COLLEEN ROBLEDO Web Developer | Librarian | Researcher | Genealogist

Newsweek published an interesting article today about the growing popularity of cloud computing. Cloud computing allows organizations to house their applications with data centers, instead of relying on traditional in-house solutions. This cuts back on I.T. costs without sacrificing performance, and (as Newsweek's Brian Braiker points out) without sacrificing security, if served by one of the providers with good security track records, such as Google or Amazon.

Today's Los Angeles Times has a really nice piece today about George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch. Times staff writer Geoff Boucher gained a rare look inside the property during his 4-day stay on the ranch. Be sure to check out the accompanying photo slide show.

Boucher even delves into the Lucasfilm Research Library -- a personal and professional dream for this Techie Librarian, who grew up in a Star Wars obsessed household.

Derek Willis, posting on the NYT open source technologies blog, provides a really nice rundown last week of how the New York Times processes its up-to-the-minute election result data feeds into database-driven web and mobile platforms.

I haven't posted anything the last couple weeks because, in addition to the full-time job search, I've been improving my database development skills through my Ultimate Sacrifice web project.

This is the web fruition of a project I started two years ago, while still a librarian for The Orange County Register.