meomeoim

Here's a guest post from Daniel Arenson , author of the Song of Dragons series. The first two books - Blood of Requiem and Tears of Requiem - are available now for ereaders or in paperback. For more info, please check out his website - www.danielarenson.com _____________________________________________ Song of Dragons is a fantasy series about one of the toughest creatures around. But besides dragons, what are the other toughest creatures out there? 10. Fireys ( Labyrinth ) The Fireys are creatures from the fantasy film Labyrinth . Lanky beasts with flaming red pelts, they enjoy removing their limbs and heads and tossing them around. The Fireys enjoy pulling off humans' heads too, not understanding that our heads don't detach and reattach like theirs. 9. R.O.U.S.s ( The Princess Bride ) Rodents Of Unusual Size from the 80s film The Princess Bride . They're nasty creatures who live in fire swamps. One savaged and nearly killed Westly while Princess Butt...

We have become a society of bullies. The magazines, the television shows, the twitter, the youtube - so much of it is about making fun of somebody else. Most of the time, it's celebrities, and we all seem to think that's okay because celebrities aren't people. If you're famous, it's automatically assumed that you're made out of the same material as Barbie, so no matter what is said about you, it can't hurt. I am so sick of making people famous just so we can hate them. This whole thing with the Jersey Shore and the Kardishians. People never say anything nice about them, bitch about them being famous, and then keep watching the shows to keep them famous. It's like we've been addicted to looking down on people. (Side note: I do watch the Jersey Shore. But I watch it because I like Jenni, Snooki, Pauly, and Vinny. I think they seem like nice people, and Pauly is really funny). Making fun of people has become a part of our culture, and I'm not expect...

I read this blog the other day: The Problem Isn't the Books I really think you should read it, mostly because it's interesting, but also because I don't want to rehash it. The main bullet points are this: A NY Times article came out basically saying that teenage boys aren't reading books anymore, and they (the author of said article) think it's because of how few books are marketed toward teenage boys. The blog I linked to is a rebuttle to that, but what they're really rebutting is this quote: “We need more good works of realistic fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, on- or ­offline, that invite boys to reflect on what kinds of men they want to become.” The blog author is Sandra Mitchell, an author of several YA novels. (Full disclosure: I was not familiar with her or her work before reading this blog, which I discovered via a tweet). Sandra makes the counterpoint that these books already exist - they simply have a female protagonist. Look, you really need to ...

Earlier today, Wil Wheaton posted this pic on twitter: I'd never heard it before, but now I'm totally in love with it. I think so many people take for granted that we went to the moon, especially my generation and the ones following. I was born 15 years after we landed on the moon, and 8 years after Star Wars came out. So by that time, adventures in space already felt somewhat commonplace. With all the CGI and special effects, all the fake outerspace, we've forgotten that we've really been there. We didn't just make it up. We were there. People stared up at the stars for centuries, making up stories, monitoring time, imagining all the grand adventures that go on up there. And we went there , after centuries of mankind dreaming about it. The impact of that had been lost on me until today. I saw this really awesome movie about the Hubble telescope in the omnitheater a few months back, but in a way, these are things I've been seeing my whole life, either in text b...

In previous posts I explained how it is possible to invoke web services through a browser using javascript, and sometimes the service needs to be debugged using soapUI through WebSEAL. WebSEAL and Cookies My current infrastructure uses WebSEAL as a reverse proxy, which means that a session must be established before any of the back end servers can be accessed, including the server hosting my web service. This poses a problem with soapUI which doesn't provide a mechanism to log into WebSEAL directly, instead I can establish the session using a browser and then copy the cookies into the tool. Log into the application server and authenticate as usual, then copy the cookies using firebug: Then paste the cookies into soapUI: Now all requests will forward the cookie information which WebSEAL should recognize, allowing it to pass through as authenticated.

The new covers for the Trylle Trilogy were revealed on USAToday.com! Their whole piece is up: here . And in case you don't want to click that link, here are the covers: Coming January 24, 2012 Coming February 28, 2012 Coming April 24, 2012 Aren't they fancy? I love them! ARCs should be going out for Switched soon, but it won't be in stores until January 24, 2012. There's going to be a ton of stuff going on in January to promote it, too - all of which I'm incredibly excited for. AND I have another announcement about the books. Readers are always telling me how they want me to continue the series - and while I have no plans to do that - I do like new content. So for fans of the series, I wanted to give them a little something extra. Each of the books will contain a never-before-seen short story set in the world of the Trylle. I don't want to give away too much about the stories except that each is set in the time frame the book takes place. The first sho...

Today, I went to our county fair. They had a game where you could win live turtles, live iguanas, and live hermit crabs. I still find this concept weird that you can win animals that require specialized cages and lighting. It would make more sense to win a puppy or kitten, since most homes are already equipped for them. In reality, I don't agree with the practice of the animals as prizes. But that's another story for another day. The long and the short of it is - I'm a sucker for animals of any kind, and I always think I should adopt everything so I can be certain it's taken care of. The fact that I walked away with only one turtle and not a whole slew of reptiles shows an extreme level of self restraint on my part. Anyway - I digress. Meet Jasper - the newest edition to my family: The picture's a bit blurry, but rest assured, Jasper's face is perfectly clear in real life. That's Jasper running away from a Dixie cup. He's insanely fast. I'm star...

Just a quick reminder, folks: I'm unpublishing Torn and Ascend tonight at midnight (Central time), and they go down almost immediately. So this is your last chance to buy them until February and April 2012, respectively. If you miss them today, it's not that big of a deal, because they will be out in a few months, which a much shorter amount of time then George R. R. Martin fans have to wait for the next book to come out. So comparitively, it's not big thing. Plus, the new editions of the Trylle Trilogy coming out with St. Martin's in early 2012 have a little something extra with them that I think fans of the series will dig. I'll explain more about that next week. Sometime next week, there should be a big cover reveal for all three books. It was going to be Monday, but we're doing some last minute cover changes, so it might be at the end of next week or possibly the week after. I will let you know as soon as I get the exact date. But trust me, the covers are ...

After 20 years of working in the IT industry, I thought it would be nice to get a certification in something, so I finally took the time to study the new features in WEF 7 and attempt the test. Hard to Know Everything Rarely does one have the opportunity to learn all the features of a product, usually a client will focus on a subset of functionality because of the way they do things. One can become an expert with those features, but this produces a false sense that the expertise extends to everything. My case was no exception. Fortunately I worked with WEF on several client engagements which gave me a broader experience. Why is this relevant? I strongly suggest that anyone who wants to take a certification test attempt a sample test first, which is what I did. It allowed me to evaluate the level of difficulty (it was not easy) and also pointed out the gaps that I needed to focus on. So there it is, my first certification and a new footnote on my email signature.