Author Archives: Patrick

Design Work…

I just picked up three books on Design, based largely on the recommendations in the JavaPosse Roundup 09 sessions on the topic.  I haven’t read them yet, but just perusing them makes them look to be a lot of fun. 

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Fixing the XBox 360

I thought I was in the clear as far as the 3 red lights goes for the XBox 360… it happened, I was under warranty, Microsoft send a cardboard coffin, and I sent it back.  End of story. Oops, it … Continue reading

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Podcast Rotation

I just wanted to capture the current set of podcasts I listen to. I commute two hours a day, and this set keeps me lightly stocked — Sometimes I run out for a day or two, and I rarely fall … Continue reading

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Coolish: Mozilla Bespin

I know I’m late to the game, but I was looking over Mozilla Bespin — a web-based IDE with a surprising amount of features, including source control and syntax highlighting.  Right now, it’s all about web techs, with a strong … Continue reading

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You're just fooling yourself…

… that you’re cool if you find yourself ever saying any of the following: buff debuff tank aggro DPS AoE Bonus: Tapping Untap In some cases, you may even be fooling yourself that you’re playing a game.  Seriously, though, I’m … Continue reading

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Game Review: Crackdown

Buy.com recently had a great deal on some games and battery packs.  One of the games included was Crackdown.  Here’s a quick review, after playing about half the game.  I get the feeling that Crackdown is one of those games … Continue reading

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Googly Nexus One — Pricing and Plan breakdown

While looking around for an online loan amortization creator (nice one here), I came across a Google ad for the Nexus One, the “Google phone” that there’s been much buzz about.  Apparently, it just came out today, while the great … Continue reading

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Getting all of Ubuntu to talk through a NTLM proxy

NTLM proxies are relatively common corporate web proxy. It takes special software to pass through it, unfortunately. One must essentially log into an NT domain to get to the web past the proxy. By default, web browsers are the only … Continue reading

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Biting the bullet

Well, we’re going to try out the WildBlue through Dish Network for internet.  *Sigh*.  It feels like a defeat.  I have only heard good things about Satellite internet from one person, and all the anecdotes online are negative.  But at … Continue reading

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Critter chasing…

Chickens are delicate creatures, sometimes dying for no good reason.  Unfortunately, they are also delectable creatures, and find themselves in harm’s way.

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Right up my alley…

Play Achievement Unlocked This game makes me so happy.  Did I mention that I got all 1250 achievement points in Mass Effect?

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Return to the Land of Unhappy Zombies

Memorial day weekend, we broke the ban on Wal-mart.  Why, you might ask?  Because of Nibbler.

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Java Build Systems, Part 2: Maven

Continuing the Java build systems discussion, today I want to focus on Maven, what it does well and what it does that frustrates.  We’ll get a little taste of the minimum expectations for a new build system as well.  Note:  … Continue reading

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Maven + OSGi + Spring + JavaFX (+Ant)

We had to go through a number of steps to support the combination of Maven + OSGi + Spring + JavaFX-1.1 in our Swing-based application. This document describes all the steps and technology we’ve gone through to get it working.

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Java Build Systems, Part 1: What they do

Two recent posts on the java-weblog circuit spurred me to motion: Maven Adoption Curve (Alex Miller, coworker at MetaMatrix) Maven and Ivy (Ryan Senior, coworker at BJC) I was trying to think of the ideal build system.  I won’t pretend … Continue reading

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What's new is old again…

Note: This post is probably wildly uninformed. Welcome to weblogs, everybody! Then: Bush was reviled and derided for telling people to “Go shopping” after 9/11/2001. Now: Americans are ruining the economy by saving their money! Then: Americans don’t save enough. … Continue reading

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Good Luck, Mr. President

I just want to wish incoming President Obama all the best. He has made a lot of noise about changing the way things are done, and I hope he can stick to that. Along those lines, he has made a … Continue reading

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Last minute…

Just to get a post in Dec 2008, I’ll drop a quick post here. That means I’m doing regular updates, right? 😉 I have some draft game reviews sitting around, I’ll get to them soon. Have a good 2009!

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Game Review: Portal / Orange Box

My wife found a cheap copy of the Orange Box, from Valve.  It actually contains 3 full games (Half-life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal) and two large expansions for HL2 (ep. 1 & 2) — a lot of content. … Continue reading

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Game Review: Mass Effect

It was brought to my attention that I forgot a game review of Portal, so I thought I’d lump several games in today that I’ve been meaning to review but haven’t yet.  This is in order of me getting each … Continue reading

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