The Angular Mini-Book is a
guide to getting started with Angular. You'll learn how to develop a bare-bones application, test it, and
deploy it. Then you'll move on to adding Bootstrap, Angular Material, continuous integration, and authentication.
Spring Boot is a popular framework for building REST APIs. You'll learn how to integrate Angular with
Spring Boot and use security best practices like HTTPS and a content security policy.
This book shows you how to build an app with JHipster, and guides you through the
plethora of tools, techniques and options you can use. Furthermore, it explains the UI and API building blocks
so you understand the underpinnings of your great application.
Today is a monumental day in the life of Jack Raible. Not only is today his 19th birthday, but it's also his first day of classes at the University of Colorado. He moved in last week and had a week to settle into his new surroundings.
He's been playing hoops for 1-2 hours a day on our basketball court for the last six months. We recently asked him why he was playing so much, and he mentioned he wanted to play on CU's team before he graduates. I love it when someone dreams big! We'll be rooting for your success, Jack!
The whole family traveled to Boulder yesterday afternoon to celebrate his birthday. Today, both kids sent a picture before their first day of classes began.
We're so proud of you, Jack, and hope you have a wonderful college experience. Happy Birthday, buddy! 🥳
Trish and I started 2020 with a fun trip to New Orleans to meet up with my family. My parents wanted to get out of the snowy cold of Montana, as did Kalin and Mya from Washington state. My Aunt Mary from New York joined us, and we brought the kids. Trish even executed a trip to the Saints vs. Vikings NFL playoff game!
We celebrated "the superiors" birthdays, listened to lots of good music, hung out with our friends Jill and Brian, savored many excellent meals, and enjoyed each others company.
It's time for my year-in-review post! This post sets the record for being the most delayed, ever. Usually, I'm able to get it published by the end of January. Oh well, I hope you enjoy it!
In 2019, I did my best to work hard, play often, and travel to interesting places. I took my Dad to Hawaii, drove through the worst blizzard of my life, traveled to India for the first time, did a UK + Ireland JUG Tour, and indulged in several fun vacations with my family.
We bought some additional rafts for whitewater, rafted in Montana and Colorado, and celebrated a family reunion in Cape Cod. Our classic VWs continued to perform well, and Hefe won his class once again at the 2019 VWs on the Green show. We did have to replace a clutch in Stout the Syncro, but I'm OK with that since he safely transported me through the most treacherous driving conditions of my life.
I'm going to look back on 2019 using the following categories.
In 2018, I spoke at several fantastic meetups, traveled a bit overseas, and enjoyed some fun family vacations. We had the time of our lives driving Hefe in the Denver St. Paddy's Day Parade!
We traveled to Crete for JCrete and had a blast with the Java community. We journeyed to Ireland with my folks, and I thoroughly enjoyed a speaking tour of Ireland JUGs and the Dublin JHipster Meetup. Our classic VWs had a great year with only minor repairs needed.
I'm going to look back on 2018 using the following categories.
For those stumbling upon this post with no context, I'm a veteran open source developer that works at Okta as a developer advocate.
This year I focused on blogging more than speaking. I still spoke a fair bit, but I tried to focus on meetups more than conferences. The DevEx Team at Okta released a slew of SDKs at the end of 2017, so I had plenty to write about. Over the year, I found more and more developers had heard of Okta during my talks. I even found users in most audiences! This was quite a change from 2017, so it seems my team's advocacy efforts might be working.
Jack turned 14 today. Last weekend we celebrated with his friends at our local Topgolf. I'd never been before, so I was eager to go, and we all had a great time.
However, the real highlight happened when we were cruising home in our '66 VW Bus amongst a gaggle of Lamborghinis. We had all his friends in the bus when four Lambos and a Bently pulled up alongside us. We cruised with them for a couple miles, grinning from ear to ear.
Jack's favorite thing to do these days is to play video games with his buddies, specifically Fortnite (a.k.a. "fork knife"). He's got some basketball skills too but doesn't play on a team. He excels at skiing because we make him go all the time and he's only a centimeter or two shorter than me. He's sure to be taller than me soon!
Jack is in 8th grade this year. This was the first year he traveled across the pond to visit Europe. He's getting in some miles: Paris in June, Crete in July, and we're heading to Ireland next week.
I love Spring break. Who doesn't?! When I was a student, it was a nice break between quarters and led to many adventures with friends in college. As an adult, I love taking a Spring break holiday and spending it with my family. In a recent blog post on the @oktadev blog, I wrote:
I work hard, and I play hard. My family loves to do ski weekends, road trips, and whitewater raft trips. I’m lucky to work at a company like Okta that has an unlimited vacation policy. I’ve heard that most unlimited vacation policies don’t work for people because they tend to work more, and take fewer vacations.
I take full advantage of our unlimited vacation policy and make sure to take a week of vacation during every other six-week plan.
Last week, my family and I spent Spring break 2018 with Trish's parents in Naples, Florida. We saw some incredible cars, enjoyed a day at Magic Kingdom in Disney World, played some golf, took in a couple of sunsets, and relaxed a bunch. I think some pictures describe it best.
In case you're here looking for technical blog posts, I'm still writing about Java, Spring Boot, Angular, React, and JHipster quite a bit. However, I'm doing it mostly on the Okta Developer Blog. Here's a list of my blog posts from Q1 2018:
"Open up the champagne, pop! 🍾" -- Flo Rida, My House
I’m thrilled to announce that Hefe, my 1966 21-Window VW Bus, is finally finished!
It only took 4,342 days, starting on April 17, 2006 and ending just a couple weeks ago (March 7, 2018).
When I last wrote about Hefe, I mentioned he was in the shop getting a better stereo.
For Hefe's stereo, I tried going phone-only for a controller. This turned out to be a bad idea, mostly due to bit Play HD and its terrible mobile app. Also, Hefe is lowered and a bit bumpy in the front, so trying to use a touch screen while driving doesn't work very well. He's in the shop now getting a new deck installed.
My dad and I visited Elevated Audio to pick him up two weeks ago today. I’ve known the owner, Andrew, ever since I hired him to install a sweet system in Stout the Syncro in 2013. Back then, his business was named Andrew’s Installs. Fast forward five years and his business is thriving. For a good reason too, his team and their attention to detail is magnificent.
Having Hefe finished sometimes makes me misty eyed when I drive him.
My daughter observed the other day that most people are frowning when they’re driving. I’m not one of this people. In fact, I have to wear sunglasses to hide my tears of joy! 🤣 #HefeTheBus#21windowspic.twitter.com/0LWaQkjZlx
Last Friday evening, I washed and polished him to get ready. While cleaning him, I accidentally sprayed a bunch of water on the engine. It’s a no-no to drench a car’s engine when it’s not running. I’d done this to our Syncro six months after we got it and it might’ve contributed to our engine’s untimely death.
After I finished, I tried to start Hefe. The engine turned over just fine, but it’d barely fire and never catch. I pumped the gas pedal a bunch and eventually gave up thinking I'd flooded the engine. I told myself to revisit the problem in an hour; maybe things would dry out by then.
I didn’t tell Trish about the problem until I’d tried (and failed) to start him an hour later. I took off the distributor cap and dried things out. I wiggled and re-routed some wires. Moving wires around made the spark plugs fire but in the wrong order. I reverted my changes and told Trish the bad news.
We couldn’t be in the parade without a running bus.
I cursed, loudly.
Trish’s high-school friend was flying in from NYC with her family that night. Trish left for the airport to pick them up, suggesting “we could go skiing instead” as she left.
Shortly after, I recognized my lousy attitude and vowed to turn things around.
“Now it’s flooded,” I thought. I knew the wires were correct.
I threw on my University of Denver hockey jersey and went to my living room to finish watching them in a playoff game. They beat the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs 3-2, and I celebrated with a cold Guinness.
Then I strolled outside, sat in Hefe, told him he could do it and started him right up. 💥
Wahoo! He recovered!!
The parade was epic.
We all felt glorious; cranking the stereo, blowing bubbles out the top, dancing up a storm, and basking in the happiness that is downtown Denver on St. Paddy’s Day. 🍀🤗
Yes, there will likely be more to do to Hefe in the coming years. That’s OK. He inspires smiles every time I drive him and providing joy to people is a beautiful experience.
Kudos to all seven Colorado shops that made Hefe possible. I won’t say he’s worth every penny, but he’s pretty darn close! 😍
2017 was a year with many changes. We changed presidents, Stormpath joined forces with Okta, our daughter started high school, and we lost two of our precious pets. On the upside, I traveled to many beautiful places, talked to developers around the world, and became a Devoxx Champion. Not only that, but our two classic VWs ran like champs the whole year. We put upwards of 10K adventure miles on our Syncro, and another couple thousand on Hefe the Bus.
I'm going to look back on 2017 using the following categories.
2017 was the first year I started with a full-time job in January since the turn of the century. I'd been an independent consultant for most of my career. Stormpath enticed me enough with their people and vision that I became a full-time employee with them in
September 2016.
January started slow, but I started to hit my stride in February when I traveled to Sweden for Jfokus and skiing.
Coincidentally, it was shortly after the conference that I found myself negotiating with Eric Berg about joining forces with Okta. I remember it well: I was sitting in the hotel lobby, with James Ward and Ray Tsang, when it all happened. Shortly after, we were sitting in the back of the bus on our way to a skiing
adventure.
I had the pleasure of traveling to London, England and Tallin, Estonia this past week. In London, I spoke at
Devoxx UK. In Tallin, I spoke at GeekOut.
I took my mom (or mum, if you
prefer)
and we explored the sights, enjoyed local cuisines and savored a few beverages. Our trip started with a direct
flight from Denver to London. We arrived on Tuesday, June 7, around noon.
We were only in London for two nights, but it was enough time for us to savor excellent Indian food, fancy a walk
through
London, and order a bow tie. I forgot the bow tie for my JHipster outfit. Luckily, I found
a good replacement and was able to order it for next-day delivery. I had to order it by 5pm and the site
declined both my credit cards with time running out. I ended up using PayPal and got my order placed in the nick of
time: 16:59:51.
The big news announced at Devoxx UK is that Devoxx is coming to the United States in
2017! I'm on the program committee for this conference, so I look forward to helping make it spectacular.
Last Friday, the JHipster Mini-Book was published on
InfoQ. I wrote about this milestone on the book's blog. I'm
pumped to see this release happen, and I'd like to give you a behind-the-scenes peak at how it went from idea to production.
The Idea
At the end of last year, I wrote down my goals for 2015:
21 Point Fitness App
JHipster Mini Book (InfoQ)
Finish Bus
New House
Good Blood Pressure
My reason for wanting to write a JHipster Mini-Book was simple: I knew AngularJS, Bootstrap and Spring Boot quite
well. I'd used them on several projects and I really liked how JHipster married them all together. I often ran into
people that used these technologies, but hadn't heard of JHipster. I was hoping to make more people aware of the
project and market my development skills at the same time.
