Year: 2003

TheServerSide notes the release of Apache Axis 1.1.

Dave Johnson has resigned from his current job and will be moving on to bigger and better things.  Congrats!

Via freshmeat, Install4J:

install4j is a cross platform Java installer that produces native launchers and installers for all major platforms. install4j offers an intuitive GUI that makes it easy to quickly define installation projects. A command line compiler and an integration for Apache ANT are included.

I’m watching the webcast with the guys at #mobitopia at the moment.  Here’s the lowdown:

• Nokia PR: 6600 captures mobile business
• Forum Nokia: Tech specs
• Nokia 6600 main page
• Mobitopia coverage

Golfo Mistico:

Lots of struggles, lots of work, lots of fun, but now the wait is over and Orixo is alive. More on this later, for now sit back and enjoy the ride! 🙂

Congrats to everyone on the site launch!

Joi Ito has joined the Creative Commons board.  This is good.

The computer I’m on is having issues, so consider this a rough roundup:

• OSNews: A Be, Inc. engineer comments on YellowTAB‘s Zeta.
• Patrick bought a bunch of books at the Border’s in Falls Church.
• MacRumors reports that Apple might broadcast the WWDC keynote in their stores.  I might have to schedule some time off for that one.
• Dan Gillmor reports in from Helsinki.
• Clemens has released his crazy stuff SDK.
• Kottke is now posting his remaindered links.  This reminds me of the #mobitopia IRC links.  I’m contemplating setting up a linkbot that allows me to log links via Jabber, SOAP, XML-RPC or the like.  In my copious spare time, of course.
• PocketPC Minds on software development for PDAs.

Here’s a rumor that was passed on to me by my friend Tony Brown, from Imaging Resource:

Is Nikon developing a larger lens mount to accommodate full-frame CCDs? One of Germany’s biggest photo magazines seems to think so.

This has the potential to be both bad and good for consumers.  If true, it would mean that lower cost full-CCD cameras might be in the works.  It would be bad because you wouldn’t be able to use the same lens on both platforms.

Time will tell if this is just a random rumor or if there is truth behind it.

Since I don’t have a grasp of MathML, you’ll have to pretend that you’re reading this from a Calculus textbook:

As horsepower approaches infinity, life expectancy approaches the present.

This theorem is brought to you by the Mitubishi Lancer Evolution.

Don’t get me started on JSR-223.  I had a nice big fat rant ready last night about it when I lost power.  Lambda the Ultimate picked it up today.

My summary: Sun ignored an excellent existing scripting framework for Java (Jython) and opted to reinvent the wheel with Zend using PHP.  And they’re going to ensure that this new scripting framework will be web-only.  Erik Hatcher doesn’t seem too happy about that.  I’m not too happy about the whole thing.

Embracing scripting is part of their strategy to infiltrate the “Corporate” market and to raise their developer base from 3 million to 10 million.

MacCentral:

Microsoft on Friday officially dropped development of Internet Explorer for Macintosh. The company’s Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) will release an update for the OS X version of the browser on Monday that will have security and performance enhancements, but no new features. Microsoft said it would continue to support Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac for the foreseeable future, but development of the browser has been discontinued. Any future updates to the browser will only contain maintenance or security fixes, no new features.

Russ is offline because of Network Solutions.  DNS issues will be resolved soon, but until then you can find him here.

Robert Stephenson at weblogs.java.net:

In a session Thursday afternoon, Michael Kölling and John Rosenberg demonstrated BlueJ, a Java IDE they had developed over the last seven years for teaching O-O programming.

BlueJ’s guiding philosophy is to make it possible to teach object-oriented concepts first, before students even begin to write code. It does so by representing the objects in a UML-like graphical format, and showing their instances as boxes on a tray at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on an instance brings up a list of its methods, which may be executed directly. The result is so stunning that, once you see it demonstrated, you wonder how we could ever have taught programming any other way.

A friend of mine took a Java programming class at a mostly liberal arts school a few semesters ago.  I can assure you that his experience with BlueJ was less than positive.  I tried to help him out a few times, but unfortunately I don’t think his teacher had a grasp on object oriented programming or Java.  His teacher took the ‘follow this list of instructions’ way of teaching, which requires you to do work without actually learning what is going on.  Those instructions unfortunately made no sense.

I don’t want to harshly judge BlueJ, I’m sure that it is quite a good program.  The problem in my friend’s case is a teacher without a clue.  I’m sure that when coupled with a good teacher, this program can make learning Java and OOP easy.  BlueJ lowers the barriers for learning Java but it also has the ability to create ignorant and confused developers.  This is not good.

After spending most of yesterday offline (against my will mind you), here’s a quick roundup of notable links:

• Emmanuel points to a review of open source GIS systems.
• WebServices.Org points to and discusses the WSDL 1.2 working drafts.
• Pocket PC Thoughts and Gizmodo note that Sony is investing in OLED technology.
• Erik has some excellent coverage of JavaOne and more, making some of this roundup redundant.  His pulse was also published.
• Dave Johnson is thinking about migrating Roller CVS, downloads, and mailing lists from Sourceforge to java.net.  He also has an aggregation of Rave comments.  I personally think that Rave has potential.  We’ll see.
• Linux kernel version 2.5.70 is out.  Here’s the changelog.
• MagpieRSS , a PHP RSS parser, 0.5.1 is out.  It’s a bugfix release.
• Doug Kaye: OO May Not Be the Best for Web Services and Web Services Boon for Customers, Not Investors.
• Slashdot is even harder to read nowadays.  Lately there have been many more good stories in sections that don’t make it to the main page.  Good news that won’t make the front page is currently playing in the following sections: Games, Developers, Apple and Science.

I’ve had intermittent connectivity today.  I think my cablemodem wanted attention.

DPReview:

Thanks to forums contributor ‘Andreas P’ for spotting this, a Taiwanese technology website is currently running an article about the difference between CCD and CMOS sensors. On this page they have a copy of a Sony sensor road map, on it is the ICX 456 sensor, it’s 2/3″ in size (8.8 x 6.6 mm) and has eight megapixels (a pixel pitch of 2.7 µm). The box on the roadmap is marked ‘1H03’ (first half ’03) which would make it available for manufacturers looking to release some prosumer cameras before Christmas this year (a new Sony DSC-F717 or Canon Pro 90 perhaps?).

Phil: I can’t see this being a good thing, we’re already seeing higher noise levels from the five megapixel 1/1.8″ sensors. I’d rather see manufacturers putting more development into lenses, dynamic range, automatic white balance and improved image processing, there are some things you can’t cover up with more megapixels.

Jeremy Zawodny:

Don’t argue with a self-proclaimed database expert about MySQL. It’s just not worth it. I thought it’d be entertaining but it’s more draining than anything else.

With some quick coding and JSTL, Russ has put together an RSS feed for the links in #mobitopia.  He also tweaked the IRC links page to include comments.

TheServerSide notes that JPublish 2.0 has been released.

Update: Yes, I’m a little slow.  🙂

ExtremeTech:

IBM and Infineon Technologies AG said Tuesday that they have reached a key milestone on the way to commercializing magnetic RAM as early as 2005.

At the VLSI Symposia taking plane in Japan this week, IBM and Infirnon said they will announce that the two companies have jointly fabricated a 128-Kbit Magnetic RAM (MRAM) core on a 0.18-micron process, the most aggressive use of lithography to date to fabricate an MRAM.