Tomorrow morning is the Washington Apple Pi Winter Garage Sale. This is the best chance for anyone in the region to buy macs, mac junk, spare parts, random fun stuff, or anything else apple or mac related. I’ll be there around 8:30 or so. Find me or email/text me if you’ll be there.
Day: December 13, 2002
-
Mac Junk
-
The Bad News
One of my rabbits is still fat.
-
Brown Goes Wireless
CNet:
The shipping giant, which calls itself “Brown” in its advertising, is beginning to deploy a tracking system that combines the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technologies. Bluetooth can carry data over several feet, while Wi-Fi has a 300-foot range, making it a popular method of extending Net access in many homes and business.
UPS representative Ginnie Myhr said 55,000 package handlers eventually will get Bluetooth bar code readers that are worn on the finger like a ring. The ring scans a package label and sends the information to a Wi-Fi radio attached to a handler’s belt. The radio then sends the information to a central computer.
-
SDL .NET
SDL .NET (1.1):
SDL.NET is a set of language bindings for SDL and SDL_mixer written in C#, which allows easy development of games using Microsoft’s .NET framework. It should work on any .NET-capable machine.
Changes include Mono support as well as music and sound callbacks support.
-
DBVisualizer
Can I just say how much ass DBVisualizer is kicking for me? If you’re a java programmer who works with Databases a lot you have got to check that out. Hell, you should check it out if you’re any kind fo programmer who works with databases a lot. Hopefully I’ll be able to upgrade to the unrestricted version in a few months ($79). I don’t think I’ll be able to afford it any time before then.
From the DBVisualizer site:
DbVisualizer is a cross-platform database visualization and management tool which entirely relies on the JDBC, Java Database Connectivity APIs. DbVisualizer enables simultaneous connections to many different databases through JDBC drivers. Just point and click to browse the structure of the database, characteristics of tables, etc. Arbitrary SQL statements can be executed and saved between sessions. DbVisualizer supports a variety of databases including Oracle, Sybase, DB2, MySQL, Informix, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Cloudscape, McKoi, SAP DB, Mimer and InstantDB.
Very cool.
-
Kablog
I just recieved an email from Todd Courtois from Rawthought:
Hello,
We’ve just released KABLOG, a blog posting tool for your PDA or smart phone device. Based on your website postings, we thought you and your blog readers might be interested in using this software. KABLOG runs on J2ME/MIDP 1.0-compatible devices (including Handspring Treo and PocketPC), and currently supports posting to Movable Type 2.51 or later. (It may also work with other blog servers that support a similar XMLRPC interface.) Among other features, KABLOG allows you to write blog entries wherever you are, even when you don’t have a network connection, and upload those entries when you have network coverage.
This shareware and more information at:
http://www.rawthought.com/projects/kablog/
Thanks for your support!Nice! I like the MDIP 1.0/J2ME part. I havent’ checked out Todd’s product, but the screenshots look pretty nice. Congrats on the wicked project, Todd.
-
An Interview with Jim Kent
O’Reillynet interviews Jim Kent:
Jim Kent was a graduate student in biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), when he wrote the program that allowed the public human genome team to assemble its fragments just before Celera’s private commercial effort. His program ensured that the human genome data would remain in the public domain. Kent wrote the 10,000-line program in a month because he didn’t want to see the genome data locked up by commercial patents.
-
IBM AltiVec
IBM confirmed that its PowerPC 970 processor, which is scheduled to begin shipping in the second half of 2003, has AltiVec-compatible execution units, as noted by a MacNN reader: “The 970’s multiple execution units including an AltiVec compatible vector processor are fed by an up to 900-MHz processor interface bus, which can deliver data at a rate of up to 6.4 GBps…In addition to high performance general -purpose processing, application-specific acceleration (such as multimedia) can be achieved through the AltiVec vector engine. Codeveloped by IBM, this engine extends the PowerPC instruction set with 162 Single-Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions.”
-
Running XSLT batch jobs with Ant
The article’s title says it’s about writing Ant configurations which can take advantage of multiple XSLT processors, but it’s also covers how to write build scripts in Ant for XSLT processing. Ant rules. I haven’t done any Java projects in over a year, but I used Ant on my last one and loved it.
-
Tiny Encryption Algorithm
Via Keith Devens:
Via Erik, via Jim Hughes, code for the Tiny Encryption Algorithm. I want to learn more about this when I have the time.
The Tiny Encryption Algorithm is one of the fastest and most efficient cryptographic algorithms in existence. It was developed by David Wheeler and Roger Needham at the Computer Laboratory of Cambridge University. It is a Feistel cipher which uses operations from mixed (orthogonal) algebraic groups – XORs and additions in this case. It encrypts 64 data bits at a time using a 128-bit key. It seems highly resistant to differential cryptanalysis, and achieves complete diffusion (where a one bit difference in the plaintext will cause approximately 32 bit differences in the ciphertext) after only six rounds. Performance on a modern desktop computer or workstation is very impressive.
I’ll second that “when I have the time.”
-
Web Services Toolkit
IBM THIS WEEK announced the latest version of its Web Services Toolkit (WSTK), which features a proposed mechanism for managing the services.
The Web Services Toolkit page is also available.
-
Blogging from my town center!
-
What Does Maven Do?
Charles Miller wants to know exactly what Maven is:
What’s the pay-off? What’s in it for me? Please answer in under one hundred words, with buzzword count below five. A back-of-the-barmat summary would be really helpful, could anyone out there in blog-land either mail me one or post one so I can hunt you down via referers?
Can anyone help, keeping in mind the word and buzzword count? I have a basic understanding, but not enough to articulate it to others.