tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59733090544890057802011-08-23T17:02:21.606+01:00Technology, Systems Architecture, Software DevelopmentRut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.comBlogger121100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-43676843211837378672009-03-15T14:38:00.002Z2009-03-15T14:57:48.183Z

As I have rekindled my interest in photography over the past year (since getting a Digital SLR), I've been sharing some of my photos via the Flickr web site (http://www.flickr.com).I find Flickr a really interesting site as it contains a great sense of community, through it's use of groups especially. There are endless groups on there, covering any and every subject you may want to consider for

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-19268096302711321622008-11-29T09:32:00.002Z2008-11-29T09:37:45.060Z

"She had been married to man who never bored her and these people bored her very much"From 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro', in 'The First Forty-Nine Stories', by Ernest Hemingway.Book Meme:Grab the nearest book.Open it to page 56.Find the fifth sentence.Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one:

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-65502185590844180222008-07-04T12:33:00.003+01:002008-07-04T12:41:34.745+01:00

Reading a book by Gordon Ramsay recently, he puts a lot of his success down to the fact that he had a really good team of staff around him in the early days, and has continued with many of those same people as his business(es) have grown over the years.One particular quote I like is:Finding great talent, looking after staff and nurturing their talent is what we learned to do well. Losing good

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-38421687482775904942008-07-01T09:49:00.006+01:002008-07-01T10:03:23.566+01:00

Obviously should have better things on my mind, but whilst in a hotel room recently I started to ponder the creation and propogation of the various acronyms that we are all familiar - or not so familiar - with in IT.You know the sort of thing that gets bandied around in design documents and discussions:GIGO for Garbage In, Garbage OutACID for Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable transactionsKISS

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-32591573429351770882008-03-28T14:29:00.002Z2008-03-28T14:34:51.074Z

As a professional member of the BCS (British Computer Society) for some years, I decided late last year to apply for Chartered IT Professional status, as I feel that represents my attitudes and role in the IT industry.Glad to say, that request was accepted and that I can now use the letters 'CITP' after my name. It means I also need to pay attention to the code of conduct and to make sure I

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-52761672194574679482008-03-16T09:21:00.005Z2008-03-16T09:30:32.958Z

As a follow-on to my previous post, I found some relevant comments on http://www.thecraftwriter.com/ regarding the use of blogging for writers.The following series of three articles are provided to explain how writers or authors may want to set up and use blog sites for their own topics.http://www.thecraftywriter.com/2007/12/02/beginner-blogging-for-writers-part1http://www.thecraftywriter.com/

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-70168899681112763082008-01-24T13:10:00.001Z2008-01-24T13:22:13.738Z

I've been tasked with researching and defining a suitable company policy for the use of blogging by staff, in and out of the work environment.Having worked with Andy Piper (http://andypiper.wordpress.com/) recently, I asked for suggestions on what he has to work with. He passed on a link to guidelines from IBM, here: http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html Thanks Andy, that seems to cover

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-4922815192057859512008-01-08T21:30:00.001Z2008-03-16T09:31:20.100Z

Last week, I spent a couple of days on a training course entitled High Impact Communications Skills presented by The Talking Tradehttp://www.talkingtrade.com/Besides being interesting in it's own right, and very good at highlighting the things that I, and my colleagues, get wrong about presentations, there was a lot to be learnt from this course.Early in the course, attendees (only eight of us,

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-81078881826682459342007-12-24T09:12:00.000Z2007-12-24T09:50:59.159Z

Plenty has already been written about implementing a Service Oriented Architecture, and in particular the 'journey' that an organisation has to follow to achieve this. Now, a journey may be a good description for comparison, but I was wondering about other metaphors.First, looking at the perspective of a journey; this has the following attributes:The destination must be decided upon first (

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-87622995142814892442007-12-20T14:53:00.000Z2007-12-20T15:13:28.520Z

Having done work using WebSphere MQ and Message Broker, I was asked by a colleague today about developing and testing of an MQ Client using Microsoft Dot Net.The platform was not in question, and the recipient of the messages sent from the client will be a Mainframe, so it all makes sense in that regard. (After all, what would you use to communicate from .Net to the Mainframe, where MQ messaging

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-53279214559067021612007-12-19T18:46:00.000Z2007-12-19T18:53:18.850Z

Having developed numerous programs and applications using Java for many years, I was surprised to find a useful feature that had obviously been around for some time.If you have a need to maintain and report a software version number from your code, it is as simple as adding the relevant entry in the archive manifest and using something like:Package thisPackage = this.getClass().getPackage();

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973309054489005780.post-22819959940540537572007-12-15T17:59:00.001Z2008-03-16T09:32:57.841Z

Hi there and welcome to my blog page, under my own name (rather than my usual moniker of 'Rut the Nut', for which I have non-work comments at http://rutthenut.blogspot.com/ if you want to know)Just to set the scene, entries in this blog are expected to relate to my professional and technical interests. So that means Service Oriented Architecture, Object Oriented Analysis, Design and Programming,

Rut the Nuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422376548590982798noreply@blogger.com0