Year: 2002

RxLinux 1.2.2 has been released:

Rxlinux is a modular system. The base system fits in 25M of RAMdisk. Extra packages (software) can be installed on demand in RAMdisk. The /var partition which contains the application data can reside either on a hard disk or in RAMdisk. Rxlinux can be configure as a Web server, an X11 terminal, a database server, an openmosix cluster node, etc. It is distributed as a 10M bootable ISO file. You can configure it to include more packages in the ISO if you don’t want to download extra software at boot time.

The changes are also really cool:

Three new packages have been added: Jboss, Tomcat, and Jdk. Jdk as been bundled as a compressed ISO file (ziso), and can be mounted directly from the CDROM or installed in a RAMdisk. Rxlinux can now be customized as a diskless Web application server. A few minor bugs have been fixed. More code cleanup was done.

I must say, that RxLinux looks like a pretty wicked way to put legacy hardware with a little bit of ram to use.  I know that there’s a machine around here somewhere that is just begging to have RxLinux on it.  I also like the openmosix clustering support.

Les Orchard (0xDECAFBAD) has hacked together a personal web proxy in Python.  He’s having fun working in a language that he hasn’t spent a lot of time in.  I’ve recently had similar fun romping in Perl and C#.  I’ve always used Perl for a few things around the *nix boxes, but nothing like the little wapblog script I hacked up the other day.  Similarly, I’ve been partying in C#, which seems (java) so (java) errily (java) familiar, but is just different enough to feel new.  I will give C# and .NET props for taking a good base and improving upon it.  From what I’ve been reading in the java.blog community, Java is trying to catch up to C# in some areas.

And while I’m on the topic of Java, I’m still not over learning Java 1.0/1.1/AWT just to find out that EVERYTHING was different for 1.2+/Swing.  I’m still a bit bitter about that, though I don’t usually hold a grudge.  I’m almost over it now.  Okay, I’m overreacting.  I was young and impressionable back then, and the switch from AWT to Swing was a big deal when I was learning Java.

Paul Krill at Infoworld covers open source web services:

Open source presents a viable option for developing Web services if developers are willing to work with tools that are not as easy to use as commercial products, a consultant said during a Web services conference here Tuesday.

There’s more in the article, including the usual interlinking to other infoworld content on the most random words possible.

Keith is just getting around to learning make (though I don’t know make except how to use it, so he’s a step ahead of me).  Keith: this is your reminder to use ant if you’re ever building Java projects.  There’s a book by two bloggers that I reccomend highly.

I hear the sound of water or ice falling on ice  It’s dark out, so I can’t see, but this can’t be a good thing.

It has been several months since I got my last hair cut.  I think I lost a few pounds in the process.  It feels good.

In other vanity-related news, I’ve jumped from the eighty-somethingth Matt to the 45th Matt at google.  Did I mention that this blog went live in July?

Bill Humphries points to Macintosh boot keys:

Always handy to have a list of all the special key sequences available when starting a Mac.

I remember some of these from my days as ‘keep the macs running’ guy.  It’s always a good list to have handy when you need it though.

OSNews:

SmoothWall 1.0 has been released and LinuxOrbit has a related article. On another distro release, for BeOS this time, Developer Edition v1.1 is out. It includes many new drivers and system improvements.

Release notes are also available.  I know there were some issues with the Smoothwall team (I think some spintered off or something), but my (limited) experience with Smoothwall was good.  I didn’t actually end up using it as a router, as the hardware I had sanctioned for it ended up being needed elsewhere.  The fact that it installs from a CD is great, the hardware requirements were modest, and the setup procedure was clean.  The smoothwall team was also very good about getting patches out, and (more importantly) making the end user aware of the patches and trying to prompt them to patch.

Great project, congrats on the 1.0.

Clemens Vasters posted a series of articles under the title of Why you want to use Enterprise Services for your .NET application.  You can read them here:

• Introduction (part 1)
• Architectural Considerations (part 2)
• Managing Limited and Expensive Resources (part 3: Mr. Miller and the Data Center)

An amusing and informative series of articles, Clemens.

Steve Jenson announced to the bloggerDev list:

Hi everybody,

I’ve uploaded the Developer Preview documentation to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloggerDev/files/documentation.html and I’m waiting for a DNS change to propagate before I give it a permanent home. Once that dns update is finished, I’ll open up access to what I’m calling the API Validator; it will allow you to test API 2.0 clients without needing a Blogger account.

I think it’s important to note that I don’t consider API 2.0 set in stone. I’m incredibly open to hearing what people like and dislike about this new API and it’s datastructures.

Let me cut to the chase, here are the methods available:

blogger.newPost(Struct login, Struct post, Struct actions) => Boolean success blogger.editPost(Struct login, Struct post, Struct actions) => Boolean success
blogger.deletePost(Struct login, String postid, Struct actions) => Boolean success
blogger.getBlogs(Struct login) => Array of blogs (String ‘blogid’ -> String ‘blogName’)
blogger.getPost(Struct login, String postid, Struct filters) => Struct post
blogger.getRecentPosts(Struct login, String blogid, Struct filters) => Array of Struct post’s, unordered
blogger.getTemplate(Struct login, String blogid, String templateName) => Struct template
blogger.setTemplate(Struct login, String blogid, String templateName) => Boolean success
blogger.getUserInfo(Struct login) => Struct user
blogger.setUserInfo(Struct login, Struct user) => Boolean success

Matt Raible:

Erik gives us the heads up on a new W3C Proposal: an XML Encryption, Decription Standards.

I think that I’ve finally stopped trying to type his last name Riable.  Stupid fingers, do what I say!

Greg also classifies me:

Amen to that! I’d add Dominic Da Silva here, he’s more focused on Java itself, and Matt Croydon with a really broad coverage of geek stuff.

Sweet.  Thanks!

Greg wants to post to his blog via his Palm PDA.  I haven’t seen any XML-RPC implementations for PalmOS, but that doesn’t mean that writing an oversimplified implementation (enough to use the blogger API/metaWeblog API) wouldn’t be impossible.

And yes, Greg, I did think about using Java.  I didn’t have the energy to hunt down bleeding edge classes for struts-wml, and I figured if I was going to half-ass it, I might as well use Perl.  🙂  I’m actually torn between extending the perl program or trying to get struts-wml to play nice with my server.  We shall see.

Slashdot discusses a turn-key linux audio solution on top of Debian.

Mono News:

Mike Kestner announced Gtk# 0.6. This new release includes many new features and bug fixes, and is the perfect companion to the Mono 0.17 release.

Johannes has contributed a Windows-ready package of Mono 0.17, and its available from our download page.

Alp Toker has Debian packages

Legacy:

‘According to META Group, more than 90% of large organizations will utilize host access products that externalize legacy applications via Web services by 2007.’

JetBlue:

Yahoo.com article investigates JetBlue Airways Corp use of Web services. ‘JetBlue uses Web services to continuously update its computerized flight manuals for pilots, for instance, and run some aspects of its online store.’

Reverend Jim asks why you’re not using PEAR for PHP.  He suggested:

lynx -source http://go-pear.org | php

Alas, I need to upgrade my install of PHP before I can play with this.  It looks like PEAR is a long way from CPAN as far as maturity and ease of use goes, but heck, it’s a start.

Rob Fahrni:

I decided to use PowerBlog as my client to my various blogs, Blogger and Radio UserLand based. Guess what, it works like a charm! I just hooked it into my Radio site in about two minutes and created a post. Very impressive. This stuff just works, XML-RPC+Blogger API+Radio+PowerBlog, WOW! Jon, Dave, Evan…. you guys ROCK!

PHP.net:

The news of PHP.net is available now in RSS 1.0 format via our new news.rss file. You can add this file to any news reader or portal site to get the latest official PHP news. We strongly recommend you to cache the contents locally on your side, as the newsfeed is updated daily. The RSS file is available on every mirror site.

Okay.  Total cost of ownership for 1 year on a Sidekick: $99 (after rebates) + ($40 x 12) = $579.  That’s for one year, unlimited internet access.  I have a feeling that T-Mobile would want to renegotiate a new 1-year agreement with you at the end of the year, or you would have to pay for your internet.  That’s not as easy to justify, though I’m trying.