It’s election time. I’m increasingly frustrated by the often binary decision facing American voters: Republican or Democrat. The policy-making decisions of the world’s largest economy and largest democracy are complex, multi-dimensional, and of course, very controversial. Yet, I just get to choose “blue” or “red”. The notion of choosing proxies to represent voters was necessary […]
I Love the Mac: The iTunes Store
Two days after trying Amazon Unbox, I fired up the new iTunes 7 to buy a movie for the kiddies. I trust Apple enough to tell my two young girls that I’m about to put a movie on for them — before I ever try the service out and on the new store’s first day […]
Thoughts on Amazon Unbox and the Mac
I’ve been using DOS/Windows PCs since I was six or seven years old. It’s in my blood. Of course, I flirted with the Mac over the years, but she would be for me the rich, good-looking girl across the street; she smiled at me from time to time but we both knew I didn’t have […]
My Dream Phone
I finally found my dream cell phone. I’ve gone through so many phones, from my first gray clunky Moto flip phone in 1995 to my trusty T-Mobile branded Sony Ericsson T610 (and a lot of Nokia in-between), and I’ve never had one I really liked. Every few years, when I go to buy a phone, […]
Hog Heaven
Ahhh… no more KVM switching and PC using, no more waity waity whenever I do work on the Mac, much less alt-tabby-tabby… hog heaven, my friends, hog heaven. Sadly, my Perfect Chair will be retired for a bit until I figure out a good way to mount the 30 inch LCD to work reclined. But […]
Lazarus, Ajax, and San Francisco
And so, after months of dormancy, I resurrect this blog. Why did it die? Pragmatic Ajax. I can assure you, all of us involved in authoring that little piece of sh^H^H, err, high-quality-Ajax-reference-material-available-soon-at-a-bookstore-near-you (did I just make a ^H joke?) have made blood oaths to talk each other out of authoring another book. Ever. Why […]
Embarassing Moments at JavaOne (and OSCON)
There are two experiences in my life that caused me such embarassment that though years have passed, when I reflect back upon them for more than a few seconds, I find myself subconciously curling up into the fetal position with a pained expression burned into my face. These are not those experiences. But, they are […]
Google Local, and Why It Makes Me Love Beta Books
I think the very same day that Justin, Dion, and I released a beta version of our new book, Pragmatic Ajax, Google integrated their maps engine with Google Local. Because one of our chapters teaches you how to write your own version of Google Maps from the ground up, including generating a JPG map from […]
Random Microsoft Rant
Sometimes the “new Microsoft” (what with their neat programming language features, wicked cool user-interface eye candy, rock-star evangelists, and so forth) makes me forget why I used to have such a dim view of that vendor- of- a- word- processor- that- failed- to- change- significantly- over- 13- years- and- five- major- revisions. Yesterday, I uninstalled […]
Why Ajax Made Me Ignore Your Email
Well, it looks like the cat’s out of the bag: Justin Gehtland, Dion Almaer, and I have been busy little bees working on our upcoming book, Pragmatic Ajax, to be published by Dave Thomas‘ Pragmatic Bookshelf. I hate writing books, but with a couple of pals like these two, Dave Thomas’ best-in-class book authoring tools, […]
Ben Galbraith 