Alvin Alexander

A quick note here today that if you’re interested in Drupal, and happen to live in Colorado, I posted some Boulder, Colorado Drupal news and information yesterday over on the Valley Programming website.

Besides the Drupal users groups in the area, which are very cool, I’m also really happy to see that there is going to be a Drupalcon event in Denver, Colorado in March, 2012. As a new Colorado resident, that timing couldn’t be any better.

One thing I wish Apple would do is to come out with a “retro iMac” version, using this style that they used in the 2002 through 2004 iMac design:

An iMac design like this would be perfect for my kitchen area, especially if it had a touchscreen.

As I’ve written on my devdaily.com website, I’ve created a “Mac Siri” app that runs on all current Mac OS X computers, including any MacBook or iMac, but it won’t run on the 2002-2004 iMac, because those systems didn’t use Intel processors, and also aren’t powerful enough.

My app can do things like play iTunes, play DVD movies, read web pages, get the current weather, and much more, so my Mac Siri software, combined with this retro/vintage iMac design, would bean awesome device in any kitchen.

I just mentioned this in my last blog post here, but if you have a company in the Boulder area, please check out my Boulder, Colorado business analyst consultant page. Over there, I’ve tried to describe a) what a Business Analyst is, b) what sort of documents (artifacts) business analysts create, and c) my own experience as a business analyst.

For more information on “business analysis”, I recommend visiting the International Institute of Business Analysis website. I worked as a business analyst many years before the IIBA was founded, but I think they’ve done a great job in sharing information about the business analyst profession.

As usual, Wikipedia also does a nice job of defining the role of business analyst.

Reporting live from Boulder, Colorado (where we just had a beautiful snow storm yesterday), this is Alvin Alexander.

Just another quick note here that when I moved from Alaska to the Boulder, Colorado area, I also moved my company, Valley Programming, with me. The town of Boulder also happens to be in a valley (the Boulder valley), so the name still fits, which makes me pretty happy.

While I tend to write a lot of small, personal notes over here, my blog on the Valley Programming website tends to be a lot more about computer programming, software requirements, software testing, and business analysis in the Boulder, Colorado area.

Getting back to personal stuff on this blog, here are a few links to great resources about the Boulder, Colorado area:

• The city of Boulder, Colorado
• Things to do in Boulder
• Boulder info on city-data.com

Finally, if you’re ever in the Boulder area, and need a business analyst, check out my Boulder, Colorado business analyst consulting services page.

If you’ve been following me on the devdaily.com website, or on my Twitter account (Alvin Alexander on Twitter), you know that I’ve been working with the Scala programming language quite a bit lately.

I’ve been trying to share everything I’ve learned, and to that end, here’s a link to all of my Scala programming tutorials. At the time of this writing, my Scala JDBC tutorial is one of my newest tutorials, and shows the basics of creating a JDBC connection in a Scala application.

For more information on Scala, I recommend starting with the official Scala programming language website.

I’ve written a lot of of Java database programming tutorials and examples over the years, so I thought I’d share some of those links here today.

First, a long time ago (in a place truly far away from here) I wrote these Java database programming tutorials:

• A Java JDBC SQL SELECT query example
• A JDBC SQL INSERT tutorial

Last year I created these newer Java MySQL database programming tutorials:

• A Java MySQL JDBC Driver class URL example
• A Java MySQL SELECT example
• A Java MySQL INSERT example using the Statement class
• Java MySQL INSERT example with PreparedStatement
• Java MySQL DELETE example
• Java MySQL UPDATE example

These days I use Spring JDBC for all my Java database programming. If you’ve never used Spring before, it is a life-saver. Here’s a link to the Spring Framework website.

In my most recent Java database programming projects I always use Spring because it makes everything about Java database programming easier for you. There is some initial XML configuration work to be done, but once you get past that, Spring is a Java database programming life saver.

I just created a blog on my new website, Mat-Su Valley Programming. I hope to update it at least weekly with new information that relates to programming, web design, and Alaska. Here’s a link to my new Alaska programming and website design blog.

In semi-related news, there’s a lot going on in Alaska these days (February and March). I’ve tried to start documenting a little bit of the action on my living in Alaska blog.

Nothing too major, I just wanted to announce that I’ve created a new Alaska web design and programming business, currently code-named “matsuvp”, after the Mat-Su Valley here in Alaska. I hope to serve customers in the Palmer, Wasilla, and Anchorage, Alaska areas.