I’m home alone this weekend, so I thought I’d write a post about JavaZone, an annual Java conference here in Norway. JavaZone was held a couple of weeks ago, and I attended several interesting sessions. My overall impression was very good, and I hope I get to go next year.
JavaZone is a conference on software development and Java technology. Some of the most interesting sessions were on Agile methods. Especially James O. Coplien’s Five Practical Solutions to Agile Myths, which was the only presentation I attended which questioned the agile methodology! In addition, Eclipse was integrated into several sessions. I don’t think I’ve realized how popular it has become since I used it for my thesis work a couple of years ago.
After the conference I realized I should have concentrated more on another topic, namely ESBs (Enterprise Service Bus). The whole concept of ESBs is related to SOA and has been around for a few years. The reason it has become more interesting to me is that my boss wants us to integrate an ESB into our current architecture. Mule and ServiceMix were the ESBs mentioned at JavaZone, but I’ve later found that ChainBuilder (open source) seems to be our best option. It is open source and has a GUI plugged into my favourite IDE Eclipse! Please post a comment if you’re familiar with any ESB 
All but a few sessions at JavaZone were in English, and fortunately there were several speakers from the US and other English-speaking countries. A speaker with a heavy accent isn’t optimal, but it’s ok. A speaker without the essential vocabulary to get the message through to the audience is not ok – at least not at a conference like this! At the end of the second day I promised myself I’d never suffer through another immensly uninteresting session!!
Other news:
- It’s getting cold here. We were almost below freezing a couple of days ago. I love the fall colors, though. This is a picture I took today:
- My sister moved to Berlin, Germany about a month ago. I hope I get to visit some time before Christmas.
- My hair is now bright red.
- I’ve started scrapbooking. It turns out to be a fun, but expensive activity…
- I learned something new this week by attending a wine tasting at an excellent local restaurant, To rom og kjøkken.
- I’m going to a Gwen Stefani concert next week!
- E. and I still haven’t sorted through the 1600 pictures we took at our vacation in Italy…
Finally it’s my turn to take a couple of weeks off work!! Tomorrow I’m off to Oslo, and on Monday I’m catching a plane to Rome, Italy. As I’ve never been to Italy before, I’m excited to see as much as I can of a country that I’ve heard so much about 
Earlier this summer E brought our Canon Ixus 850 camera to a bar where somebody managed to spill beer on it. As this was a new camera (bought last December), we were hoping for the best, but a camera that only takes pictures of black nothing isn’t very useful… The Ixus is supposed to be a good quality camera, but I was never really satisfied with it. Because we needed a camera for our vacation, I decided to do something I’ve thought about for a while, namely buy a digital SLR camera. I remember liking the Canon SLR EOS 500 I bought in ‘94, so I again chose Canon over Nikon. The 400D was in my price range, but I wanted something more versatile than the cheap standard lens. After some googling and talking to a couple of photo experts at work, I decided that Canon’s EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM and Sigma’s 17-70mm F2.8-4.5 DC Macro would suit my needs. They’re both good all-round lenses, and more zoom could lower the quality of my pictures. I ended up buying the Sigma. Even though it lacks the image stabilization and has less zoom, I’ll be able to use lower shutter speed – and the price was considerably lower.
As the proud owner of a brand new SLR camera, I’m hoping my vacation to Italy will provide lots of opportunities to try out the features of my 400D. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get to posting some pictures here. Have a great couple of weeks y’all!
A couple of years ago I visited my relatives in Vancouver, Canada. Even though I spent less than a week there, I fell in love with the area! No wonder; after a scorching hot summer in Mobile, AL, I flew over the beautiful Rockies into the luscious west part of B.C. with its green mountains and blue waters. I hadn’t seen my relatives for more than 10 years, but they gave me a warm welcome and showed me around.
Back to the present. This week one of my dad’s cousins from Vancouver and her husband came to visit us here in Trondheim. They’d had two weeks of rain in the Baltic sea, Denmark and the southern part of Norway, but were greeted by the sun here in Trondheim. They stayed at my parents house, but I took a couple of days off work so that I could try to return some of the hospitality they had showed me.
E and I prepared dinner for them Tuesday night after my mom and dad had picked them up in Bergen (a two-day drive from here). Wednesday evening we went for dinner at our local tower restaurant with a view of the whole city and the surrounding mountains and fjord. Thursday we had an early lunch at my aunt and uncle’s house, followed by a get-together with several of my cousins, my dad’s cousins and my second cousins. Friday I actually went to work. Today was the last day before the Canadians return home, and we had a dinner at my parents’ house. We even watched 9-milimeter movies from when I was 5 years old – hilarious
The result of this very pleasant visit was that I even more than before would like to go on vacation to the US. And while I’m there, revisit Vancouver. All I have to do now is save up the money 
I have a question for all of you out there: how come it takes 6 weeks (that’s 42 whole days!) to change the address of an internet subscription??? The ISP told me it usually takes 3 weeks, but they were “busy at the time” with new customers. What happened to keeping the customers they already have? If I didn’t get this for free through work I’d have swithed to another company weeks ago…
To sum up: I’m online again
Finally (Doug!!) I have a new home, both online and in the real world. Hmm, is that a coincidence?
My first post is short, but concise. The only thing left to say is welcome to my universe
