tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-309506792009-10-01T16:49:38.121-07:00Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with PageflakesAdd to Any Feed ReaderSubscribe with fwickitag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-41871496140666675872009-04-02T22:35:00.002-07:002009-04-02T22:42:45.040-07:002009-04-02T22:42:45.040-07:00

I wanted to chime in on the Xen vs. KVM discussions, and give you some food for thought.I've been using Xen now for years, having replaced UserModeLinux on my personal server, and it's seen a lot of production use at my current job. That said, KVM is ultimately the right way to go. Constant maintenance of Xen's hypervisor kernel is what causes Linux distributions grief with Xen. Those that keep

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-44568287301533347982009-01-04T16:46:00.007-08:002009-01-04T17:55:16.516-08:002009-01-04T17:55:16.516-08:00

I spent some time evaluating Fedora's Cobbler installation service. If you play with many machines - real or virtual - you should definitely take a look. Some handy features:* Kickstart Setup: For Red Hat breed systems, existing Kickstart configurations (found on installation media) are exposed as profiles in Cobbler. You can add your own Kickstart configurations too (imagine a "rhel5-webserver"

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-44398592572379318452008-12-29T09:03:00.002-08:002008-12-29T14:51:26.560-08:002008-12-29T14:51:26.560-08:00

Our system could accept transactions over the phone (via a clerk) or through our website. The clerk on the phone used a semi-web based application to interact with the system.The headache with this was that the code base for the "semi-web" and "actual web" only became a common code path much, much deeper in the code. So the plan was simple, redo the website code such that it could eventually be

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-25338267256142760092008-12-26T09:58:00.009-08:002008-12-29T15:00:03.344-08:002008-12-29T15:00:03.344-08:00

It's been seven months since I left my old job, and I feel it's alright to talk about some things.If you're in a situation where you're finding yourself leading a team of developers without any mentoring from anyone on how the heck to do that, I offer you some food for thought.As a developer, you measure your own progress by the code you write, the bugs you fix, stored procedures you debug,

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-78412364675672196172008-11-09T10:36:00.001-08:002008-11-09T15:26:32.849-08:002008-11-09T15:26:32.849-08:00

After a really relaxing summer, I've picked up a job as a Systems Architect at local company suffering from growing pains. After almost a decade, I've put down my debugger and picked up a budget..for now. I've found myself looking at many different options of products some open source some not. I want to apologize to those open source projects I've rejected and wanted to let you know why:1.

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-23776234380545086302008-10-11T12:35:00.002-07:002008-10-11T12:40:52.706-07:002008-10-11T12:40:52.706-07:00

Here's the pitch: With regular ray tracing, rays of light are traced backward from a pixel of the camera, to an object and eventually to a light source (or lack thereof). If you can do that with light, why can't it be done with sound?Over ten years ago I was having breakfast with a friend and I sketched out the idea on a napkin. This kind of math is definitely not my strong point. But instead of

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-27043916213860878542008-09-26T14:08:00.000-07:002008-09-26T14:08:15.720-07:002008-09-26T14:08:15.720-07:00

If you're curious what generators are, or have never used them with GWT, this simple generator will give you a quick introduction to get your hamster wheels turning.I do a lot of prototyping in GWT before I build the backend and I've recently had the need to generate a "build version" for my GWT interface. While there are about fiftybazillionmillion different ways to do this, I've chosen a GWT

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-42513230272918058502008-09-15T00:16:00.003-07:002008-09-15T00:40:19.772-07:002008-09-15T00:40:19.772-07:00

If you're a Linux user wondering if Spore works, the answer is: Sorta.I bought the download version from the EA Store. Nothing mentioned until after my purchase was complete that I needed a Windows-only downloader. I didn't test this under Wine.Aside: The EA Store website allows + in email addresses, but the Spore online login does not.I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 with a custom build of Wine 1.1.4 (

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-4037984596876296892008-09-03T12:28:00.005-07:002008-09-03T13:06:53.751-07:002008-09-03T13:06:53.751-07:00

Watching what Google does feels like watching X-Files. I want to believe there's some grand master plan, but I'm pretty sure they're just making things up as they go.Hank Williams over at Why Does Everything Suck pretty much covers my thoughts on Google's new web browser in his Huh? and Huh! posts.

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-56727340532726647792008-07-15T11:10:00.003-07:002008-07-15T12:24:20.236-07:002008-07-15T12:24:20.236-07:00

Six weeks ago I quit my job; six weeks later I've never been happier. I had grown jaded about technology and worn down about my work. This post isn't about how to quit your job, how to budget for the summer or how to get your next job; it's what I've learned in the brief oasis between those points in my life.The Beginning1. Do Not Look For Your Next Job: You know internally if you're at the

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-5149002166178578562008-06-16T20:02:00.000-07:002008-06-16T20:02:05.519-07:002008-06-16T20:02:05.519-07:00

This is the second year I've attended Google's conference on scalability, the talks were more academic this time around. One organizer indicated that this was indeed the goal of this year's conference. I enjoyed last year how much of the information was really hands on, but there's some value in seeing what's coming down the research pipe.The conference is an example of what googlers do with

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-71979747764178649502008-05-03T14:02:00.005-07:002008-05-05T20:22:34.921-07:002008-05-05T20:22:34.921-07:00

The other week I was fortunate enough to grab an extra freebie spot on Spring Source's "Spring Core" course. It's a marathon. Four days jam-packed with just about everything you could imagine Spring-related. I thought I'd post a bit about my impressions...First the good side; the course material is exhaustive and the instructor knew his stuff cold. While I was the only one in the course with no

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-64264630160117260432008-04-03T18:35:00.008-07:002008-04-17T14:09:16.230-07:002008-04-17T14:09:16.230-07:00

1. Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population [ PDF ] A popular Google paper from 14 months ago, but a good read if it's something you may have to deal with. Fairly readable language too. Summary: Really burn your drives in for the first few months. Few metrics are good indicators of failure.2. Pinpoint: Problem Determination in Large, Dynamic Internet Services [ PDF ] Tracing requests

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-39292280479946569402008-03-15T17:22:00.004-07:002008-03-15T17:37:54.450-07:002008-03-15T17:37:54.450-07:00

You've probably wished you could find out why a certain block of code was occasionally slow in production. Wouldn't it be nice to turn on extra logging only when things were acting up? You can!With a bit of logging in your code, you can get an output like this: [135ms] request share purchase [5ms] validate purchase request [40ms] check account balances [39ms] synchronous balance request

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-30947232783431261482008-03-05T19:29:00.003-08:002008-03-05T22:24:41.746-08:002008-03-05T22:24:41.746-08:00

Despite years of promises to the contrary, I've found myself in the unfortunate situation of having to write performance reviews for my developers. For those other poor souls in this situation, I've collected my thoughts and present them here. This post is split into two parts. The first part I vent a bit, the second part has the useful content.Before You Get HereWarning: If you find yourself

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-53730699295481735062008-02-16T13:59:00.004-08:002008-02-16T15:02:06.133-08:002008-02-16T15:02:06.133-08:00

Testing is a big deal. Very often though, we spend days writing unit tests only to forget that our code must play well with others. In the real world, how responsive will a new AJAX interface or RMI Swing application be?In our load testing environment, we've introduced a network nightmare bridge. This handy little box sits between us and our server (or between any two networked devices). We

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-50616988595655970432007-12-08T21:11:00.000-08:002007-12-09T14:53:44.537-08:002007-12-09T14:53:44.537-08:00

On the project I work on, we have an in memory model of some particularly useful data (a POJO model as it were). A situation that regularly occurs with this useful data is that various groups want the data sliced and diced in various manners.Each time a request comes in we have to write a new method that iterates through our collection, sometimes making a new comparator and then return a subset

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-50436126565997564772007-11-21T20:45:00.001-08:002007-12-09T14:54:27.768-08:002007-12-09T14:54:27.768-08:00

Our security department decided to change passwords of some "common accounts" (anti-pattern #2) we have at work on our load testing network. They started this process without letting anyone know and set the new password to "G2xi]$7jB;". This leads to security anti-pattern #1: The Very Secure Password.A good password has to meet four criteria: 1) It must be easy for you to remember. 2)

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-51866554575383148182007-11-18T19:02:00.000-08:002007-12-09T14:55:13.220-08:002007-12-09T14:55:13.220-08:00

I wrote a few posts ago about how easily continuous integration servers break. This post got quite a bit of response!Jon from Atlassian felt bad for the ordeal and sent over a couple of "I'M WELL BUILT" t-shirts. Thanks Jon! Owen over at Unreasonable Entertainment ran an initial version of the "hell build" maven plugin idea from my post against Hudson with less than stellar results. Damn!Owen

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-19837783047627664482007-10-29T23:47:00.000-07:002007-12-09T14:55:33.541-08:002007-12-09T14:55:33.541-08:00

"Java is slow." "Windows always crashes." "We have to do it this way; it's the way we've always done it!"As we grow at work, I find the rules of thumb that I usually follow and ask others to do the same have become carved in stone. Those who don't fully understand "why" they're doing it have taken it as immutable doctrine. When I ask for minor deviations in these rules of thumb, I'm met with

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-40137874208146625572007-10-17T23:07:00.000-07:002007-12-09T14:55:56.240-08:002007-12-09T14:55:56.240-08:00

As a co-op student, you likely get a lot of advice from academics on things - that in 10 years - you will do intuitively as tying your shoe and checking for unprotected wifi networks. Here are some tips from The Real World that you should double-check before applying to your co-op position.Nobody is expecting you to be a master of the things you list. They'll expect you to be proficient in them

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-54382468520224769352007-10-11T18:41:00.000-07:002007-12-09T14:56:33.869-08:002007-12-09T14:56:33.869-08:00

Our Continuum CI server constantly had problems hanging during builds, so we switched to Bamboo, which while not perfect, is better.This week our Bamboo server ate its own config file when it ran out of disk space and this got me thinking that most CI servers I've seen these days do a horrible job at handling the plethora of near-failure conditions that plague a build.What's really needed is a

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-39996403580983056252007-09-04T22:08:00.000-07:002007-12-09T14:56:49.405-08:002007-12-09T14:56:49.405-08:00

We've switched from CVS to SVN at work, and I was surprised to find out that Subversion doesn't actually have a command line tool worth salt. Sure, there's svn, but it's not designed with a developer in mind at all. The more I use Subversion, the more I feel like it was actually designed for something else, and I just happen to be using it for source code.As one developer on my team describes

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-18728510745944102232007-06-02T19:46:00.000-07:002007-12-09T14:58:14.714-08:002007-12-09T14:58:14.714-08:00

Every other Monday morning, members from different departments, groups or teams come to our marketplace and talk to us about whatever work they need done.Sometimes the DBA group want us to try a new JDBC driver, sometimes Security wants us to add more auditing to our code, sometimes our business group want business features added .. you get the idea.Our own internal work is expressed during the

Idcmphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10737882461734024589noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30950679.post-42448688929523538722007-05-11T19:54:00.000-07:002007-12-09T14:57:15.209-08:002007-12-09T14:57:15.209-08:00

I've been interviewing Java developers now for two years. My interviewing skills are strong enough now that I can pinpoint where in the grey "maybe" area a candidate lies. Here's a few tips on helping you move from maybe-grey to "yes".1. Your Head Hunter ResumeAdmit it. You polish your resume up for head hunters, adjusting the content so they can find you jobs without having the technical

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