Raible Designs

A Good Job vs. Good Pay

I did the interview with the University of Miami this morning. I was interviewed by a roundtable of folks and the questions weren't too bad - there were some fun ones and some technical ones (i.e. the classic, "what's the difference b/w an interface and an abstract class"). The people sounded very cool and it'd probably be a great team to work on. The pay, however, is not very good at all. However, they said they'd try to work on that. The itneresting thing I've learned is that the best paying jobs are usually the worst jobs. At least that's how it's been for me. I don't know if people just expect more from you, and portray this in the form of micro-management or what, but it sucks to have a job you don't like.

My current job? I love it. Not only because we're using all the cool technologies I like (Ant, Struts, Hibernate, XDoclet, etc.), but also because the people are very cool. Our 8:30 a.m. meetings are actually fun to attend. We poke fun at each other and there's lots of laughter in the room. Today has been an especially good day - I got club level seats to the Rockies Game (baseball) tonight, and also got invited to a pre-release viewing of Matrix Reloaded. Now those are what I call benefits! And, unfortunately, I'm also making the same rate I made six months after I graduated from college. Back then, I couldn't believe how much I was making, and now it's enough to support Julie, Abbie and I (and I'm the only one who works), so it's not too bad.

The problem is the gig at U of M pays around 1/2 of what I'm making now. It'd be an awesome job though. It sounds like they have great people and I'm sure the perks are good (maybe free tuition for my masters?). Look at me talking like I already got the job - I probably just jinxed myself - especially since I gave them the URL to this site. Oh well, if you guys are reading - it sounds like an awesome position, but I don't know if I can support my family on that salary. In fact, I've had such little luck finding a decent paying job in Florida, Julie has started considering a non-move. That is, we might stay in Denver. Jobs here seem to be picking up, and my current contract doesn't seem to have any end in site. They're even talking about putting us on a project developing mobile apps in Java.

Miami is calling though, especially on this cold April afternoon. Now I'm off to freeze my ass off at the Rockies' game. Good thing they're club level seats so we can just sit inside if it's too cold.

On TMobile's Network Again

I'm on TMobile's Wireless Network again, only this time, rather than being in Starbuck's, I'm at the bagel place next door. Very cool! Julie's giving me a ride to work today so I can ride my bike home, and we decided to stop for breakfast. I needed to upload a customized release of the CV, so stopping here to do it seemed like a good idea. Why didn't I do it at home? I'm still on dial-up and the upload failed while I was sleeping. Our ISP is supposed to come out today, but I'm not expecting much.

University of Miami Interview

Remember the dream job I found at the University of Miami? They actually called yesterday and I have a phone interview on Friday! Sweet - my first nibble on my Florida-job-hunting fishing pole. With any luck, Julie and I may be living in Florida in the next couple of months. I don't want to get too excited just yet, but it is encouraging that I got a call.

Blogging motivated by Broadband?

It is my personal little theory that most bloggers have high-bandwidth internet connections. I am seriously de-motivated from surfing and blogging on a dial-up connection. Even worse, our dial-up connection has been on the fritz, and with no connection - I don't even try. I don't even care to read anyone's blogs and I'm starting to wonder if blogging is all that it's cracked up to be. java.blogs is not even interesting to me anymore. I've got to get my internet connection fixed! I'm talking like a crazy man! ;-)

The good news is our ISP called Julie this morning and we're scheduled for an upgrade on the 14th. They also (finally) admitted that there have been sporadic internet connection issues in our area. They've been so damn arrogant this whole time that it "wasn't their problem" - it's nice to see them admit fault. My mom is in town all week at a conference and my dad is flying in on Wednesday, so I'd expect a pretty light week of blogging until next Monday (the 14th).

Struts Training: Week 5

I'm dialed in and listening to Don Brown presenting on Struts and XML/XSL. Don is a lucky guy - he's presenting from Hawaii this morning, where I'm assuming he lives. The bad part for him - it's 5:30 in the morning there. Don is one of the developers of Stxx and has also developed a Cocoon plugin for Struts. He works for DigitalNet and currently is working on a contract for the Navy. Hmmm, wonder if they're hiring - I'm willing to bet that Julie would consider moving to Hawaii! Enough dreaming - onto the presentation.

The following are types of XML/XSL Extensions for Struts:

• XSL-based
    - stxx
    - StrutsCX
• XML pipeline-based
    - Cocoon Plugin

stxx: features
  - replaces JSP with XSL
  - in action, create XML manually, or get it from another source
  - stylesheet selection based on criteria like browser type
  - automatic serialization of ActionErrors, resources, and request objects
  - extendable to support any object serialization or XML transformation technology
  - supports both Struts 1.0 and Struts 1.1

Pretty cool - for Struts 1.1, there's a Stxx plugin, and you use a .dox extension to indicate it needs transformations. In a stxx-transformations.xml, you define "transformations" that define XSL stylesheets, where to run at (client|server), and mimeTypes (html|xml|pdf). Sweet - maybe I can use this sucker for struts-resume! I wonder how Stxx compares with StrutsCX. Since Stxx can be plugged-in and can co-exist with JSPs, it might be the right path for me.

Advantages of Stxx: Simple, use of caching makes tranformations quick, can be used with Velocity or Cocoon, lighweight, very extendable.

Disadvantages: XML pipeline very limited, poor scaling of message resources (if ApplicationResources.properties in huge - i.e. > 1MB), requires all data to be gathered in Action (MVC-push).

Compared to StrutsCX - Don says that it's very similar, except that StrutsCX supports the Validator. As for the Cocoon Plugin, it supports all the features of Cocoon. Describing the features of this plugin seems pointless as I would just be describing features of Cocoon. For the Cocoon PlugIn, you define it the same as a regular plugin, and then change your path to point to an XHTML-compliant JSP. Apparently, Don has modified the struts-example app to use the Cocoon PlugIn, so hopefully I can provide a link to the download.

Here are some resource links from Don's presentation that might interested you:

• stxx - http://stxx.sf.net
• StrutsCX - http://it.cappuccinonet.com/strutscx/
• Cocoon - http://cocoon.apache.org
• Cocoon Plugin - http://www.twdata.org/struts/
• Database Layer - http://www.ibatis.com
• XML-RPC via JavaScript - http://www.vcdn.org/Public/XMLRPC

As for my presentation on Remember Me and XDoclet, you can find those slides here. The slides (and lab) uses a simple JSTL-based app I whipped up last weekend. I'm planning on hooking it into a database eventually to allow online editing of a presentation, but I probably won't do that until I give another presentation.

Life without the Internet

Our internet connection at home went down for the first time in two years yesterday. It's still down - which means I had to try to stop the shakes while I sat in front of the computer all night (working on an XDoclet/Remember Me presentation). I couldn't read any blogs, check any e-mail accounts, or talk to any CVS servers. It was miserable. However, I got a lot done and my productivity was much better. The problem is, who knows when it'll come back. Our ISP thinks it's on our end, and I think it's on their's. I suppose it could be my router. Have any of you had a Linksys router go out on you? My LAN still works fine, so I doubt it's the router. I just hope I don't have to resort to dial-up tonight.

To top it all off, when I got into work this morning, I was locked out of the network. In fact, I'm still locked out, but I have internet access, so the shakes have subsided for the moment. I guess my original contract was supposed to expire at the end of March.

I'm curious to know if anyone played an April Fools joke on anyone yet? I did on Julie - running into the bedroom all flustered and pissed, claiming that someone had stolen our car. She said, "which one?" and "well, better call the police." It barely even phased her, but I definitely got her hook, line and sinker. Then she got me back with "Want a quickie?" Of course I said "Sure!" and she retorted with "April Fools!" Damnit.

Job Hunt in Florida

My Job Hunt in South Florida is at a standstill. My countless e-mails to job postings from Monster and DICE are not receiving any replies. Not that I expected any, but receiving an e-mail reply saying "we hired someone else" would be nice. I've done the Monster and DICE thing for many years now and never gotten a job from them, so I don't know why I'm expecting one now. Most of my jobs/contracts have come from connections. That is, folks that I know (or have worked with in the past) that are looking for someone with my skills. The problem is, I don't have any connections in Florida. I really would like to move in June, but at the rate I'm going, it looks like we might be stuck in Denver for awhile. So it's time to come up with a new strategy.

Step #1: Lookup companies in the South Florida Business Journal and send e-mails to HR Directors - or at least searching for jobs on their websites.

Step #2: If I'm not successful by mid/late-April in getting at least one interview, it's time to fly. I'll schedule a trip down there and start soliciting my resume door-to-door and attending networking events (i.e. JUG Meetings).

Or I could revert back to my tried and true philosophy. The best things come to those who wait. It's much easier and requires a lot less work. Besides, I like it in Denver and currently have a great day job. Suggestions are welcome.

Life as a Contractor

This weeks sucks to be a contractor. It's a 2-day week and that's all I'm getting paid for - 2 days. Damnit, wish I was full-time. Then again, if I were making the big bucks, 2 days would be plenty to pay the mortgage. Alas, I am not - and I'm tempted to work this weekend. What the hell is wrong with me - work on the weekend?! I make fun of my friends when they work on the weekend - now I'm a hypocrite. I have a to do list that makes my weekend boring as all getout:

• work 10-12 hours at day job
• add user administration to struts-resume
• release appfuse
• finish new design prototype for client
• release displaytag (no one else seems to want to do it)
• clean the house before Julie gets home

No wonder I miss Julie and Abbie so much when they're gone - I sit in front of the fricken computer all the time! When I get out of the house (or simply off the computer), I find I miss them much less (it's been almost 2 weeks!). I might have to scrap my to do list (save the paid part - item 3) and get off the damn computer. Booking happy hour and ski dates shortly... ;-)

Made it home to the Blizzard of 2003

Oh man, I've never loved Colorado as much as I do now. This snow is fricken swweeettt. I got stuck in our driveway last night, trying to bash my way in. The snow was up to the hood of our Jeep Cherokee and when I hiked into the house, it was about 4 inches above my knees! It's been snowing all night and we probably got another foot last night. I spent an hour last night and shoveled the driveway enough to park in the garage. I'm going to re-dig the driveway out, throw on some chains and find a good sledding hill.

I can't believe that Alaska Airlines flew into this sucker last night - they're my new favorite airline. Most things are closed, my office is closed, and most roads are closed. In some cities (Aurora and Ft. Collins), it's now against the law to drive on city streets. I'll take my phone camera and hopefully do some mophoto-ing today. Too bad Julie has the good digital camera - oh well. In the meantime, check out this slideshow of the 2-7 feet of snow we have!!

What to do with my Chapters?

Julie suggested I just post them on this site. Then I got to thinking - what if all the authors made a PDF version of the book, and it was downloadable as the whole thing or as selected chapters. Let's say $5/chapter and you can pick and choose whichever ones you want. Sounds like a good idea, but the problem would be protecting the PDFs from being shipped around between friends. Or we could just give them away, in hopes that our knowledge would inspire others to hire us (as in a new job or a new book).

I don't know what to do, but I'd like to get my chapters out somehow. I'm afraid that if I just sit and wait, they'll never get out, and the technology will be old news shortly. The stuff I wrote about has staying power, but only until the next version of XDoclet and Struts.

I guess the good news is that I'll keep struts-resume up to date with the latest version, but the writing will be out of date by the end of the year.