Available on Java User Group Scotland website, GWT in Practice.

The first time I saw something about Stack Overflow was while I was reading Joel on Software. Couple days ago I finally created my account there and started using it. So far my impression has been very positive.

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This time we took the same coastal path as last time but we continued to Burntisland. After compulsory sandwich break we headed up to Dunearn Hill. The ascend was slow but the view was worth of it. The way back to Kirkcaldy was then downhill with high speed coasting and I nearly bit the dust after veering off the road in tight turn. Dora did not have any problems at that turn so I definitely need to upgrade my bicycle... Some photos from there are visible on my flickr page


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On Saturday we did some shopping and bought a cheap mountain bike for Dora. Now we both have bikes and today we headed out to check some local paths. Our first route was the Fife coastal path from Kirkcaldy to Kinghorn. The trail wasn't too demanding but it was still great fun and weather was nice as well.

I hope she will get hooked on more adventurous biking after she gains more trail experience and gets more confident with the bike. However, this could cause that the current cheap bike will be too modest in no time. And then the vicious cycle of bike upgrading begins...

Worth of checking, it even contains a photo featuring silly looking me.

http://bydk.blogspot.com/

Nasty flu or something caught me and I got fever on Tuesday afternoon so I left from work a bit earlier - around 4 pm. I also wanted to avoid overcrowded trains because there was a strike going on and train services were limited later in the afternoon. Despite my earlier traveling time the train was full and there were no seats available. Combination of hot and packed train with raising fever forced me to ask a young guy to give up his seat. After I sat down I received unexpected act of kindness as a young woman sitting opposite of me offered some HSBC sponsored bottle water which I gratefully drank. Maybe she knew that I have an account there.

Anyways, I am feeling somewhat better now but I decided to stay home also today. One difference between Hungarian and UK system is that one does not need an official paper from a doctor for a one day sick leave. Actually, in my current workplace in Scotland the limit is something like five days before any official paper. I am pretty sure this is very much work place dependent - I could imagine that cashier in Lidl does not have such possibility.

I don't have very comprehensive idea how well health care works here but at least getting registering to a new GP in Kirkcaldy turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected. In Edinburgh I simply walked in to the closest GP reception and I got assigned to that one. Here in Kirkcaldy the closest one has their books closed so they could not assign us there directly. Instead, we had to fill a lottery coupon and return it to NHS via post. We are expected to receive our assignment within couple weeks - hopefully that reception wont be on the other side of the town.

Yesterday I hosted Java User Group Scotland - JUGS meeting at my workplace for the second time. This meeting was about JBoss Seam and there was a presentation by Ashish Kulkarni. It was pretty useful as I did not know much about Seam before.

I was also looking forward to receive a review copy of GWT in Practice by Robert T. Cooper and Charlie E. Collins. I have been using GWT for a couple months and it is definitely a fascinating piece of software. It will be interesting to see how this book brings up some new approaches or tricks. Eventually the review will be online under JUGS website's book review section.

Actually, GWT is not the only new technology I have been lucky enough to use at work. We are using agile approach in a new project and therefore our database schemas are under constant change. H2 is a Java database engine written by Thomas Mueller and it allows us to have disposable in-memory database which gets populated by a migration process fed by a legacy database. The H2 project is also very active and bugs are fixed pretty quickly.