http://fredmedlin.com Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:56:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A client's project requires a Java solution to fit their deployment strategy. One specific component of the implementation is an XML-RPC server. Using Groovy would be useful because there is a lot of XML being slung around as parameters. I could go with the Groovy XMLRPCServer, but it does not ... http://fredmedlin.com/groovy-testing-and-easyb/ There's been a long running conversation about the relationship between static typing and unit testing. As early as 2003, Bob Martin found that unit tests reduce dependence on type safety. Around the same time Bruce Eckel argued that compilation is simply one test for correctness; and that code needs to ... http://fredmedlin.com/duckjevous/ Exactly who hired the B players then? "A players hire A players," he said. "B players hire C players. Do you get it?"[From Folklore.org: Macintosh Stories: How to Hire Insanely Great Employees] http://fredmedlin.com/mac-folklore-how-to-hire-insanely-great-employees/ It turns out that some changes to the Linux kernel — Ubuntu 8.04 uses Linux 2.6.24 — have introduced some issues that make running Ubuntu in a VMWare virtual machine difficult. Ubuntu will install just fine, but you won’t have access to VMWare Tools, which provides some nice ... http://fredmedlin.com/ubuntu-804-vm-woes/ I'm intrigued by the number of casual conversations lately that have touched on the theme of embracing constraints as a gateway to creative solutions. Are artists as constraint infected as their tech world brethren? There seems to be an awareness that unrestricted composition is a daunting task and that introducing ... http://fredmedlin.com/constraint-infected/ Freedom's author is none other than Fred Stutzman, co-founder of claimid and local ibiblio dude. Now, can I get a weekend version to lock the keyboard... Freedom is an application that disables wireless and ethernet networking on an Apple computer for up to three hours at a time. Freedom ... http://fredmedlin.com/freedom-os-x-networking-freedom-software/ Enough with the generic presidential debates already. Haven't we learned about everything we can from gotcha debates? Let's debate science policy; environment, health and medicine, and technology. This is real substance, real interesting and real important. http://fredmedlin.com/we-need-science-debate-2008/ For the past few months, I have not been feeling eMusic. If you've only dealt with iTunes, then eMusic seems like a breath of fresh air. The pay-per-tune model is replaced with a monthly subscription that includes a fixed number of downloads. Once you reach the plan limit, you're cut ... http://fredmedlin.com/i-cancelled-emusic-today/ About the same time I described a local company's IT abomination as "antiquated", I came across loosewireblog's post about user determined computing. An apt description of a blossoming concept. Why do companies inflict IT systems on their employees that they wouldn't dare ship to their own customers? Sadly, use of the ... http://fredmedlin.com/enterprise-user-determined-computing/ First jazz gem discovery of 2008. This album from Alan Pasqua has throwback fusion undercurrents spiced with enough modern freshness to make it extremely interesting. The album opens with a slightly restrained title track, but quickly gets edgy on "George Russell". "Prayer" begins as a quiet rhapsody for piano and morphs into ... http://fredmedlin.com/alan-pasqua-the-antisocial-club/