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 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). 
Earlier this year, I had a gig at Checkmate Technologies out in Boston. As part of my work there, they paid me to polish much of AppFuse's code so it passed their Checkstyle coding standards. I'm please to announce that they've donated this work to the AppFuse project. See APF-861 and Changeset 2872 for more details. Thanks guys!
As far as AppFuse 2.0 - we're only 5 issues away from 2.0 RC1! I hope to finish these up in the next few days. With any luck, 2.0 Final will follow shortly after.
The first milestone release of Spring Web Flow 2.0 has been released.
We are pleased to announce that the first milestone of the next generation version of Spring Web Flow is now available. Spring Web Flow 2.0 M1 introduces several major new features, including support for flow-managed persistence contexts, improved support for Java Server Faces, full unified expression language (EL) support, and a more comprehensive sample web application.
I think the most interesting part of this release is Spring Faces:
Spring Web Flow 2.0 M1 introduces the Spring Faces module (spring-faces-2.0-m1.jar), a component shipped with the Web Flow distribution that contains first-class support for organizations developing web applications with Java Server Faces. The pre-existing Web Flow + JSF integration has been factored out to this project, and this project will be the home of all future JSF integration work.
The Spring Faces module provides the Spring community a dedicated project for exploring additional JSF integration opportunities. The initial work in 2.0 M1 on this front introduces integration with Ext, a popular Javascript GUI widget framework.
Of course, I also like how the new sample app looks a lot like one of Seam's demos.
JSF has needed a good client-side validation framework for quite some time. I also like the Ext integration as most JSF date pickers are hideous. Well done gents.
This past weekend marked a big accomplishment for me. I moved into my new place in early August and I've scrambling ever since to make it a home. The biggest thing I've been doing is painting. When I originally decided I wanted to buy the place, it looked really clean inside. However, after the previous owners moved out and took all their pictures down, the walls were pretty nasty looking. I was hoping to do a bit of touch up, but ended up doing a helluva lot more. The first week, I painted the living room and Abbie's room (pink) with the help of many friends. Julie's an expert painter and was able to knock out Abbie's room in only a few hours. The living room (with vaulted ceilings) took severals friends and I quite a few nights. Sure there was a lot of beer involved, but we were still painting the whole time.
The next couple weeks, I spent painting my office and its adjoining bathroom. What a pain in the ass. The office was bright yellow and the bathroom was dark green. Since both have high ceilings, I had to paint those too. For some reason, I chose a mostly white color and went to town. It felt like it took forever, but I finished last Tuesday. It took 4 coats to cover up the yellow and 5 to cover up the green - but it looks sooo much better.
Last weekend was a major deadline for me. I've been working almost every night to get my new place in a condition where I don't feel like I have to work on it - where I'm totally moved in. Sure I still have a lot to do in the garage (and I still need to move my tools to work on the bus), but it finally feels like a home. My deadline was largely motivated by Jack's birthday party here last weekend. I was literally working up until the minute the party started. The worst part was shoveling and hauling 20 tubs of rotten apples out of my backyard.
I have the biggest apple tree I've ever seen and it drops apples like they're going out of style. I counted them in a 24-hour period last weekend and there was 100 new apples! I thought it was cool when I first moved in, but now it seems like a lot of work. However, it's such a good shade tree, it'd be a shame to do anything to it. Below are some pics of the new place.
So what are my 4 other deadlines? I have a project due for my client, AppFuse 2 needs to be released, I need to deliver training materials for a class in October and I have to turn in my Software Summit Presentations. All are due on September 1st (this weekend). Yikes - I'd better get to work!
Today was Abbie and Jack's first day at their new school and boy were they excited. With new lunchboxes and backpacks, what's their not to be excited about? They're both in preschool as Abbie is a bit young for kindergarten (she turns 5 in November). She did take a test for kindergarten and got in, but Julie decided it'd be best to try her in preschool first since her spot disappears as soon as she turns it down. I had a great morning today driving them there (it's about a mile away) and hung out for a while afterwards. Seems like a fun school - made me miss the old days of being a kid.
I went to a K-8 that only had 60 students. You think that's bad - a good friend of mine spent his entire elementary years in a 1-room schoolhouse! There were only 8 kids in his school. The Local School Directory lists that school at 6 students this year. Mine looks quite a bit smaller than 25 years ago - now sitting at 33.
They sure do grow up fast.
Today marks 3 years since Jack was born. He's grown up quite a bit in that time and seems destined to be a train conductor or a hockey player. Too bad he broke his foot a couple weeks ago - he was signed up to start skating lessons next week. Happy Birthday little buddy!
My only good reason for not getting an iPhone? You have to switch to AT&T. I had AT&T a few years ago and their customer service sucked. I've been on T-Mobile for a few years now and couldn't be happier. Now it looks like the iPhone will work with any provider. Very nice!
It's high noon, Apple and AT&T -- we really hate to break it to you, but the jig is up. Last night the impossible was made possible: right in front of our very eyes we witnessed a full SIM unlock of our iPhone with a small piece of software. It's all over, guys. [Read More]
Will I get one now? Probably not, I don't spend enough time on the phone and I'm perfectly happy with my Blackberry Pearl. With that being said, I have seen and fondled one and they are quite nice.
My post asking about one 30" monitor or two 23" monitors generated quite a few comments. After reading The Large Display Paradox, it seems like I should either find something like WinSplit Revolution for the Mac, or get 2 monitors. I agree with everything that Jeff Atwood says about maximizing windows, that's why I originally thought two 23" monitors might be better.
However, the problem with two monitors is I'd need to get Matrox's DualHead2Go Digital Edition to run both on my PowerBook MacBook Pro. Frederic notes some issues I might experience with this device:
It worked ok with 2 17" LCD monitors but did have some issues with most games... One thing to keep in mind is that it may not have the bandwidth to drive anything over 2x1280x1024.
I don't play games (too addictive), but if I can't drive both monitors at 1900x1200, it's probably not worth it.
So you're getting a 30" monitor then?
Maybe, but there's a problem with the 30" that I didn't think of: I'd need dual video cards in my Windows box to drive it. Not only that, my KVM switch probably can't handle a 30" monitor. If I'm wrong, and I can drive a 30" monitor through a single DVI KVM switch, let me know. In the meantime, I'm strongly considering a single 23" with my MacBook Pro on an iCurve next to it. That gives me dual monitors when I'm on the Mac, but not on Windows. That's OK - I don't use my Windows box that much anyway.
When I first read The Rise of JAVA - The Retirement of SUNW, I didn't think much of it. I believe I read it on some sort of news website, so I didn't realize folks would be so passionate about it. Reading the comments on Jonathan's blog is quite entertaining and smells somewhat of a TSS thread - except there's no back-and-forth banter. Dave provides a good roundup of reactions in Blogs on Sun's new stock ticker.
For me, one of the most interesting things to fall out of this is James Duncan Davidson's Remembering Java Naming Blunders Past.
Back in 1998 or so, there were a bunch of people in Cupertino?working in a building that used to belong to Apple?working to finish up the largest and most complicated release of the JDK to that date: JDK 1.2. Compared to JDK 1.0 and 1.1, it was enormous. It had slipped schedule a few times. And there were lots of changes and new APIs everywhere. So many that it was the first release where it was almost impossible to know how to use every Java API out there.
The powers that be really wanted to commorate this in a big way. They wanted to make a big splash when they officially launched the new version of Java in December of 98 at the Java Business Expo in New York. So, they decided to rename Java. I found out about this, along with all the other engineers working on Java, at an all-hands meeting in Cupertino.
The name was? wait for it? Java2000.
I met James at a MySQL Conference a few years back and he's full of stories like this. If you ever get a chance to hear one of his stories about the early days of Java at Sun - I highly recommend it.
On Monday, I took Jack to the doctor to see about getting a cast on his broke foot. We thought he might have to have surgery because the fracture is on a "growth bone", but they never mentioned it while we were there. He picked out his favorite color (red) and they wrapped his ankle up in a nice little cast. He liked it so much he was able to walk out of the doctors office.
On Tuesday, I took Abbie and Jack to the Zoo and again he did great. It's like he doesn't even know it's there. Yesterday he was running around like a madman. No, the new cast isn't slowing him down at all. The doctor said it'll be off in a month.
I'm hosting Jack's 3-year birthday party this weekend - I'd better find some markers so people can sign it.
