By Guus , 31 December 2007

I used this book to help make my case to introduce Ruby on Rails in other products in our company.

By Guus , 31 December 2007

Years ago, in 2004, I ran my first project as a team-lead. We created a small transactional site for a TV-show, some type of lottery, and we knew that we would have a massive amount of traffic on the evening of the broadcast.

It was right around this time that I read this book, and it had some great info about multi-threading and scalability.

When the day of the TV show came, all was well and the server held up beautifully. A few days later we heard that the government had stopped the lottery from functioning since it turned out to break certain regulations. So there was no winner in the lottery but... my first high-profile project worked.

I'm sure it's dated now, but at the time it was a great read.

By Guus , 30 December 2007

We're in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and things are absolutely fantastic!

From the beach we wish you all a great year end, and all the best for 2008!

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By Guus , 22 December 2007

Tomorrow morning we're leaving for the Dominican Republic where we'll celebrate Christmas and New Year's Eve. It's going to be a great vacation and I'm really looking forward to it.

Yesterday evening and today we've done a lot of preparations -- shopping, laundry, last minute things etc, and now we still need to pack our bags. Our flight is at 6.10 am tomorrow.

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By Guus , 20 December 2007

Dr. Van der Linden.Our good friend Marjolein today successfully defended her dissertation, and now has her Ph. D.

The ceremony was in the Agnieten chapel in downtown Amsterdam. Jerry and Gerlof were her paranimfs.

Well deserved, after lots of hard work: many congratulations from both of us!

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By Guus , 19 December 2007

Duke Campus was pretty much empty tonight. I saw three people waiting at a bus stop and 1 very lonely person in an empty cafe.

My right knee was hurting a little bit before I started -- I guess it's pretty short after Monday afternoon's long run -- and I felt it a bit, especially in the last 10 minutes. Not painful, just a feeling that it's not 100% okay. Reading my old records I realize that I haven't felt any pain in my feet in the last month or two, very nice.

My usual trail; took 35.51.