Pulse makes Eclipse usable

For a long time I have been a fan of Eclipse, I certainly liked what the organization did and how it was an open platform that allowed developers to extend it. But Eclipse was a usability nightmare when it came to actually getting all the bits and pieces together that you'd want to use. Digging around for compatible versions of plugins and such made it so that I just never found Eclipse worth switching to from IntelliJ. My time was simply more important than trying to dig through logs and figure out why a plugin didn't work or some other such nonsense.

Enter Pulse, an environment for making it (gasp) easier to get all the bits you'd want for Eclipse development in an easy to use and intelligible manner. No more going through plugin hell!


http://www.poweredbypulse.com/catalog.php

I absolutely appreciate the mechanism these guys are providing for getting up and running quickly. Simply bring up the catalog, click on the thing you want to install and all the dependencies and such are dealt with. If something needs GEF, I don;t have to find it. I don't have to hunt for some retarded obscure version of it. It just works and I can get to making other software. Like this a lot.

Prior pain screwing around with Eclipse had prevented me from doing a lot of work with Android lately, but with Pulse I just clicked that I wanted to install the Android packages for Eclipse and then just waited while Pulse brought down everything I needed for that. Then when I wanted to add subversion, click wait - done.

Much appreciation to whomever created this stuff and I home that all plugin developers go through this clear user-centric method for getting a user development environment up and running.  

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Pulse makes Eclipse usable

For a long time I have been a fan of Eclipse, I certainly liked what the organization did and how it was an open platform that allowed developers to extend it. But Eclipse was a usability nightmare when it came to actually getting all the bits and pieces together that you'd want to use. Digging around for compatible versions of plugins and such made it so that I just never found Eclipse worth switching to from IntelliJ. My time was simply more important than trying to dig through logs and figure out why a plugin didn't work or some other such nonsense.

Enter Pulse, an environment for making it (gasp) easier to get all the bits you'd want for Eclipse development in an easy to use and intelligible manner. No more going through plugin hell!


http://www.poweredbypulse.com/catalog.php

I absolutely appreciate the mechanism these guys are providing for getting up and running quickly. Simply bring up the catalog, click on the thing you want to install and all the dependencies and such are dealt with. If something needs GEF, I don;t have to find it. I don't have to hunt for some retarded obscure version of it. It just works and I can get to making other software. Like this a lot.

Prior pain screwing around with Eclipse had prevented me from doing a lot of work with Android lately, but with Pulse I just clicked that I wanted to install the Android packages for Eclipse and then just waited while Pulse brought down everything I needed for that. Then when I wanted to add subversion, click wait - done.

Much appreciation to whomever created this stuff and I home that all plugin developers go through this clear user-centric method for getting a user development environment up and running.  

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Back in action...

I've been wrapped up with all sorts of business lately after I left RedHat. Since then I've been spending a lot more time looking at building up development platforms for the web for projects that I have coming up in 2008. Anyone who knows me knows that I like platforms and want to merge good technologies together to come up with rapid results that are easily scalable. After spending a lot of time researching technologies I began looking at Grails and Flex as a viable one::two combination for getting projects done quickly. Grails, of course, takes much of the pain and suffering out of building controller based designs similar to the paradigms surrounding Rails.

The main benefit of Grails being that I can leverage all of the domain knowledge and experience I have with Java to build cool things that can be easily scaled using commodity application servers like Glassfish and JBoss. Flex has proven itself worthy for web-based user interface development. One can build great interfaces in no time. Many people choose to fight the trend to Flex, some even choose to look at Silverlight which has a much worse content development path as well. Adobe has clear user interface tools which allow artists and developers to work closely together to build their solutions.

Accordingly by using Grails with Flex one can building in mere hours fairly sophisticated applications that would take significantly longer if one were depending on writing it even the best Javascript APIs. The only possible downside, for me, is that these Flash based interfaces won't work on a mobile platform - but to be honest if you're building a mobile application you really should build a MOBILE application and not depend on your web site to be your application.

I can hear people saying "well you can get great stuff on the iPhone using web based technologies" and indeed you can, but if you want to build COMPELLING applications you end up having to write native code that talks to the underlying platform and at that point all the nice HTML/CSS/Javascript fun ends and you have to do some serious in-the-trenches development.

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I love Tokyo - I don't want to go back :"(

I will post pictures from todays events later, but I have to say that in two days I have seen enough to make me realize that I should have followed my first thought when I finished with college and come here to Tokyo. The city is enormous, yet pleasantly beautiful. I don't know what its like to live here in an apartment/condo/whatever, but to be honest considering that I was ready to leave the US to go and live in Europe for a few years.... perhaps I really should consider just seeing what options there would be for me to relocate to APAC - Tokyo in particular. I love Japan. The Japanese can't build an ATM worth a damn - but the food, the city life, the experience to be here around all that is Japan has definitely moved me.


I will be back as soon as I can afford it.

Finally got out!

So I took a chance today - which is no surprise to people who know me. I made an assumption that if I could make it to Roppongi, the foreigner night spot - I would surely find an ATM machine that would take a US card and sure enough *ching* *ching*, I'm in business baby! I was pretty much putting it out there and took a cab to the area via Amex - I knew at least THEY wouldn't let me down.

Roppongi itself isn't too much to shout about. Its like a one street French Quarter from New Orleans - just with more signs and people. Yes I know there are many side streets and such, but Roppongi is a lot smaller than I expected. But then again, I come from a party town. With money in hand I decided to go to a coffee shop and grab a snack. I noticed some local young girls sneaking a picture of me - I'm touched.

After lightly exploring Roppongi proper I headed down to Roppongi Hills. If I have anything to say about the Japanese - they don't do anything small in Tokyo! Roppongi Hills is a MASSIVE shopping and entertainment complex at the base of Mori Tower. Mori Tower is one damned impressive structure. While there are probably taller buildings in the world, I'm not sure any of them have as much meat on them as Mori Tower. At Mori, there is an Art Museum and Tokyo City view. Since I was there I decided to have some pictures taken for family back home. Next time, I won't be coming to Tokyo alone.

The Mori Art museum had an exhibit for Le Corbusier, so I decided to stroll through that. Couldn't take pictures though. That was a bummer, but the exhibit is pretty good. Tried to find some stuff for my brother-in-law, but there wasn't anything there of particular interest that I would have wanted him to have. He in going into art so maybe I will just get him a pass to the art galleries in Mobile or something.


At the Mori Tower is also Asahi TV. I went in there to see what they had coming out and lo and behold I see a store selling Crayon ShinChan merchandise - not much of it mind you, but enough that I ended up leaving some money behind :) Have no idea what the stuff says. Also ran into something that is either Japanese humor or the strangest display of 'circumstance' ever. Then again, this is the country that originated Pedobear so I guess anything is possible.


After leaving Mori, I felt that I had to make up for yesterdays Wachovia fubar, so I walked down to Aoyama Cemetery, something that caught my eye when I was up on the 52nd floor of Mori at the Tokyo City View. Its a very interesting place. I mean its a cemetery so it isn't much different from others all around the world, but there is certainly a different ebb and flow to the place. I haven't deciphered the meaning of the sticks/posts that I see at a lot of the graves. I am assuming that they are prayers or some sort.

On the way back I decided to press my luck and took the Japan rail system. I'm not sure why people think this system is so difficult, its actually pretty straightforward once you spend some time trying to figure out how its designed to be used. I didn't have any problems getting back to Shimbashi station from Roppongi.

Celebrate good times, COME ON!

FINALLY! Now we're in business baby!!!!

Whomever said prostitution was underground in tokyo lied

While walking around the city last night I was approached not once, not twice, but SEVEN times by women asking me if I wanted a "special massage" for prices ranging from 5000-10000 yen (50-100US roughly). I could understand if I was in the Red Light district, but I am in central downtown tokyo! I have heard Roppongi is famous for this, but I'm nowhere near it!

Normal foreigner tours it is

Without access to cash I am effectively immobilized. There are some signs in the Metro station that show the use of American Express but I can't figure out where they go. At this point my only course of action available to salvage this trip is to take a sightseeing tour. Since the concierge desk doesn't speak very good English. I'll head down there and try to point out the tour I want.

Tokyo is definitely not a trip for the newbie foreign traveller. The metro system here is incredibly complicated - and none of it is in English :) With cabs costing an incredible amount of money the only option for the novice Japanese speaker is to do sightseeing tours. Others may disagree, but if you've been reading my blog - know that you were warned.

technorati tags:tokyo, foreigner

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Okay... it is a hard life in Tokyo for foreigners

Unfortunately, most people really don't speak a lot of english and its pretty hard to discern those that do from those that don't. It also hurts that everything around is in a character set that I can't translate without considerable time. I went to the ATM machine with my new-found knowledge from American Express only to find two things:

1) In Japan, most ATM machines are NOT 24 hours a day

2) Many of the ATM machines are entirely in Hirigana, there is no "English" button.

Because of these things I have retreated to the hotel for the rest of the evening (1AM here). I ordered some food from room service (Japanese Thick Noodles in Broth). I wanted to find out what was in the broth, but the gentleman in room service couldn't understand my question.

If I'm having this level of trouble here in Tokyo - I definitely won't be heading into some of these other areas where they definitely don't even see American's often, let alone know enough Engligh to hold conversation with them.

technorati tags:tokyo, atm, food, english

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Thank God for American Express!

This is like something out of an actual American Express commercial! I fly into Tokyo, go to withdraw some money from my ATM machine and the card doesn't work. Go to another, it doesn't take any of the US networks (like Plus), and go to another - and it doesn't work again. So I call Wachovia, the bank that issues my ATM card and they are completely ineffective in telling me what's wrong. They can see the transactions are being attempted but can't figure out why they aren't going through. They think its the magnetic stripe, but then suggest that I go get a cash advance from a bank. Sigh.

Just then I realize that American Express has gotten me out of jams before so I give them a ring and they connect me to the group that handles their "fee-free" ATM group! Didn't even know they had it. Was wondering why I saw the Amex logo on some of those ATM machines. Within 5 minutes they set me up with a temporary one-time-use PIN number and I can withdraw some emergency cash. Since I will be paying for most things with the credit cards I should be okay. The biggest problem is that getting around via Taxi in Tokyo is incredibly expensive and I can't charge the rail line.

At the end of the day Wachovia screwed up and cost me many precious hours screwing around with their ATM machine fiasco, but American Express came to the rescue and solved my problem in less time than I was on hold with Wachovia before they started to triage the problem (14 minutes). Between the retards at bank of America who locked my business card, the "bang up programming job" by Wachovia and their support people who can't debug their own transaction system (I can see the transaction, but it must be the magnetic stripe... the ATM machine can't read the card...), the geniuses in card services who assumed that all phones have letters on them (uh - how does one dial 800-WACHOVIA with no letters on the phone) and then didn't provide an international collect number like AMEX I'm starting to wonder how international companies even use Visa.

technorati tags:tokyo, american, express, visa, amex, atm, plus

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I have arrived in Tokyo!

I'm on the tail end of my journey now, I'm on my way back to the United States on Monday with a short stop over in Tokyo to avoid the higher air fares that were apparently associated with stuff going on in Hong Kong or something. In any event, I am here in the technical mecca of the free world.

That said, folks in Japan need to do a tad better helping foreigners be able to function in the country. My gripe this time is ATM machines. There are lots of ATM machines and some of them even have the right symbols on them for banking networks that I use in the states. Nevertheless, the system rejects my card when I try to use it. Annoying.

The hotel I'm staying in is the Dai-Ichi Hotel Tokyo and it is an excellent hotel and I was able to get it at relative bargain pricing compared to other hotels in Central Tokyo, and at the same time - it is better than most hotels I've gone to in the US that charged 2-3 times more (in US dollars).

The other thing that takes some getting used to is the Yen->Dollar conversion. Not sure why they don't just divide everything by 100 or something to make the denominations smaller.

technorati tags:tokyo

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I will miss the Redhat APAC team

After training the team for 2 weeks it is time for me to go. I will truly miss the APAC team. They are a very diverse set of individuals who are very skilled and took in an incredible amount of information in the course of 2 short weeks of intensive lecture, exercises, etc. I'm proud of them and I expect they will go off and do great things in their geographies.

technorati tags:singapore, redhat

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Went to the Night Safari

Despite the fears of potentially contracting Yellow Fever (the real one, not the one that male tourists to Singapore seem to contract during the summer as girls in short skirts seem to emerge from the shadows), we took a trip to the night safari.

Unfortunately since the animals would go blind if we used flash all the time, pretty much everyone's cameras were rendered useless. There may be a reason why this is one of the only night safaris out there. I think perhaps these guys need to invest in night vision equipment if they are going to do everything in the dark.

The good news is that there wasn't even a hint of mosquitos. Lots of frogs on the paths though.

technorati tags:singapore, nigh, safari

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Yes, I am still alive and safe!

Sorry for not posting in the past few days. My sleep schedule had finally adjusted to Singapore timezone so I am usually sleep when everyone is awake, and due to the class I haven't had time to post of late. There will be a massive update of pictures from my camera and a few others over the next few days.