Performance is a huge concern when writing any Java code, especially since many still do not realize the benefits of coding to a hotspot vm and believe Java to be a "slower" language than something like C/C++. As someone with a hardware background, I frequently hear that faster computers are the...

Ok, I know this is a data access blog, but I'm a geek. A real big uber geek and I love outer space. Therefore I was really excited to come across NASA's new website today! Here's the link:

Just a quick note to say that the JDBC Expert Group (of which I'm unashamedly a part) will be having a Birds of a Feather session on Tuesday night at this year's JavaOne conference! Please drop by and let us know if you have any input on what we're considering and working on for the upcoming JDBC 4.1...

Julia Lerman, of the Data Farm has posted a series of excellent tutorials that are well worth a look all in her on-going series of '101 Tutorials'. Check them out here

I was doing some investigation into web service security, and ran across another nifty IBM tool: SMash. Smash (meaning secure mashups) is basically a technology designed to solve security problems when writing a mashup (a.k.a. situational application). These applications generally consume...

Several new W3C XML Query publications have hit the street the last weeks.   First of all the XML Query Working Group published a Candidate Recommendation of XQuery Update Facility...

Those familiar with my personality (the real-life, much more interesting one) know that I am given to spontaneous speechifying on frequent, mostly inappropriate occasions. As a result, they rarely...

I read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today.  It was on a topic totally unrelated to SOA, but carried an important message hidden within it:  Power is shifting to the users and away...

The guy who made airline-seat TV screens into touch screens.

Yep, there I was as asleep as I could get on my red-eye between JFK and SCL, and all of a sudden I feel someone poking the back of my head. Poke, poke, poke.

As I was counting to ten, in a sleep befuddled daze I played back...