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.
It usually snows in September in Denver. This year, it waited until today. It was awesome to wake up this morning and see the white stuff coming down. Bring on Ski Season - I'm ready!
Bill mentions that A-Basin is open. If you're going to this year's Colorado Software Summit (starts today), you may want to bring your skis. Then again, who wants to ski greens? 
Today marks the beginning of a long-awaited trip to the East Coast. Way back in March, I negotiated a deal with a company in Danbury, CT to teach my Open Source Java Jewels training course. I was supposed to deliver it in May, but that got changed because of their 45-day Vendor Approval Process. It was rescheduled for August. August came and it got moved again because so many people were on vacation. It was rescheduled for October and I'll be delivering it next week.
I'm teaching 2 courses: one for 16 managers Monday - Tuesday and one for 21 developers Wednesday - Friday. Yeah, I know that's way too many students, but I think I can handle it. I warned the company it wasn't a good idea to have that many students, but they wanted to pack them all in anyway. Oh well.
The best part about this trip is I'm doing something I've wanted to do for a long time. I'm taking the kids with me! The rest of my family is coming too - my parents will be on our 2nd flight today and my sister flies in Monday. My dad grew up in Beacon, NY - only 45 minutes from Danbury. Since his brother and sister still live there (as well as many cousins) it should be a fun week of family and crazy kids in a hotel room. With any luck, we'll get to see some fall colors and create some great memories.
The past week has been an incredible time to live in Denver. It all started last Monday when I went to the Rockies vs. Padres Wildcard Game. It was a beautiful night, we had club-level seats and the Rockies beat the Padres in a 13-inning, 5-hour marathon. It was the best baseball game I've ever seen in my life.
Fast forward to last weekend. The kids and I rented a condo in Winter Park with some friends. It was an awesome 5-bedroom place with a great view of the ski resort, a nice hot tub and an ideal location to watch Saturday night's sweep of the Phillies.
After a hike in the warm mountain air on Saturday, I received a phone call from a friend saying he couldn't make it to the Broncos game on Sunday and asked if I wanted his tickets. I leaped at the opportunity and sped down the mountain on Sunday to go to the game. While the Broncos game was pretty bad, it was still fun going to the stadium and watching them play.
The fun hasn't stopped yet either - I (somehow) got free VIP tickets to a Nuggets pre-season game tomorrow night and this weekend is the Great American Beer Festival. Unfortunately, I'm out of town for all the Arizona games, but I should be in town for the World Series.
Wednesday we had a nice relaxing day in Oslo. After breakfast, we went on a 2-hour boat tour of the local fjord. The boat lulled me to sleep for most of the trip, but my mom kept elbowing me to keep me awake so I did see manage to see some things. Many islands were so small they could only fit a single house. They all looked like very enjoyable locations to spend the summer months.
After the boat trip, we browsed through an outdoor exhibit by Steve Bloom. The exhibit had some amazing photographs of wildlife - I may have to buy some to fill up my empty walls. After that, we had a bottle of wine on the docks and then headed back to check in to our hotel.
At the hotel, I had my most expensive cocktail ever - paying $26 for a Whiskey and Coke. We had a very nice dinner on Wednesday night and retired fairly early. It's nice traveling with my parents because you get a good night's sleep every night.
On Thursday, I had my talk at 11:45. I was speaking in "Gate 1", which has a stage in the middle of the room - which audiences on both sides. It was a bit difficult to talk to one audience without turning your back on the other one, but I think I did OK. I told folks I would post a link to my slides after my talk. Rather than continually linking to the individual PDF, I've created a Presentations page that will list my presentations from various conferences and such. The direct link to my JavaZone talk is here. One of the highlights of the show (for me) was meeting Aslak Hellesøy. I've always admired Aslak for all his contributions to open source.
WARNING: Please remember these slides that are merely a backdrop for my presentation. During the talk, I do say that some things are innacurate or have been fixed with recent (or future) releases. The slides don't really mean anything without the accompanying talk.
After JavaZone, my parents and I went to see the Fram Museum and then to Vigeland Park. The sculptures at Vigeland were pretty incredible, especially since we were there while the Sun was setting.
This morning, we hopped out of bed, had some breakfast and headed for the airport. After making it all the way to the gate, our flight was cancelled at the last minute. The reason is mechanical and apparently parts need to be flown in from London. Currently, it's 2:30pm and they have no idea if it will be a 4-hour or 48-hour delay. They bussed us over to the nearby Clarion Hotel, fed us lunch and gave us rooms. There's no seats available on other flights, so everyone on our flight is pretty much stuck. Hopefully we'll get out of here sometime tomorrow.
Update: Looks like we'll be on a flight tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM. They've given me no indication that I'm confirmed through Denver, so tomorrow night could be spent in Newark.
Today was another day of great weather in Helsinki. Around noon, we took a boat out to see
Suomenlinna.
Suomenlinna is a major monument of military architecture. The construction of the sea fortress on the islands just off Helsinki in the middle of the 18th century was the most extensive building project during Swedish rule. When it was complete, its military shipyard was one of the biggest dry docks in the world and centres of know-how at that time. At the end of Swedish rule the fortress was being compared with the maritime fortifications at Gibraltar.
From there, we enjoyed some margaritas in the sunshine and then hopped on the Finnair bus for the airport. An hour later, we were on the plane and headed for Norway.
For some reason, our luck changed when we got to Oslo. Seems I always have bad luck in this town. This time, it wasn't as bad as my laptop dying, it was just inconvenient. We rode the bullet train from the airport to Oslo's Central Station, which happens to be right next door to our hotel. Once we got there to check in, we found out it wasn't "our hotel" until tomorrow night. Doh! Looking at e-mails I exchanged with the JavaZone guys, it's entirely my fault. We stumbled around to few different hotels and ended up finding a room at the Clarion near Central Station.
When folks say Oslo is expensive, they aren't kidding. Our room was available online for $745 US a night, but we somehow managed to get it for around $500/night. Oh well, at least we're not sleeping on the streets of Oslo tonight.
Tomorrow the JavaZone conference begins. I might go to a few sessions, but it's more likely I'll go exploring Oslo with my parents. The last time I was here, I didn't get to see any sights, and I don't want to let that happen again.
Yesterday, we spent a good portion of the day walking around Helsinki. My mom had a "walking tour" guide that we followed past the Embassies, along the water and through some city streets. After walking for 4 hours, we came back to the hotel, took some naps and then headed out to meet some locals for drinks (Hi Jussi and James!).
We got some great advice from Jussi and James and headed to the "Allied Forces HQ" building (Sokos hotel). At the top of the hotel is a bar that has great views of Helsinki. After a couple cocktails, we headed to Zetor for dinner. The Reindeer was excellent, as was the wine. We made it back to the hotel just in time to get a sauna in and collapsed into bed around 11.
Today we're heading to Suomenlinna for a couple hours and then off to the airport to catch a flight to Oslo. The weather is perfect here - not too hot and not too cold. I love it.
After a long couple days of flying, we finally arrived at our hotel in Helsinki this evening. It was a pretty tiring experience getting over here, but that's my own fault since I pulled an all-nighter on Friday night (trying to finish up a training course and slides for CSS). I rewarded myself with a little first-class action from Denver to Newark, but then was in the "back of the bus" from Newark to Oslo. We had a 4-hour layover in Oslo before hopping on a 2-hour flight to Helsinki. A 45-minute cab ride, a stop at the wrong hotel, a 5 minute cab ride and we arrived at the right location. I should sleep pretty good tonight after 48 hours of little to no sleep.
We haven't seen much of the city yet, but hope to tomorrow. The hotel we're staying at is pretty nice. I especially like the fact they have very nice saunas and we're staying only a few doors down from them. Our room is incredibly large and has 3 beds in it. The bathroom even has heated floors. Good thing my mom picked up the tab for this one.
Tomorrow looks like a high of 55°F, which sounds about perfect. I brought a coat and would hate to pack it around for nothing.
I'll be in Mountain View again this week. Instead of trying to organize another tech meetup, I'm going to be attending Redmonk Evening Services on Thursday. If you're nearby, you should definitely join us - I'm sure the conversations won't disappoint.
After California, I'll be arriving back in Denver around 7 on Friday night. One night at home and then I'm off to Oslo for JavaZone at 10 a.m. on Saturday. I'm pretty pumped for the trip because 1) I really enjoyed Norway on my last trip (May 2005) and 2) my parents are traveling with me.
Hope to see you on the road!
Sidenote: It's ironic that my first "On the road again" post was written last year in September.
It should be interesting going into LinkedIn HQ next week. Personally, I like the Web Developer's Diner. If you had $50 to decorate your cube, what would you do? I'd buy a few cases and host a BOF (after hours of course).
