Photo Essay: July at the Union Square Greenmarket.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

In July & August, the greenmarkets in New York are at their most bountiful. Stone fruits abound, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries are in season, and the cucumbers continue to be plump, juicy and impossibly fresh.

Summer squash appear in their infinite varieties, including the ruffly and little bear shapes (my two favorites), tomatoes are in full force (though this summer's late blight had put something of a damper on things), and garlic scapes are everywhere, bundled into delightfully stinky bouquets.

It's pretty good times.

The Five Forces of Enterprise 2.0 Adoption

about 1 year ago | Michael Idinopulos: Transparent Office

What makes individuals and organizations embrace Enterprise 2.0? There's a friendly but sharp ideological debate playing itself out on Twitter, the blogosphere, and in conference breakout sessions. I think it's confused. On one side, there's a group--I'll call them the...

A cold supper for a warm evening.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Sunday was kind of a lazy day here in Ohio. We'd eaten a (fantastic) dinner at Nick's cousin's place in Rocky River the night before, which meant we didn't get home until midnight. Factor in an early morning at church (I attend rarely, but the opportunity to sing in the choir was too good to pass up), and we were beat by Sunday afternoon.

Sunday dinner, as a result, was a low-key, improvised meal. Nick grabbed the rose from the fridge, I sliced up some gravlax I'd cured Saturday morning, and Louisa arranged a kickass cheese & charcuterie plate, complete with a crock of the chicken liver pâté we'd made the day before.

Nick sliced some apples and sprinkled them with lemon juice (a stroke of genius), Louisa poured the gravlax's espresso mustard sauce into a little dish, and we got down to the business of eating.

The cheese was, obviously, no work at all, and the pâté and gravlax were barely more than that; seriously, I highly recommend both of these as either starters for a dinner party or as part of a perfect, cold supper.

The curing process turns the gravlax a bright pink (these photos don't do it justice) and takes on the texture and flavor of salty, sweet salmon candy. The pâté is just chicken liver sautéed with onions, garlic and brandy; you purée the mixture, add some plumped currants, and let things set up a bit in the fridge.

Serve with apple slices and crackers on a deck in the setting sun, and you have perfection itself.

A banner arrival.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

The first thing Louisa and I did when we got home from the Cleveland airport? Pore over some cookbooks, of course! Each year when I visit, we cook up a storm, and this week has been no exception. We set to work planning the week's meals and treats, and made a preliminary grocery list to get us started.

Up first, the cover recipe from Gourmet's April issue - a strawberry mascarpone tart with a port glaze. It was a raging success - we managed to find some just-ripe strawberries, despite its being a bit late in the season, and the grocery store had scads of mascarpone on offer. (Not always a done deal out here in northern Ohio.)

The tart is remarkably easy to make. You make the pastry in a food processor and press it into the tart pan - no rolling out required. The crust itself is flavored with lemon and vanilla, which takes it beyond the usual pâte sucrée. Chilled in the freezer for a few minutes, it bakes up golden and flaky. Just before serving, you mix the mascarpone with a little confectioners' sugar, lemon, vanilla and salt, make a glaze with some port (and the reserved juice of your macerated berries), and put the whole thing together.

It's a great dessert for warm weather - the only baking required can be done a day in advance, so you won't turn your kitchen (or entire apartment, in my case) into a hellishly hot den for your guests. It's easy, but it also makes a visual impact - and it tastes pretty damn good, too.

And, in the spirit of leftovers: we had a little extra filling left, and we spread it on our scones the next morning. We think we might make the filling by itself just for this purpose from now on.

IE 6 pains

about 1 year ago | Prasoon Sharma: Enterprise Software Does not Have to Suck

Most front-end developers suffer a lot of pain due to hacks needed for IE 6 in their stylesheet. This article sums up nicely how IE6 peculiarities can be dealt with in stylesheets...

I particularly like the suggestion to keep IE6 hacks separate from the main stylesheet to keep main stylesheet clean...

defiinitive-guide-to-taming-the-ie6-beast

All you need.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

My love for an expertly-made cocktail is well-documented - but, sometimes, given a gorgeous sunset and a warm evening, any cold drink will do.

A few weekends ago, when the sunny weather still felt like an early release from prison, I met my brother and sister-in-law for a drink at the Boat Basin Cafe. The Boat Basin is down at the end of West 79th Street, below the West Side Highway. You can't reach it by cab; you have to walk through an odd little bit of Riverside Park to get to the stepped ramp that leads down to the restaurant, where you're liable to do battle with hordes of people to get a chair near the water.

But, if you do, you'll be rewarded with a gorgeous view across the Hudson, an generously poured gin & tonic, and a low-key hour or two in the sun.

High-falutin' it is not (and you'd do well to give the food a pass), but it makes for a lovely evening.

Twitter 101 - for business

about 1 year ago | Lalatendu Das: Interpretations of Technorealism

#business:RT@NYT - http://tinyurl.com/nwel29

Generating view scaffolding code for existing models

about 1 year ago | Pat Shaughnessy: Pat Shaughnessy - Home

(Updated October 2009)

I just rewrote and cleaned up the code I describe below here and published it as a new gem called View Mapper on gemcutter.org. See my usage article for more details. I also rethought and redesigned the commands I describe below… the part about nested attributes will not work for now. I’m planning to reimplement that soon.

I’ve been thinking for a while that a generator that creates view scaffolding for an existing model or models would be really useful. For example, I want to be able to write this by hand:

class Group < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :people
end
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :group
end

… and then run a generator and get a working view to edit and display groups of people. Recently I started developing a generator called “ViewMapper” that does this; see: http://github.com/patshaughnessy/view_mapper.

The idea is that it creates a view that maps to your existing models. Writing model classes is often very easy; using ActiveRecord allows you to write concise, short code files. However, writing a view that displays a form for these models is often very hard, requiring knowledge of a long list of Rails functions, macros, classes, as well as the usual HTML and Javascript. Right now ViewMapper it just a plugin; so you can install it into your app like this:

$ ./script/plugin install git://github.com/patshaughnessy/view_mapper.git

Probably it should be packaged as a gem instead… this is still work-in-progress. At the moment it supports:

• Creating simple form based on the columns of an existing model
• Creating a complex form based on the columns of two associated models in a many-one relationship, using nested attributes

If you’re interested and have time, try the examples below or better yet try the generator on some of your own models and let me know what you think.

<u>Example 1:</u> Create a view based on the columns of an existing model

Let’s say I have an existing model class that manages a series of person records:

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end

Now to create the corresponding view with ViewMapper, just run this command:

$ ./script/generate view_for person
      exists  app/controllers/
      exists  app/helpers/
      create  app/views/people
      exists  app/views/layouts/
      exists  test/functional/
      create  test/unit/helpers/
      exists  public/stylesheets/
      create  app/views/people/index.html.erb
      create  app/views/people/show.html.erb
      create  app/views/people/new.html.erb
      create  app/views/people/edit.html.erb
      create  app/views/layouts/people.html.erb
      create  public/stylesheets/scaffold.css
      create  app/controllers/people_controller.rb
      create  test/functional/people_controller_test.rb
      create  app/helpers/people_helper.rb
      create  test/unit/helpers/people_helper_test.rb
       route  map.resources :people

If you run your Rails app you will see the usual scaffolding UI:

This looks just like the scaffolding page you would have gotten from the Rails scaffolding generator. In fact, I’ve based the “view_for” generator class (ViewForGenerator) on the existing Rails ScaffoldGenerator class, so it generates the same code.

The difference here is that the scaffolding code was based on the properties of the existing Person model. Here’s what the view_for generator did:

• Find the specified model class
• Inspect it and get a list of column names and data types
• Create the scaffolding code as usual

If you also want to create your model class at the same time, then you don’t need ViewMapper; you would just run the standard Rails scaffold generator like this:

$ ./script/generate scaffold person name:string age:integer

ViewMapper provides you with the flexibility to create the view scaffolding after the fact for a model you or someone else has already created in your app.

<u>Example 2:</u> Create a view using a complex form based on two associated models in a many-one relationship, using Rails 2.3 nested attributes

Let’s suppose you have two related models that describe groups of people:

class Group < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :people
end
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :group
end

Again, writing model classes is really easy. With just a few lines of code I have told ActiveRecord to manage two separate tables and their relationship.

Now you can use ViewMapper to create a complex form for creating and editing groups and people at the same time like this:

$ ./script/generate nested_attributes_view_for group containing:people
       error  Model 'Group' does not accept nested attributes
              for child models 'people'

This error indicates that my Group model is missing the “accepts_nested_attributes_for” directive. Since the generator creates view code that relies on the nested attributes feature, it won’t let you create the view for a model that is missing this line. This sort of helpful error message is possible since ViewMapper is inspecting an existing model class, and not just creating new scaffold code.

Now if we add the missing line (suddenly my model is less concise... nested attributes aren't that easy to use yet!):

class Group < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :people
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :people,
    :allow_destroy => true,
    :reject_if => proc { |attrs| attrs['name'].blank? && attrs['age'].blank? }
end

…we can re-run the generator:

$ ./script/generate nested_attributes_view_for group containing:people
      exists  app/controllers/
      exists  app/helpers/
      create  app/views/groups
      exists  app/views/layouts/
      exists  test/functional/
      create  test/unit/helpers/
      exists  public/stylesheets/
      create  app/views/groups/index.html.erb
      create  app/views/groups/show.html.erb
      create  app/views/groups/new.html.erb
      create  app/views/groups/edit.html.erb
      create  app/views/layouts/groups.html.erb
      create  public/stylesheets/scaffold.css
      create  app/controllers/groups_controller.rb
      create  test/functional/groups_controller_test.rb
      create  app/helpers/groups_helper.rb
      create  test/unit/helpers/groups_helper_test.rb
       route  map.resources :groups

And now if we run our app, we get view scaffolding illustrating how to create and edit people and groups all at the same time:

If I save the group…

And re-editing the same group:

More to come… as I said this is work-in-progress. As a next step I’m planning to improve the scaffolding code for nested attributes by adding javascript to dynamically add/delete the child objects. But after that I'm thinking about:

• Adding a “paperclip_view_for” generator that creates a file upload form for a model that contains a “has_attached_file” directive.
• Adding a “auto_complete_view_for” generator that adds “auto_complete_for” to the controller and uses “text_field_for_auto_complete” in the form.
• Adding the ability for you to extend this with your own scaffolding code.

From pixel perfect to web experience

about 1 year ago | Prasoon Sharma: Enterprise Software Does not Have to Suck

So my focus on pixel perfect in the last several weeks has led me to a bigger, "nobler" goal of improving the overall web experience.

---

Our firm members have a different web experience in the intranet (slow and unintuitive) compared to the internet (fast and simple). The consumer internet has set a new bar for effective web solutions.

We have the opportunity to exceed our user’s expectations by delivering fast and simple intranet solutions.

We can have the highest impact by focusing on speed (sub-second web interactions) and consistency (firm branding and usability).

We've staffed a passionate team* to figure out how to take our development team to this state.

* Tim M (PM), James (front-end engineer and BA) and Thomas N (architect)

One year of blogging

about 1 year ago | Alex Rothenberg: Common Sense Software

I just noticed that its been a year since my first post and thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the experience....

I set out with a goal of writing 2-3 posts a month and have managed to write 28 articles over 12 months so I feel pretty good about that. Most of the time I've gotten excited about something I accomplished or learned during the week. The process of writing it up turned out to be as much of a learning experience for myself as the original discovery. As they say "Teaching is the best way to learn"!

I've been most surprised how easy it is to get to the top of a Google Search results list (for very specific searches of course). With my Google Analytics tracking I can see more than 1/2 of my hits coming from search engines and not all of them are me searching for my own name :) Its been great when I've gotten comments from people I don't know (especially when the comments are positive).

Writing this blog has also helped turn my focus outward so I'm not only working on internal projects at my company but feel (in a small way) a part of the broader community.

I hope to continue in the coming year as I'm having a lot of fun so far ...

And...she's off!

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Hello, my darlings!

As you read this, I am making my way to Sandusky, Ohio for my annual pilgrimage to visit my friends Nick & Louisa, former New Yorkers and college classmates both. (That's me and Louisa up top, in Strasbourg on our 2006 trip to Europe.)

It promises to be an exciting 10 days - we always manage to have one or two culinary adventures together (see the evidence of last year's pork belly-off right here), and there are few dogs I enjoy more than their border terrier, Hunter. I mean, check this out:

But not to fear! I'll be posting on a regular basis from the wilds of Middle America, and promise to report on any exciting encounters with farmstands or funnel cakes.

Take good care of the island while I'm gone, will ya?

A non-ruby post about marketing tips

about 1 year ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Goggling about some Ruby thing, I came across a nice article on Marketing Tips. I was forced to share these beautiful thoughts ....

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/07/9-marketing-tips-from-a-six-year-olds-lemonade-stand/

Odds and ends.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times ran a piece about the age-old dilemma of leftovers. The article explored a few extreme examples of the sending-people-home-with-food phenomenon, but I'm more interested in the oft expressed anti-leftovers attitude so many people seem to have.

I just don't get it. As someone who cooks primarily for one, I almost always have leftovers of one kind or another - either bits of this and that that didn't make it into an intended dish, or cold roast chicken, or half a pot of boeuf bourgignon. I have no problem making a big vat of coq au vin and eating it for lunch four days in a row. Growing up, leftover salad (chopped salad with fresh veggies and an assortment of leftover meats, grains and whatnot) was one of my favorite meals. Whatever the leftover happens to be, I eat it happily. I re-purpose it, or warm it up, and get down to the business of dining.

For example: the other day, I was hungry, but didn't much feel like making a trip to the store to replenish my relatively empty fridge. The result? An improvised carbonara made with the end of a slab of bacon, the single egg in the fridge, some grated Parmesan, the cavatappi left over from Danielle's macaroni salad and a handful of pea shoots I'd forgotten about.

I suppose this isn't everyone's idea of "leftovers" - part of the dislike seems to be directed at the idea of eating the same thing two days in a row, which didn't happen here - but it fits mine. By looking at the odds and ends left over from four other meals, I was able to creat something new and different for a fifth. Frugality and laziness won the day - all it took was a little creatvitiy.

don't talk, just do it

about 1 year ago | Prasoon Sharma: Enterprise Software Does not Have to Suck

love the article... http://sivers.org/zipit... gotto start practicing :)

Perfection is a piece of cake.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

For me, a killer chocolate cake is one of the essential pillars of a culinary repertoire. Very little makes people swoon with such minimal effort. With one under your hat, you'll be well-prepared for every birthday, celebration or office potluck that comes your way - and, trust me, you'll make many friends as a result.

Last weekend, for my brother's birthday, I had the opportunity to take my favorite chocolate cake recipe out for a spin. Rich, impossibly moist and seriously easy to make, it came to me courtesy of that goddess of low-key hostessing, the great Ina Garten (better known as the Barefoot Contessa).

Ina is my go-to source for sophisticated-but-still-easy-to-make versions of French and American classics, and this cake is no exception. The secret ingredient is a cup of hot coffee, which, along with buttermilk, gives the cake its exceptionally tender crumb and adds a hint of smokiness to the chocolate. The buttercream also has a little coffee in it - a pinch of instant espresso powder.

The cake takes a morning or afternoon to put together, but most of that is cooling time. (It is very important that the cake cool completely before you frost it, unless you like your frosting to melt and soak into the cake.) You'll spend about 15 minutes actually making the batter, and about the same amount of time on the buttercream frosting. In other words, it will take you about 15 minutes longer than using cake mix and frosting from a can.

Trust me - it's worth the 15 minutes.

Ina's Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Barefoot Contessa At Home

For the cake:
Butter, for greasing the pans
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup good cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

For the buttercream frosting:
6 ounces semisweet chocolate (I use Guittard!)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 extra-large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder

Position the racks in the top and bottom thirds of your oven, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter 2 round cake pans (8- or 9-inch both work.). Line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the salt and mix on low speed until combined.

In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low, gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry. Add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the sides & bottom of the bowl with a spatula.

Divide the batter evenly between the pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, swapping pans from top to bottom about halfway through, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack (parchment paper side down) and cool completely.

Peel off the parchment paper and place 1 layer, flat side up, on a flat plate or cake pedestal. With a knife or offset spatula, spread the top with frosting. Place the second layer on top, rounded side up, and spread the frosting evenly on the top and sides of the cake.

Amazing Paper Craft Castle on the Ocean

about 1 year ago | Rohan Daxini: Rohan Daxini

See this wonderful paper craft art installation by a genius of the name of Wataru Itou, a young student of a major art university in Tokyo. The installation is hand made over four years of hard work (yeah "four years of hard work") complete with electrical lights and a moving train, all made of paper! Clearly, this man must have created one of the most stunning examples of Paper Craft in the world.

Scrum Video

about 1 year ago | Rajesh Rathod: Uncommon "Common Sense"!

Nice way to introduce Scrum in 5 minutes...

Design as Business Strategy

about 1 year ago | Amy Grandov: Technology for Social Innovation

Last night, I had the great opportunity to hear a talk on Business Design from Duane Bray, interaction designer and head of Digital Media for prominent design firm IDEO, and Ryan Jacoby, who leads IDEO's Business Design discipline. They spoke at an Interaction Design Association (IxDA) event at Bloomberg offices in midtown to a mixed crowd of designers and business people.

Business designers adopt many of the methods and principals of traditional design thinking to generate new opportunities and innovative business models. As the internet and mobile technologies change the way people interact with products, content, services, and each other, there are new opportunities - but also new challenges to traditional ways of making money.

Design thinking builds empathy and understanding of the target customers, generates as many creative new options as possible, and prototypes new business models to quickly test, get feedback, and iterate. Business designers value close collaboration with customers, business people, designers, technologists, and others to come up with challenging but practical solutions. Like traditional designers, they also emphasize simple, compelling visual representations of their analysis over spreadsheets and detailed graphs.

In the social sector, I'm seeing more innovative "business" models from nonprofits and social entrepreneurs as they seek new ways to address social needs. This may be because I'm looking harder, or that technology has finally evolved and become more accessible and affordable to support new models (or both). Kiva.org, DonorsChoose, and other online giving marketplaces, for example, have found a valued, non-traditional role as a conduit between microfinance funders and receipients. They are facilitators of many 1:1 relationships rather than the fundraising hub and sole distributor. Many charities are also using social networking to build community and engage supporters in new ways beyond writing a check. (I am linked to Save the Children on Facebook, and get regular updates on their activities without any request for donations). The IDEO website has a free toolkit for designing for social impact, developed with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Both for-profit and non-profit organizations are in uncharted waters these days, and design thinking is ideally suited for creating, exploring, and learning by doing rather than by replicating what worked in the past. This will be an interesting space to watch.

Learnings from the past: Writing jMock Unit tests in 6 simple steps

about 1 year ago | Amar Phadke: Amar Phadke's weblog

Do you ever come across a situation where your Unit test ends up testing more than what a unit is supposed to be?  Does your unit test end up looking more like an Integration test? Does it only run within a container? Does it depend on external things like records in a table, entries in [...]

NYC Tweetup: "Julie & Julia" Take Manhattan.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

That's right, folks! I'm hosting my first tweetup - and I'm hoping you'll come along for the fun.

On Saturday, August 8th, I'll be hosting a tweetup at an opening-weekend showing of the upcoming film Julie & Julia, a Nora Ephron adaption of two memoirs: Julie Powell's Julie & Julia and Julia Child's (effervescent, inspiring, transcendent) My Life in France.

So head on over the event web page (clickety) to RSVP. And if you're one of those happy-go-lucky types who don't like to plan too far ahead, don't worry - I'll be reminding you closer to the date, you can be sure of that.

In the meantime, do yourself a (huge) favor and read Julia Child's amazing memoir. And then watch the trailer. And then...cry.

See you there!

Google Voice and Its Improved Mobile App

about 1 year ago | Erika Santos: Santos on Technology and Life

Today, Google is unveiling an improved Google Voice mobile app. Unfortunately for many of us, it's only available for BlackBerrys and Android phones.

Here are a few highlights:

1) In the previous version of the mobile app, users had to type in numbers they wanted to call, rather than accessing them directly from their address books. But now, users can make calls directly from their phones.

2) Recipients of the Google Voice mobile calls or text messages will see the user’s Google Voice number, instead of his/her mobile phone number.

3) Cheap international calls. Rates start at $0.02/minute. Watch out Skype!

For those of you not familiar with Google Voice, it gives you one phone number for all your phones, voicemail as easy as email, and many calling features for free.

If you're interested in giving it a try, you will have to sign up to receive a Google invitation for your number.

To chain or not to chain?

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

In real life, I do some work that isn't food-related. No, really. So it is that the other day, I found myself reading the latest issue of Fast Company. Tucked halfway through was an article about Darden Restaurants, the conglomerate that owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster, among others.

Despite my well-documented lack of enthusiasm for chain restaurants, I found the piece about Darden and its CEO, Clarence Otis, fascinating. The mathematical acrobatics it takes to run hundreds of outposts of a single restaurant boggle my mind, and I was pretty surprised to hear about the efforts Darden is making to encourage sustainable fishing. After all, it's a bit like Wal-Mart insisting on eco-friendly practices at its suppliers: when you control that much of the market, you can make a serious difference.

This is a hot topic right now; Ezra Klein's IFA post about Ruhlman vs. Alexander is a really interesting take.

How about you guys? Do you eat at a lot of chain restaurants? Why or why not?

Augmented Reality

about 1 year ago | Lalatendu Das: Interpretations of Technorealism

“The real world is way too boring for many people,” says Mr. Sánchez-Crespoa, project leader at Novarama, a game developer based in Barcelona. “By making the real world a playground for the virtual world, we can make the real world much more interesting.”

Welcome to the world of Augmented reality: a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data, where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time.

Though the concept of Augmented reality (AR) has been around since early 90's (term first introduced by Boeing Corp), it's only in recent past we are seeing a surge in interest for AR. In mobile computing and gaming software, AR is finally realizing a viable business model.

Austrian Company Mobilizy launched Wikitude.me in late 2008. Wikitude.me running on Andriod platform, provides information on 800,000 points of interest around the world on real time.

Earlier this month SPRXmobile, a dutch telecom company launched an Android application named 'Layer', which is being termed as the first AR browser. People in Amsterdam who download 'Layar' on their cellphones can look through the camera and see information about nearby restaurants, A.T.M.’s, and available jobs displayed in front of buildings that house them. This information is provided by companies like Hyves, the Dutch social networking site, and ING, the financial services company. The businesses pay a fee to SPRXmobile for publishing their data.

See the video below on Layers.



Epilogue:

AR adoption is likely to increase in near future. I think what is key to success of AR adoption is the data quality and completeness. Big players like Nokia (owns Navteq - provider of map data and content)or Google can leverage this technology to bring in more and more value added services.

Cognos8 Express authoring mode

about 1 year ago | Abhishek Dharga: Face The Truth

One of the best features of Cognos is adhoc reporting, users can get any data without the help of professional report developer using query studio.
There was a limitation with query studio, users were not able to use advance reporting features.
Now in Cognos 8 users are able to use advance features as well because Cognos 8 introduced Express authoring mode.
The Express authoring mode provides a simplified and focused Report Studio interface.It is designed for non-technical users to create traditional financial and management statement reports.Note :Express authoring mode allows access only to dimensionally-modeled data and uses a member-oriented data tree.This authoring mode allows you to see live data and supports only crosstab reports.It contains a subset of the features available in the Professional authoring mode.When you are in the Express authoring mode, if you open a report that was authored in the Professional authoring mode, you can see but cannot modify objects that can be inserted only in the Professional authoring mode, such as charts, maps, and lists.Then what are you waiting for? Just grant the access of Express authoring mode to your users and let them get benefit of using Cognos8 as their information management tool.

Happy Bastille Day!

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Sophomore year in high school, my French teacher Ms. Williams started each week off by teaching my class one line of La Marseillaise. By the end of the term, the thirteen of us could belt it out like pros. In fact, the following summer, nothing impressed my French host family more than my perfect rendition of the French national anthem when we sang it on Bastille Day.

We Americans are spoiled by a gorgeous (if difficult to sing) national anthem; few other countries are blessed with anthems as stirring or evocative. However, the French come pretty damn close. Plus, they don't stick with the allusions to bloodshed you find in The Star-Spangled Banner; they go right for the jugular, with lines like "ils viennent jusque dans nos bras/égorger nos fils, nos campagnes" (Translation: they come into our midst to slit the throats of our sons and our wives.).

On this Bastille Day, I hope you'll enjoy a perfect croissant - perhaps with a little strawberry jam - while watching one of my favorite version of La Marseillaise, from a little movie you might have heard of: Casablanca.



Photo of La Colonne de Juillet (in the Place de la Bastille) courtesy of Carlo Benedetti.

Topping off.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

After a crazy fun night with my brother and sister-in-law (which included drinks at the Boat Basin and pizza at Big Nick's), I decided a gelato from GROM would be in order.

I posted about GROM back when it first opened in 2007, and things haven't changed much there. The gelato is still pretty darn good, the spoons are still really cool-looking - though the lines are, thankfully, a lot shorter.

This time around, I ordered the crema di Grom flavor, an eggy, creamy masterpiece, and topped it with cream whipped almost to the point of turning to butter. The three of us shared the tiny cup, passing it up and down the line till every last, rich drop was gone. Then, I got on the 79th Street crosstown bus and fell asleep.

Open Cloud Manifesto

about 1 year ago | Lalatendu Das: Interpretations of Technorealism

Checkout the Open Cloud Manifesto: http://www.opencloudmanifesto.org/

The manifesto outlines the following six principles

1.Cloud providers must work together to ensure that the challenges to cloud adoption (security, integration, portability, interoperability, governance/management,(metering/monitoring) are addressed through open collaboration and the appropriate use of standards

2.Cloud providers must not use their market position to lock customers into their particular platforms and limit their choice of providers

3.Cloud providers must use and adopt existing standards wherever appropriate. The IT industry has invested heavily in existing standards and standards organizations; there is no need to duplicate or reinvent them

4. When new standards (or adjustments to existing standards) are needed, we must be judicious and pragmatic to avoid creating too many standards. We must ensure that standards promote innovation and do not inhibit it

5. Any community effort around the open cloud should be driven by customer needs, not merely the technical needs of cloud providers, and should be tested or verified against real customer requirements

6. Cloud computing standards organizations, advocacy groups, and communities should work together and stay coordinated, making sure that efforts do not conflict or overlap

Reuven Cohen's introductory blog post on Open Cloud

In-spite of Amazon/Google's resistance and Microsoft's frontal attack, Open Cloud manifesto is getting attention. An active user group is already into writing the Open cloud use cases.

My personal take, the might of Microsoft / Google, may be able to kill the initiative, but idea would live on.

Top 10 Hot technologies

about 1 year ago | Lalita Chandel: Emotional Intelligence

While browsing, I came across an interesting article which talks about 10 hot technologies for 2009 (ex Cloud Computing, Green IT.....etc )
http://technology.inc.com/managing/articles/200812/technologies.html
Nice read !

Happy Birthday, Bear!

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Today, dear readers, is my little brother Jeremy's (hence the "Bear" - as in, "Jer Bear") 27th birthday. That's right: on this day in 1982, my life changed forever, thanks to a 10-pound (yes, you read that right) bundle of mischief and love.

This weekend, we celebrated things right, with an outing to Dinosaur Barbecue on Friday night and a homemade clambake (full culinary report later this week) on Saturday. We topped things off with a homemade chocolate birthday cake, a special request from the birthday boy himself (though this brown sugar-blackberry cake was a close runner-up).

Tonight, after he spends some alone time with his lovely wife, Miriam, we'll meet up for a celebratory Scotch.

Am I proud that my little brother chose to celebrate his birthday with a series of fabulous foods and friends? You bet your ass I am.

Happy birthday, Bear!

Fresh from the tree.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

When I was 15, I spent the summer in France.

We (by which I mean a group of about 20 high school kids and a few brave teachers) started in the south, gradually making our way to Paris via Nice, Cannes, Avignon, Montpellier, the Gorges du Tarn and the Loire Valley. Most of the eight weeks were spent in various hostels, where we breakfasted on baguettes smeared with butter and jam, washed down with latte bowls brimming with chocolat chaud. We took language classes in the mornings and spent the afternoons seeing the sights.

That summer, I tasted my first Roquefort cheese (in a cave on the side of a Roquefort hill, no less), fell in love with perfume at Fragonard, kissed a boy on a dark beach in Nice, ate tarte tropézienne while walking down a cobblestone street in Saint-Tropez, and tasted my first Berthillon glace on the Île Saint-Louis.

Every single moment of that summer was memorable, but one sun-bleached afternoon in Provence stands out from the others.

Our two weeks in Montpellier were spent on homestays; we met our host families at the American students' center and fanned out around the city, nerves jangling. My family lived in a suburb about twenty minutes from the center of town, which was exactly as bland as it sounds. Over the weekend, we drove out into the country to visit my host mother's family at their farm in southern Provence.

All week, my family had been talking about the pool. "La piscine, la piscine": it was all I heard about for seven whole days. You can imagine my disappointment when la piscine turned out to be an inflatable kiddie pool - one that measured 10 feet across, fair enough, but a kiddie pool nonetheless.

Far more exciting to me was the farm itself. My host mother's brother took me on a tour of the fields, the enclosure where they kept the goats, and, finally, the cherry orchard. Acre upon acre of rich Provencale hillside planted with endless rows of cherry trees. I'd never been much of a cherry fan, having been raised by a mother who favored strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. But that day changed everything.

After the tour, while my family lounged in the pool, I walked back to the orchard and stood in the cool shade of the cherry trees. Their sweet, rich fragrance was overwhelming in the heat of the afternoon sun. The branches were dripping with ripe fruit almost ready for the season's largest harvest, which would happen over the next few days.

While I stood there, a cherry fell off a branch and fell to the ground in front of my feet. I picked it up; it was heavy with juice and piping hot from the sun. I popped it into my mouth and savored the scarlet juice and soft flesh of the cherry. Its flavor was complex - sweet, tangy and rich all at once, the juice stained my fingertips pink and dyed my lips crimson. I picked a handful more and ate them slowly, standing in the orchard, under the deep blue French sky.

To this day, I prefer my cherries warm, and leave them - by the bowlful - on my windowsill for a little while before devouring them. It helps recapture a tiny bit of that stolen moment, if only for a short time.

Do you treat usability as an important aspect ?

about 1 year ago | Rohan Daxini: Rohan Daxini

While working on usability aspects of menu (and other controls) for my news reader application "whiz", I read important aspects of usability posted by Jacob Nielsen who is considered "Guru of Usability".

This summer brought to you by macaroni salad.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Danielle (aka Foodmomiac) posted what looked like a seriously delicious macaroni salad on her blog. I love a good macaroni salad, I trust Danielle implicitly, and so I decided to make a big bowl of the stuff to take for lunch last week.

Most of us probably remember the gloppy, gluey, overly-tangy versions of macaroni salad that grocery stores used to sell by the pound (They probably still do, eh?). The pasta was usually overcooked, the veggies soggy - and the dressing? Far too plentiful.

Danielle's version, though, keeps the best parts of the original (bendy pasta, glorious mayonnaise, carrots & celery, and a bit of sugar) and leaves the gloppiness behind. The veggies are crisp and plentiful, the dressing coats the noodles but doesn't pool on the plate, and the turbinado sugar adds sweetness and tang without overwhelming the pasta. Making this salad feels like an inherently summery act, though it would be delicious in any season. I ate it with cold roast chicken, and, one hungry morning, on its own for breakfast.

The original recipe (click here) makes enough to feed an army; my version is half the size, and provided enough for four generous portions. I also added a dash of my beloved spiciness, with a few glugs of Sriracha, and improvised a half-mayo, half-yogurt dressing upon realizing I only had half a cup of the former. Danielle's recipe listed elbow macaroni, but her picture showed the decidedly more grown-up cavatappi, and I decided to follow her lead on that, too.

Whichever version you make, and however much of it you make, one thing is absolutely essential: you MUST let the salad spend a few hours in the fridge before eating it. Trust me - before it ages a bit, it tastes like a mishmash of veggies, dressing and pasta. Once it's had time to hang out and get to know itself a bit, it is pure awesomeness.

Foodmomiac's Macaroni Salad
Adapted from Foodmomiac's original version

1/2 lb. cavatappi
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup turbinado sugar
1 1/4 tbs. dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. Sriracha (you can also go crazy and add a full teaspoon, if you choose)
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 sweet white onion, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 carrot, minced
1 dill pickle, finely chopped

Cook cavatappi in boiling, salted water until just al dente. Drain, rinse in cold water and set aside.

Mix together the mayo, yogurt, vinegar, sugar, mustard, Sriracha, salt and pepper in a large bowl.

Add the onion, celery and carrot to the sauce in the bowl, along with the cavatappi and pickles. Mix to combine, cover, and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Serves 4 (or one person, four times)

World's First Consumer 3-D Digicam

about 1 year ago | Erika Santos: Santos on Technology and Life

Fujifilm, the company that brought you the first fully digital still camera, is once again, bringing excitement to the snapshot business.

The FinePix Real 3D System (its tentative name) is a 10-megapixel cam that utilizes two lenses, spaced about the same distance apart as human eyes, which allow for the taking of simultaneous photos of the same scene from different angles. When the two images are presented slightly to the right and left eyes of a viewer, that person's brain combines them into a single image, resulting in the illusion of depth.

The camera offers two viewing options: your picture can pop off the screen or print. In other words, one of the options is a 3-D LCD eight-inch picture frame and the other option is 3-D prints, which are made with a clear plastic overlay that acts as a kind of 3-D lens. In addition, Fujifilm plans to launch an online service that will make 3-D prints for consumers.

The camera is expected to debut in Japan this summer and in the U.S. and Europe in September. It will cost around $600, the picture frame will cost several hundred dollars, and the price of the 3-D prints is uncertain. And in case you're wondering, the camera is not much bigger or heavier than some conventional digicams.

Although the 3-D pictures may not be a big competition for the "plain'" pictures as we know them, the 3-D capability undoubtedly brings a new fun element to picture taking. Personally, I'm sufficiently entertained by iPhoto '09. But who knows, I might consider making the purchase when comes down in a couple of years.


Source: Time.com

Are your Scrum teams getting stories "done" done?

about 1 year ago | Biju Bhaskar: Thoughts on enterprise application development...

I have been attending lot of scrum meetings recently and I happened to attend a Sprint review meeting of a high performing team recently. The team claimed that they committed 17 story points and delivered all. However there was a caveat to that…. the stories were only 95% done … “some minor UI tweaks and some final testing are pending”. Usually this is a red flag for me…. there is a good chance for this team to start developing a bad habit, and end up with technical debt (or lower product quality). Sticking to “done” list religiously is key for a Scrum team’s success. They should not call a story done unless it is really done done. Let me try to explain why…

A good analogy would be Toyota Production System. The concept of any employee being able to stop the line in a Toyota plant is a key part of Toyota’s quality strategy. In traditional manufacturing settings, management will pressure employees to keep the line running at all costs -- quantity over quality. If defects are being made, keep the line running and you'll sort them out at the end of the line (through inspection and repair). It's a failed quality strategy because it ultimately costs more and potentially leads to more customer dissatisfaction than if you had just stopped the line to immediately fix the problem and prevent more defects from being made. That also creates a behavior change among the employees that assures quality through out the system.

Similarly Scrum teams should avoid calling a story done if it is not really done done. If it is okay in one sprint, it becomes okay in couple of sprints and slowly could become a habit and the team will end up with technical debt (or low quality application). I know it’s hard to not give credit to the team who has done 95% of the hard work. They may hate you for couple of sprints… but they will surely thank you at the end of the release for helping them become a high performing team.

Thoughts?

Are your Scrum teams getting stories "done" done?

about 1 year ago | Biju Bhaskar: Thoughts on enterprise application development...

I have been attending lot of scrum meetings recently and I happened to attend a Sprint review meeting of a high performing team recently. The team claimed that they committed 17 story points and delivered all. However there was a caveat to that…. the stories were only 95% done … “some minor UI tweaks and some final testing are pending”. Usually this is a red flag for me…. there is a good chance for this team to start developing a bad habit, and end up with technical debt (or lower product quality). Sticking to “done” list religiously is key for a Scrum team’s success. They should not call a story done unless it is really done done. Let me try to explain why…

A good analogy would be Toyota Production System. The concept of any employee being able to stop the line in a Toyota plant is a key part of Toyota’s quality strategy. In traditional manufacturing settings, management will pressure employees to keep the line running at all costs -- quantity over quality. If defects are being made, keep the line running and you'll sort them out at the end of the line (through inspection and repair). It's a failed quality strategy because it ultimately costs more and potentially leads to more customer dissatisfaction than if you had just stopped the line to immediately fix the problem and prevent more defects from being made. That also creates a behavior change among the employees that assures quality through out the system.

Similarly Scrum teams should avoid calling a story done if it is not really done done. If it is okay in one sprint, it becomes okay in couple of sprints and slowly could become a habit and the team will end up with technical debt (or low quality application). I know it’s hard to not give credit to the team who has done 95% of the hard work. They may hate you for couple of sprints… but they will surely thank you at the end of the release for helping them become a high performing team.

Thoughts?

Chain Management

about 1 year ago | Sarika Nagvekar: Chain Management

Shifting allegiances.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

All my life, I've clung to the belief that no chocolate chip cookie recipe could ever overtake the classic Tollhouse version. I've dutifully tried each new recipe as they've emerged, including last year's much-discussed version from the New York Times and the much-touted Jacques Torres' recipe. Every single time, though, I emerged from the experience convinced that the original was still the best. Which always made me feel a little twinge of satisfaction and loyalty.

Today, however, I must admit that I have finally met my match. I thought I'd spend my life happily married to the Tollhouse recipe, content in our groove, calm in the knowledge that I had memorized the recipe somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 years ago and could make cookies anytime, anywhere, given a few simple pantry ingredients. I was wrong.

Thomas Keller's recipe, which has been making the internet rounds in anticipation of the release of the Ad Hoc cookbook this fall, is amazing. It doesn't require cake flour, bread flour, refrigeration, or any of that nonsense. Which, in my opinion, is as it should be.

A chocolate chip cookie should be something you can whip up with the most basic pantry ingredients, not something for which you have to make a special trip to the store. Accordingly, the fanciest thing Keller calls for is a combination of bittersweet and semisweet chocolate.

The cookies bake to a dark brown, with just a touch of gold. Left to their own devices, the cookies are crisp on top and chewy inside (if you like a truly chewy cookie, mist them with water before baking).

The chocolate (I used fèves, as opposed to chopped chocolate) is perfectly oozy and plentiful, while leaving enough real estate for the actual cookie. They're just as easy to make as the Tollhouse cookies (the only extra step is a little sifting) - and, in fact, take even less preparation, since the butter in Keller's recipe is cold.

No waiting around for your butter to get to room temperature, people! You're free!

Ad Hoc Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes approximately 30 3-inch cookies

2 1/3 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
5 ounces 55 percent (semisweet) chocolate, cut into chip-sized pieces
5 ounces 70 to 72 percent (bittersweet) chocolate, cut into chip-sized pieces
8 ounces (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup packed dark brown sugar, preferably molasses sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs

Position racks in the lower and upper thirds of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with Silpats or parchment paper.

Sift flour and baking soda into a medium bowl. Stir in the salt.

Put chips in a fine-mesh basket strainer and shake to remove any chocolate “dust” (small fragments).

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat half the butter on medium speed until fairly smooth. Add both sugars and the remaining butter, and beat until well combined, then beat for a few minutes, until mixture is light and creamy. Scrape down sides of the bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating until the first one is incorporated before adding the next and scraping the bowl as necessary. Add dry ingredients and mix on low speed to combine. Mix in chocolate.

Remove bowl from mixer and fold dough with a spatula to be sure the chocolate is evenly incorporated. The dough or shaped cookies can be refrigerated, well wrapped, for up to 5 days or frozen for 2 weeks. Freeze shaped cookies on the baking sheets until firm, then transfer to freezer containers. (Defrost frozen cookies overnight in the refrigerator before baking.)

Using about 2 level tablespoons per cookie, shape dough into balls. Arrange 8 cookies on each pan, leaving about 2 inches between them, because the dough will spread. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the tops are no longer shiny, switching the position and rotating pans halfway through baking.

Cool cookies on the pans on cooling racks for about 2 minutes to firm up a bit, then transfer to the racks to cool completely. Repeat with second batch of cookies. (The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.)

Many thanks to Food Gal for sharing this recipe on her fabulous blog!

Fight continues: Round 2 - Google vs. Microsoft

about 1 year ago | Rohan Daxini: Rohan Daxini

Recently there has been a lot of buzz on Google launching new OS. This news is making rounds on almost all news sites and blogs. I am wondering whether this move by Google is a strong response to Microsoft for launching Bing which is trying to give tough competition to Google's core business. I was waiting for Google's response but didnt thought it would be in the form of new OS :)

Salad for breakfast? Don't mind if I do.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

The first corn of the season is always a little exciting for me. Summers in my mother's house always meant piles and piles and corn, usually steamed or boiled and served with butter, salt and pepper. I had braces from the seventh to the eleventh grade, so there were a few years there where I tended to cut it off the cob - but, for the most part, summer to me is my face covered in butter and bits of corn, a naked corncob on my plate.

Saturday morning, Migliorelli had a pile of early corn for sale, and I dove right in. I bought three ears and toted them home along with some scallions, tomatoes, cherries and other goodies. Sunday morning, not much in the mood to do a lot of cooking, I decided to whip up a warm corn and tomato salad for breakfast.

I cubed two small tomatoes, diced a little red onion, and mixed the two in a small bowl. Then, I cut the kernels off of one ear of corn, chopped up a little scallion, and sauteed those two together in a teeny bit of canola oil. A splash of sherry vinegar and a healthy amount of salt later, and I had a damn satisfying breakfast - sweet, earthy, crunchy, soft, and a bit tangy. Summer in a bowl.

City Releases Data for Mobile Apps

about 1 year ago | Amy Grandov: Technology for Social Innovation

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced a new annual competition, "NYC Big Apps", to encourage the developers to use city data in mobile apps that benefit the public. (Thanks to James Torio for the great tip!) The city will be making available about 80 data sets from 32 city agencies and commissions, which can be used to dream up mobile applications for NYC events, property sales, recreational facilities, restaurant inspections, etc. The winners of the annual competition will receive a cash prize, dinner with the mayor and marketing opportunities.
To find out more:

New York City portal: http://nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fnyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2009a%2Fpr294-09.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1

New York Times article: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/city-invites-software-developers-to-crunch-big-data-sets/

Improvisation is the spice of life.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

I love summer squash. It's sweet, it's pretty, and it's so easy to cook - unlike all those fall and winter squashes, with their giant seeds and pulpy insides, summer squash is pretty much just slice-and-serve. You can roast it, saute it, or eat it raw, if you like.

Most of the time, I roast mine with a little olive oil, some salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of thyme from the windowsill garden. But, one night last week, I found myself in need of dinner and without any meat in the house. The result? An improvised pasta dish: green and yellow zucchini sauteed with garlic, onion, mustard and thyme, deglazed with a little chicken stock and tossed with penne.

There's no real recipe here - just an example of improvisation at work. Don't be afraid to play around with whatever you have in the fridge - at worst, you'll have a slightly less than stellar meal - at best, you'll add a new standard to your repertoire.

I made zucchini with penne again for lunch Saturday, natch.

From peonies to dahlias.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Dahlias have replaced peonies as the flower of the moment at the Greenmarket, and I love them almost as much. Almost.

A Nudge in the Right Direction

about 1 year ago | Amy Grandov: Technology for Social Innovation

As technologists, we often believe (hopefully correctly!) that a new technology project will benefit our end users or the organization. However, simply offering a solution and making people aware of it may not be enough for them to embrace it.

In the book "Nudge", authors Richard Thaler and Cas Sunstein argue that people do not always make the best rational choices, even in their own best interest. Decision makers are influenced by the complexity of the problem and the way choices are presented. "Choice architects" can use various techniques to structure the decision making context and influence, but not control, the outcome. Basically, an ethical choice architect offers freedom of choice to decision makers but "nudges" them in a positive direction.

Nudges are most often needed for choices where:
- benefits of action (or inaction) come now, but consequences are far in the future
- options are complex and difficult to understand
- the chooser rarely faces this type of decision, and doesn't have experience with trial and error
- the chooser is not getting good feedback on their actions or decisions (Metrics enthusiasts like to say that you can't manage what you can't measure.)
- its not clear to the chooser how one option or the other would affect him/her. Most people have little difficulty picking a flavor of ice cream, but may have some difficulty selecting off a menu of unfamiliar food

Any good business book has an acronym. Not surprisingly, a responsible "choice architect" will assist a chooser by using 'NUDGE':
- iNcentives: Reward positive choices (e.g., company match for 401(k) contributions)
- Understand mappings : Outline how various options will impact the chooser - positively or negatively - so they better determine their preferences.
- Defaults: Provide a good default option if the user does nothing. Most people will stick with the default, so the result of an 'opt-out' policy will likely be much different from an 'opt-in' approach
- Give feedback: Give feedback and warnings on successful or failed choices.
- Expect error: Expect and be forgiving of user errors. Prevent them from making predictable mistakes, if possible, and provide corrections
- Structure complex choices: Explain choices in clear language so the options are easier to compare and understand

While we want to empower business sponsors to make technology decisions, there will be cases where nudges in the right direction are appropriate (and even appreciated). Examples that come to mind are prioritizing IT security stories in an product backlog, introducing an emerging technology, or investing in architecture simplification that doesn't bring about new end-user functionality. This book outlines a helpful middle ground between giving 100% responsibility of choice to the business versus handing down an inflexible decision.

Contextual Ads - based off your Social Network Profile

about 1 year ago | Lalatendu Das: Interpretations of Technorealism

Volkswagen has come-up with a contextualized online advertising campaign that intends to help prospective buyers find the right VW model based on their social profile. Check it out..

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Type 1: Context Ad based off of opt-in Twitter profile.

Above Ad: Enter your Twitter name to see a product recommendation

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Type 2: Contextual Ad based off of Facebook profile.

“Meet the VWs” Facebook app asks users to opt in to analyze their profile and then recommends VW products based off simple profile info.

Looks to me as the next generation of online advertising. What do you think?

Rainy travels, part five: Patisserie Fauchère, how I love thee...

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

While we were underwhelmed by our dinner at Hotel Fauchère's Delmonico Room, we were floored by the quality of every single piece of bread that passed our lips - the apple walnut bread served with our cheese plate, the bread served with dinner, the croissant at breakfast on Saturday morning.

Having been assured by the staff that all baked goods came from the hotel's patisserie (housed in a separate building next-door), we made a point of stopping by after our visit to Grey Towers on Saturday afternoon.

The patisserie is located in one of the hotel's two smaller, adjacent properties, both of which seem to be former residences. The patisserie has a cute little porch filled with marble-topped cafe tables and wire chairs - on a warmer, less rainy day, it would be a perfect spot to sit, enjoy a croissant and a paper (they sell the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times) and watch the denizens of Milford go by.

We perused the selections on offer and settled on monkey bread, a rhubarb madeleine and a cream puff, all to share (I also had, of course, a cup of coffee.).


The monkey bread was adorable - I'd seen loaves of the stuff before, but never an individually-sized version. (For the uninitiated, monkey bread is kind of a quick version of cinnamon rolls - but instead of rolling and slicing individual rolls, you coat the outside of small chunks of dough with cinnamon and sugar and pack them into a loaf pan. To eat, just pull a chunk of dough off of the whole.)

The rhubarb madeleine was pretty, but did nothing to alter my conviction that madeleines are truly meant to be eaten hot from the oven; after about ten minutes, they begin to go a bit spongy and lose the slightly crunchy outside that distinguishes them from plain old cake.

The cream puff was, in a word, awesome. The choux paste was light as a feather, but still eggy and rich in flavor. The pastry cream was judiciously mixed with whipped cream and flavored strongly with vanilla, all of which yielded to a deep flavor and a smooth texture. We had one of the "small" cream puffs, and it took a lot of willpower not to buy one of the big ones to take back to my room with me for some late afternoon alone time.

Rainy travels, part four: Those Milfordites make a damn good sandwich.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Upon arrival in Pennsylvania, Hall was determined to lay his hands on a hoagie.

Remember, we all went to college together outside of Philadelphia, so we know from hoagies. There's something about a Pennsylvania-made hoagie, with its soft, chewy roll, thinly-sliced cold cuts, and slightly plasticky cheese, that just makes Hall swoon.

And so, instead of searching out any upscale options for lunch on Saturday, we headed for the nearest deli, Jorgenson's. Hall ordered a turkey hoagie, but I went for a BLT, and it turned out to be one of the best I've had in ages.

I don't know if it was the sweetness of the soft white bread, the salty, just-crisp-enough bacon, or the juicy iceberg lettuce. Who cares? Whatever it was, the alchemy of the ingredients combined to make one damn good sandwich.

Everything's coming up rosy.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Raspberries, cherry tomatoes, and cherries have appeared at the farmer's market...I've been bringing cherries to work for my afternoon snack for a week now, and my days have rarely been happier.

And then, the rain stopped...

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

...and all was right with the world.

Happy Independence Day, everyone! We here in New York (the nation's original capital, thankyouverymuch) are celebrating with the first rain-free day in weeks. It is absolutely stunning here today, and I'm about to sign off and head to Central Park for some serious Vitamin D production.

Cheerio!

Can I help you with that?

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Back in November, my brother and I went through a bunch of boxes at our mom's place and picked out the items we wanted to have with us in New York. Among the bits and pieces I found this picture from the summer of 1980.

I'm about 20 months old, and already looking to get my groove on in the kitchen. Though, judging by the look on my face, I may have been "helping" without being asked - independence asserts itself early, folks.

Rainy travels, part three: French toast, coffee, and crosswords.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

During our visit to Milford, we ate breakfast at the hotel both mornings. While Hall read the New York Times and surreptitiously sneaked sips of my caffeinated coffee (he's trying to go without), Miles & I worked on the crossword puzzle and guzzled cup after cup of French press-brewed Joe.

The first morning, I went protein-heavy, with eggs, chicken sausage, and some home fries. It was a good meal - especially the sausage, which was made in town at Fretta's - but the French toast we had on Sunday morning was to die for.

I'm guessing the brioche was made at the hotel's pâtisserie, which was by far its strongest culinary feature. This is a place that knows how to make a damn good bread product. With the fresh strawberry sauce, I didn't even need much maple syrup to sweeten things up. It was, in all honesty, the best French toast I've had in years.

The takeaway? When in Milford, have breakfast at The Hotel Fauchère, and order anything involving carbs (or sausage).

Rainy travels, part two: I keep wanting to call it Grey Gardens.

about 1 year ago | Megan Blocker: Queenie Takes Manhattan

On Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast spent chatting, reading the paper, and solving half of the New York Times crossword puzzle, the three of us headed out into rainy, leafy Milford to do some exploring. We hopped in the car and headed out of town to Grey Towers, a five-minute drive up the road.

Grey Towers was the family home of Gifford Pinchot, two-time governor of Pennsylvania and the first chief of the Forest Service. Milford prides itself on being "the birthplace of the conservation movement," and Pinchot is the reason why. He's considered to be the father of conservation, the philosophy that we should use our natural resources sustainably.

The house was built in the mid-nineteenth century by Gifford's father, and the Victorian influence is very apparent, particularly in the great hall - which was too dark to photograph effectively, thanks to the complete lack of windows and all the heavy, light-sucking woodwork. Though it was only sprinkling when we left the hotel, the rain had become an absolute deluge by the time our tour began, and, as a result, Miles, Hall and I were the only members of our tour group.

Our affable guide, Ranger Lee, showed us all around the house - the aforementioned great hall, a quick trip upstairs to see Gifford's bedroom, preserved in its monastic glory, and then the library and living room, both redone by Gifford's dynamic wife, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot. She's the one who created the outdoor dining room, where the table is a slate-edged pool, and where you passed the potatoes by pushing a bowl across the water.

Cornelia's also the one who created the landscaping that makes the house so breathtakingly beautiful. In the Victorian era, infection was rampant and typically fatal, and so houses were built, with as little greenery surrounding them as possible. This kept away insects, and also helped ensure a constant flow of air through the windows. However, by the time Cornelia came to the house, there was far less need of such extreme measures, and the stark, stone-house-on-a-bare-hill aesthetic could be softened.

The resulting lush greenery, terraced lawns and one trompe l'oeil reflecting pool (it's 12 inches narrower at the distant end, making it look far longer than it is) are, for me, what made the house worth visiting. I felt like I had entered the perfect setting for a 1930s Hepburn screwball comedy - there's the pool, ready for someone to fall into, and there's the playhouse, where the hero who's outgrown it can kiss his plucky heroine for the first time.

Though, hopefully, in drier weather.

Google's answer to Yahoo’s YSlow

about 1 year ago | Nilesh Naik: TechnoBites

You cannot hold them back for long. Recently Google announced a new open source plug-in for Firefox called Page Speed which can be used to assess the performance of web pages and make recommendations on speeding up the delivery which sounded a lot like Yslow to me. I couldn't wait & got it test on the Citibank's homepage.

Below is the comparison between the tools (YSlow on the right)


For each rule, Page Speed gives you a general indication of how well you’re doing, in the form of a green tick (good), red circle (bad), or amber triangle. You can also hover over a rule to see your percentage score. Page Speed does not provide an overall percentage score, but it does arrange the results in order of importance.

For me the major differences that stood out were:

• PageSpeed focuses a lot on CSS which YSlow doesnt. It'll tell you which CSS rules aren't being used by the current page, and identify some potentially overly-specific CSS selectors

• It not only tells the percentage of savings done through minifying JS and how much overhead you can save, but also provides a direct link to a already minified version of the file which you can simply save over your current file

• The Page Speed Activity feature lets you monitor real time browser activity such as network latency, DNS lookups, connection establishment, and JavaScript processing.
• One thing found missing was to give some overall grade to assess your pages overall performance as YSlow does.
• YSlow 2.0 gives you the flexibility to customize the rules that are applied. There are 3 default rulesets YSlow (v2), Classic, and Small Site or Blog. The Classic ruleset provides 13 rules while version 2 has added 9 additional rules.

Overall Page Speed adds a new dimension to building better web apps and wouldn't mind it using it after I am finished with YSlow.

....Well I am still pondering over why Google hasn't made this a Chrome plug-in rather.

Installing Rails plugin from Github on Windows

about 1 year ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

One more pain when coding on windows (as if I was born using Unix/Linux etc ;)))... but try installing a plugin -

ruby script/plugin install git://github.com/toamitkumar/extra_sanitize.git

and it will fail with an empty folder.

After googling found a way -> here which suggests using http instead of git protocol.

ruby script/plugin install http://github.com/toamitkumar/extra_sanitize.git

Well this also failed with an empty folder. After hours of struggling found adding a trailing forward slash to the url did the trick.

ruby script/plugin install http://github.com/toamitkumar/extra_sanitize.git/

It works now....