Michael Levin's Blog (286)

Africa Mobilizes and Java 7 too!

Africa JUG Meeting May 2011

Africa is mobiizing to help communities all over gain useful software development skills. Today, we met to discuss conferences planned all over the continent in 2011. We also talked about Java 7. We discussed http://jcertif.com/ the Congo conference and largest software meetup in Africa. Max Bonbhel is the organizer and… Continue

Added by Michael Levin on May 26, 2011 at 9:00am — No Comments

People's Guide to Contracting

 

I've started a handbook called "The People's Guide to Contracting". It's a work in progress, so you can check here from time to time if you want to see it grow. Here's what I've written so far:

 …

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on May 24, 2011 at 2:34pm — No Comments

Codetown is on Facebook

Visit Codetown on Facebook. Click here to get started!

Added by Michael Levin on May 20, 2011 at 2:38pm — No Comments

Notes from JCertif

JCertif 2010 was a superb event in Brazzaville, Congo. Read all about it here. JCertif 2011 is coming up in August. Will we see you…

Added by Michael Levin on May 20, 2011 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Office, Flash & JAVA w/Chrome browser, PDF Reader on a Virtual PC

Have any of you seen this:

 

"Now with ★ CHROME Browser and JAVA ★ support! Imagine having a computer inside your iPhone or iPad, with full-featured Office suite, copy and paste and a PC-class browser? Now you can! AlwaysOnPC is your own personal ‘virtual PC’ where can run FireFox or Chrome browsers with FLASH and JAVA (no full-motion and sound yet), a full…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on May 17, 2011 at 7:32am — No Comments

Drupal Case Study - Dahon Bikes

This article is a excellent case study of how a site was developed using Drupal to meet Dahon's usability and functionality requirements.

Added by Michael Levin on May 14, 2011 at 3:34am — No Comments

Open Source Bridge and Social Networks

Open Source Bridge is coming! And, it's in Portland, which is a huge bonus. I wrote about it here: http://www.jroller.com/Sandymountster/entry/enhancing_your_website_with_social in my blog.

 

I attended OSB's first conference and gave a talk on Web2.0.…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on May 11, 2011 at 8:01am — No Comments

Oracle sues Starbucks over Java trademark

In an aggressive move to protect the Java franchise acquired along with Sun Microsystems, Oracle has filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, charging that its use of the term "Java" infringes Oracle copyrights.

"In its reckless use of the term 'Java,' Starbucks knowingly, directly, and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for that infringement," said an Oracle spokesperson in a statement.

The suit was filed…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on April 1, 2011 at 8:30pm — 3 Comments

Your Startup - Web Presence

Does your startup need an elegant web presence? Some very simple websites are hugely effective. Take Hearts Brew Beer Supply for example. Hearts has a very simple website: http://www.heartshomebrew.com/ Check it out.

 

I dropped by Hearts one day and saw order fulfillment as the primary activity going…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on March 1, 2011 at 9:00am — No Comments

Demo and Startup City

Demo is a conference that showcases new ideas. The idea is that people with startup ideas get 6 minutes to pitch their ideas. What's the payoff for them? Investors, of course. What's the payoff for us? There's a website with a live feed and we can watch the action on the web! Surf to www.demo.com today beginning at 9:00AM PST and be a…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on February 28, 2011 at 8:00am — No Comments

The Making of Swampcast





The Making of Swampcast ::: A video documenting the history and production of Swampcast, a podcast about "Software development, emerging technology and everything else!"

 

Contact Mike at http://www.codetown.us/profile/MichaelLevin

 

Subscribe to Swampcast at www.swampcast.com and on iTunes at… Continue

Added by Michael Levin on February 25, 2011 at 11:00am — No Comments

Net Neutrality ::: Updated!

"The Federal Communications Commission appears poised to pass a controversial set of rules that broadly create two classes of Internet access, one for…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on February 23, 2011 at 4:30pm — 7 Comments

Exclusive Java Programmer Certification Offer: 48 Hours Only

This just in (via Nichole Scott of Oracle - thanks, Nichole!) Oracle University has announced some VERY good discounts on a new Java Programmer Certification Preparation Live Virtual Class and certification exam voucher today.

We want to make sure all JUG members who are interested in pursuing the Java Programmer…
Continue

Added by Michael Levin on January 25, 2011 at 8:50pm — No Comments

OSCON CFP

For thirteen years the O'Reilly Open Source Convention has been bringing together people from across the open source universe to learn, collaborate, and inspire each other. OSCON provides a central place to…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on January 14, 2011 at 12:44pm — No Comments

Cartographer in a new Avatar! , now supports Google Maps 3 & Rails 3

-----Original Message-----

From: bangalorerug@googlegroups.com [mailto:bangalorerug@googlegroups.com]

On Behalf Of Abhishek Parolkar

Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 1:12 PM

To: bangalorerug@googlegroups.com

Subject: [Bangalore RUG] Cartographer in a new Avatar! , now supports Google

Maps 3 & Rails 3



Hello All,

  Cartographer is a Google Maps wrapper that was originally written 

in 2005 when Rails tagged 0.1.  For many years people used it to … Continue

Added by Michael Levin on January 10, 2011 at 8:00am — No Comments

Happy Holidays and a Tree!

Added by Michael Levin on December 17, 2010 at 11:08am — 1 Comment

Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for OSX; Java SE 7 and 8 JSRs Approved

This is big news: "Good news all around! Oracle and Apple announced the OpenJDK project for Mac OS X. Apple will contribute most of the key components, tools and technology required for a Java SE 7 implementation on Mac OS X, including a 32-bit and 64-bit HotSpot-based Java virtual machine, class libraries, a networking stack and the foundation for a new graphical…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on December 14, 2010 at 10:30am — 1 Comment

Insanely Great Social Hooks and Innovation on this iPhone/Android App

EveryTrail impresses as a well thought out app with GPS, multimedia and social integration. Not only is it well coded and solid, but the marketing is to the point and clear as well.

Objective-C has its challenges and we certainly hear a lot about the memory management, etc... EveryTrail is on Android, too. I like how they give credit to the open source code they used to create it in their credits.

I just downloaded it. Can't…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on December 13, 2010 at 11:00am — No Comments

Andrew Mason of Groupon

Andrew Mason appeared on Charlie Rose this week. Fortunately, Charlie Rose's website has all the archives, so you can watch the interview here. Thinking of doing a startup? Want to improve your existing web presence? Lots f thoughts in this fascinating show. Enjoy, and please let us know what you think…

Continue

Added by Michael Levin on December 11, 2010 at 4:18pm — No Comments

Monthly Archives

2026

2025

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Happy 10th year, JCertif!

Notes

Welcome to Codetown!

Codetown is a social network. It's got blogs, forums, groups, personal pages and more! You might think of Codetown as a funky camper van with lots of compartments for your stuff and a great multimedia system, too! Best of all, Codetown has room for all of your friends.

When you create a profile for yourself you get a personal page automatically. That's where you can be creative and do your own thing. People who want to get to know you will click on your name or picture and…
Continue

Created by Michael Levin Dec 18, 2008 at 6:56pm. Last updated by Michael Levin May 4, 2018.

Looking for Jobs or Staff?

Check out the Codetown Jobs group.

 

Enjoy the site? Support Codetown with your donation.



InfoQ Reading List

OpenAI Releases GPT-6 Astra for Coding and Computer Use

OpenAI has released GPT-6 Astra, a new model focused on coding, computer use, long-running agentic tasks, and cybersecurity, with availability across ChatGPT, Codex, and the OpenAI API.

By Daniel Dominguez

Beyond Autonomous Teams in Software Product Development

Autonomous teams are an article of faith in modern software development. The shape of our value determines what we can do; it determines our trade-offs between agency and coherence. We all have a purpose, and we all have agency to do something, hence the suggestion is moving from product focus to value center thinking.

By Ben Linders

Presentation: Accelerating Performance by Incrementally Integrating Rust Into Existing Codebase

Lily Mara explains how to avoid high-risk software rewrites through incremental FFI refactoring. She shares how engineering teams can replace Python bottlenecks with Rust via PyO3, demonstrating how to achieve dramatic function-level speedups, seamless integration testing, and meaningful infrastructure cost savings without microservice overhead.

By Lily Mara

Article: When Spec-Driven Development Pays Off

AI coding assistants have become a core part of software development. AI-generated code has shown productivity gains, but it's also contributing to security weaknesses and familiar bug patterns. In this article, author Nitin Garg highlights the bottleneck has moved from code generation to code verification, and how to detect & mitigate it when the AI-generated behavior diverges from the intent.

By Nitin Garg

IETF Publishes RFC 10008, Adding the QUERY Method for Safe Requests With a Body

In June 2026, the IETF published RFC 10008, introducing the QUERY method to HTTP, the first new standard HTTP verb since 2010. QUERY enables developers to send richer query filters in the request body while maintaining cacheable, safe, and idempotent semantics. This addition addresses long-standing limitations with GET and POST methods, facilitating improved API interactions.

By Daniel Curtis

© 2026   Created by Michael Levin.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service