Ed's Thread

When I was growing up I was taught that one of the things that we did on Thanksgiving day was to give thanks. Well as I got older I was always thankful for my family, my home, and so on, which continues through this day. This year I want to list my thanks for the technology which fascinates me.

The first computer time I was allowed to play with a computer was in 1975, at the Weyerhaeuser Tech Center in Longview, WA. I was a junior in high school, member of the high school science club, on a tour of the Tech Center where they let us play Star Trek on the Tech Center. In order to interact with the computer we had to use punch cards to input the commands. At the time it was one of the high points of my life.

Well, ten years pass and I finally decide to get serious about college. I attended Southern Oregon State College in Ashland, OR, and my first major was Computer Science. What an eye opening experience. We had gone from a limited computer using punch cards, to a Harris 500 system and the higher level programming languages like FORTRAN, BASIC, COBOL, etc. I felt like a 6 year old at Disney Land with unlimited rides. What a rush. While I was in school we saw the introduction of "C", LISP, and Old and the technological beat went on.

Well, life being life I was unable to complete my degree and it was again ten years later when I became involved  with computers and software development.  The Internet was in it's infancy, the browsers all had the 1.0 suffix and  the technology was exploding like a fission reaction.  I was able to hang on and went to work as an Internet consultant and it was one of the biggest thrills of my life. I have seen the Web go from a hobbyist back corner to one of the cornerstone of our economic life and a great means of communication and research. We are looking at the birth of Web 2 architecture with Blogs, IM, and all of the multimedia presentations. The future can be as exciting as the recent past and we will continue to move forward.

So as you can see the primary career interest I have is more than a way to make a living, but also one of my life long passions. I am so thankful that I live in a time when what I love continues to grow and the innovation continues. So to all of those who have brought us this far a very large Thank You.

As stated earlier I am just getting back into the development world, so what I consider new may be old hat to you. Be that as it may I have came across several new tools I want to share with you.

First is Visual Studio Express from Microsoft. This free but somewhat limited set of tools is continuing the trend in Microsoft development tools started by FrontPage and Visual Interdev. The Visual Web developer Studio is petty robust and can handle ASP pages along with straight HTML work. It is easy to use and comes with a great deal of tutorials and help.

Next is Windows Live Writer from Microsoft. This post is being created on the Live Writer beta. The beta bring a host of functionality for a great price:"free". It gives you the functionality of a WYSWYG editor that will post to  your blog on many of the available platforms. It includes spell check which is a great tool for me. You might want to give this one a try.

Now we get away from Microsoft with the Netbeans IDE. This is a fairly new product put under the GPL license by Sun Microsystems. I am just beginning to explore the possibilities but, I find them exciting based upon my leaning toward JAVA as my first choice in programming languages.

Next up is another Sun product the JAVA Studio Creator. In order to et this one you have to be a member of the Sun Developers Network, which is free and brings many other benefits. The Studio creator makes JSP pages and other JAVA application programming accessible to beginners while at the same time supporting the needs of more advanced developers.

I hope that these tools are as useful to you as I find hem and look forward to reading your views on them

As we enter Alan Dean Foster's city of Sagramanda we meet Taneer, a scientist running away from his employer with valuable information. The employer wants him and the information back and the chase is on through one of the best portrayed future cities I have seen in a while. With Sagramanda, Alan Dean Foster continues to show his wonderful talent with story, character, and setting.
The plot thickens as we meet Jena, a French drug addict with an obsession for Kali, who believes her quest is to find Kali's missing finger by redeeming as many souls as possible. She hunts and redeems several victims and finally comes to the notice of the police in the person of Chief Inspector Keshu Singh. Keshu, with the help of the forensic group, finally puts a face to the mysterious serial killer and the chase is on.

Tension is added by a tiger who inadvertently gains a taste for people in a high-class neighborhood. This neighborhood borders on a natural sanctuary and the tiger is protected by law and custom so the predation continues.

Taneer of course wants to make a profit on the information he has absconded with, so he contracts Sanjay Ghosh to act as his agent. Sanjay has contacts in the underworld of Sagramanda, so he is able to aid in this. Taneer has another problem and that is with the woman he loves and intends to marry. They are of different castes and his family are rabid traditionalists.

As a complex story told from multiple viewpoints, Sagramanda does explore the future of India in an eye-opening manner and ends with a satisfying bang. I would recommend that you put this one on your reading list.

As I stated earlier I felt that we needed to  start a change in American policy and outlook. Last Tuesday I finally saw a shift in direction that I have hoped for for the last 12 years. We have a Congress controlled by the Democrats for the first time this century and I hope they are more interested in moving forward than getting revenge for the past.

It is time to look at the domestic crisis that have snowballed during the Republican control of the Congress. I am talking about medial care, the deterioration of our highways dams, airports, and on and on. The list can take up this blog for the next week and not be completed.

I encourage all of us to stay informed and involved in the process as we move forward and bring some hope and enthusiasm to the dance.

Well as I said congratulation to the new senators and members of the House. Lets get moving.

Ravirn and his sidekick Melchoir lead us on a merry adventure in Kelly McCullough's fantasy novel WebMage. I know if I had a family as vindictive and arrogant as Ravirn I would wish I were an orphan, but he continues to respect and live by the convoluted rules of this dysfunctional family.