Apache Felix – Apache Felix Maven Bundle Plugin (BND).
Very handy way of creating an OSGI bundle out of an otherwise normal Maven project.
Apache Felix – Apache Felix Maven Bundle Plugin (BND)
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7 years [insert adjective here] luck
Aside
Today marks my 7th anniversary of working at Wotif.com. That’s a long time.
iBooks Author – what’s the fuss about?
So it’s been a couple of days now since Apple did their press event where they announced a new focus on education. A key part of this was the rollout of a new application – iBooks Author – and a new version of iBooks for the iPad and iPhone/iPod. Well, since then there’s been a flurry of outrage on the twitter-sphere.
TL;DR – People see Apple making cool tools, they hating. Apple only added options – maybe not as much as people like, but they didn’t take anything away. Biggest bitch seems to be that people won’t be able to use Apple’s free tool to write stuff for non-Apple platforms, and it’s so much better than the existing tools that people want to do exactly that.
Leveraged Buyouts – what a crock
When you borrow money to buy something, it’s not uncommon for the thing you bought to be used as collateral for the loan. The obvious example is a house mortgage – you borrow money, the house is the security. This makes the act of borrowing itself reasonably risk free: if the purchase falls through, the loan is dissolved and all you’re out is some administrative fees. Your real risk starts when the purchase is successful.
TL;DR – Borrowing money to buy a house is to leveraged buyouts as a pat on the cheek is to a punch to the testicles; same general act, very different implications.
Moving blog hosting – to wordpress.com
I’ve decided to move off a hosted server arrangement to a hosted app. This isn’t because of bad service or anything like that – I’ve never had problems with my hosting provider (PlanetDomain.com). It’s just that I got tired of managing updates all the time. Oh, that and this will be a bit cheaper. 
If you’re reading this, you’re looking at the new site. Except theme changes and some minor issues (e.g possible borked links) while I sort things out.
Goals for 2012
Each year, I make exactly one New Year’s resolution: only make one resolution. I’ve been doing that for five years, and I have a 100% success rate.
But I do make goals. The difference between a goal and a resolution is that with a resolution, as soon as you break it, it’s gone. But a goal is something you work towards, and you measure yourself not with the binary of achieved/failed, but by the progress and effort you make along the way.
Book Review – The Cucumber Book
Title: The Cucumber Book – Behaviour-Driven Development for Testers and Developers
Authors: Matt Wynne, Aslak Hellesøy
Rating: 4/5
Overall, a solid introduction to the Cucumber testing tool, and BDD in general. About the only criticism I have of it is that it’s perhaps a little bit too Ruby focused – an example of working with an application or a database without leveraging Rails would have been nice.
