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.
For book updates, follow @angular_book on Twitter.
The JHipster Mini-Book is a
guide to getting started with hip technologies today: Angular, Bootstrap, and Spring
Boot. All of these frameworks are wrapped up in an easy-to-use project called JHipster.
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.
For book updates, follow @jhipster-book on Twitter.
Julie and Abbie are in San Diego this weekend, visiting Julie's sister (Holly). The new house is great - being so close to everything. Life is good - the new laptop scheduled for delivery (overnight) on Tuesday. Too bad about Mike, I had a heavy heart reading his post - hope everything works out.
Boy do I love these cars, especially the real old ones (50s and 60s):
Some Bugs are hard to kill. After a brief reprieve, the Volkswagen Beetle, the original version, faces extinction today. Volkswagen's plant in Mexico -- the only one in the world that still makes the old-style Beetle -- finishes one last gussied-up retro edition of the plucky, curvacious little car, ending the model's 70-year run. [CNN/Money]
I'd love to get my hands on one of these new/old bugs, but I don't think they're legal (due to emissions standards) in the US. For any Colorado bug fans out there - the Fineline Bug-In is coming to Bandimere Speedway on August 10th. Julie, Abbie and I are going - should be a great time. I almost buy one every year I go - this year I might actually do it. I'd especially like something like this '58 Vert'. I still plan on restoring an old Bug or Bus in the near future.
I have half my office setup - in other words, I'm sitting at my desk typing this right now - listening to my hard drive whine. Any ideas why the hard drive that shipped with my Dell Dimension 8100 is so noisy? We still have a few more hours to go, but we should be "settled in" by tonight. It'll take us awhile to go from a 1700 square foot house to a 1000 square foot house, but it's nice having everything so close. There's a Safeway (grocery store) 1 1/2 blocks away! Of course, Julie is more excited about the Starbucks inside it. I'm excited about the liquor store that's on the same block as our house. ;-) It's also nice having a kick-ass Italian Restaurant (Santino's) within 60 feet.
I moved all Raible Designs' computer equipment to its new HQ tonight. Boy do I need to get a flat panel monitor - those 19" behemoths are ridiculous. The nice thing is, since we got our internet service hooked up last week, all I had to do was hook up my wireless network and turn on Mini-Me, and voila - connected. Smooth transitions are nice.
Expected delivery date: August 8th
#1 reason to switch back? Speed, and lots of it. ;0)
As I mentioned a couple days ago, I'm looking to purchase a new laptop. Why? Because I might get a contract that requires me to provide my own machine. It's happened before, and on this contract my machine sucked when I started. Sure I could use my slow-as-molasses Powerbook (667 MHz, 1 GB RAM), but I'd rather buy a Windows laptop. Besides, it's not about the machine's productivity as much as my productivity on it. I'm faster on Windows, so I should buy a Windows machine to pack to client sites. Mini-Me (the Powerbook) will be adopted by Julie, where I'm sure it will be in good hands. I still plan on using it a fair amount, but she's been known to tell me "Keep your damn hands off my computer!" ;-)
So, to do some more research on the Alienware Area-51m and the Hibersonic Aviator ZX7, I sent each company an e-mail. The e-mail was pretty simple, and I just switched the order of things for each company:
I'm looking to purchase a new laptop and right now I'm down to making a decision between your 51m (http://alienware.com/system_pages/area-51m.aspx) and Hypersonic's ZX7 (http://hypersonic-pc.com/ZX7). Can you tell me why I should buy your product over Hypersonic's?
About 10 hours later (a little slow, don't you think), I received the first reply - from Hypersonic.
Fair enough, Hypersonic has a Customer Satisfaction rating of 7.79, but less than 20 reviews in the last 6 months. Alienware, on the other hand, has a 7.78 Customer Satisfaction Rating. So they're very close there. However, on the lifetime rating, Alienware is 7.63 (275 reviews) and Hypersonic is 9.17 (48 reviews). When I first started this comparison, I liked the Alienware machine better because it has 802.11g and because I've heard of the company before. I'd never heard of Hypersonic, but the ZX7 did have built-in bluetooth, a 17" monitor and a (supposedly) kick ass sound system. I don't travel, and if I do, it's usually for pleasure and I can always take Mini-Me.
So I replied to the Hypersonic e-mail above.
And I recieved a reply 6 1/2 hours later:
All good answers to my questions. So I'm feeling pretty good about Hypersonic at this point, and still haven't heard from Alienware. And then I got a response from them, almost 30 hours after I sent my original e-mail. It took about 4 sentences for me to realize they were just sending me a standard form-letter, filled with arrogance.
In the end, both still sound good, but I like the Bluetooth, 17" screen and sound system on the Hypersonic. I decided last night that I should probably buy this now, instead of waiting for a new contract. I want one too bad to pass up the opportunity (and it's a business write-off). At the new house, Raible Designs' HQ will be in the basement, so we'll be relying on our 802.11b network to surf the web, check e-mail, etc. from upstairs. I moved to two computers years ago because Julie and I would fight over one. It's bound to happen again unless we have two wireless laptops. How's that for justification?! I'm saving our marriage! 
We (finally) sold our house today. We've been waiting for an appraisal for the last couple of weeks - the appraiser did his work and went on vacation for two weeks - and everything got finalized today. We close on our old house on Tuesday, which means we have to move to the new one (which is actually 60 years older) this weekend. Aaahhhh, moving, how I missed it. It's been 4 years since the last move, which was from our one-bedroom apartment into our first house. This weekend will likely be a reminder of how much shit I can accumulate in a few short years. Julie will try to throw most of it away, and I will fight to keep a bunch of worthless junk. Should be a fun weekend! Here's the old and the new - old is on top.
Thanks to all who left comments about my (possible) new laptop purchase. I did some more tests today, and I'm going to have to go with a Windows machine, especially since I hope to replicate the performance I get from my machine at work (Dell Optiplex GX260: 2 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Windows 2000 SP4):
Yep, that's right, my (work) desktop is twice as fast when opening Eclipse and 4 times faster opening Photoshop (than the Powerbook). So if I get a 3 GHz laptop with 1 GB RAM, it should be even faster than that right?
Right now, I'm looking at the Alienware Area-51m or the Hibersonic Aviator ZX7. At first glance, I'm leaning towards Area-51m, although the Bluetooth USB Adapter (vs. integrated Bluetooth) is disappointing. The Hibersonice has a 17" screen, but that doesn't seem to be that big of deal (after hearing y'all speak up). Also the Hibersonic has a 802.11b NIC, where the Alienware one has a 802.11g.
