Memphis/Mid-South JUG

February 1, 2010 is here. The stock market is better. New projects are in swing. What are you working on these days? Are you fine tuning your existing application and adding new features? Is your day spent building something new? Are you using a new hardware platform? Have you entered a new arena?

Looking forward, the things that I find interesting are ideas like Kiva, which lets you make micro investments with entrepreneurs in emerging countries. I love how GPS and Web2.0 are changing our lives. No more paper maps! I still have to think twice when I hop in the car and ask myself if I have a local map. Then, I remember I have Google Maps. How cool is that? I love Street View on Google Maps. I love flying through a virtual canyon in Google Earth...

Read the rest here, in Codetown.

The Java EE 6 Codecamp has begun. If you haven't coded enterprise Java in a while, this is your chance to get your feet wet again. Lots has changed, and you'll discover this quickly. It's an online course, and it's free. To join, you just subscribe to the mailing list and get started. If I remember correctly, to subscribe, you send a blank email to javaee6-codecamp+subscribe-AT-googlegroups-DOT-com.

The mailing list is super active. Most of your questions are going to be answered before you ask them!

It‘s an enjoyable way to learn the ins and outs of Java EE 6 among a talkative crowd. Your questions will be answered! That‘s a good thing.

The Vtech DS6322 digital phone I just got is Bluetooth-enabled. In fact, the Bluetooth feature is what led me to choose it from the huge number of choices on the market.

My little biz has been a Bluetooth Corporate Adopter since the program started, so I have kept up with the technology from somewhat an insiders viewpoint.

Several features of this system work very well. The most important is tethering your Bluetooth enabled phone to the VTech. It works well, and works all the way in the next room, nearly 30 feet away. To be clear, this means you can walk in your house with your Bluetooth-enabled phone (mine‘s an iPhone) and it will hook up with your VTech landline. When someone calls you on your cellphone, the whole place rings with the Vtech bell.

The VTech software is clunky. Yes, it lets you download your phone numbers from your cellphone using Bluetooth. That feature works perfectly. But, it doesn‘t have a favorites list so you have to go through 10 keystrokes to find a number in your directory.

Also, it obviously was a problem to code the new message alert, because half the time there‘s an alert but no message.

Basically, I got the phone because I liked the Bluetooth tethering feature. That works perfectly. Voila. The rest of the features need to mature.

Of course, now I will look around and see what components have come out recently to let me use Bluetooth with Arduino, Sun Spot, etc. Maybe even to mod this phone.

Please join this developing discussion on CodeTown for details about Brion's recent talk: http://www.codetown.us/group/orlandojug/forum/topics/brion-vibber-wikipedia-cto

I got the domain PingMe dot org. I thought I'd try asking what people thought about building it out. I've had several ideas, like making bumper stickers for cars and putting PingMe and a icon indicating interest on it, and mapping the id to a license plate. I've talked to several of you about that idea. Another idea follows what I talked about yesterday on Codetown: building a better mousetrap. It could be along the lines of clearinghouse like Grand Central with some discriminator. Some twist. So, I'm brainstorming.

Ping me if you have any ideas.