Check out the new weather blox. An example of openlaszlo (an open source flash thingy)

Power Outage

My power was out for a brief time tonight 8/20/05 for about 1 hour. I reported the problem and when I called back to find out how long it would be out I was told until 7:45 pm on the 21st. Thank God Dominion Virgina was wrong on that!! I live my the Fashion Sq mall. Did anyone else lose power or hear what happen to cause the outage?

JavaEtc: Charlottesville Blogs

Thanks Arin and Waldo. It nice to be heard. Arin, .Net Sucks. Arin, I have had a complete change of heart from my days of MT (MusicToday) where I really loved MS. But now with the MS continually raking in the bucks (see http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/28/technology/microsoft_analysis/index.htm) from corporate IT coffers instead of directing that money to delivering next gen applications to their users, I feel differently. I think C# is cool and maybe the OS version Mono
will catch on. Flame on!! BTW, anyone reading this who is concerned that if the government feels that their home could better serve the community if it were the home of a Target see Arin's blog and keep abreast of the situation. I think Arin's found his calling!!
JavaEtc: Charlottesville Blogs

Charlottesville Blogs

Waldo Jaquith has set up an aggregation of Charlottesville VA Blogs and has included me in the aggregation. You'll find my friend Erik Hatcher on that list also. He is the one who pointed out Waldo's aggregator after I whined that no one was commenting on my posts. Then he reminded me of the distributed dialog that happens with blogs and it is quite possible never to get any comments but to that doesn't mean you're not being read. Erik used to blog alot on his personal blog but now he is obsessed with Lucene and spends all his day keeping up his Lucene Blog. Thanks Erik and Thanks Waldo.

Mission Statement

David St Lawrence's Mission Statement "Why I write" page is a very good start on the reasons why I might blog. Mostly I am interested in working out my thought on a variety of subjects. (Its cheaper than therapy:). But seriously, it helps me communicate with others about subjects and topics that are on my mind. I don't want to stimulate thought as much as just discuss these issues with like and not so like minded individuals. I love the picture on david's blog today. It beautiful.

Stupid Ruby on Rails?

I asked the following question about RoR on the NOVA JUG. I received no responses but that is not too surprising since it was after all the NOVA _JUG_ not RUG. But since it was within the thread I thought I would give it a shot. Now I am asking it here.

I have a question about product development shops using RoR for a product that they sell to other clients. How do you protect the code? Now one suggestion is that you host the application and that will prevent users from modifying your code and creating support issues for you. Now that is one option but how about those cases where the client insists or we insist that the client host the app. Before our recent conversion to Java we were a building an app that used Cold Fusion for the web VB/Access for the desktop and backed by Sql server. The support requirements to support the mods the client would make were killing us and strangling our development efforts. So we switched to Java and provided a way for the clients to configure the app instead of modifying it. We use Swing for the desktop side and J2EE for the appserver with struts and then later Tapestry for the web. How would an organization avoid the pitfalls of visible code that RoR has in our environment but gain the benefits of increased productivity?

So there you have it. I think Ruby is great as an embedded scripting language. But amist all the buzz, can it be used by product development shops or is it just another buzz that will die down or an opportunity to sell books or only useful for departments wishing to write their own in house apps?

What do you think?

The Just War Theory

Again, I am here using writing as a blogger to see what the fuss is about. Let me see if writing about important things here helps. The war is deeply disturbing to me and to those around me. I am sure I/we are not that different than many places around the world. War is costly. It causes the gratest angst in people, due to the reality of death that accompanies it. As an American whose country is threatended by global terrorism , I really wanted to believe that Iraq posed a threat. I wanted to believe our president. I wanted a war that would make us more secure. I never really bought the WMD case or the case for harboring terrorists, Hussein was fighting them!! I simply thought that if we established a free Iraq that that would scare the bejesus out of the radical Muslims in the area and send a message to those governments that funded them. As a Catholic I wanted a just war and really thought we were fighting one. It took me a while but I finally read some doctrine on a just war (see The Just War Theory). After all the president who stood beside those guys in the ashes of the Twin Towers wouldn't lie to us would he? The guy who declared that the people who brought down the towers would soon hear from us wouldn't decieve us would he? I really wanted to believe him. Maybe I was niave . Now don't think I think of ourselves as occupiers or the insurgents are some glorious freedom fighters, they are not. They are cold blooded killers of non combatants and the military alike. And what exactly are they fighting FOR? I know what they are fighting AGAINST. They are fighting against us!! What did we do to them? We toppled a dictator who would kill his own people for political gain. Doesn't that count for something in their eyes? All we hear is about how much they hate us now. Now on the cost. Is 200+ billion dollars and 1000+ American lives cost too much for a beachhead of freedom and self goverment for the people of Iraq? History will judge that. All I can do is look at what the Church says about war in general and Iraq specifically ( see U.S. Catholic Bishops - Social Development & World Peace) . I really wanted it to work for the Iraqies and us but I fear not. So wha do we do now? We can't leave. The Iraqies deserve better than that. I also would feel better about the preseiednt's case for Iraq if Halliburton weren't making a boatload of money off Iraq. Will Kerry be better ? Don't know. But at least I can believe Halliburton won't be on the no bid list.

First Post

Ok, ok I finally did it. Not out of some great desire to let the world know about what I think or to somehow rid myself of some hidden deamons as I think some bloggers do. I did it because some of my author friends have done it and I was wondering what the fuss was.(I've been known to be late for a few parties in my life) I write software for a living , have a family and a busy schedule so I don't know how much time I will have for yet another activity. We'll see how it goes. For those of you still awake... here goes!!
As I said, I write software for a living, (Java specifically, hence the name), I am an unabused Catholic , a dysfunctional Red Sox fan (I swore at the end of last year they were out of my life, but I'm back this year begging forgiveness for being disloyal and saying how could I have ever doubted you!!***This feeling doubled after they won the series, but that was after this originally posted***), a father, husband and I am learning the piano. So you can expect (if I stay with this ) coverage of all these topics in some form or another plus others. Well, thats it, I can say I've blogged. Yahoo!!!