Having slept through on the couch at my dad's place last night, today I did some more work on Traqer. (The preliminary title for the bug tracking software I'm developing. Not sure if it will stay that way though. Is there any decent string that isn't already registered under the .com domain? That's not to say that I plan on registering a domain just for a silly little web app, but.... It's just... I'd like it to have a unique name. Ya know?)

Along the way, while doing some research, I got distracted with the O'Reilly Safari site. Complete electronic versions of what pretty much amounts to the entire O'Reilly library available. Browsable tables of contents with the first paragraph or two of every chapter available, enticing me to read more.

I really wanted more info on using jsp. Having exhausted the measly chapter my servlet book devoted to the topic, I wanted to expand my knowledge.

Try it free for 14 days.

I gave in, and signed up to try it. No harm in testing it out for a few free days, right? During that time, I can get all up to speed on more of the details of using jsp. I fear I may become hopelessly addicted. $14.95/month for any 10 books at a time, eh?

Not a bad deal, really. If I weren't in the pathetic income situation I currently find myself in, there's a fairly high likelihood that I might subscribe for a while. (Then again, if I were actually employed, I might not have quite so much time to be browsing online volumes and learning new programming languages either. It's a catch-22, really.)

Anyway, I've been digging into the JSP book, and finding it quite satisfying. All the stuff I wanted to know about beans, custom tags, JSTL, the works. Soon, I'll be reaching the chapter on using the predefined SQL tags that included in JSTL. I can hardly wait.

In other news, I've been watching the ever-inspiring Howard Dean campaign blog with amusement over the weekend.

On Friday, news hit that Dick Cheney was going to host a fund raising dinner over the weekend. Who was invited? Representatives and lobbyists for special interest groups who would be paying $1,000 per plate to raise $250,000 to fund Bush's presidential campaign in 2004.

The Dean response? "Bat back" by raising the same amount from Internet supporters overs over the course of the weekend. The goal was to hit $250,000 by Monday night.

When it became obvious on Sunday that they were easily going to hit the goal a day early, they decided to add a second bat. The proceeds would go to a "Top Secret" operation. (It will be announced first on the blog.) No specific dollar goal was set.

With the end of Monday approaching, and the total number just shy of an astounding $500,000, I decided what the heck. I want to be part of this too. I threw in a modest contribution. Relative to my current income, it might be considered big, but oh well. I guess I would justify the expense with the following question:

If you could put a dollar amount on the future well-being of your country, how much would you pay?

As of 1am Eastern time, the online campaign has raised over $508 grand over the weekend from over 9600 people. Astounding. If you do the math, that puts the average at just over $50/person.

If you could put a dollar amount on the future well-being of your country, how much would you pay?

To quote Joe Trippi on the blog: "The bat is a symbol of what can happen when power is placed where it rightly belongs, in the hands of the people."

Go Howard Dean.

One more little on the Dean Campaign. This one is unofficial, but I post it today because it fits. Unemployed for Dean. No matter who you are, there's a Dean website out there for you somewhere.

On with life!