Amazon caught a lot of heat over this past holiday season over some improvements to its shopping app. It made it easier than ever to find out that you probably don’t need to buy that blender at Sears, when you can get it for 30% less on Amazon and don’t even have to carry it [...]
Eric F. Savage
Good stuff, updated weekly(ish)
Logging Like it’s 2011
Posted September 22nd, 2011
Earlier this year I revisited how I was logging things in Java, and decided I would try a hybrid approach. I’m reporting back to say that it’s been successful.
Workstation Setup 2011
Posted August 25th, 2011
A new workstation means it’s time to install lots of stuff! Here’s my log from fresh Windows 7 install in a new VM image to a functional development environment.
The Most Important Performance Metric
Posted August 13th, 2011
Up until about 5-10 years ago, the performance gains in computers were huge from one generation to the next. You felt them and they changed the way you worked. Eventually, hardware upgrades got beyond that point and just became an “oh that’s nice” effect.
Java 7
Posted August 4th, 2011
Java 7 is out! What does this mean, is this a Big Deal like Java 3 or 5 or a snoozer like Java 6 or something in the middle like Java 4? Let’s look at everything new and find out.
Readability + Kindle + Something Else
Posted July 21st, 2011
I like Readability, and I like my Kindle. I just wish I could use them together more often.
Security Club
Posted June 6th, 2011
Sony has been getting repeatedly hacked. We’ve seen it before with the TJX incident, and many others, most of which never get reported, much less disclosed, or even discovered. In some of these cases, only email addresses are taken, or maybe passwords. In others, names and addresses are exposed, as well as medical conditions, social [...]
Life After JSON, Part 1
Posted June 2nd, 2011
XML. Simply saying that term can elicit a telling reaction from people. Some will roll their eyes. Some will wait for you to say something meaningful. Some will put their headphones back on and ignore the guy that sounds like a enterprise consultant. JSON is where it’s at. It’s new. It’s cool. Why even bother [...]
Books as Clutter
Posted May 30th, 2011
Like the culture at large, I’m moving from physical media to digital, but the part of me that wants to move into the future, to be more mobile, more organized, more free of physical possessions has not yet found a decisive victory over the nerd who did a book drive for his Eagle project.
To switch or not to switch, part 3
Posted May 26th, 2011
Continued from Part 2, we’re down to 41 languages that you could potentially build a modern, database-driven application with. I’d like to knock another 10-12 more off the list before I get into trying the language themselves, but I’m running out of black-and-white rules to do it with. Concurrency is a big part of scaling, [...]