Rails and the Agile book win top honors at Jolt awards. Tonight at the Software Development Jolt Awards, Rails won the best web development tool award while the canonical Rails book, Agile Web Development with Rails, won for best technical book. They find themselves both in fine company. Both DHH and Dave Thomas share their… Continue reading Rails and the Agile book win top honors at Jolt awards

I am writing from your future – part 2. In my last post on the subject of separation from the corporate mothership, I was trying to raise awareness that your life in the corporate fast lane, or even in the mail room, is finite. There are solutions, but they all require tough decisions. Jane Chin… Continue reading I am writing from your future – part 2

Alternating Contrast in HTML using Ruby and Rails. The Rory on Rails site has a quick tip on using the cycle helper method in Rails. This will allow you to alternate background colors per post (for example) in a comment thread window or for a particular news day.  [house of warwick : Steve Kirks]

Amazon S3 – Simple Storage Service launched. Amazon has released an off-site backup program called S3, for Simple Storage Service. It is aimed primarily at developers, letting you store up to 100Gb in files for $15 per month, with bandwidth charged at 20 cents per Gb transferred. The only access to file storage and retrieval… Continue reading Amazon S3 – Simple Storage Service launched

Airport Security Failure. At LaGuardia, a man successfully walked through the metal detector, but screeners wanted to check his shoes. (Some reports say that his shoes set off an alarm.) But he didn't wait, and disappeared into the crowd. The entire Delta Airlines terminal had to be evacuated, and between 2,500 and 3,000 people had… Continue reading Airport Security Failure

Mailroom Manages Small Business Mail. I am constantly looking for new products that will make my own business more efficient and perform better, and while finding a lot of good solutions for key problems, more often I find solutions to problems that I hadn’t really thought of. The latest solution that I am using now… Continue reading Mailroom Manages Small Business Mail

Libraries, residents not on same page, study finds. The Boston Public Library system is underperforming most big city library systems, even though it has a bigger budget, more staff, and more books per capita than most, according to a study performed for the city. [Boston Globe — Front Page]

Ten Ways to Lose Your Techie Librarians. Michael Stephens shares with us another of his valuable top ten lists: Ten Ways to Lose Your Techie Librarians. Karen Schneider had seven more to add of her own. Here are six more, LiB style … [LibrarianInBlack]

Shuttle's XPC mini X100.. Mini-ITX: Shuttle's XPC mini X100. I like this design; it's more computer-looking than the Mac mini. [Hack the Planet]

Help! An overview of knowledge worker realities. Thanks to my friend and peer Jeff in Florida for passing this link along. CNNmoney.com posted an article by Ellen McGirt outlining the realities of the “modern era of work.” I know I'll refer to this article more than once in upcoming seminars! *I especially appreciate (although don't… Continue reading Help! An overview of knowledge worker realities