June 2002 Archives

At ZDNet, there is an opinion piece must read titled Tempest in a Teapot. A brutal indictment of Java on the desktop.

In this NetworkWorldFusion article some of Java's biggest names question it's chances for survival, including a Boland survey of corporate bigwigs. Check out the related JavaLobby thread.

At TheServerSide you'll find a flawed, but good read - J2EE to Oblivion?. Pay particular attention to the message board. via rebelutionary

Java is getting squeezed on two fronts. One, it's never put forth a succesful desktop platform. Don't talk to me about applets. They are cool. But that's about it. And Swing is too hard for the Windows VB and Delphi influenced world. And too damn slow. Why no desktop compiler that optimizes performance for the platform? That won't damage write once run anywhere. Idealism be damned. Why no VB like IDE? Now there *is* progress on that front, but maybe it's too late. Two, you now have .NET attacking Java where it has found a huge degree of adoptance, server side apps, and it will surely be simpler and easier to use. J2EE is extrememly powerful, but complex.

No, I don't think Java is dying. Far from it. But I hope to see some real progress made on those these fronts in the future. I really think the Java platform is becoming bloated, the focus has been to encompass as many functionalities in it's APIs as possible, and if the focus would shift to the big fundamentals - ease of development, ease of deployment, and speed (on the desktop - server side apps are just fine thank you), well Java would be really kick ass and it's future secure.

This looks like a good introduction and tutorial on RSS.

A much linked to history of the Pledge.

Here goes the week long calendar of events to Philadelphia's Welcome America celebration.

Action News is reporting that a chain of jewelry stores operating in the Delaware Valley is being investigated by the FBI for possible connections to the Al Qaeda terror network. A series of raids were carried out yesterday in Philadelphia and across the state of Pennsylvania.

Virginia Postrel defends comic books and the make-believe violence they portray against the idiots that would like to deprive kids of this imaginary outlet.

Excellent background information into the history of our mottos.

"E Pluribus Unum"

A huge reference on the seperation of Church and State.

Quotes from America's founding fathers.

Blogs as Disruptive Tech - How weblogs are flying under the radar of the Content Management Giants

PAID: the economics of content

via Ken Layne

Companies Overpaying For Content Management Technology, Reports Jupiter Research

via cam

Sun and Apache are now officially engaged

Apache has signed a newly formed (and much improved) TCK License covering all the JSRs on which it's active, allowing Apache to continue participating in the JCP. This new TCK License is becoming the Sun boilerplate and promises to bring benefits to all JSR licensees, both commercial and open source, by allowing true legitimate independent implementations of Java technology for the first time.

via rebelutionary

Investors and school districts are ditching the country's leading public education privatizer

Edison's improper bookkeeping practices may come back to haunt the company, as was the case with Enron. But there's more to the Edison story than an accounting scandal. Edison was built on the premise that a private company could run public schools more effectively and efficiently than local government could. Judging from the company's recent track record, that premise may soon be proven false.

Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley who has researched charter schools and is familiar with Edison's history, says that Edison's stock performance isn't unconnected to the company's classroom record. "I think the softness of the stock price is related to the softness of their test scores and educational results," he says. "Another way of looking at it is, if they were doing better on the ground and getting more contracts, they wouldn't have to obfuscate their numbers. Even markets have rules -- and [Edison's] evidence is so mixed that it's starting to affect their standing with investors."

...At least ten class action lawsuits have since been filed against the company, one of them by Milberg Weiss, the firm handling a major stockholder suit against Enron. All charge that the company misled investors. Yet amidst this turmoil, the former golden child of for-profit education is planning its biggest project to date: next fall's takeover of 20 low-performing schools in Philadelphia.

wow

What's interesting is the takes in different message board forums. Contrast and compare:

Yahoo!

Metafilter

It comes not a moment too soon. That old site was completely unnavigatable. Hey... tell me... did ya notice the suspicious absence of something on the front page (not that I'm complaining)?

i'm gonna be sick

Brent comments on his favorite part of software development, which is mine as well - refactoring, "when the code goes from weird but working to clean and maintainable and working much better."

There is something really satisfying about deleting chunks of code and making things maintainable for the long term.

Look man... they have yet to give Buffy the Vampire Slayer what it deserves.

They're fake. They're phony. They're stuck up bullshit.

The show has rocked, and continues to rock with not just humor or attractive stars, but powerful story lines dealing with redemption, forgiveness, death, responsibility, and the consequences of using power - or not using it.

Last season was great. But after seeing most of season two again - well I'm never allowing that stupid ass awards ceremony to be played in my house ever again. Never.

Fuck the Oscars too for their treatment of Jim Carrey. The Truman Show deserved something.

And don't get me started on the Grammys.

Stupid awards shows. Boycott the Emmys!

I see that Meryl's a fan too.

This concludes Karl's stupid meaningless rant for today.

on the new Springsteen album.

A very interesting report from the Pew Internet & American Life project.

NYTimes op-ed that explains that smoking is even worst then already thought. I hope they raise the cig taxes here in PA.

Clever, much linked to already, referer script.

Story at Yahoo!

Some days, as soon as she walked in a manager told her to rush to a cash register and start ringing up purchases, without clocking in. Sometimes, she said, she worked for three hours before clocking in.

"They wanted us to do a lot of work for no pay," said Ms. Richardson, who worked from 1995 to 2000 at a Wal-Mart in southeast Kansas City. "A company that makes billions of dollars doesn't have to do that."

Illuminating ZDNet article on the history and future of the app server market. Probably explains why Sun is releasing so much in this area for free now.

A kur5hin.org -article on self releasing your own CD.

My friend Mark Gardner is posting again. Welcome back dude.

('scuse me ... Boom is back :))

The Philadelphia Folksong Society is an organization dedicated to furthering folk music in the Greater Philadelphia area, and beyond. Members can participate in concerts, workshops, sings, and other special events, and receive our newsletter nine times per year.

I once was a pick from this site. Been missing it in my blogroll.

A mouthful ehh? But an interesting site and organization.

Understanding a Digital Recorder

A Step-by-Step Look at Recording and Mastering a demo with BOSS? Affordable Digital Studio

Welcome back Dave.

Cigarretes are a curse. Like him, I've smoked to problem solve or to help get in the frame of mind to problem solve.

Greg Allan a.k.a. Adam_Baum, the lead core developer and one of the four
founding members of the PostNuke CMS Development Project passed away from
injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. The accident occurred June 16,
2002 near his home in Meaford, Ontario in Canada.

Greg Allan was a humble and personable man who always downplayed his
considerable skills. He was a self-taught coder who contributed to every
aspect of development from cleaning up other people's code to writing new and
innovative software.

Greg was an invaluable asset to the PostNuke development team, and a dear and
trusted friend and co-worker to people on every continent. Through this first
year of PostNuke's existence, Greg's personable and giving nature has been a
guiding light and inspiration to many people and projects that have shaped the
development landscape and social personality of the PostNuke project.

Surviving Greg are his parents, Bob and Leone Allan, his brother Brian, his
girlfriend Kim along with her two children Kristin and Kassandra, his dog
Chevy, and trusted friends Dean and Natasha.

For more - PostNuke Mourns Loss of Lead Developer.

You have my sympathies and prayers.

Great letter to the NYTimes on the pure egotisim that drives SUV ownership.

Let me throw in another charge - people who drive these monsters are unpatriotic. You increase our reliance on foreign oil.

You want to help this country and have an offroader - buy a Jeep Wrangler. You carting around kids? Buy a mini-van or 4-wheel drive wagon.

If you don't need the friggin' capacity - then don't drive the things.

via dangerousmeta

I'm reading the Free Software Project Management HOWTO as fast as I can.....

CVS Best Practices looks good too.

But I need help. In particular with developer roles and CVS management.

Any other documents on open source, in particular SourceForge based, project management? Anyone who can give me some of their free time for a few questions?

Reading A Child Called "It" has simply blown me away. I highly recommend the book. It made me angry, sad, and inspired. A powerful read.

Pioneering non-profit managed websites. Maybe a model that my old PhillyFuture could have followed?

So many good blogs out there with more eloquence then me. Please see the sites in my sidebar to the right.

According to Mark Shea Rome may put a hault to the reforms the U.S. Catholic bishops want to put in place. Why?!?!?.

Microsoft is bringing the simplicty of the Visual Basic IDE to .net. Looks great.

Why aren't there any IDE's like this for JSP and Java? Am I missing them someplace?

Wow! Lots of downloads at SourceForge. I'm now aware of two consulting companies using it to make money.

I'm a newbie at project managing an open source project and this is certainly a new experience.

Sending good thoughts to you Dave.

Lighthearted topic. Gotta get away from the deep stuff for a bit. Anyway, I have Iron Maiden and Johnny Cash on rotation. How screwed up am I?

Just wanted to compile some of my favorite metal songs. Feel free to leave yours in the comments.

You Can't Kill Rock n' Roll - Ozzy Osbourne
Suicide Solution - Ozzy Osbourne
Killer of Giants - Ozzy Osbourne
Shot in the Dark - Ozzy Osbourne
Wasted Years - Iron Maiden
Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden
Hallowed Be Thy Name - Iron Maiden
The Prisoner - Iron Maiden
The Evil that Men Do - Iron Maiden
2 Minutes to Midnight - Iron Maiden
The Flight of Icarus - Iron Maiden
Holy Diver - Dio
The Last In Line - Dio
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Paranoid - Black Sabbath
Children of the Grave - Black Sabbath
Heaven and Hell - Black Sabbath
Children of the Sea - Black Sabbath
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Metallica
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) - Metallica
Dyers Eve - Metallica
Master of Puppets - Metallica
Fade to Black - Metallica
Creeping Death - Metallica
Escape - Metallica
Seek and Destroy - Metallica
Damage, Inc. - Metallica
Highway to Hell - AC/DC
Hell's Bells - AC/DC
Operation Mindcrime (the whole album) - Queensryche (submitted by Mark Gardner)
How Can I Laugh Tomorrow? - Suicidal Tendencies
Caught In the Mosh - Anthrax
I Am The Law - Anthrax
Indians - Anthrax
Antisocial - Anthrax
Cemetary Gates - Pantera
Bitch - Rolling Stones (yeah - I'll probably see a few arguments here)
Jumpin' Jack Flash - Rolling Stones (probably bigger arguments)
Satisfaction - Rolling Stones (in my book the first real metal song)
Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix
Foxy Lady - Jimi Hendrix
All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix cover of Bob Dylan
Sunshine Of Your Love - Cream with Eric Clapton
White Room - Cream with Eric Clapton
Black Diamond - KISS
Duece - KISS
Detroit Rock City - KISS
God of Thunder - KISS
Man on Silver Mountain - Rainbow
(still editting...)

(sure... don't post... what - scared of being identified as a Metal fan?)

Man In Black by Johnny Cash

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back?
And why does my ap- pearance
Seem to have a sombre tone?
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner
Who has long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those, who've never read
Or listened to the words, that Jesus said
About the road to happiness, through love and charity
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak-of-lightnin' cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of, the ones who are held back
Up front there oughta be a man in black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones, whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mournin', for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin' that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died
Believin' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right, I know
And things need changin' ev'rywhere you go
But 'til we start to make a move, to make a few things right
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Aw! I'd love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that ev'rything's OK
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
'Til things are brighter I'm the man in black.

Mark Pilgrim's accessiblity crusade brings to mind a new phrase - "compassionate design". I've been won over and will try and implement his tips.

Desmond Child seems to have written a huge amount of hit songs across the last twenty years. I was wondering if anyone knew of a list? My crazy curiosity. Google ain't doing it this time. He seems to have been everywhere and has helped write many songs I love.

Why do I find this funny? Getting weird B-movie sci-fi plotlines running thru my head - independent.co.uk - Musicians have bigger and more sensitive brains than people who do not play instruments, scientists revealed yesterday.

I know you're out there. My brother is one and I am so proud of him.

To my own father you probably will never know how I feel.

Most of the time it's comforting to know you're not alone. But sometimes - it makes me sad for others.

Almost All Java Web Apps Need Model 2

You use Model 1, which is page-centric, for simple applications or if you want to get something done quickly. Applications implementing this model have a series of JSP pages where the user proceeds from one page to another. This is the model you always employ when you first learn JSP because it's simple and easy. The main problem with Model 1 applications is that they're hard to maintain and not flexible. In addition, this architecture does not promote the division of labor between the page designer and the Web developer because the developer is involved in both the page development and business objects coding.

Cofax is a Model 2 application

Using Hashtables in Java

Good article. Doesn't emphasize enough the performance benefits of unsynchronized HashMaps over HashTables though. I agree that you should probably use HashMaps in all cases where you don't know up front you need synchronization - which has a performance penalty attached to it.

Oh my... I asked Kathy Shaidle blogger extraordinare of relapsedcatholic.com two questions and she's linked to me.

I am confused, saddened and angry by all of this. Bottom line - the people responsible should be in jail. And a policy should be in place to make sure nothing like this ever occurs again.

That raises two basic questions:

1. If people went straight to the police and not the Church - wouldn't there never be a chance for coverup?

2. If the church simply deferred people to the police to report the crime - and it *is* a crime - wouldn't there never be a chance for coverup?

This is a criminal matter. These are horrific crimes. Don't those two questions cut to the core? They are bugging me. Maybe I am oversimplifing.

Update I'm definately oversimplfying. I apologize. Please read my comments for alice-d's post.

Interesting O'Reilly weblog post on the IDE.

A great O'Reilly article on using Ant to install software as well as compile it for you. This greatly shortens the whole compile, deploy, debug cycle. We do it as well ourselves. I've been meaning to add an ftp task to our build file to actually upload distributables to cofax.org.

Oliver Willis first calls the far left doomed and then hits Bush for fullfilling his campaign promise to be the opposite of Bill Clinton.

Check out the review at theServerSide.com.

Read this Daily News story on the efforts to save the Sameric - center city's last old-style movie theatre.

It holds a special place in my heart - I saw Return of the Jedi there cutting school one day.

I added quite a bit on How Can You Start?.

Just want to shout out to Rafe Colburn and Dave Bauer. Dave, who I credit at the end of the piece, is taking his first steps and Rafe's web site is one I've been visiting for a long time now. He's even in my sidebar to the right. He touches on all sorts of subjects and I read there regularly.

Our new house will be within the Philly city limits. For the past three years I've been living in the 'burbs.

Today I found out our car insurance will increase to the point that - if I factored it into what we could have afforded ... we could have bought a reasonable house right where we're at.

That sucks.

Later today I'm going to update my piece How I Got A Career. There is a section on how you can get started with programming that is real, real, old. These days, with free IDE's and compilers available all over the place, it's even easier to get started.

Thanks to Dave Bauer for the useful critique. I wrote that piece ages, and ages ago. Man it's a different world :) Python, Perl, and Java seem the most appropriate starting points now. Not VB or Delphi.

I let ya know when it's finished.

Definately a site to go see.

A fun tutorial from Sun where you build a desktop GUI app. I'm a little outta practice so I'm giving it a whirl.

That's what this great Michael Wolf column says the industry is headed.

The NYTimes piece A Rift Among Bloggers is getting alot of commentary.

Like Rafe I realize Garret is a weblogger who doesn't normally go on a rant. But this time he certainly did and lays down how it is.

I like Shelley's view point on it as well. Read the NYTimes article... Seems like a big club doesn't it?

Jonathon Delacour nails how I feel on the whole blogging == journalism track. Summary - it doesn't. And that is a good thing. Why define a new means of expression in terms of an old one he asks. I feel the same way.

As far as my view point goes? Well to tell ya the truth... I see nothing new as far as what people are doing blogging-wise. Blogs have been here since the start of the web. But what I do see are many new faces. Some of which might not have been here were it not for advances in technology. Others that would have made it here no matter what. And that's a good thing.

Rifts? Yeah sure there are those that like to trump up differences between certain cliques... and yes weblogging reminds me of HS lunch tables. Back in '94 you had Justin's Links from the Underground and now... well it's wide open. But don't say that techies havn't been weblogging about politics. That something new is going on - cause it's simply not. Certain developers have been weblogging about politics from day one. Re-read Garret's piece. It's just more of the same.

It's still rock n' roll to me. And please can we get some real weblogging articles? Some on the sociology of it all?

Speaking of the sociology of it all, here goes a new fast growing clique of bloggers Catholics. Look at this huge list. It looks like the crisis in the Church has been a catalyst. Just like 9-11 was for the 'warblogger' clique. So the cycle continues.

Billy Joel - It's Still Rock And Roll To Me

What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing?
"Can't you tell that your tie's too wide?"
Maybe I should buy some old tab collars?
"Welcome back to the age of jive.
Where have you been hidin' out lately, honey?
You can't dress trashy till you spend a lot of money."
Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound
Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me

What's the matter with the car I'm driving?
"Can't you tell that it's out of style?"
Should I get a set of while wall tires?
"Are you gonna cruise the miracle mile?
Nowadays you can't be too sentimental
Your best bet's a true baby blue Continental."
Hot funk, cool punk, even if it's old junk
It's still rock and roll to me

Oh, it doesn't matter what they say in the papers
'Cause it's always been the same old scene.
There's a new band in town
But you can't get the sound from a story in a magazine...
Aimed at your average teen

How about a pair of pink sidewinders
And a bright orange pair of pants?
"You could really be a Beau Brummel baby
If you just give it half a chance.
Don't waste your money on a new set of speakers,
You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers."
Next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways
It's still rock and roll to me

What's the matter with the crowd I'm seeing?
"Don't you know that they're out of touch?"
Should I try to be a straight `A' student?
"If you are then you think too much.
Don't you know about the new fashion honey?
All you need are looks and a whole lotta money."
It's the next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways
It's still rock and roll to me

Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound
Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me

Nice guide for rabbit owners like myself.

Now this is kinda neat and shows you what you can do with Java, XML, and XSL. Check it out.

Excellent TheServerSide.com thread. I know how he feels. via rebelutionary.

Just a little thing on perspective. It is almost always easier to fight something from the outside then it is from the inside.

Sometimes people get characterized in negative light because they appear to outsiders that they are just going thru the motions, but in reality, sometimes much more is going on that meets the eye. Sometimes, that person is someone that cares so much, that they want to make a difference from the toughest place to be - on the inside. Because they know so much is at stake. Because they care and believe.

F.B.I. Agent Coleen Rowley is just such a person. She didn't run to newspapers on Sept. 12th and blurted to the world what she felt was wrong. No - she fights from the inside. That's courage to me.

I watched her testimony the other day and I couldn't help but think of her as a person with tons of honor. It's a word that's rarely used anymore. She has it in spades.

Thinking about the house were buying really brightens my day. It signifies some kind of new era for us, for me. I'm blessed to be where I am in life and thankful. Middle Class. :) Here goes a NYTimes pictorial on the middle of the middle class. It's real important to remember where you come from in life. To not lose perspective on reality. To realize that others may not have the wealth, or the freedom to act as you do. There is a huge difference between owning a company and working for one for example. Between owning a house and struggling to pay rent. Or worst. Between paying rent and living in a shelter. As always, it's important to walk in other's shoes. Some people simply refuse to do that. Some people only do it for tactics. Some people don't know how or were never forced to because they had to. Some people forget how. I hope I never get that way.

Slashdot covers this week's NYTimes magazine. It's hard out there.

Pink Houses by John Mellencamp

There's a black man with a black cat livin' in a black neighborhood
He's got an interstate runnin' through his front yard
You know he thinks that he's got it so good
And there's a woman in the kitchen cleanin' up the evenin' slop
And he looks at her and says, "Hey darlin', I can remember when
you could stop a clock."

CHORUS:
Oh but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America somethin' to see baby
Ain't that America home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

There's a young man in a t-shirt
Listenin' to a rockin' rollin' station
He's got greasy hair, greasy smile
He says, "Lord this must be my destination."
'Cause they told me when I was younger
"Boy you're gonna be president."
But just like everything else those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went

:|| CHORUS

Well there's people and more people
What do they know know know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico
Ooh yeah
And ther's winners and there's losers
But they ain't no big deal
'Cause the simple man baby pays for the thrills, the bills,
the pills that kill

:|| CHORUS

Taking on my Company: My Response

A "controversy'' has been created over whether I should be publicly beating up Knight Ridder for its decision to break old Web links.

Read it. And may I suggest e-mailing him your support and understanding. What's happened I feel is wrong to say the least. I can say that much even if I am biased on the matter.

Note I took down my previous post. I don't want mud slinging - that's entirely not the idea. I'm hoping for discourse. If I can put it back up in some manner that's reasonable - I will. Admittidly I'm too close to the matter. I admit I have conflicts of interest right up front. I work for the same company as Dan. In any case - like Dan - I gotta get back to work and life.

Wow if true!. This appears to be a picture. Another better pic. kuro5hin thread here.

That's what this SJMerc article says could be the real office vacency rate in Silicon Valley. Wow!

Thanks for the hello :).

I'd love MT to avoid all that re-rendering too. It's one of the issues you face when dealing with static file generation systems. If it served up requests dynamically (preferably from a cache of somekind), in a Cofax, Manila, or Zope (if I recall) like way, (not Blogger, Radio or GreyMatter which are static file generators also), the updating of design wouldn't have to involve so much re-rendering since that would happen on a per-request basis. If you had a site with thousands and thousands of pages, static file generators can be real pains in the ass, re-creating each peace of content with the new design. Some conceal this behavior better then other's but it's still occuring. Of course a dynamic system has a whole host of other fun issues :) I wonder if you can have clean URLs with a CGI based system? Hmmmmm. Gotta look into it. It's all about compromises :)

The last time I attempted to talk about this kinda stuff at my site I got misunderstood and flamed. Let's see what happens this time.

If I've misunderstood something - e-mail me before flaming me ok? Let's be civilized.

While doing paperwork I watched a great portion of courageous F.B.I. Agent Coleen Rowley's testimony.

She was inspirational. May her efforts to get out the truth be paid the attention they're due.

They say things to inflame you. To draw you in so that they can try and clobber you.

But as a mentor of mine once said, "If someone gives you a gift and you don't accept it, who does the gift belong to?".

Edit: Took away the link. People are obviously trying to have an argument instead of a discussion. Oh well. Gotta listen more to my old mentor.

So asks this excellent summary of when you should use EJBs over at rebelutionary.

If your application doesn't involve a lot of true distributed computing or require distributed transaction management, the odds are very good that there's a better way to do it.

Using EJB often prohibits quick deployment to multiple application servers to compare true performance; servlet containers are actually much friendlier if you're concerned about portability.

I'll add in addition that EJB development is an order of magnitude more complex and developers with experience are harder to find and thus, much more expensive, then Servlet->JSP->Bean->Database development. I suggest using them only in the scenario described in the quote above.

When I was much less fortunate I knew this to be true but lost sight of it as my circumstances improved during the 90s - the 'new economy' is the 'service economy' according to this USAToday article - Wal-Mart, not high tech, defines 'New Economy'. My personal experience refutes this. As does most of the internet elite that are out here in the blogosphere. But that is because many of us are the creators of technology - not simply the users. Amoungst my friends, my old peers, I stand out as being abnormally blessed. In such a way that I know at anyone time it can just vanish. Very, very few people improved their lively hoods in the 90s (and the 80s for that matter), that weren't already on a path up and up. I worked hard, I studied hard, and found mentors that taught me the ropes along the way. But looking at it in hindsight just blows me away... how did I get here? Every statistical fact says it shouldn't have happened and for many I know it certainly hasn't. The census numbers bear that out.

You know one of the major things I remember of the 90s was tons of tech schools luring in people looking for middle class lifestyles with promises of 'learn Microsoft Word and have a career'.

I had arguments - yes arguments - with a few friends tell them that those advertisements were outright lies and bullshit.

It was like a mantra - 'you must learn not to use Microsoft Word - but to create it - in order to earn a career.'

When I made the risky decision to go to tech school myself, I already knew this to be true. In this field it is the creators that earn the money. So I took up a course in client server programming at Chubb and the rest is history. Course selection was all important. I chose a technology course that enabled me to become a tools builder. A creator.

This is true unless you are using the technology to find efficiencies in your business. Read that to mean lay-offs to your aveage Joe. That payoff is occuring now. Reading the news American productivity is higher then it's ever been. Most definately due to technology. And now the unemployment rate is rising back to pre-90s levels. Wal-Mart is the greatest example of that success.

My first developer positions were in non-Media corporate America. Retail and services. The tools I built helped those coporations save millions of dollars. In many cases, those dollars were saved by laying off staff that were no longer needed. Truth of the matter is - these jobs far outnumber the kind that I currently have.

I now work in media. I turned down higher paying offers for this. I'm a creator building tools for other creators. It's a very important distinction. It is a different ball game. Looking at the current state of blogging - it is heartening to see how technology is helping many tech illiterate folk create compelling and interesting products - their sites - that bring people back again and again. I salute those who've built MovableType, Manila/Radio, and Blogger. You've done a great public service. It's very very difficult to create tools for creative people. Your highs and your lows are extremely dramatic. When people complement you - it's huge. And when people criticize you - it's huge. Because your users are creators themselves.

A World Press Review summary that is enlightening. Again, I gotta tell ya, this is a great site to open your mind a bit.

Mozilla is 1.0!. Congrats on defeating the naysayers and making it to one dot oh. Mozilla is much, much more then a browser. Although as a browser it competes head on with MSes best efforts.

Garret wonders if MovableType's brought back my joy of weblogging....

I gotta admit, the interface is sweet. Then again, it has been more of a compulsion then anything else :)

New version of Cofax available for your downloading pleasure.

I can get to like this :)

Steve Outing - Content Publishing Systems Squash News Design Do a little research next time. It's not the technology in our case - but it's implementation. To be fair - some systems do squash design. Post-Nuke for example. You need to be a programmer to change the design of a Post-Nuke site. But many, many, do not. Including what I'm using here at paradox1x.

A really big deal as far as I'm concerned. I haven't lived in a family owned house since I was five years old. It was difficult to overcome many internal impulses not to go forward. Impulses I'm sure that are embedded in me from my background growing up.

But here we go :) Just signed the first series of papers last night. What a weird thought.... owning a house!

Inquirer - City's antidrug effort may be cut back Why start something if you don't intend to finish it. This was a very promissing effort that I've heard great things about. There were even news reports of how the dealing moved out of Philly to Camden where the Camden police were about to ramp up to handle it. Damn shame. Damn shame.

Left, Right, and Center (not really much in the center is there?) so you can read punditry from across the spectrum.

CNET - How to beat the record labels on the Web

The answer lies in controlling the rights to recordings. It's only after start-ups get into the game of signing artists that they will truly be able to control the destiny of downstream distribution. This is no easy task. Record companies have spent decades building up a sourcing system, and have a huge competitive advantage when it comes to expertise in promotion and marketing.

But the majors have huge vulnerabilities when it comes to their cost structures, and the amount of units they need to sell to break even on a title. And, as in all instances where sleeping giants get unseated, it will happen first at the fringes.

There is a long history of small labels making inroads into overlooked genres, and while these independent efforts have historically grown up to be fodder for major acquisitions, it won't be long before a burgeoning independent makes better strategic use of distribution technology. Often, one loose brick can bring down the whole wall.

So my advice to the plethora of music start-ups focused on distribution? Give it up.

If ya can't beat 'em... join 'em

Salon - highlights from the Census. Makes a point of how few people climbed out of poverty during that period. At least the number didn't grow (as I suspect it maybe right now). I climbed from poverty to the middle class in the 90s.

World Press Review - We Are All Americans

American influence consists of a whole bundle of things, of varying degrees of goodness and toxicity. Thanks to the example of the United States, a large part of the world takes democracy as a natural value. Almost no nation for many years now has dared to declare itself anything except a democracy, and in doing that, subscribe to an entire list of human rights?regardless of whether or not it continues to violate them.

World Press Review is a good site to get a view of how the world sees the world and us.

Shannon points to an article that covers the sad state of affairs in radio.

WashingtonPost - White House Warns on Climate Change Looks like it was a bunch of hot air. Pun not intended.

rebelutionary and Java Geek. via John Robb.

I gotta post a new picture of myself!

P6Spy is an open source framework to do just that. I gotta give it a try.

This developerWorks article gives you a great overview of developing a simple Tetris like game in Java.

More disturbing news, but hardly an earthshaker with everything else coming into light - NYTimes - Egypt Warned U.S.. What is shocking is how far back this was revealed and missed by the media - Garret finds as far back as Sept 12th!.

I'm one of the lead developers (one of three architects) of Knight Ridder Digital's Cofax content management system.

Cofax, from it's humble origins in Philadelphia, became one of the major toolsets Knight Ridder used for content management, spreading in usage to over twenty newspapers by March of 2001.

Due to a lack of resources in both finances and personnel, we employed an open source methodology to assist in it's development. We had zero budget, and and just five developers when we started way back in 1999 and right from the start open source seemed the way to go.

This was done so very successfully, with the current version in CVS being a stable, satisfactory (award winning even) tool for those that used it. Newspapers were excited with the power it gave them to cover the news, designers were happy with the freedom it gave them, and administrators were happy with it's ease of maintenance and deployment. In fact, there is a consulting company that is actually making money deploying Cofax sites in France. You can too. It's open source.

In February of this year Knight Ridder Digital migrated to a new system called the SDP. It uses Cofax in it's core, but also incorporates a number of proprietary technologies developed to meet specific needs.

So in a sense, you can say that Knight Ridder is still using Cofax, but in another sense, it's using something much more extensive and powerful. Developed to meet a bigger set of requirements and built by a much larger tech team in which I was a member, but unlike Cofax, am not an architect.

I'd love to discuss the SDP with you but my feeling is I should refrain from doing so since it is internal company business. I have kept from talking about it in the past and will continue doing the same. Just understand that it is Cofax deep in it's core, but utilizing a huge array of new technologies to meet new business needs. It's implementation is vastly different from Cofax's as well. Keep that in mind.

I am still the lead maintainer of Cofax and now, finally, have permission to talk about it and discuss it here at my home page and am happy to do so. It's story is one I think you will find interesting and it incorporates technologies which you will find familiar, but it's in the combination of those technologies that makes it unique.

I'm hoping along the way to recruit some help with maintaining the project. Within the core Cofax product lies an outstanding CMS if I say so myself.

His weblog is sure to be interesting. Now he needs some perma-links and an browsable archive.

Update - They've added permalinks! Now we need those archives....

DrudgeReport - BUSH ADMIN OUTLINES 'GLOBAL WARMING' EFFECTS ON AMERICA; ACKNOWLEDGES DAMAGE

We can only hope. Here's hoping for tomorrow's news.

Update: NYTimes - Climate Changing, U.S. Says in Report Looks like there is some reading to do. I have visions of Pilot, while recognizing something is afoot, washing his hands of the responsibility.

Too much 'us vs. them' Too many people claiming the left or the right has all the power and influence. Too many people feeling supressed when obviously they are not since they can post whatever the feel like it out here.

Lots and lots of hypocracy.

Read both sides of the debate.

The Far Left

The Democratic Left

The New Democrats

The New Republicans

The Republican Right

The Far Right

Now most of the blogs I visit fall into one of these categories. A wide mix. Most link to like blogs not even recognizing the existance of the other side except as the enemy.

A real blog service would be someone covering the news from both sides of the story. But I don't have the time.

Where do you fall in this spectrum? Be honest.

Garret's grandmother is in the hospital.

Please say a prayer for her and his family.