Always

Happy 9th Birthday Justin! They just grow too fast. He wanted steak and noodles for his birthday dinner, but Mom convinced him that he really wanted steamed crabs. Even though the crabs were from Texas they were pretty good....still not as good as middle of the summer crabs.

The interesting part of dinner was the PRS Guitars contigent taking up all the tables around us. They were a colorful group. And Mr. Paul Reed himself was right next to Justin. Being 9 he had no clue. Maybe it was a sign.....maybe I have a guitar hero in the making.

Posted by Brian Levay at 8:00 PM | Permalink

PEBKAC is happening too often in these parts. Who knew there were so many similar acronyms?

Posted by Brian Levay at 12:00 PM | Permalink

Just upgraded the blog software from 3.35 to 4.1....wow, what a change! This is going to take some getting used to. I do have to thank Six Apart for making the upgrade process about as easy as can be (copy over the installation directory and go to your blog admin url....that is it).

Posted by Brian Levay at 8:00 PM | Permalink

This one has been in my to-post queue for awhile.....classic.

Posted by Brian Levay at 5:00 PM | Permalink

If you are wine lover (or if you are against unnecessary government regulation) and live in Maryland now is the time to help out your fellow citizens and write your state congressman about Senate Bill 616 and House Bill 1260. If these measures are passed wine junkies like myself will have access to some of the best wines the world has to offer. Right now Marylanders have access to the best wines the state run distributors have to offer. Maryland is one of the many states that still do not allow direct shipment of wine to the consumer.

Free the Grapes will do all the work for you. Just click on the Maryland link, scroll down, punch in your name & address, click Send Message and "Free the Grapes" will send an e-mail to your state senator and representatives on your behalf.

Posted by Brian Levay at 10:00 PM | Permalink

Dave pointed me to this interesting movie comparing J2EE against some high powered web frameworks, specifically Ruby on Rails, Zope, Turbo Gears, and django. I think it is well known that J2EE will lose against just about any web framework. Try teaching simple jsp/servlets to community college students and you'll quickly understnd why. I spent more time on the nuances of the framework than actually building web apps.

I'm not sure when the video was created but I think if you threw the other Java based web development frameworks into the mix (e.g. Grails and Lift) ruby and zope would still win but I can guarantee the results would have been closer.

The author interestingly enough selects Zope as the winner. Try a few Google searches on Sean Kelly and you'll probably see why. A see a little bias....hmmmmm.

Posted by Brian Levay at 8:00 PM | Permalink