Brent Sordyl's blog

JSON Visualization

BrentSordyl — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

bTrendie – invitation only shopping network for moms and moms-to-be

BrentSordyl — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

bTrendie.com is an invitation only shopping network for moms and moms-to-be. We scour the globe for wonderfully designed, high quality, newly created products you need for your baby, your home and yourselves. Once we find these products, we negotiate the best price possible and then offer it to you, our member, but only for a limited time. Our Events are usually open for 48 – and sometimes just 36 — hours, so shop fast and shop hard because once the event is over, it’s over.
(Link: bTrendie – invitation only shopping network for moms and moms-to-be)

Online tools to merge, split and manage PDF files.

BrentSordyl — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:00:02 +0000

Welcome to ilovepdf.com! Here you can merge different PDF Files or split one PDF into different documents.
(Link: Online tools to merge, split and manage PDF files.)

MySQL migration and risk management – O’Reilly Radar

BrentSordyl — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:00:02 +0000

MS: What do you think will happen to MySQL once dust settles from Oracle’s acquisition of Sun?

RB: Oracle has made a written commitment to invest in MySQL at the same rate as Sun for the next three years. Given the vast experience and R&D budget Oracle has given its product line, I hope more is invested in MySQL.
(Link: MySQL migration and risk management – O’Reilly Radar)

How to make an Automator App to connect to VPN – Apple – Support – Discussions

BrentSordyl — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:00:02 +0000

tell application “System Events” tell network preferences connect service “” end tell end tell
(Link: How to make an Automator App to connect to VPN – Apple – Support – Discussions)

RAA – rubyaeosa

BrentSordyl — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:00:02 +0000

RubyAEOSA is Ruby extension libraries for using AppleEvent and OSA Scripting Component (OSA = Open Scripting Architecture) on MacOS X. Using RubyAEOSA with a Ruby script or RubyCocoa applicaiton, you can:

* execute AppleScript and get a result
* send AppleEvent and get a result
* create AppleEvent object (AEDesc)
(Link: RAA – rubyaeosa)

Blackboard Buys Mobile Messaging Company Saf-T-Net For $33 Million

BrentSordyl — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

Blackboard, a company that designs an education software for school groups, has acquired mobile messaging provider Saf-T-Net for $33 million. Saf-T-Net develops AlertNow, which is a mobile messaging technology aimed to the K-12 marketplace.

AlertNow’s technology delivers voice, e-mail and emergency SMS messages at a rate up to 2.5 million per hour to parents, students and school administrators.
(Link: Blackboard Buys Mobile Messaging Company Saf-T-Net For $33 Million)

Glassbox – Project

BrentSordyl — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:00:03 +0000

The Glassbox troubleshooter is an automated troubleshooting and monitoring agent for Java applications that diagnoses common problems with one-click. Drop it onto your existing Java Application Server (Tomcat, JBoss, WebSphere, WebLogic), either in production or testing. Because Glassbox’s troubleshooting knowledge is built in, anyone can isolate a failing connection or a slow-running query instantly. It adapts to your application and pinpoints your errors or performance issue in plain English, and you no longer need to wade through log files and graphs.
(Link: Glassbox – Project)

How Agile is Influencing the Traditional Business Analyst Role: Part 1

BrentSordyl — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:00:02 +0000

Agile presents special requirements challenges. Current lore about representing requirements as user stories does not directly address nonfunctional requirements (e.g., quality attributes and design and implementation constraints). Sharp business analysts can provide crucial help in eliciting and analyzing those important requirements.

Furthermore, agile projects need folks with the ability to, as F Scott Fitzgerald said, “hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” While the delivery team is doing heads-down, short-term development (focusing on what I refer to as the “now-view”), other team members need to help them drive the project community toward what I call the “big-view” and “pre-view.”
(Link: How Agile is Influencing the Traditional Business Analyst Role: Part 1)

Using Sinatra to test remote services in Rails

BrentSordyl — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

So there I thought, why not just initiate a Sinatra application as part of your tests, and easily manage that sinatra as the mocked web service? WIN.

I created the SinatraFakeWebService gem that provides a simple interface to instantiate that Sinatra application and to manage the mocked webservice interface.
(Link: Using Sinatra to test remote services in Rails)

Gemsday : Spread Some Ruby Around

BrentSordyl — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

Share your favorite new RubyGems weekly. Tweet #gemsday and a list of gems on Wed!
(Link: Gemsday : Spread Some Ruby Around)

Memprof is a memory profiler for Ruby that requires no patches to the Ruby VM.

BrentSordyl — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

Memprof is a memory profiler for Ruby that requires no patches to the Ruby VM. It can help you find Ruby level memory leaks in your application.
(Link: Memprof is a memory profiler for Ruby that requires no patches to the Ruby VM.)

Formtastic is a Rails FormBuilder DSL

BrentSordyl — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

Formtastic is a Rails FormBuilder DSL (with some other goodies) to make it far easier to create beautiful, semantically rich, syntactically awesome, readily stylable and wonderfully accessible HTML forms in your Rails applications.
(Link: Formtastic is a Rails FormBuilder DSL)

Kill Busywork: The One Skill to Focus On What Matters | Zen Habits

BrentSordyl — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

Saying Yes More Slowly

Here’s how it goes.

Someone asks you to do something.

And, while nodding your head, you say “Sure – and let me just ask you a few questions first.”

And then you pick and chose from some of these questions. (Your goal is to ask at least three of these.)

* Why are you asking me?
* Who else have you asked?
* When you say this is urgent, what do you mean?
* If I could only do part of this, what part would it be?
* What part of this is something that only I could do?
* What standard do you expect this to be done to?
* Is this more urgent than X, Y and Z that are currently on my list?
* Have you checked with [name] about me taking this on?
* How does this contribute to [Great Work Project]?
(Link: Kill Busywork: The One Skill to Focus On What Matters | Zen Habits)

Faye – dirt simple pub/sub for Rack and Node.js

BrentSordyl — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:02 +0000

Faye is an implementation of the Bayeux prototcol, a publish-subscribe messaging protocol designed primarily to allow client-side JavaScript programs to send messages to each other with low latency over HTTP.
(Link: Faye – dirt simple pub/sub for Rack and Node.js)