All Posts — Digital Sanctuary

A sealed glass tube carrying smooth stones through an open market, surrounded by loose exposed stones on the cobblestone floor.

Wireless networks expose personal data constantly. A VPN encrypts traffic and protects privacy everywhere.

DevOps & Infrastructure Security

Industrial scale with a tiny steel hex nut vastly outweighed by a towering stack of concrete blocks.

Devon

October 13, 2010 1 min read

The True Cost of ATG's Core Based Licensing

Modern CPU cores tripled licensing costs while performance gains lag. ATG's core-based model is economically broken.

Career & Business ATG

A winding two-lane road curves through dense Vermont autumn foliage in orange, crimson, and gold morning mist.

Devon

September 25, 2010 2 min read

Montreal Motorcycle Road Trip

Vermont Route 100 on a Ducati Multistrada is the East Coast's perfect motorcycle road - stunning curves, no cops.

Motorcycles & Cars Travel

Dense chrome instrument panel with rows of dials and amber warning indicator lights in cold fluorescent light.

Devon

September 15, 2010 4 min read

ATG CSC Usability

ATG's new CSC UI looks modern but loads slower and confuses users more than the bare-bones interface it replaced.

Software Development ATG

A patched stone wall of mismatched bricks beside a small neat section of uniform terracotta tiles.

Devon

September 7, 2010 6 min read

ATG CSC UI Customization

Customizing ATG CSC UI is a nightmare compared to the straightforward JSP editing that Commerce Assist allowed.

Software Development ATG

Industrial wire mesh sieve clogged with gravel and dust, lit by a single shaft of pale light over a stone quarry floor.

Devon

September 2, 2010 4 min read

ATG CSC Search Issues

ATG CSC Search engine brings configuration complexity and Mac incompatibility to profile and order lookups.

Software Development ATG

Corroded iron pipes tangled with mismatched chrome fittings in a dim industrial basement.

Devon

August 30, 2010 2 min read

ATG CSC and why I hate it

ATG 9.1's CSC is bloated, complex, and dependent on too many moving parts compared to the simpler Commerce Assist.

Software Development ATG

Devon

August 19, 2010 1 min read

New review of 10MinuteMail by Altin

10MinuteMail earned praise from a security reviewer for its clean interface and ease of use.

10MinuteMail

Two ceramic irrigation channels in dry soil, one blocked by a clay plug pooling water, the other open and feeding moist earth.

Devon

July 1, 2010 1 min read

JBoss JMS Doesn't Create Tables with XA Datasource

JBoss JMS with XA datasources silently fails to create tables - here's the fix and what we learned.

Software Development Java JBoss

Copper pipe manifold with one thick inlet branching into multiple outlet pipes of varying sizes.

Devon

May 20, 2010 3 min read

Zencoder Video Encoding

Video encoding and streaming trends show how bandwidth growth, mobile, and social are reshaping online media.

Tech & Gear Performance

Wooden card catalog cabinet with brass-handled drawers pulled open at varying depths, showing color-coded dividers inside.

Devon

May 20, 2010 5 min read

Improving my Library's Website

Library websites promise convenience but their poor UX defeats the purpose - a local branch's site shows the problem.

Life & Personal

Aerial view of a vast industrial server farm with rows of cooling towers glowing amber at dusk.

Devon

May 7, 2010 1 min read

Guide for Large Scale ATG Applications

64-page guide to scaling ATG applications across hundreds of nodes with insights from AT&T's massive cluster.

Software Development ATG

Devon

April 28, 2010 1 min read

Nice Review of 10MinuteMail

10MinuteMail was selected as the best temporary email service for ease, design, and intuitive functionality.

10MinuteMail

Devon

April 22, 2010 1 min read

ATG Newsletter Went Out

Site speed impacts Google rankings now - here's why it matters and how Spark::red's hosting expertise tuned every layer.

Career & Business ATG SEO Performance

Red motorcycle parked beside a spilling mound of colorful plastic balls with stacked pizza boxes nearby.

Devon

April 15, 2010 1 min read

Anarchy!

Two weeks of bachelor freedom: pizza boxes, motorcycles, and surprisingly civilized philosophical debates.

Life & Personal

A chrome fishing lure with bright feathers on weathered dock planks, a near-invisible fishing line trailing into shadow.

Devon

March 24, 2010 2 min read

Interesting Phishing Technique

Slick phishing attempt promised revenue share while dodging basic credibility questions - how they hooked readers.

Tech & Gear Security

A small brown bird with a mismatched peacock feather attached to its back, perched on a bare branch.

Devon

March 17, 2010 1 min read

Spammers using a Thesaurus?

Spam bot ran English through a thesaurus to dodge filters - "beneficial perform" and "possess" exposed the trick.

DevOps & Infrastructure Security

Devon

March 16, 2010 1 min read

Sparkred Launches an ATG Mailing List

Spark::red launches monthly ATG newsletter covering hosting, performance tuning, and technical deep dives.

Career & Business ATG

A rusted iron portcullis blocking clean copper messenger tubes in a stone archway, with pigeons perched on them.

Devon

March 8, 2010 1 min read

SpamCop RBL is Blocking Several Facebook Mail Servers

SpamCop's RBL blocklist is flagging legitimate Facebook servers - if you use it, verify your allowlist.

DevOps & Infrastructure Security Email

Glass prisms on dark slate splitting white light into a color spectrum and recombining it into a single beam.

Devon

March 4, 2010 3 min read

10MinuteMail and Form Submission Charsets in Seam/JSF

Non-latin character replies broke in 10MinuteMail until Seam/JSF's charset handling got fixed.

10MinuteMail Java Seam Email

Why you should be using a VPN

The True Cost of ATG's Core Based Licensing

Montreal Motorcycle Road Trip

ATG CSC Usability

ATG CSC UI Customization

ATG CSC Search Issues

ATG CSC and why I hate it

New review of 10MinuteMail by Altin

JBoss JMS Doesn't Create Tables with XA Datasource

Zencoder Video Encoding

Improving my Library's Website

Guide for Large Scale ATG Applications

Nice Review of 10MinuteMail

ATG Newsletter Went Out

Anarchy!

Interesting Phishing Technique

Spammers using a Thesaurus?

Sparkred Launches an ATG Mailing List

SpamCop RBL is Blocking Several Facebook Mail Servers

10MinuteMail and Form Submission Charsets in Seam/JSF