The First 100 Years Are The Hardest

Get Sun Certified for the Java1.4 platform! Now that I've got it, I can recommend it (yes, this is where I've been hiding out for the past few months). I highly recommend this book from Amazon.com to help you study for the Sun Certified Programmer's exam for Java 1.4 (310-035). The book comes with a CD-ROM that includes a PDF version of the book and several simulated exams that will prepare you for official version available at your local Prometric Testing Center . If you already have your java certification, be sure to check out SunEd's other certification programs .

Shace Shuttle Columbia Coverage: USA Today has put together a very good website to cover the Loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia . The site is graphics and sound intensive and requires the flash multimedia plug-in to be enabled, but it is well worth it.

I can attest to this : A Linux dekstop reference for the rest of us! Having recently installed Suse Linux 8.1 with no problems (installation was a snap- I did it three times before I was satisfied that the install was done correctly; getting my LinModem to work was the hard part!). What I really needed was a desktop reference to ease me over some of the tough spots, such as upgrading packages with breaking dependancies, looking for key information in the /var/log directories, deciding when to set-uid some processes as root (I still run my ppp dialer as root!). Mark Rais new book "Linux for the Rest of Us" promises to change all that. From the book review: Be not afraid, dear PC owner, be not afraid. Today's Linux flavors (or "distros", as they are called) are easy to install, easy to configure and easy to use. Yes, they are more configurable than any version of Windows, and you can tell a Linux computer to do things a regular Windows box doesn't eve...

The infamous and now bankrupt telephone company for which I've worked for 12 years has a "song-of-the-day" to help inspire us to achieve the company's "100 Day Plan." However the latest rounds of layoffs (2/28/03) have me singing "Getaway Car" from hardrock greatness AudioSlave : The first time I saw you You were chasing down A cyclone All alone in a field With rail yards and clovers I kept rolling on and never thought You'd wind up chasing me Chorus: Well settle down I won't hesitate To hit the highway Before you lay me to waste Settle up and I'll help you find Something to drive Before you drive me insane You're tired of walking and you Loathe the ground The sidewalk will barely Touch your feet and life moves Too slowly to hold you down With rining hands You take it out on me [Chorus] So get yourself a car and drive it all night long Get yourself a car and ride it on the wind....

REALITY BASED TELEVISION The New York Times (Feb 24) provides coverage of the new round of reality based TV shows the big four broadcast networks have slated for this summer. With titles such as "Love For Sale", "Wife Swap", and "Around The World In 80 Dates" one wonders how much lower we can sink in our pursuit for entertainment. Stephen King predicted our fate 20 years ago with his classic " The Running Man ": ...where people work in dangerous jobs for low wages, but employment is still extremely hard to get. Ben Richards knows that the only way his wife and daughter can get out of the low class lifestyle is for him to try to win money on one of the many gameshows on television.... These are no ordinary gameshows, because they make you suffer, or even die, and Richards has been chosen for the top show of all - The Running Man. The rules are fairly straightforward. $100 for every hour that you stay alive, and if you manage to stay alive fo...

Business Week Coverage (March 2003). Want to know what's really interesting about what I do at work (and at home for that matter?). Be sure to check out the March 3 cover story in Business Week. You can also click here to see an advance copy of the article that includes interviews from my staff. The cover doesn't look to shabby either! Be sure to read the rest of the issue for the special report on Linux and Open Source Development (OSD) in general. My group actually saved closer to $1.5M (yes million!) by going open source in the few areas we could get approval to use it. I'm sure 2003 will be a different story as the corporate environment begins to embrace the open source philosophy in general. We've already made extensive use of CVS and Sun One Studio for our integrated java/web development. For production web systems we also tools from the Apache Software Foundation , including the apache webserver, mod_perl, mod_ssl, and several tools from the ...

Squirrel Hazing -- The Untold Story . This site is great and proves I still have a sense of humor. Its amazing what random Google searches provide during conference calls.... literally hours of entertainment. Enjoy! Later on you can check out what those crazy google guys are doing in their lab !

Worth Thinking About: "You must have chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star." (Friedrich Nietzsche). Nietzsche may be more famous for his oft' misquoted phases such as "God is Dead" or "Will to Power" than for the philosophic battles he chose to fight. What creative impulse defines a man who has exhausted the alternatives available to him? Does he remain a man, a simple animal with relative needs and desires, or does he become a superman, something approaching our concept of God? What Nietzsche really represents is the epic philosophical battle of the moderns against the ancients - Freud vs. Socrates- which can be characterized as the desire to rationalize ones actions versus the desire to know ones self, no matter the cost (Freud was heralded as champion of the repressed ego while Socrates was eventually put to death for "impiety and corruption of the youth" ). Nietzsche morns the loss of a badly needed father and a...

Worth Thinking About: "Many engineering deadlocks have been broken by people who are not engineers at all. This is simply because perspective is more important than IQ." ( Nicholas Negroponte ).

Chris White's Weblog Roundup : Alien Barbeque April Gem is quirky and funny. Reading her posts definitely offers something different. ComputerUser: The art of the blog The original Mike Finley article (November 2002) that piqued my interest in blogging by asking, "Anyone can create a weblog, but how many are any good?" The Cathedral and the Bazaar ESR has plenty to keep himself busy, and unfortunately his websites are not updated fequently enough. Doc Searls Interesting perspectives from the senior editor of Linux Journal . Geek Press Technology News... shaken, not stirred! NewsForge Old Reliable... the gateway for information on OSD (open source development). Open Source Developer's Network Enough Said!. SlashDot News for Nerds and Stuff That Matters. TechDirt All the news that is fit to read . Webmonkey Weblog Roundup All you need to know about weblogging software and hosting services. Weblog Industry Report Truely the final Final wo...