Category Archives: Blog

Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts March 20 — Scala 101: Come for the Collections, Stay for the Functions

Interested in learning more about Scala? Please join us on Wednesday night at 6 pm. We’ll have an introduction to Scala, demonstrate how sanity can be achieved by having consistent collections (who would have thought of that?!) and include some cool stuff that you can do with functions too.

In other words, we hope to lure you in!

The meeting will be held at SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI. It’s free and open to the public, but please RSVP on the meetup site so we will know how many folks are coming. You never know. I might bake cookies. Or not.

The speaker:

Dianne Marsh (yes, that’s me) will be speaking on Wednesday night. I  will be actively recruiting additional speakers for upcoming meetings, so please volunteer!  We already have a speaker for our April 17 meeting, but will be recruiting for meetings after that!

 

 

Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts March 20 meeting

The Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts are on meetup and that allows me to post a poll regarding what folks would like for the  March 20 meeting. Please vote! If you don’t like any of the topics, please comment here with suggestions.

The Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts will meet at 6 pm on March 20, 2013, at SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. The meeting is free and open to the public. Please join the meetup group and RSVP if you are planning to attend so that we can gauge interest and tailor content.

Annual trek to Java Posse Roundup

I’m here in Crested Butte, Colorado, for the annual Java Posse Roundup. Of course, the Java Posse delivers the podcast that keeps programmers on the JVM up to date, and this conference brings together a group of those listeners every year so that we can say, in person, what we’ve been screaming at our mobile devices 51 weeks out of the year. And, given the open spaces format, we choose topics for discussion all week. We also hack on special projects and generally enjoy the intellectual experience.

I’ll report throughout the week, but for those who might be curious what we do here, I’m posting the “Master Schedule” below.

Sunday

6pm: Welcome Barbeque.

 

Monday

Hackathon Day workshops 

9:30 pm at the Majestic Theatre: “Possibilities”: A selection of TED Talks Designed to Inspire New Thinking, presented by the Java Posse Roundup. Free admission, all are welcome.

Tuesday

8:30am:
Conference Overview
Introduction to Open Spaces
Initial talk topics and organization
Session 1
10:30am-12:00pm: Session 2
Afternoon: lunch/hackathons/free time
Evening: Groups go to dinner or informal barbeque & discussion
Lightning Talks 8pm – 9:30 pm
End the evening with private gathering at Princess Wine Bar.

Wednesday

8:30-9:30 am: Session 3
10:00-11:00am: Session 4
11:30-12:30pm: Session 5
Afternoon: lunch/hackathons/free time
Evening: Groups go to dinner or informal barbeque & discussion
Lightning Talks 8pm – 9:30 pm
End the evening at the Dogwood Cocktail Cabin.

Thursday

8:30-9:30 am: Session 6
10:00-11:00am: Session 7
11:30-12:30pm: Session 8
Afternoon: lunch/hackathons/free time
Progressive Dinner (5 pm?).

End the evening at the Lobar with Karaoke.

Friday

8:30-9:30 am: Session 9
10:00-11:00am: Session 10
11:30-12:30pm: Session 11
Afternoon: lunch/hackathons/free time
Dinner at either Django’s or the Yurt (x-c ski or snowshoe to get to the Yurt, rentals at Nordic Center)

Atomic Scala at CodeMash — what to download

Bruce Eckel and I will be presenting a 1-day precompiler from our book Atomic Scala at CodeMash on Wednesday, January 9. If you come prepared with software installed and downloaded, we will be able to jump into the material faster!

So, here’s our recommended download list. Note that we are using Scala 2.10. Some of the exercises will not work with earlier versions.

And no, you do NOT need to use sublime text for your editor. If you prefer to use an IDE (Eclipse, IntelliJ, NetBeans, etc.), that’s fine, but we won’t be able to help you use your IDE. We’ve chosen sublime text for its simplicity in a large group.

– Sublime Text (all three platforms)

– basic Java (or JDK) (all three platforms)
Oracle requires that you fill out a license agreement for download, so go to
first, and then choose the offline installers:
Mac/OSX: Comes with MacOS, but you can grab Java 7 download if you want
Windows 32 bit: jre-6u34-windows-i586.exe
Windows 64 bit: jre-6u34-windows-x64.exe
Linux 32 bit: jre-6u34-linux-i586.bin
Linux 64 bit: jre-6u34-linux-x64.bin
– Scala (all three platforms)

Tips on Writing Relevant Website Content

Inner Circle Media's blog offers good perspective

Carrie Hensel and others at Inner Circle Media have done a series of great blog posts on writing website content.  Their focus is on increasing RELEVANT (targeted) traffic, not just any old traffic.  I think "How to Write Relevant Website Content" is worth a read, as is Meredith Lovelace's entry on increasing traffic.

Alaine Karoleff wrote a good piece on how to write website content.  And I loved Carrie's experiment with using words like "trees with purple flowers" and "Spanish port" because those were what was hot as reported by HotTrends in early June. Her objective was to see if traffic increased and to make an analysis of whether or not that traffic was relevant to their business.  And it mainly was not.  The geek in me truly enjoys experiments like that.  She later went on to post about how she could use HotTrends to find RELEVANT terms to blog about that would drive real customers to their site, rather than just people looking for random search terms which were hot right now.

The only search term that I saw that was even marginally relevant to our business today (July 18) was Ooma.  Since listening to the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast that Andrew Frame and Warren Packard did, I've been keeping an eye out for Ooma news.  Oddly, their website hasn't been updated, but I can see links to articles referencing interviews with Andrew Frame about their new hub and internet calling service.  I currently use Skype for most of my calls, but the Ooma offering looks interesting.  I'll definitely check it out as more information becomes available.

Boy, I got sidetracked there.  Back to the Inner Circle Media blog.

Carrie's prior posts are great too.  I really enjoyed her post on Starting a Creative Company.  Our company has followed much the same path, and so I definitely concur.

Anyhow, this is definitely a blog that I read and I definitely recommend reading.  Oh, and check out their geeky Scope Creep t-shirt too (I've already ordered one).

Inner Circle Media

Fun Geek Wear