Circle of Three

I've been having some problems managing my daughter abigail so now I am currently staying at child care with her ... full time!!!
What's so painful is that I am paying her fees, yet am not actually getting out.

We spoke with the community nurse and it seems that since we spent the last 8 weeks on holidays with her, she now knows what she's missing - both parents 24 x 7!!!

So this means we basically have to "wean" her off her dependency off us. What the childcare centre will do is get a full time assistant to look after her, this is what is called a "circle of three" - the child, the parent and the carer.
We three play together and she get's used to us both. Then one of us ( me I hope :-) can leave so she still has that comfort of a regular adult with her.

Fortunately, the NSW government will help fund 100hrs of this persons time. All we need is a doctors referral or a letter from the community & health service at camperdown.

wish me luck!

Flash Wankers

Today I was sent a "free 14 day trial of AFR access" (http://www.members.afraccess.com/) which is written in...

fLasHhh

What a pile of shit. Their web site doesn't size correctly (it's a single flash file that is only about 5cm high under mozilla) and only really works under Internet Explorer 6 upwards. Fools. They lose my business.

Why do I rant so much about flash wankers?

It's all about choice. And usability. And accessibility (especially if you run a text-voice browser for blind people, or run a non-graphic browser like linx or elinks, or use a tool like plucker to download to your PDA). And who HATES those ^(*^(^%((%*& animations??
(see a good rant: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html and web sites that suck and
How Flashy websites turn off customers )

What about those stupid splash pages? I want info not infotainment when I want to purchase or spend my internet bucks! Even worse is the epilesy (and vomit) background music and animations. YETCHHH BARF!!!

To me, flash can be used correctly to enhance a website, but alternative navigation MUST exist (see ??W3?? UN?? guidelines).
Some graphic designers are egotistical wankers who use this as a platform to show how "clever" or "artistic" they are.
Not on my $$$ thank you very much.

More on open-source ESB's

Note that most of these posts are old news (last year)
More on the integration between synapse, servicemix and celtix.:
Open-source projects intertwine for integration
http://news.com.com/2102-7344_3-5844789.html?tag=st.util.print

Open source's next frontier
http://news.com.com/Open+sources+next+frontier/2100-7344_3-5460334.html

and an opinion from a vendor (Capeclear)
Open Source and the ESB!
http://www.capeclear.com/annrai/archives/2005/08/open_source_and.html

Apache Synapse vs Apache Servicemix

Lately I've been wondering about the conflict between Apache Synapse and Apache Servicemix (part of Geronimo).

Here's an article that claims they are complementary..

How does ServiceMix compare to Synapse?
http://goopen.org/confluence/display/SM/How+does+ServiceMix+compare+to+Synapse

basically says Synapse is WS-*/Soap centric, and Servicemix is far more open (I agree - ESB is more like a generic connect-all bus, and SOAP/ws-* is just another transport).

On the other hand, the creators of Synapse claim that Synapse is an ESB??

Apache Synapse - The ESB that kills the ESB
http://www.us.apachecon.com/html/sessions.html#WE2

Oh well, at least the teams are getting together to get some commonality.
News: ServiceMix, Apache Synapse and Celtix Teaming Up (Sep. 02, 2005)
http://today.java.net/pub/n/ServiceMixSynapseCeltix

This just confuses the consumer and helps microsoft...

Can The Cockroaches Survive a Nuclear Option?

A fascinating article about how the federal government took over the states autonomy by fair means and foul.

Even more interesting was the potential civil war between NSW and the federal government in 1930's (Lang vs Lyons) which went as far as the commonwealth government organising the military to take over state buildings (with the NSW police arming up to oppose it).
The governor of NSW instead sacked Lang, resolving the conflict.

Still, I wonder whether NSW, in combination with the other states, could start secessionist movements to force the federal government to be fairer?

Spring + Hibernate EJB3, POJO + JDBC?

Spring + Hibernate EJB3, POJO + JDBC?

All Hail, The Return To Java EE Standards!

Yakov Fain slags Spring and Hibernate as tangled wire, and claims EJB 3.0 (Java EE 1.5) resolves the issue of THE standard to use.

All-in-One Guides: SOA Implementation

Good summary of SOA guides - this isn't a single guide as such, but links to techtarget's WS and SOA reports/whitepapers etc

Rethink on mirror trusts helps planning

FAMILY succession planning has been made clearer and easier following a rethink by the Australian Tax Office.

A June tax ruling has broadened the possibilities under which certain assets transferred between trusts would be exempt from capital gains tax.

It is now possible for parents to set up "mirror" trusts to transfer assets that would normally be subject to capital gains tax - namely property (land and buildings) and shares (in private and public companies) - to nominated beneficiaries.

Basically this is about how to transferring assets from a trust without incurring CGT.

upgraded to beta blogger

Well, it seems that I have upgraded to Blogger beta. The template editor is nice, much easier than the old CSS method, but you can still update the HTML template so that is good.
So this is a test of the email functionality

Unlock phone

A swedish/danish website that generates the unlocking password for many brands of phone
eg: nokia, given IMEI and network operator.

Travelling with my own phone

You could buy a OneRoam SIM card. This is estonian, and doesn't expire (you get a +372-xxxx-xxxx phone number). Some countrys let you receive calls free too. Rates are not the best, but hey, just for travelling

Brainbench - Predicting Employee Success

Hey, Brainbench are offering lots of free certification tests until october 31st

Brainbench - Predicting Employee Success

Deploy J2EE applications on Apache Geronimo

Deploy J2EE applications on Apache Geronimo

The Geronimo renegade: OpenEJB and Apache Geronimo's EJB implementation

The Geronimo renegade: OpenEJB and Apache Geronimo's EJB implementation

testing email blog

hopefully this will work one day

Loading OperaMini on J9 on Palmos 3.5-4.0

I have a clie SJ22 running palmos 4. So this link tells you the step by step instructions on how to run Opera Mini on this machine, using the IBM J9 KVM.

Monday 16th October

Last day of holidays!

Another early start, our transfer bus was late and worse it detoured via
katong!

(no-one was at the hotel,so we left whoever it was behind :-)

The airport was incredibly crowded, even though we internet checked
there was a long long queue! guard sent us to alternative spot. Security
check was sloooow since the were checking 3 gates at once, and 1 xray
guy who was very vigilant and slowwww. Flight crowded but abi ok.

Sunday 15th October

swim, thence Central library, picked up at noon at Intercontinental
Hotel. Abi just had 20mins nap but was curious and didn't cry

Went to Katong 5-star for the "best" hainanese chicken rice, then to Sim
Lim Square to look for camera case. Nice desserts in food hall eg: blue
jelly ice, jelly and fruit

Haze getting thicker, can hardly see to the other side of the river.
Packed bags furiously. Abi amused herself with toys.

After dinner, discovered a loud and not very nice sounding band playing
in the open air at Chijmes opposite our window. Priscilla phoned the
night manager while Abi conveniently cried in the background. Night
manager offered to get us to another quieter room, said others had
complained and that they had already requested a reduction in volume.
Amazingly Abi went to sleep after having a drink of water. Luckily for
us the 'band' stopped at 11pm

Saturday 14th October

The Esplanade (Durians), bumboat, lunch at Out of the Pan in vitality
court – crepes. Late 2^nd lunch with Daniel & family, Abi made new
friends with Faithe & Charis. Played furiously with lots of squealing
and giggling amongst the curtains and lighting features and banquettes
and late lunchers. Nice black sesame porridge for Priscilla's dessert.

Abi slept at 4pm as soon as she was put into the stroller, then woke at
7pm & we went to Raffles city food junction (again!). PP mini-pot 100%
MSG and she couldn't eat it either (horrible). CW had simpler stuff
which Abi could eat

Friday 13th October

Woke up early to go to the Jurong Bird Park. Really hot and humid.
Nice penguin display in air conditioned darkness but Abi wanted to be
outside.

Chris & Abi swim while PP slept, then PP & Abi swam while Chris slept.
12yo girl is from Perth, Serena, and Abi let her hold her in the water.

Dinner with Di Buck Leung, Sun & family at the Singapore Swimming Club

Riot at the playroom with kids while chris watched Singaporean Chinese
soapy.