Oracle and the Future of Java
Oracle purchased Sun, the company behind the widely-used Java programming language. Naturally, developers have been worried about what this means for the future of Java, and rumors have been swirling. So, Oracle has created a series of video advertisements to address these rumors....

Puzzle Solving and Corporate Culture
There's a new tradition at MetroStar Systems. It started when someone left a 1000-piece Christmas puzzle in the lunch room at MetroStar's headquarters in Reston, VA. It quickly became a collaborative effort with many employees participating in solving the puzzle. Now, it's simply become expected that when one puzzle is solved, a new one will soon magically appear in the lunch room.

New Version of RubyNation Site Released
A new version of the RubyNation web site was just released today. The new graphics were created by Don Anderson, while the new look-and-feel, including CSS, was assembled by me. The new look highlights the fact that RubyNation 2010 is being held April 9 - 10, which overlaps with Washington's Cherry Blossom Festival. This is the first major change to the site's design since its initial launch in mid-2008.

Nine Days
Find out what a Java guru can do in 9 days if he's really pressed.

Quick Start: ActiveScaffold
ActiveScaffold is more than just a replacement for the default scaffold functionality built into the Rails framework. The ActiveScaffold plugin provides a simple way for developers to quickly and easily add sophisticated data maintenance and data display features to web sites. Find out more about ActiveScaffold from my ActiveScaffold presentation, which is finally available online in PDF form.

Playing With Microsoft Surface
Microsoft Surface is a new, horizontally-positioned multi-touch computer first introduced in 2007. Through a combination of software and hardware, it features gesture recognition capabilities that allow multiple people to use it at the same time. I had a chance to play with a Microsoft Surface at work, and I have to admit that it was pretty cool.

RubyNation 2010 Graphic Preview
Here's a preview of the new graphic "theme" for RubyNation 2010. The design was created by Don Anderson, graphic artist extraordinaire. Since this year's conference, scheduled for April 9 - 10, will overlap Washington's annual Cherry Blossom Festival, we decided to incorporate cherry blossoms into the theme. Interestingly enough, the cherry blossoms were originally a gift from Japan; likewise, the Ruby programming language was created in Japan.

MetroStar Systems Sponsors RubyNation

MetroStar Systems, a 10-year-old Information Technology Provider and one of Inc's "America's Fastest Growing Companies," has agreed to be a Diamond sponsor for RubyNation 2010, which will be held April 9 - 10. MetroStar is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, and specializes in systems and software integration for government clients. It provides clients with agile, collaborative solutions designed to integrate people, processes, technology and learning across an organization.

Is Hulu Just a Glorified Tivo?
There's a paradigm shift that's impacting the entertainment industry, and it's already changing how, when and where we watch television shows and movies. For example, I watch most of my movies and television shows on my Mac laptop, either via a download from my Tivo, a show on Hulu.com, a DVD or a downloaded video. Despite this, I don't think the entertainment industry is evolving fast enough, and I think they run the risk of alienating customers (me being one of them, of course).

New Version of MudDawg.com Released
Just released a new version of MudDawg.com. This is a major release for this blog about motorcycle racing that I created years ago for my brother, Steve Keener. This release jettisons .NET in favor of a WordPress, i.e. - the site was created using the open source WordPress blogging software, with a custom theme. The new platform has a few other advantages — it can be hosted more cheaply on Linux rather than on a Windows server, and it also uses MySQL, an open source database server (as opposed to Microsoft SQL Server).

Creating a Breadcrumb Trail in Rails, Part 2
In Part 1, we built the basic functionality for generating a breadcrumb trail for a Rails application, but we didn't worry about packaging the code for maximum reusability. Well, "cut-and-paste" is not a sustainable reusability paradigm. In this article, we'll further streamline the breadcrumbs code and also show how to package it up to enhance reusability.

Social Networking With Jive's Social Business Software
Jive's Social Business Software (SBS) platform provides an integrated suite of social networking tools that can be applied effectively within a business environment. Learn more about this highly functional software platform.