Nine Days
Find out what a Java guru can do in 9 days if he's really pressed.

Quick Start: ActiveScaffold
ActiveScaffold is more than just a replacement for the default scaffold functionality built into the Rails framework. The ActiveScaffold plugin provides a simple way for developers to quickly and easily add sophisticated data maintenance and data display features to web sites. Find out more about ActiveScaffold from my ActiveScaffold presentation, which is finally available online in PDF form.

MetroStar Systems Sponsors RubyNation

MetroStar Systems, a 10-year-old Information Technology Provider and one of Inc's "America's Fastest Growing Companies," has agreed to be a Diamond sponsor for RubyNation 2010, which will be held April 9 - 10. MetroStar is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, and specializes in systems and software integration for government clients. It provides clients with agile, collaborative solutions designed to integrate people, processes, technology and learning across an organization.

Is Hulu Just a Glorified Tivo?
There's a paradigm shift that's impacting the entertainment industry, and it's already changing how, when and where we watch television shows and movies. For example, I watch most of my movies and television shows on my Mac laptop, either via a download from my Tivo, a show on Hulu.com, a DVD or a downloaded video. Despite this, I don't think the entertainment industry is evolving fast enough, and I think they run the risk of alienating customers (me being one of them, of course).

New Version of MudDawg.com Released
Just released a new version of MudDawg.com. This is a major release for this blog about motorcycle racing that I created years ago for my brother, Steve Keener. This release jettisons .NET in favor of a WordPress, i.e. - the site was created using the open source WordPress blogging software, with a custom theme. The new platform has a few other advantages — it can be hosted more cheaply on Linux rather than on a Windows server, and it also uses MySQL, an open source database server (as opposed to Microsoft SQL Server).

Creating a Breadcrumb Trail in Rails, Part 2
In Part 1, we built the basic functionality for generating a breadcrumb trail for a Rails application, but we didn't worry about packaging the code for maximum reusability. Well, "cut-and-paste" is not a sustainable reusability paradigm. In this article, we'll further streamline the breadcrumbs code and also show how to package it up to enhance reusability.

Social Networking With Jive's Social Business Software
Jive's Social Business Software (SBS) platform provides an integrated suite of social networking tools that can be applied effectively within a business environment. Learn more about this highly functional software platform.

RubyNation 2010 Interviews
I was in the studio at Arlington Independent Media a few weeks ago taping some interviews for the upcoming documentary, "The Road to RubyNation: The Making of a Conference." Here's a teaser picture of me interviewing Gray Herter, Chief Organizer of the RubyNation Conference. The shot was taken from the studio control room, so Camera #1 (of 3) can be seen in the background on the left.

ExchangesConnect Online Video Contest Site
The ExchangesConnect Online Video Contest site was launched on November 17, 2009. Here's a sceenshot of the web site, which looks pretty cool now that the community has uploaded a bunch of videos.

The purpose of the contest is to help drive up the membership for the Department of State's ExchangesConnect social network, which is focused on promoting cross-cultural understanding around the world. The social network and the contest have been done for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Check out the contest now! There's plenty of room for more participants.

Secretary Hillary Clinton on My Online Video Contest
Secretary Hillary Clinton speaks about the impending launch of my new web project, the ExchangesConnect Online Video Contest:

The ExchangesConnect Video Contest launches on November 17, 2009. This is a project I've worked on with fellow Rubyists David McVicar and Kelly Gifford, so we're all pretty pleased.

Videotaping RubyNation 2010
I'm one of the founders of the annual RubyNation technical conference, which will be held for the third time on April 8 - 10, 2010. Each year that we've held the conference, we've tried to up the ante in producing a bigger, better conference.

One of the exciting developments for RubyNation 2010 is that we're planning to videotape the conference sessions this year. More than that, we're going to produce a documentary about what it takes to organize and run a conference. I will be functioning as the producer for this documentary, which currently has a working title of "The Road to RubyNation: The Making of a Conference". When completed, this documentary will be shown on public television and will be streamed online.

Pre-Launch Animated Montage
Johnny Nguyen put together another animated photo montage (with the help of Animoto.com) to illustrate my development team's run-up to the launch of our new contest site for the Department of State.