An Old Palm Device Charger

June 12, 2015

An old Palm device charger

I was an early adopter of Palm mobile devices. Yet, like most technology, they had their day in the sun and then were cast into the shade of the next generation of mobile organizers and then smart phones came along and made pretty much everything else obsolete.

This morning, I noticed this charger lying around and actually stopped to take a look at it, thinking I could swipe it for an at work USB charger. It was a charger for my last Palm device. I'm pretty sure that I no longer have the device, so the charger is off to the circular file. If you look carefully at the picture, you'll notice the proprietary connector. I'm so glad that the days of proprietary chargers are on the way out. Apple are one of the few holdouts, but even they are moving towards USB-C for their laptop charging technology.

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Cover Song - Happy Trails performed by Van Halen

June 12, 2015

An all-time classic cover song. After listening to even just a few Van Halen albums, it's hard not to realize that Dave Lee Roth is a bit of a Jazzer and loves those old classic tunes.

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I Want To Run An Agile Project

June 5, 2015

Some amusing videos from the Scrum training I have been attending this week.

I Want To Run An Agile Project (Part 1)

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Is Java A Monoculture?

June 5, 2015

TL;DR - Technically no, but practically yes.

I'll start by examining why Java is not a monoculture.

Java is interesting, in that it is both a programming language and a runtime environment. When Java first burst upon the scene, it was promoted as a general-purpose cross-platform programming language. It was not the first language to make such a claim, but it was the first to live up to most of its hype. I was a very early adopter of Java and remember the joy of writing code on a Windows PC and then having my tester run that exact same code on their Apple Mac. I'd used scripting languages that could do that, but never anything that needed compiling. I was hooked.

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New Instance of BenevolentEmployer

June 2, 2015

Today I start as a full-time employee at a company after working there as a contractor through TeamSoft. I was initially all excited to announce this, but then I was placed on a top secret project and asked to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Given that I have a legal protection budget of zero, I'll just note that I am now a full-time employee and go back to my previous habit of referring to my employer as Benevolent Employer.

This position has lots of opportunity to be excellent, so I am pleased and even a little excited. I do plan to keep writing, but at most will mention new Benevolent Employer in passing, so that I can diligently abide by the agreement I signed.

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