BruceBlog

Idea from Tim.

OK, OK, hands up, who likes to litter their technical books with Post-It flags? I've consulted to many companies over the years and every time I'm at a company I can immediately tell where the developer area is located based on the number of Post-Its hanging out of the books.



If you've ever had questions about using Maven, integrating Maven with Eclipse or using a repository manager, then you should grab a copy of Maven: The Definitive Guide from Amazon so you can litter it with those Post-It flags, notes, highlights, etc.

A *lot* of work went into this book and it shows. It was written by many of the folks who created Maven and made it what it is today. So it's full of insider information and examples.

Before blindly purchasing a copy however, I recommend taking a look at the freely available version on the Sonatype website. Although I've suggested the digital version to many, many folks over the last few months, I've heard a fair amount say that they still like to have an actual book. For those that want the actual book to hold, here's your chance!

BTW, check out that link above to the Post-Its. Who knew there were so damn many Post-It products today!

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It looks like the session schedule for the Colorado Software Summit has been made available just yesterday. This is the time where all the speakers figure out where they're speaking slots fall throughout the week.

For those that have never attended, the Software Summit is a yearly software conference in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in late October. Last year on my drive up, it was a blizzard of snow once I got through the west side of the Eisenhower Tunnel. Of course, the next day all the snow had melted and the weather was beautiful again. That's one reason why I love Colorado :-).

This year I'm speaking about Service Oriented Integration With Apache ServiceMix and Taking Apache Camel for a Ride. Both talks are about integration with Apache projects.

This year Raible and I are sharing a condo with Jason. The dude abides.

Can you say heavy hand?

I'm not claiming to understand the entire situation, but this certainly seems dodgy.

Thanks to Jonathan Bosmans for pointing this out.

It's time for me to finally replace my trusty Sony Ericsson t610 and these are the two options I'm considering.

I've put off getting an iPhone because I was waiting for the 3G but even now that it's out my fears of switching to at&t still stand. I've heard from friends how awful at&t is in so many ways so I'm reluctant to switch. And then, along comes the G1 from T-Mobile - my wireless carrier!

I see that Crazy Bob has a gPhone already. The quality of the photos from the camera looks great, but the camera is not a major concern for me.

I'm curious to hear any opinions one way or the other.

Update: Is it just me, or are these statements about Google products not competing with Apple products a bit ridiculous? How else are these products to be viewed?

Just as with Google's Chrome browser, the G1 phone press releases state that it's not being positioned to compete with Apple products. I find this statement ludicrous. How can these items not compete with Apple products? This is like saying I have created a new car that gets 100mpg but the car is not competing with GM or Ford. Perception is reality. Just as I'm looking for a new phone, many people are looking for a new car and most logical people will compare and contrast some vehicles just as I'm comparing and contrasting the iPhone with the G1.

To date, the iPhone is one of the few mobile devices that touts Google services. Also, offering the Amazon music store app is in direct competition with Apple's iTunes integration for the iPhone. Additionally, the Android Market is a direct point of competition with Apple's App Store.

Wayne has pointed out a good comparison of the G1 with the iPhone if you're interested. I've read much about the G1 lately and I must say that the iPhone still has many small advantages over it, though I'm sure in time the playing field will be leveled further. After all, this is the first generation for the very first Android-based mobile phone.

Update 2: As much as I am a fan of Apple products and have been since 1990, the evictions of competing applications from the App Store is disconcerting to say the least. When I first heard that Apple was actively going after enterprise customers, I began to wonder if this the beginning of the end for the Apple we know and love. Going so far as to tell owners of rejected apps that the rejection itself is under NDA is definitely stepping over the line. Leave it to the corporate lawyers to fuck up everything. I've gotta say that this has left a very bad taste in my mouth.

After using CallWave for about a year, the free beta test of its service is ending, so I'm reviewing other competing services.

CallWave handles mobile voicemail so that instead of leaving a message on my mobile carrier's provided voicemail, callers unknowingly are leaving their message with CallWave instead. I simply keyed in a simple code to tell my mobile carrier to use CallWave's voicemail instead. I started using this solution because I was missing too many calls from being out of range of mobile service. Not only does CallWave notify me via email and SMS when I get a voicemail, but it also handles voice-to-text (although not very well) and lets me listen to the message online via the CallWave website. To upgrade to a non-beta account is $5/month which isn't much but I'm also already paying $10/month for CallWave's fax to PDF service.

Grand Central offers a similar set of features and it's free but it makes you get a new phone number. I've had this same phone number for eight years and too many folks know it. I'm not getting a new phone number just for unified messaging. Grand Central should be able to use my existing phone number. Can anyone confirm that this is not a requirement?

Spinvox seems to be one alternative, but it seems to be focused on the voice-to-text conversion but I'm not so keen on that feature really. What I need is mainly voicemail notification.

Voicenation requires you to get a new number (or so it seems) and is much more about providing a PBX service. Again, not something I need.

Just recently I signed up with YouMail because it seems to focus on exactly what I need and it's basic service is free (and they claim it will remain free). I just keyed in a special code to tell my mobile carrier to use YouMail's voicemail instead of the carrier's provided voicemail and voila. I'm just starting to get used to it but it seems to provide what I need so far. YouMail offers pre-recorded messages that you can buy to use for your various greetings are funny. My favorite is titled, 'No one wants to buy your shit (for solicitors).'