Gmail...

<1 min read

[@759]
MusicWhat do I listen to?

Right now I'm partial to the following:

[@462]
InternetGmail Policies

I was reading Gmail's Policies and noticed the following under Prohibited Actions:

Sell, trade, resell or otherwise exploit for any unauthorized commercial purpose or transfer any Gmail account
I wonder if Google is going to go after all of the people that have been selling invites on eBay. I hope they do.

[@073]
I guess not.

Webcasts

2 min read

[@632]
MacJavaWebcasts

In the last couple days I watched both Steve Jobs and Jonathan Schwartz keynotes.

I like Steve, he's a good speaker. On the other hand, Johnathan is apathetic as far as I'm concerned.

Steve really didn't have much to talk about. The whole thing could have been handled in 15 minutes. I'm also pretty tired of his old shtick. He really needs some new material.

I really had a hard time concentrating on what Johnathan was saying because of his monotone delivery, but he really made some interesting points.

The demos from both keynotes were laughable. I especially liked the Java Studio Creator one. Talk about showing absolutely nothing.

I have to tip my hat to Sun for really putting on a show; multiple angles, props, special effects, etc. Apple took its usual one lonely camera from the back of the room approach.

I have an idea for JavaOne 2005, let Steve Jobs open the show.:P

JavaCreator

I spend a couple hours playing with Java Studio Creator. It didn't pass the "Can you do something really simple without looking at the documentation" test. But overall it wasn't that bad of an experience.

For some reason, the Sun Java Application Server was not installed the first time around. I couldn't figure out how to have Creator use the one already installed with J2EE 1.4. So, I re-installed.

Everything worked a lot better after that. I was able to create a new datasource (no MySQL by default, btw), create a few queries and display the results on various pages.

I think I'm most impressed with the ability to edit the code directly.

In many aspects it reminds me of the way Dreamweaver deals with datasources, result sets, etc.

If it is what Sun sees as a really easy-to-use RAD tool, Johnathan and Co. need to have another look at Visual Basic .NET.

JavaJava Viruses

During his keynote, Scott McNealy asked if anyone could name a Java virus. Well, I sure can name a couple… and they were all engineered by Sun.

A virus by definition is an application which keeps on replicating itself. It does not necessarily have to be harmful. So…

Java Runtime Engine Have you ever counted how many JRE are installed on your machine? Many applications install their own to ensure compatibility.
 
Sun Java System Application Server 8 Which is now installed (in different locations) with everything made by Sun (Creator, J2EE SDK, etc), or so it seems.

In my old Mac days, the top virus was called TeachText. :P

WWDC, FireIE...

<1 min read
[@557]
MacWWDC As Frank and Russ mentioned, Apple is at it again. How ironic that during the week Apple pledges support to developers, it blatantly chooses to backstab them. It is becoming a habit. Talking about irony… Isn't it annoying that the keynote for a developer conference focuses so little on items of actual interest to developers? It's nice to hear about Apple introducing yet another set of overpriced monitors, but frankly, how does that help me develop for the Mac? TechnologyFireIE Frank tell us why some people still use IE. I just switched to Firefox has my primary browser. I had been using MyIE for a while now, but I can no longer stand to deal with IE. The darn thing keeps on breaking on me, and I don't have time to fix it anymore. Unfortunately, like everybody else I'll still have to use IE to test things. It won't be too much of a hassle with Firefox's excellent “View This Page in IE” contextual menu option.

Grab life by the ball...

1 min read
[@379]
MoviesA true underdog story…
We went to see Dodgeball on Saturday afternoon. Brainless, but funny. **1/2
JavaPatched, again. JReleaseInfo 1.2.0 was released with my second patch. Nice. JavaThe Pulse Erik's Pulse has been published. JavaQuirkz I reported a bug in Quartz 1.4.x. No response yet.

Share this...

<1 min read

[@852]
TechnologyCC Share

Clevercactus (Diego's company) has formally announced the first public beta release of Clevercactus Share.

Clevercactus Share

I've been using it for a while now. It rocks.

Riddick

1 min read
[@580]
MoviesRiddick
We went to see The Chronicles of Riddick yesterday. I'm not a big fan of Vin Diesel, but he keeps on making good action-packed movies. I guess he's growing on me. ****

Peeved

<1 min read
[@695]
JavaDevelopment Tools Someone a while back posted a list of the development tools they use on a regular basis. I figured I would do the same. Here goes nothing… [@635]
TechnologyVersion Numbers How comes there are so many companies that do not list the current version of their software offering? I'm so freaking tired of having to hunt down for version numbers. Stop wasting my time, and list the version numbers at the top of all product pages. Even better, create a feed for updates so I can subscribe to it.