The moon will enter Earth's much darker umbral shadow at 1:43 on Feb. 21 by Greenwich or Universal time, which is 8:43 p.m. on Feb. 20 in the Eastern time zone, 7:43 p.m. Central time, 6:43 p.m. Mountain time and 5:43 p.m. Pacific time.Not only that, but the moon, Saturn, and the star Regulus will form a triangle in a rare double event. Saturn should be a little above and to the left of the moon, while Regulus should be above and to the right of the moon.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Total lunar eclipse tonight
Maybe you've heard that we're in for a treat with tonight's total lunar eclipse. The USA Today had a great summary with graphics and gave the times for North America:
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
New JBoss DNA blog
We've created a new blog dedicated to the JBoss DNA project, and that's where we'll be posting news, events, and talking about the technology we're using.
Keyboard shortcuts with Google Reader
I'm a big fan of Google Reader, and I use several of the keyboard shortcuts (especially "space"). But I'm not sure why I didn't know about the most important one: "?" presents a summary of the keyboard shortcuts.
It's too bad Gmail doesn't have the same "?" shortcut.
It's too bad Gmail doesn't have the same "?" shortcut.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Introducing JBoss DNA
I'm having a great time at JBoss World. Attendance is huge, and the schedule has been chocked full of really informative sessions. It's really amazing how many great JBoss projects there are, and it's great to hear about the new features and see the stuff in use.
Red Hat has made several announcements in the past few days, including three new open source projects that further expand JBoss' line of Enterprise Middleware. One of these is JBoss DNA, a project that I'm part of and that is building an enterprise repository to capture, version and understand the numerous kinds of metadata used in software systems. Things like data models, service definitions, policies, schemas, messages, source code, data sources, configuration information, deployment information .... You get the idea. There's lots of information.
And that's the major raison d'être. There's so much information besides source code, and it's difficult to get a handle on exactly what's there, to understand what it means for the system, and to know the relationships between all this stuff. A key goal of JBoss DNA is to automatically look inside this information to discover and extract the fundamental building blocks of the information. In other words, to sequence and catalog the information's DNA.
JBoss DNA is being built on top of JCR, which provides an excellent graph-based approach for working with metadata in highly extensible, dynamic, and flexible ways. We're designing our architecture such that our components either work along side a JCR implementation or sit entirely on top of a JCR implementation, which for us is currently Apache's Jackrabbit.
Personally, I'm really excited about this announcement. As the project lead for JBoss DNA, its great to see all the interest in what we're building. It's also a culmination of many years of work, first at MetaMatrix and now at Red Hat. So while DNA does benefit from all this experience, JBoss DNA is not a direct port of the existing MetaMatrix repository. After all, it's important that JBoss DNA not only support MetaMatrix models, but that it also supports the plethora of other artifact types used in other JBoss projects.
Of course, we still have a lot of work to do. I'll be updating you on the project in future posts, but until then, check out our project page or the project wiki for more details on the project. If you're interested in participating, post in our discussion forum or drop me an email.
Red Hat has made several announcements in the past few days, including three new open source projects that further expand JBoss' line of Enterprise Middleware. One of these is JBoss DNA, a project that I'm part of and that is building an enterprise repository to capture, version and understand the numerous kinds of metadata used in software systems. Things like data models, service definitions, policies, schemas, messages, source code, data sources, configuration information, deployment information .... You get the idea. There's lots of information.
And that's the major raison d'être. There's so much information besides source code, and it's difficult to get a handle on exactly what's there, to understand what it means for the system, and to know the relationships between all this stuff. A key goal of JBoss DNA is to automatically look inside this information to discover and extract the fundamental building blocks of the information. In other words, to sequence and catalog the information's DNA.
JBoss DNA is being built on top of JCR, which provides an excellent graph-based approach for working with metadata in highly extensible, dynamic, and flexible ways. We're designing our architecture such that our components either work along side a JCR implementation or sit entirely on top of a JCR implementation, which for us is currently Apache's Jackrabbit.
Personally, I'm really excited about this announcement. As the project lead for JBoss DNA, its great to see all the interest in what we're building. It's also a culmination of many years of work, first at MetaMatrix and now at Red Hat. So while DNA does benefit from all this experience, JBoss DNA is not a direct port of the existing MetaMatrix repository. After all, it's important that JBoss DNA not only support MetaMatrix models, but that it also supports the plethora of other artifact types used in other JBoss projects.
Of course, we still have a lot of work to do. I'll be updating you on the project in future posts, but until then, check out our project page or the project wiki for more details on the project. If you're interested in participating, post in our discussion forum or drop me an email.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Great customer service is NOT dead
After my last post about the bad customer service at the Post Office, I started thinking about the customer service experiences I've had recently. And for the most part, I'd have to say that overall my experience has been pretty positive. Waiters and waitresses, sales people, customer service folks, managers, volunteers at the local Khoury League have usually been pretty great. Poor customer service is really the exception, not the rule.
Last week I was looking for a new pair of running shoes, so I went to Bipod, a locally-owned store specializing in running and other athletic equipment. Jen helped me find the running shoes that work for me that were in my price range, and she didn't try to upsell me to something I didn't need. She was great. And when they didn't have my size in stock, she apologized several times, saying that my pair should be ready to be picked up in about a week.
Well, this week, Abbey, the manager, called to say that she'd checked on the order (which was late) and that they'd should be in later that day, and she'd call me again when they showed up. True to her word, she called again to let me know they did in fact arrive. She didn't have to call me twice, but she went that extra step so that I knew what was going on.
Jen and Abbey know great customer service, and because of that I'm going to shop there again and again. Plus, I'm going to tell other people to shop there. (So if you're in the area, go shop at Bipod!!)
And that's the thing about great customer service - people enjoy it so much, and they talk about it. And that's good for business, no matter what business you're in.
Last week I was looking for a new pair of running shoes, so I went to Bipod, a locally-owned store specializing in running and other athletic equipment. Jen helped me find the running shoes that work for me that were in my price range, and she didn't try to upsell me to something I didn't need. She was great. And when they didn't have my size in stock, she apologized several times, saying that my pair should be ready to be picked up in about a week.
Well, this week, Abbey, the manager, called to say that she'd checked on the order (which was late) and that they'd should be in later that day, and she'd call me again when they showed up. True to her word, she called again to let me know they did in fact arrive. She didn't have to call me twice, but she went that extra step so that I knew what was going on.
Jen and Abbey know great customer service, and because of that I'm going to shop there again and again. Plus, I'm going to tell other people to shop there. (So if you're in the area, go shop at Bipod!!)
And that's the thing about great customer service - people enjoy it so much, and they talk about it. And that's good for business, no matter what business you're in.
Now that's customer service!
My wife just got back from the Post Office, where she had some truly memorable customer service. It was just at 11 am when she walked through the outer doors into the vestibule, and the lobby was full of patrons. Just as she reached for the inner door to the lobby, a Postal worker stepped to the other side of the door and locked it.
He didn't say a word. No "Sorry, we're closed." Nothing. Just click. He turned around and walked back to his counter. My wife was shocked. People in the lobby were shocked. One customer already in the lobby even offered to mail her packages and even pay for them, saying they were small and wouldn't cost that much.
When my wife arrived home to tell me the story, she was still angry. I don't blame her. But now after writing this and thinking about it, I guess I really shouldn't be surprised. I could probably count on one hand the times I've had friendly or even average customer service at the Post Office. Usually, they're just grouchy, cranky and rude. (Although not nearly as bad as DMV workers. What's up with them?!)
Of course, almost all of our mail carriers have been great. They're friendly, prompt, only occasionally make mistakes, and they frequently go that extra step. On rainy days, one of our favorite carriers even placed oversized packages into plastic grocery bags so they'd stay dry on the front porch.
Maybe it's being stuck in the Post Office that makes them so obnoxious. Probably not, since those positions are probably coveted and reserved for the more senior people. Maybe those folks should learn a lesson about customer service from their carriers.
But no matter what, don't ever let your customers offer better customer service than you!
He didn't say a word. No "Sorry, we're closed." Nothing. Just click. He turned around and walked back to his counter. My wife was shocked. People in the lobby were shocked. One customer already in the lobby even offered to mail her packages and even pay for them, saying they were small and wouldn't cost that much.
When my wife arrived home to tell me the story, she was still angry. I don't blame her. But now after writing this and thinking about it, I guess I really shouldn't be surprised. I could probably count on one hand the times I've had friendly or even average customer service at the Post Office. Usually, they're just grouchy, cranky and rude. (Although not nearly as bad as DMV workers. What's up with them?!)
Of course, almost all of our mail carriers have been great. They're friendly, prompt, only occasionally make mistakes, and they frequently go that extra step. On rainy days, one of our favorite carriers even placed oversized packages into plastic grocery bags so they'd stay dry on the front porch.
Maybe it's being stuck in the Post Office that makes them so obnoxious. Probably not, since those positions are probably coveted and reserved for the more senior people. Maybe those folks should learn a lesson about customer service from their carriers.
But no matter what, don't ever let your customers offer better customer service than you!
Heading to JBoss World
Next week is JBoss World in Orlando, and the schedule is chocked full of great sessions. As a new JBossian, I can't wait to meet some of the people that I've talked to on the phone or conversed with via email or IRC. There's just a ton of information, including sessions on Seam, jBPM, Drools, ESB, MetaMatrix, AS 5. and the rest of the JBoss Enterprise Middleware. If you're also gonna be there, let me know or just hit me over the head when you see me. On second thought, maybe a simple "Hey!" would suffice.
Besides all the great sessions next week, we're also going to be announcing some very exciting things next week. Whether or not you currently use JBoss stuff, you're gonna want to hear more about what's happening. Stay tuned to learn more.
Besides all the great sessions next week, we're also going to be announcing some very exciting things next week. Whether or not you currently use JBoss stuff, you're gonna want to hear more about what's happening. Stay tuned to learn more.
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