SpringOne/2GX

I’m at the SpringOne/2GX conference this week. Getting pretty psyched about the direction that Spring, Groovy, Grails, Java, etc is taking … so I might have more dev directed posts coming soon, as I start working with these techs.

The coolest innovation I’ve seen so far … Spring Roo.  But, Spring Insight looks very promising, as do technologies like GemFire.

Profit alone not a measure of success

“We made $1 million in profit last year”.

Great!  Fantastic! Wonderful!

But … could we have made $2 million?

The essence of the question was not really whether we could have made twice as much profit as we did, or even whether we could have made more.  Rather, it seeks to draw out some analysis on why that dollar figure was made, if the things we’re doing are right for our target audience, if we are doing the right things, and … whether any of that is related to our stated mission, direction and goals.

Several years ago I consulted on a project creating a system to capture reviews of medical charts of deceased patients who may have been eligible for organ donation.  The information gathered was used to do a sort of post-mortem (no pun intended) analysis of the organ bank’s processes and procedures.  This information was further used to determine if current processes and procedures were sufficient, or if changes to procedures could have resulted in more organ donations, and, in turn, would have benefited additional patients waiting on organ recipient lists.

From that experience I learned it wasn’t enough to speak of numbers, such as profit, revenue, etc, as the primary means of  measuring success.  In the organ bank example, it wasn’t enough to simply count the number of successful organ donations procured.  The deeper analysis was used to measure success; whether more organ recipients could have been helped.

“We made $1 million profit last year” doesn’t necessarily speak to whether we are meeting our mission and goals as a company.  It doesn’t speak to whether we are doing the right things, or whether what we’ve done is sustainable.

Such deeper analysis is critical to a company’s success, vitality and sustainability.  Such information should be communicated to employees within the organization, right along with profit, revenue, etc figures, to help guide future innovations and process improvements that can ultimately translate into more dollars (and sense!) for your organization.

New to Rails and Grails Comparison

Yesterday I tweeted about my first day’s experience with Ruby on Rails and Grails development comparison: “Already, Grails just feels so much more comfortable.”

While some re-tweeted it, others had questions about what I found comfortable or why I might feel that way.  So, I thought some explanation and background was in order.

I developed and maintained Java applications for about 6+ years, and got my Java Programmer Certification (SCJP) in 2002.

But I’ve been doing Ruby and Rails development for the past 18 months, and Adobe Flex for about 2 years, concurrently.  The majority of my time has been spent with Flex, so, I’d put my Ruby experience at about 5 months and Rails experience at about 3 months — and, other than my own playing around and learning efforts, that experience has consisted of writing Ruby scripts to accomplish some task, or adding functionality, etc to models, views and controllers, along with RSpec tests.

Wanting to get a handle on Rails vs Grails development, I decided to sit down and work through the creation of an app from start to “finish” in both platforms/environments.

My tweet was based on my feeling after having created a new app in both Rails and Grails — rather than about the language (Ruby or Groovy, respectively) that I was comfortable writing in. I created a simple CRUD form with a backing model (Rails terminology)/domain (Grails terminology).

I’ll grant that I haven’t gone very far, and created something very rudimentary, but Grails seemed easier and faster to get to the point I wanted.  To lay this out, I didn’t have to install a database (HSQLDB comes with the Grails download), and didn’t have to begin by creating tables in my database (I’m using SQLITE for my Rails environment, just to have something light for my comparison and prototyping) in order to build out the model and the form/view.

I guess the “comfortable” feeling was that I liked being able to start to prototype and layout my application without having to commit myself to a database design like I felt I had to do in Rails (even though I could change it as I went in Rails, and use migrations to adjust things).

So, that’s some of the explanation. Being “Day 1″,  I’m admittedly in the very, wee-early stages of comparing the two here … so I might later discover some things that are easier on Rails because of the upfront database work.  But right now, I just was kind of amazed as how dirt simple it was to get something “real” going in Grails — and that was what I tried to express in my tweet.

Store digital photos on multiple sources

Today, a co-worker asked for help for a friend. Apparently, the friend has 10 years of digital photos stored on an external harddrive. Recently, the drive stopped reading, and just made noise.

I said I’d take a look at it, but thought it’d be good to remind folks to store their digital photos in multiple places.

This is a problem that we didn’t necessarily have with hard-copy photos (although we ran the risk of them fading, getting crushed and crumpled, or damaged/lost in other ways). With digital photos, because they are often stored on machines that inevitably will break down at some point … we risk losing years of photos.

With that in mind, I have a few places that I keep photos. One is that I burn them to DVD recordables and store them in our firebox at home. I also have them on an external hard drive for easy archive access. And then there are the ones that I keep on my laptop.

Finally, I store many online — I’ve used Flickr, Yahoo Photos (now closed) and Picasa. Some photos also are stored on Facebook.

Do you store your digital photos for safekeeping? What methods or sites or places do you use to ensure that those lifetime of photo memories aren’t suddenly lost to the data gods?

Pop popcorn with your PC

If you get bored sitting at your computer and need a little snack …

Hypermiling update #1

A few weeks ago, I posted some information on “Hypermilers: Pushing cars to 70mpg”. Since then, I’ve read a few articles that have reported some hypermilers getting over 100 mpg from their hybrid cars.

Besides reading, I’ve also been doing some of the techniques … and tonite was my first “fill-up” since tracking my fuel efficiency.

I filled up 2 weeks ago, and drove 323 miles in that time (I use my car mostly for my commute back and forth to work).  When I filled up tonite (stopping at the first auto shutoff — which I also did when I filled up last time — to keep things as accurate as possible), I put in 7.858 gallons. (In case any are wondering, I did this on 87 octane gas.)

The result was 41.1mpg!!

According to fueleconomy.gov, my 1995 Honda Civic EX is rated at 23 mpg city/31 mpg highway/26 mpg mixed.

So, for my first tank using these techniques (without getting any feedback help from things like “ScanGauge” that some hypermilers use), I’m getting 10mpg better fuel efficiency than the highway rating … and 15mpg better than the mixed driving — which is what I’m really doing.

I have to say I’m happy.

Next, I’m pushing for 45mpg (which should be achievable as I’m learning what techniques work best, as well as timing lights, etc).

One thing that I intend to do in the next tank full is to ensure that my tires are inflated to the maximum recommended on the tire.

Quote of the Day

It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants.
The question is: What are we busy about?

– Henry David Thoreau

Wonderful World of Disney Summer

Many may remember the various incarnations of The Wonderful World of Disney over the years, that brought Disney films and cartoons into our living rooms on a weekly basis.

This summer Disney is bringing the Wonderful World back to television on Saturday nights.

It kicked off on Saturday, June 7th, with Disney-Pixar’s Finding Nemo (which also featured a long scene from the upcoming release WALL-E.

Last Saturday, June 14th, featured Monsters, Inc.

Future Saturday’s will be filled with more Disney …

June 21 – The Jonas Brothers in Camp Rock.

June 28 – The Haunted Mansion

July 5 – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

July 12 – The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

July 19 - Freaky Friday

August 2 – Peter Pan

(All times are 8pm/7pm Central)

As an added bonus, Disney.com will offer the opportunity to view each movie, in full screen if you choose, online for the whole week after it airs (although, the experience I found contains too many breaks and advertisements to make this a sensible viewing choice).

So, gather with your family on Saturday evenings at 8/7  Central to relive your memories of The Wonderful World of Disney, and create new memories with your children.

Get Firefox 3 today

UPDATE: 12:37pm CDT – Looks like the Mozilla servers are being swarmed with people trying to download Firefox 3 … its a good sign. Those wanting to get through to the FTP site can get their download quickly that way.

Firefox 3 will be released at 10 PDT (Noon Central Daylight Time).  It is slated to be the best browser ever — fast, reliable, helpful …

Using it as a release candidate has been very enjoyable.  The speed of the browser’s page loading is what I have noted most.

Now, Mozilla would like to set a download world record for the most downloads in a 24 hour period.  So, after the release … go and download Firefox 3 today.

Hypermilers: Pushing cars to 70 mpg

Wired has an article about pushing your car to the limits of its fuel economy … to get 40, 50, 60, and perhaps 70 mpg from your car — even if its not a hybrid.

“Hypermilers Push the Limits of Fuel Efficiency” is filled with links to sites providing tips on how you might be able to see those levels from your existing car.

Tim Fulton, a 25-year-old designer from West Bend, Wisconsin … routinely gets 55 mpg from his 1997 Toyota Paseo, a car the EPA rates at 29 mpg.

Rick Harrell, a moderator at the website ecomodder.com … [is] driving a 1998 Acura Integra and getting as much as 40 mpg in a car the EPA rates at 24.

Wayne Gerdes, founder of cleanmpg.com … recently drove a Honda Civic hybrid 800 miles from Chicago to New York on a single tank of gas. That works out to 65 mpg.

Darin Cosgrove of Brockville, Ontario, co-founder of ecomodder.com averages 69 mpg in his 1998 Geo Metro, a car that got 40 mpg off the showroom floor. He’s gotten as many as 133 mpg on a long trip by going slowly and using pulse and glide. He’s also modified his car to make it more aerodynamic and tinkered with the drivetrain to improve efficiency.

I’ve used some of the techniques that these “hypermilers” are suggesting, just as a matter of good driving habits, and I’ve regularly gotten 32+ mpg “city miles” from my 1995 Honda Civic (rated 34 hwy/28 city), which I bought new in ’95, and recently rolled over 180,000 miles.

Some of the tips that are suggested in the 100+ hypermiling / ecodriving tips to increase gas mileage are common sense, others are interesting, and a few (such as drafting or turning off your engine to coast downhill) can be dangerous.

I’ve easily saved by slowing down, coasting to stops, knowing the timing of the lights on my regular route to and from work, and not accelerating hard.

I haven’t checked my mileage in the last few months of fill-ups, but still see how many days I can go between visits to the gas station.

I have a budgeted dollar amount for gas every 2 weeks — $30.  I usually don’t have a problem getting wherever I need to go in that two weeks on that amount.  Often, I go beyond 14 days.

I’ll pay more attention to my mileage and number of days between fill-ups and report back.

Have you changed your driving habits now that gas has hit a national average of $4.00+ per gallon?  What kind of mileage are you getting, from what type of vehicle, with what type of mileage rating?  What tips do you have for increasing your fuel efficiency?