Talend Roadshow

Yesterday I went to the Talend Roadshow. 3 hours nicely spent and the it worthed the time and traffic jam. No money involved as it was free.
I liked a lot that it was a "hands on work" seminar and not a marketing presentation. Benjamin, the guy who presented the product (btw: the open source version), had a good IT background and this was handy.
So, they provided us with some laptops, a practice book (5 exercises) and the Talend User Manual. The nice think was that Benjamin actually showed us how to use the most important Talend component: tMap. It took my one full day (at work, so just between meetings and other stuff) to understand tMap and Talend and I was unsuccessful. why? too less time, too less tutorials on "how to start" using it. So, at that moment, I ended up using Kettle (from Spoon) just because another collegue has the knowledge already.
After the yesterday Talend Roadhow I must say that I like better Talend than Kettle because:
1. I can debug it (put a breakpoint on the java code)
2. with Traces enabled, I can see on real time the data being processed (really handy)

But, perhaps, if I went to a Kettle Readshow (nope, it doesn't exist) then Kettle would acquire more points also.

My conclusions about the Talend Roadshow:
1. it's free
2. the person presenting it (Benjamin) was one of the French founders (I think), so an IT person, no marketing boring presentation
3. all the IT questions got an answer
4. we actually had to work with the product
5. too bad there was not indepth intro about the facts/dimensions components; but I guess that's because the attendees should have already know DataMarts.

So, if you get the chance, GO CHECK IT OUT.

PS: I will try now to go my kettle jobs in Talend and see which is easier to implement/faster/better debugging.

IT projects

Still the best conclusion about IT projects :)

Flex integrated with Spring in Eclipse. Myth or reality?

One afternoon spent on integrating flex with spring and eclipse. Myth BUSTED.
Here are the steps you can follow:
1. use this site Using BlazeDS with Spring for figuring out how to make flex work with Spring on a server and make some samples work. You will discover a new buzz-word: BlazeDS. There are other tutorials too, but they forget an important thing: you must put .swf files on the server!!! (.swf is the bytecode of the .mxml files). If you are a flex novice and you don't want to lose 2hours for such a small important thing, use the mentioned tutorial. (note: the build.xml for compiling the .mxml files into .swf files has a mistake: points to the wrong flex_ant jar)
2. thinking of how will you do session-management? Well, there is no client-session in flex. Actually client-session is a hack. Read here.
3. I guess the next question is: what about security? the answer is here.
4. if you are happy that your samples are working and you understood the above blogs, go celebrate with champagne cause you reached dead-end. Now you must probably be releasing you need a flex-IDE. Adobe made Flex 3 SDK free; this means "in theory" you can use whatever IDE you want, even Eclipse. Well, guess again and read this: Flex 3 SDK + Eclipse: an encouraging union, especially these lines:

"Adobe does not ship the XML schema definition file with the “free” SDK. Read that line again. Yeah. I really was *incredibly* pissed off about that. This is basically a complete refusal to allow another application to understand anything in the flex realm." [by Leona]

Leona managed in the end to make it work with an old version of xsd 1.5. But it looks a whole lot of work to make eclipse the perfect IDE for flex. It's 2:34AM and not in the mood. And for what? So that I have to fully learn an entire new language: actionscript? Sorry, not my target right now. Just wanted to put live an idea and at this hour it sounds more easier with a drag-an-drop functionality ===> this means buy Flex Builder. 500$. Sorry, we an in economic crisis.

Conclusion:
- I only wanted to do something cool with images like PicLens. I've googled 2 mornings for time-to-time (from work) for an ajax solution, didn't find it. Must have been blind :) 5 minutes ago found this: http://www.dhteumeuleu.com/. Go to Gallery and pick Image FLow (diapo). Already subscribed to newsletter and donated 30$ dollars to Gerard Ferrandez. I think I should give more. So, I'm going with this solution. At least I know this will work; with flex I wasn't even sure how am I going to do that photo gallery. Founded a flex example on net (for 90$), but not sure was really what I wanted.

Maybe someday, not in the near future, I will get over my frustration and start again with flex (if it's still a buzzword)

Flex, Spring, BlazeDS mxmlc task not found

Here is the perfect tutorial for integrating Flex SDK (free) with Spring: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/blazeds_spring.html

It's really helpful, just that the Mortgage example has a mistake in the build.xml:

should be


and not:


In which case you get an ant exception that mxmlc task does not exist.

PS: there are other nice tutorials but this is the best one especially if you are new in Flex (the other ones forgot to mention how to compile the mxml code in bytecode => swf files)

work-photos

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color illusion

Stare at the black dot (in middle of the photo), then move your mouse over the image. You will for a few seconds (till you mouse your eye) the image colored.




You can find the tutorial here: http://www.johnsadowski.com/color_illusion_tutorial.html

Which one are you?

There are two theories of the nature of work: the Humanistic theory and the Commodity theory. Which one does it apply to you?

Humanistic theory:
Work is a natural way of expending accumalated bodily energy. It is healthy, productive and valuable in itself. People enjoy work because it is healthy and fulfilling and because they seek through work to create a higher for of society. This applies to jobs implying more individual choice and autonomy.

Commodity theory:
Work is a commodity to be sold for the maximum return. Labour has no intrinsic (direct) value other than as a means of obtaining goods and services. No one works unless they have to. The job ends at 5 o'clock.

My work went through both of theories at some moment in past. Now I am somewhere in betwwen, but I still bring work home ... more humanistic it seems...

Monday Mails

Take her To seven heaven
Master in bed
Take her to seven heaven (part 2 - I guess)
Be like sex machine
Take her to seven heaven part 3 :))
Is your skills about to expire?
Be like sex machine - again
Master in bed games
Be damn good in it
She wants you more now
Take her to love heaven - guess they've figure out that seven heaven is love heaven :)
Smart in bed games
MedHelp 13405 - this one I've actually sent it myself :))

Hmm! The AntiSpam worthed the money! :((

SitePoint CSS Reference

A really great CSS reference that you must keep it next to your finger tips.
It has everything from the general html elements and their attributes up to a detailed chapter about Cascade, Specificity, and Inheritance. So many times people asked me why different css definitions apply first and now there are really detailed example of how to calculate the specificity of elements!!!


Read more at SitePoint CSS Reference

women in IT

Think about all the women working in IT. Some of them are really great: I know one who leads a team of almost 20 developers, one who is the best in her 15-developers team and they are great (and they are in fashion). But I also know the rest: who still wonder if this is the job that really make them happy?...
So, as a woman, is working in IT like Shrimps at lunch?... They are great in the Shrimps-cocktail! But not in a day by day meal. They have to be the frontdish or the desert, otherwise you'll die from hunger.

But still, suppose destiny (= parents, a high-school crush) wants us IT women, where do we actually end up? Well, you've got 2 answers: web-design or machine-things. Being in the web-design we still keep the feminine aura (fashion, design, colors, writing, intuition), but we are not in the "boiling area" of making the "IT move".
And if we decide to make the IT-world move (= dealing with servers, architecture decisions) do we look as if we lost your feminine side? Do the others start to see us as the work-body and therefor we start to become a woman-pants? Or were we actually a man-brain trapped in a woman body and never realized?

The 80/20 Rule

"40-60% of Yahoo!’s users have an empty cache experience and ~20% of all page views are done with an empty cache." - says a yahoo research.
This is a shocking conclusion: if ~20% views are done with empty cache then definitely we should pay more attention on not having to0 many HTTP round-trips in a page. Easy to say and... to do (if you think a bit more).
Ok, now let's assume you have structured your front-end in a maintenable way and more: using static includes, you've managed to have just a few HTTP request(1 html, 1 main.css - huge one (as it statically include other css files), 1 javascript - a bug one and 5 images) , but what do you do with the user experience? [trick situation, isn't it?]
If you have a nice roll-over horizontal menu (nicely created with lists and css), an end-user with a slow connection, will see first the menu ordered in a normal list and after a few milisec the list turns into a nice menu => not a nice user-experience!!! My 2 cents: load you menu.css first and then the main.css...