Marc Palmer

I was in a car park today and genuinely struggled to press the RED button to get my ticket. Which idiot designed that, and put up instructions to press the red button?

Christmas crush with work… been this way every Christmas for the last 4-5 years apart from last year. Why?

Getting close to release for the Grails CMS app with my work on it kindly funded by JCatalog AB. Getting improved billing and signup stuff up together for my other client.

Struggled a lot with problems with flows in Grails 1.0.4, really got me down to be honest as it has been such a sinkhole for wasted time. Hopefully I can contrib some fixes or at least isolated test cases to help sort this out.

Work is ongoing on the functional test plugin which is rocking already, but needs a little more polish before release. Also ongoing work on the bean fields taglib for Grails.

So much to do so little time. Have to be with the family and keep up my drum practice!

It looks like I’m booked up again until the end of January. If you are interested in hiring me from Feb 2009 onwards, please get in touch now!

Steve Jobs rocks. He’s rocked Apple into a company I can buy killer computers and an OS from. He’s a great show man, a consummate CEO.

Now, please let him fade away gracefully Apple. Perhaps this is happening, what with him not giving the Macworld Expo talk.

Doubts about his health are too damaging to the company and it is really obvious actually that the whole management team at Apple is really on the ball – but this is not widely understood and as a result Apple’s stocks are suffering at every twist and turn of public appearances (separately from the general market problems).

People need to see – gradually, and this seems to be Apple’s plan – that life goes on without Steve and great stuff continues to come from Apple. After all he’s got them to a pretty amazing place. Killer proprietary OS, killer phones, computers people actually want to own as objects, not just as tools.

I hope you’re well Steve.

Maybe you’re stuck for ideas for christmas gifts… well I thought I’d throw up links to the best books I’ve read recently (caveat: still making my way through Tribes and Market Schmarket).

These are nothing to do with programming, but everything to do with modern business and the world.

Presentation Zen – on a mission to end the bullet lists of doom we are all subjected to. A must read.

Under Cover Economist – a very accessible quick introduction to the way economists think, and why that Starbucks coffee comes in so many configurations!

Tribes – an excellent work discussing peoples’ need to belong, and how new businesses that really want to make change have to lead such tribes. The days of big advertising budgets yielding good returns are pretty much gone…

Understanding Comics – a seminal work that is not just for those into comics (I’m not). Its about how comics excel at getting across information with minimal detail. How they take a reader on a journey. How the simplest images are often the most iconic and the best way to convey a message.

Market Schmarket – a look at how the global markets work (or rather don’t) for us.

So your company is starting a new exciting project in 2009 and you want to use the latest and best technologies in the Java space? Or maybe you’re keen to get some mentoring, training or support for existing Grails development. Perhaps you just have a need for an extra experienced developer. Maybe you even want to sponsor the development of a plugin you need for Grails… for example a user agent filtering plugin, an iPhone UI plugin, a forums plugin or…

Well I’ve got capacity for new work for Jan 2009 onwards, as I’m nearing the end of my stint with Historic Futures, but still have some time to run on the Grails CMS project consulting.

Please drop me a line (marc at anyware.co.uk) if you would like to discuss.