogging geeks

2005-04-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

"100,000 lines of SharePoint configuration (lists, sitedefs, etc.) and 100,000 lines of C# code...I'm just full of stupid little SharePoint giblets that I'll be sharing over the next few weeks"

crap...I may not be able to escape needing resources like this.

Victory for Censorship Tech

2005-04-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

RED HERRING | Victory for Censorship Tech

Hmmm...Censorship, eh? That's the boogeyman here. I kinda agree it's creepy in the artistic sense that ClearPlay (and others) will make a living "sanitizing" content for people who want to keep taking the blue pill.

The industry's response seems to be that of Copyright infringement. Arguing that ClearPlay has no right to alter the content from what the creator/copyright holder intended. Seems reasonable...if I produce something I expect it to get seen intact, not redacted the way someone else deems appropriate.

The Bill presumably comes from the spirit that the consumer has a right to protect him/herself from indecent content. That smacks of the moral majority and feels like Censorship.

But maybe thats not a bad thing. I wonder..are the rights it's extending to media consumers limited to indecency? How do we agree on exactly what parts of the content are indecent? The content producers dont label each scene with an MPAA rating...so the choice of exactly what to edit ultimately would have to be up to the consumer's preference and ClearPlay gives them the best decision points it can. But this Bill ought to mean the consumer can use whatever technology available to chop up Copyrighted content and view/play it how ever it wants to.

I might give Baywatch another chance, sans Hasselhoff.

Could this bill possibly only apply to Film? To DVD? I doubt it.

What does this mean to Copyright in other mediums?

Can I get this on my Tivo so I never have to watch another Republican campaign ad?

What else could we do with this? What about software copyright? Can I use some parts of the executable, bypassing others according to my preference?

Hmmm...

Celestia: Home

2005-04-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

I think Celestia will soon be installed on my HTPC!
... The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.

HTTPeep - an HTTP response inspector

2005-04-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

HTTPeep - an HTTP inspector

Ummm....this is a slick tool....seems to even work with HttpSoap requests for web services.

Single-Screen Checkout addresses shopping cart abandonment

2005-04-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

Single-Screen Checkout addresses shopping cart abandonment using xmlHttpRequest.

FlightView Product Family -- FlightView Access

2005-04-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

In Knoxville, the smallest airport I passed through this weekend I noticed a well done and very useful system called FlightView running in the public terminal on a large LCD. It showed realtime status of incoming flights to the McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS).

Burbank, Atlanta, and Dayton had nothing like this. It seemed to be up to each individual carrier to list their status in their respective areas, or where there were public ones, they were nothing more than block letters on bulbous CRTs.

Nitfy business. Doesnt seem like there's a publicly accessible view, but it was neat to see a smallish airport buying this service rather than installing and maintaining their own. Nice bit of outsourcing content.

1,360 experts in 95 nations Report: Human Damage to Earth Worsening Fast

2005-03-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! News: "More land was changed to cropland since 1945, for instance, than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined"

Stunning.

"A wetland in Canada was worth $6,000 a hectare (2.47 acres), as a habitat for animals and plants, a filter for pollution, a store for water and a site for human recreation, against $2,000 if converted to farmland, it said. A Thai mangrove was worth $1,000 a hectare against $200 as a shrimp farm."

Penny wise...

Film Article | Reuters.com

2005-03-10T22:56:00.000-08:00

" it will be the first 'Star Wars' that's a PG-13"

....maturing with the audience that grew up with it? Seems more credible than pimping jar jar and ewoks.

AlterNet: War on Iraq: "Going to War with the Army You Have"

2005-03-09T19:09:00.000-08:00

AlterNet: War on Iraq: "Going to War with the Army You Have": "If a product is not selling well, for example, an engineering organization might conclude that better engineering of the product was in order; a manufacturing firm, that more efficient production technology was needed; and a marketing company, that better advertising would do the trick. This sort of organizational idee fixe has led to some truly horrendous failures in business and military history."

Ummm....this is bleak

2005-03-04T23:05:00.000-08:00

US urges Opec not to cut oil production in face of $60/barrel prices.

Energy Secretary Bodman has "...a lot of things on my plate".

Our Energy Secretary sounds like and utter buffoon here. Slanted? Perhaps. Though it is from a Reuters feed.
The Reuters article is not quite so stinging, but still embarassing.

IT Conversations

2005-01-28T00:14:00.000-08:00

IT Conversations

Techinal talks & interviews

DigiBarn Screen Shots: Screenshots Funstuff

2005-01-25T23:42:00.000-08:00

DigiBarn Screen Shots: Screenshots Funstuff

OMG...some of these are priceless. MS Offcie with EVERY toolbar showing is one of my favs.

DigiBarn Screen Shots: Screenshots Funstuff

2005-01-25T23:41:00.000-08:00

DigiBarn Screen Shots: Screenshots Funstuff

deseretnews.com | Anti-U.S. feelings growing

2005-01-25T23:16:00.000-08:00

deseretnews.com | Anti-U.S. feelings growing: "...Most people fear anarchy more than they crave freedom."

That about sums it up. We havent exactly been the best of stewards in Iraq, despite our heroics and sacrifice. We broke it...we bought it.

Personal space / local environment

2005-01-24T13:52:00.000-08:00

Recently working on a death march project where I'm having to do much more coding than has been the norm lately.
That by itself is a treat and is making me forget my normal outrage at these kinds of projects and the organizations that are prone to them.

With about a week into what smells like another 4, I'm realizing/remembering how much the local environment matters to focus and productivity.

In fact, I havent really curled up to bang out an implementation once in this new cube yet. It needs some optimizing.

This is the essence of what Bob is chiming about with observations about how noisy EP can be.

I realize there's a lot you have to do for yourself to make your cube comfy. Headphones are a first line of defense. Mgrs usually hate them, arguing that they get in the way of communication. I've succombed to some good noise cancelling ones.

Hmmm...this noise / distraction issue isnt just a nit from Bob. I didnt think it was when he raised it. Hmmm.

How to promte a relatively distraction free working environment without being hypocritical or militant?

I think there's some wisdom in a) advertising the value of quiet and focus to those in the dept. and b) enforcing respect of quiet from people outside the department.

That is, we dont scold or even point out noise and outburts from within the dept. but we will not shrink from consistiently asking staff from other depts. to respect focus and quiet.

AgileManagement

2005-01-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

AgileManagement: "and 'perfectionists"

Mitsubishi blues?

2004-12-27T22:05:00.000-08:00

Kansas City Star | 11/29/2004 | MIDDAY BUSINESS REPORT: Fed looking for signs: "Mitsubishi Motors Credit of America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc.
Mitsubishi Motors has been plagued by a series of defect-coverup scandals in Japan that have badly tarnished its image and sent sales plunging here.
But its sales and profits have also suffered in the United States, partly because it had sold too many cars to people with bad credit.
Mitsubishi Motors has previously said it would scrap the risky financing deals, cut jobs, trim production and reduce sales to rental and other fleets to make its U.S. business profitable."

Safari 1.2 now supports XMLHttpRequest!

2004-12-13T12:49:00.000-08:00

Foisted by MS in IE 5, a variant picked up by Mozilla 1.0, and now finanlly I find its supported Safari 1.2!
Dynamic HTML and XML: The XMLHttpRequest Object

I notice that Google is also using it in their auto-complete/Google Request beta.

We'll make some good use of this, knowing it's supported widely now.

"the 'how-the-hell-do-I-roll-back-the-changes-i've-made-to-the-db' problem" vs. mock objects.

2004-12-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

I changed my mind - Mock objects are wrong for database unit testing

Heh...we went lazy too and ended up putting together a nice ADO transaction layer around our DAO...turns out to be also useful in the large.

Terrorism & Security: why do they hate us?

2004-12-03T21:49:00.000-08:00

"They hate our policies, not our freedom"

Pentagon report contains major criticisms of administration. Actually not quite the Pentagon's opinion, just an independant Defense Science Board. Pentagon must have been obligated to publish it...slipped it out quietly Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

I do wish we were hearing more clearly though the western media what the victory criteria were for the insurgents/terrorists. I'm too cynical to believe it's simple bloodlust. Did we ever wonder what the Black Panthers wanted, or the Palestinians, or the IRA?

Crap...I gues it doesnt matter anymore...it's their Red Dawn...Wolverines!

Yahoo! News - Families endure private war

2004-11-29T20:22:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! News - Families endure private war

Really provking piece on the perspectives of our returning soldiers & the contrasts of war.

SketchUp 3D - Training - Video Tutorials

2004-11-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

Really great example of using CBT and a smart marketing tool to show off features of what seems to be an amazingly powerful and yet simple new class of 3D drawing tools.

SketchUp 3D - Training - Video Tutorials

Smells like a really small shop...which is something I miss about the intimacy and clean slates of early dot com projects.

Ofoto Browse Photos

2004-11-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

Sam & Jen's Ofoto Photos

eMachineShop - Online Machine Shop - with FREE CAD Software

2004-11-23T15:21:00.000-08:00

Stumbled across this today. I remember seeing something like this back in the bitnet days at KU.
eMachineShop Downlod their CAD software, design your part, get quote, submit, ship. Coolness.

HP iPAQ h4355 Pocket PC,

2004-11-22T17:37:00.000-08:00

HP iPAQ h4355 Pocket PC Cheap!

XPWeb | Introduction

2004-11-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

A co-worker turned me on to XPWeb, an XP project management tool. Have to check it out soon.

Bulk Residue & Vesicles from Space, Press Release (1/30/01 PNAS)

2004-11-05T22:17:00.000-08:00

"These droplets (~10 �m across) show structures reminiscent of cells (although they are not alive). They are from a chemically separated fraction of the bulk residue."

MeadCo's ScriptX

2004-11-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

MeadCo's ScriptX may be a simple solution to the "why do I have to click "print" twice in a browser app?" befuddlement many users complain about.

Gwynne Dyer: Take Bin Laden's video message with a huge grain of salt

2004-11-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Gwynne Dyer: Take Bin Laden's video message with a huge grain of salt: "If the United States had not invaded Iraq last year (which Bin Laden could not have foreseen), 9/11 would have been a complete failure. Even with the horrifying images that Iraq generates and the fury and hatred that they engender among Muslims elsewhere, there has still not been a single revolution anywhere in the Arab world: The Islamists still cannot get the masses out in the streets to overthrow Arab regimes"

Error Logging Modules & Handlers (ELMAH): Workspace Home

2004-11-01T17:38:00.000-08:00

Error Logging Modules & Handlers (ELMAH): Workspace Home May want to consider this for our portal apps.

CodeNotes� - Article Display

2004-10-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

Decent article on XSLT -> comma delimited output.

Outputting Code

2004-10-27T23:11:00.000-07:00

Outputting Code - friendly article Exploring Details of XSLT Code Generation.

css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design

2004-10-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design Ahhh! Someday.

887459 - Programmatically check for canonicalization issues with ASP.NET

2004-10-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

887459 - Programmatically check for canonicalization issues with ASP.NET as a defense to the incident announcement at MS http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/aspnet.mspx

DubyaSpeak.com : Dubya on...

2004-09-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

DubyaSpeak.com That's Dubya as in George "W." A nasty collection of fumbles that boggle the mind.

After the debate tonight, commentators are indicating Bush seems to be a "down to earth" guy. Suggesting that people like him because he "sounds like them". Perfect!

Airaid

2004-09-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

Airaid Intake for the recent fuel injection conversion on my '71 Blazer. Might fix the whistle I'm getting from the old Moroso intake I carried over from the Holley 750. Might also be a good starting point for a cowl induction / snorkle setup.

OnLoad versus Page_Load

2004-08-25T22:57:00.000-07:00

OnLoad versus Page_Load

override protected OnLoad(System.EventArgs e)
{
base.OnLoad(e);
}

is faster than...

this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.Page_Load);

private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{}

Java for .NET

2004-08-24T23:29:00.000-07:00

IKVM.NET: is an implementation of Java for Mono and the Microsoft .NET Framework.

No AWT, Swing or security yet, but looks very promising. You dont get to jun jars directly, you have to use a tool to boil them down to a .dll.

CNN.com - The music of war - Aug 17%2C 2004

2004-08-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

I dont remember if I get VH1, but this would be worth checking out: CNN.com - The music of war - Aug 17%2C 2004