Skybus closed for business - ah, bankruptcy
Posted by jonchase
Skybus is officially closed - as of, well, right now (thanks for the advance notice). I bet they wanted to do this April 1st but were afraid that no one would have taken it seriously.
The official announcement:
Skybus Airlines will cease all operations effective Saturday, April 5.
Skybus struggled to overcome the combination of rising jet fuel costs and a slowing economic environment. These two issues proved to be insurmountable for a new carrier.
We deeply regret the impact this decision will have on our employees and their families, customers, vendors, suppliers, airport officials and others in the cities in which we have operated. Our financial condition is such that our Board of Directors felt it had no choice but to cease operations.
Passengers holding reservations for Skybus flights scheduled to depart on or after Saturday, April 5, 2008 should contact their credit card companies to arrange to apply for a refund. More information for customers and others will be made available on the Skybus web site (www.skybus.com) as it becomes available.
All flights for Friday, April 4 will be completed. Passengers holding reservations on flights for Friday, April 4 should check in for their flight at a Skybus kiosk at the airport instead of the Skybus website.
*sigh* Guess it’s time to call Visa to see if we can get some of our money back.
April Fools Roundup
Posted by jonchase
I just had a blast catching up on RSS feeds over lunch - except I couldn’t tell what news was real and what was fake.
Here are some of my favorites from today, and a few from the past. The funniest ones are in bold.
- SQL on Rails (you must watch the screencast)
- The Commentator - automatically generate code comments
- PairOn pair programming chair
- Luminotes new feature: Import -> Internet
- Stuff White People Like bought by Target
- Jesus found in Java .class file
- Gmail Custom Time
- Amazon’s DCI (Dog Computer Interface)
- PerfectBingoTablePlanMaker released
Continuous Integration - is Continuous Production Reasonable?
Posted by jonchase
Andy Glover has a great post about not only continuous integration (the act of having your code base automatically built and tested whenever you commit any changes to it), but continuous production - having your code able to be deployed to production basically at the drop of a hat without manual intervention at any time.
He also lists a lot of great tools that help toward this goal. Some of my favorites that he mentions are: Ant, Junit (hey, Junit finally got a new web site!), DbUnit, FindBugs, Checkstyle, and Cobertura.
He does mention some caveats - he says he wouldn’t expect the production environment to be automatically updated on a code check in, only that it’s good to have that ability (production changes should probably always be initiated manually).
Definitely something to strive for!
Doctor, my picture frame has a virus
Posted by jonchase
Who would have thought that a picture frame could ever be infected with a virus?
We got a very nice frame as a gift this Christmas, and it turns out it’s not feeling so well.
Go figure. Does this mean I need to by McAfee Virus Scan Photoframe Edition?
Sun Acquires MySQL, Oracle Acquires BEA
Posted by jonchase
Here’s some pretty big news:
* Sun just acquired MySQL - about 1 billion bucks - maybe now Sun will change its stock ticker to MYSQL?
* Oracle just acquired BEA - 8.5 billion bucks
Jon’s Blog Moved and New SendAlong Blog Added
Posted by jonchase
Quick update:
I’ve moved my personal blog from SendAlong’s domain over to the Juliesoft.com domain. The blog located at sendalong.com/blog is now the “official” SendAlong blog - it will cover product updates and such for SendAlong.
As long as you’re seeing this post in your RSS reader, you’re already subscribed to the new address for Jon’s blog and don’t need to do anything to resubscribe (thank you, FeedBurner). However, feel free to subscribe to the official SendAlong blog (http://feeds.feedburner.com/Sendalong) to track its release progress.
You are dismissed.
Obligatory “Predictions for 2008″ Post
Posted by jonchase
I’ve only got a couple, mainly b/c I find the someone predicts, the more chance they have of being wrong:).
1. The Scala language will get more and more popular - it’s not a fad. I haven’t written a line of it, but man it looks good.
2. Apple will continue to do well, especially in computer sales (I’m really going out on a limb on that one).
3. SendAlong will go on to net millions - if not billions - in income in its first full release year, will acquire the start up named Google, and continue on a path of certain world domination.
Ok, I have to admit, only 2 of the above 3 were intended to be serious. Can you figure out which is the fake?
Video Games in 3D
Posted by jonchase
Slightly off topic, but…
With the recent release of Beowulf in 3D (the good kind, not the kind that makes you sick after watching), one can only be left to wonder: when will 3D make its way to videogames? People are talking up 3D as Hollywood’s Next Big Thing - if you’ve never seen a movie in 3D (or never been to Disneyworld), you owe it to yourself to see Beowulf in all of its 3D glory.
Can you imagine holding your Wii controller in hand, actually seeing the baseball coming out of the screen AT you as you ready your swing?
The cool thing is, it seems like this is something that could be done NOW (or soon) - I’m not sure what the requirements are on the television’s part, but I would imagine a game console’s hardware could do its part now without any modification.
Gmail is FAST in Safari (on Windows)
Posted by jonchase
I say on Windows because I don’t know if it’s fast on the Mac version. Anywho, I’m one of those people that has Gmail open all day long and do a lot of email, and I’ve noticed that Firefox, unlike its old fast self, has been rather slow as of late. I’ve been using Gmail in Safari for the last few days, and it is blazing fast. Give it a try if you’re a Gmail addict.
How to Write for Wired Magazine
Posted by jonchase
After reading a few issues of Wired, I’ve developed a basic formula that is all but certain to get your articles published in this high quality periodical:
- Use the word “meatspace” at least once in your article.
- Include a quote of someone dropping the F-bomb. Put it near the end of the article to give the interviewee maximum “street cred”.
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