My favorite blogger Joel Spolsky by mistake referred the United Kingdom as England. Apparently he felt bad about it and not only publicly apologized, but also offered to buy you a pint of beer. Joel is buying on May 19 in Edinburgh (is this in England?). As a 100% geek, Joel set up a ...

Do you know what's the main goal of any gas station owner? To get lots of trucking accounts. Business from small car drivers is worth pennies, and it gets on my nerves to hear them ask again and again, 'Five dollars of regular, please.' Trucks are different. They usually pump in a coup...

In the unlikely event that you're not familiar with my gas station, you can find my previous essays at http://jdj.sys-con.com/read/category/1142.htm. Recently, I've conducted a small survey among my truck drivers. I asked them just one question: 'What do you think of application server...

Yesterday, we celebrated the birthday of my employee Alex in a fancy Russian restaurant. If you haven't tried it, go there - once. The party started late, and I've never seen such a variety of food on the table at the same time (they call this setup 'bratskaya mogila,' which means 'mas...

In the first two articles of this series (see http://java.sys-con.com/read/108260.htm and http://java.sys-con.com/read/124664.htm), I started thinking aloud about automating my gas station using various Java-related technologies. This time, I'm trying to figure out what IDE and Web fra...

In the first article of this series (see http://java.sys-con.com/read/108260.htm), I 'bought' a gas station with a convenience store and a repair shop and started to think about automating this small business using various Java technologies. This time, I'm getting a crash course on ope...

Several years ago I was thinking about buying a small gas station in my local town. I went to my friend Gregory Z., a successful businessman in this field, and asked him, 'How do I start a gasoline business?' He gave me simple but wise advice: 'You know nothing about gas, but know a lo...