Matt Croydon::Postneo

Month: June 2004

  • Service Oriented Architectures

    WebServices.Org:

    At this weeks Java One conference, Sun introduced its latest release of the Java platform, Java 2 Standard Edition 5.0, and Project Kitty Hawk, “a new initiative encompassing expanded SOA-enabling capabilities in Sun products..as well as a new SOA Readiness Assessment offering”.

    Is it just me or have we substituted one buzzword (web services) for another (service oriented architectures)? Has anything really changed, or are we just using a new word because web services are so last year? I know that I’m oversimplifying things. I wish that the industry would simplify things a bit rather than throw WS- specs around. Yes, I know that without security and a lot of the other stuff that the WS- specs address we can’t seem to function. I’m just worried that in trying to make life easier for developers, we have made life harder for them.

  • Frozen Bubble for Series 60

    NewLC links to a port of Frozen Bubble to Series 60. Frozen Bubble for Series 60 is released under the GPL. I’m currently installing it on my 3650. Frozen bubble is released for newer S60 phones as well as ancient S60 phones like my 3650. It’s addictive, go grab it.

    Mini review: At a 463k SIS, it’s a pretty big app. I put it on my MMC so I’m not too worried. It could use some polish, it’s not that fast or responsive, but I’m impressed at the same time. Hardcore Puzzle Bobble addicts like Ewan will probably be dissapointed, but casual players should be at least satisfied.

  • Links for Tuesday

    • PMWiki 1.0.2, a major bugfix release is out. PMWiki rocks.
    • I’m running Panther on PearPC 0.2.0, but if you’re adventerous, you can run PearPC nightly builds. If you run out of disk space on your 3 gig image like I have, check out these directions [pdf] on how to create a larger drive and copy data to it. Once I’m done with the move to a 6 gig image I can actually install Xcode.
    • Ewan at All About Symbian reviews the Sendo X.
    • CNet: Nokia expands developer tools for CDMA.
    • J2SE 5.0 doesn’t really roll off the tongue. Neither does J5SE. Oh well, there are a ton of great things in there regardless of what you call it.
    • Blojsom is to be included in the next OSX Server release.
    • If you need guidance, check out the Java Studio Creator Field Guide.
    • Engadget covers Engadget covers Flash Lite.
    • Jabber Architecture handles the topic of instant messaging in the corporate environment of a company whose business is instant messaging. “If the phone rings, everyone on the developer side of the house jumps, since it’s certainly someone from outside, and probably not a spouse, since they all have Jabber accounts as well.”
    • Matt Raible isn’t happy with Java Studio Creator on the Mac.
    • eWeek has positive press for BlueGlue.
    • NewLC brings news of a new book from Symbian: Programming Java 2 Micro Edition on Symbian OS. It covers developing MIDP 2.0 apps on Symbian OS.
    • Apple hosed Konfabulator pretty badly.
    • Via danbri, MobiQuitous (The First Annual International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Networking and Services) looks like it has a ton of potential. It is being held in Boston Aug 22-26. I can’t quite pull the cash to go, but the list of accepted papers makes my brain salivate. UMBC will have quite a presence at the conference. Harry Chen, an RDF geek working on his PHD keeps a weblog as his home page along with a juicy atom feed.

  • Happy 30th Birthday, UPC

    The Baltimore Sun wishes the Universal Product Code a happy 30th birthday.

  • Panther on My Laptop

    Today I installed Panther on my laptop using PearPC 0.2.0. I’ve got quite an army of aging Mac hardware, but nothing that I can coax OSX on to. Over the years I’ve installed the OSX Beta and several versions of OSX on G3/G4 hardware, but never my own. I’ve always been in love with it, but only today have I actually been able to poke around and fall for it completely.

    Panther is a wonderful thing. OSX is a wonderful thing. The fact that I can run both of those on my Athlon XP 2500+ laptop using an open source emulation program is absolutely wonderful. Some parts are faster than others, and it’s nowhere near usable for everyday tasks, but I’m running OSX on my AMD laptop. There is some Zen OS-fu to that.

    I’ve been ambiently looking for some older but usable G3/G4 capable hardware so that I can run OSX on a dedicated native machine. My new love affair means that I really have to find some hardware so that OSX can become part of my daily life.

    To the PearPC dev heads: you are amazing. I am thorougly impessed and in awe at the ablility to run a modern OS in emulation at a slow yet tolerable speed. It’s only going to get better from here. Networking didn’t work under Windows in the previous release, but I can assure you that I’ve been giving Safari a workout under 0.2.0.

    Rock. On.

  • JavaOne, WWDC, and a Barrel Full of Links

  • INSERT CD

    Via DistroWatch, INSERT stands for Inside Security Rescue Toolkit. It is based on Knoppix and looks like a solid distro for recovery, security audits, antivirus checking, and more. It’s based on Knoppix 3.4 and uses the 2.6 kernel. It looks like it can handle just about any filesystem that you would normally need, including NTFS.

    It is a lightweight (about 50 megs) distro, but packs a bunch of programs in. I have not had a chance to give this distro a try, but I’m definitely going to download it and check it out.

  • TiVo Prices Tumble

    A few days ago I noticed some 40 hour TiVo units at Best Buy for $119 after rebates.  Yesterday I saw the same unit for $129 at Circuit City.  Both prices are extremely impressive and seem to be mirroring DVD prices.  A few years ago it was unheard of to pick up a halfway decent DVD player for less than two hundred bucks or so.  Today you can buy one at Wal-Mart for $40.

    Right now PVRs seem to be nearing just above that $100 or so range that VCRs spent so many years in and where a good solid (non-barebones) DVD player can still cost today.  Here’s the kicker: Tech Bargains has a link to a refurbed 40 hour TiVo direct from the source for $80 after rebates.  I’m sure that it won’t last long, but it’s a hell of a deal.

    I wonder how long it will take GPX to put out a 15 hour PVR in a little translucent plastic box for $50 at my local big box store…

  • Python Development with Eclipse and Ant

    The Daily Python-URL is chock full of Python linkage today.  The one that has the biggest wow factor to me is a link to Python development with Eclipse and Ant at IBM developerWorks.  The article, which I managed to miss when it came out on June 15, details how to set up Eclipse as a Python development environment.  The story glues together PyDev, a Python Eclipse plugin, Python Ant tasks, and even manages to make mention of Mark’s feed parser.

    The eclipse solution sounds like it would be much more elegant and coherent than my current uses of Pythonwin and IDLE on Windows and the text editor of the moment, the command line, and the interactive interpreter on Linux (usually over SSH).

  • Celebrate Downtime with Links

    Sorry for the downtime.  Connectivity to one of my boxes has been spotty for a day or two.

  • Dot IQ

    The World had another interesting story about Iraq IT today during their Iraq domain report:

    As the handover of power approaches, Iraqis are seeking their own domain name. The World’s Clark Boyd reports.

    Hopefully ICANN will give control of .iq to the Iraqi people in a timely manner.

  • Save December 7 for Wonderfalls

    SaveWonderfalls brings good news this morning:

    At the Knitting Factory screening in LA on Friday, show creators Bryan Fuller and Todd Holland announced a tentative DVD release date — December 7 of this year.

    Excellent, I’ll be there!

  • An Ode to Total Annihilation

    I caught a great story on Kuro5hin this morning about Total Anihilation.  The game was way ahead of its time and over the years I have lost countless time to it.  A year or two ago Roger and I dusted TA off for a quick game.  Many hours later I decided that I was getting too old to stay up all night and I headed home to bed.

    The evening reminded me of the days when TA first came out.  We would all discuss strategy at work during the day and try to kick each others butts at night.  Sometimes a Krogoth would be sent in to cause damage, other times it would be so many airborne units that the computer slowed to a crawl.  There was always something different to try.

    Whenever someone mentions TA, a little geeky tear forms in the corner of my eye.  Thank you for all the years of entertainment.

  • Feed Parser 3.0

    The Universal Feed Parser turned 3.0 yesterday.  It has a new home, online docs, and oodles of tests.  It also makes julian fries.  Seriously though, Mark’s feed parser can snag data from pretty much any feed you throw at it, no matter how whacked out it may be.

  • Linux and Open Source in Iraq

    Todays edition of The World featured a story about Linux and open source software in Iraq:

    In Iraq, a group of computer users has started writing open source computer code. They’re Linux enthusiasts. The idea is to make low-cost, home-grown software and is said to hold great promise for developing countries. It could leapfrog Iraq into a more competitive future. The World technology reporter Clark Boyd reports.

    It is amazing that people will work on open source software in a country where the power may go out at any time and you have to worry about suicide bombers and IEDs while outside. My hats are off to these Iraqi coders that are trying to bring the penguin to the desert.

  • The Nokia 6600 Stars in the Movie Cellular

    The Nokia 6600 gets top billing in Cellular, a movie also starring Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, Jason Statham, and William H. Macy.  It opens in theaters September 17.  The plot seems a little thin, but there are lots of excuses for gratuitous car chases, gun battles, low battery warnings, and typical uses of mobiles with cameras.

    The best line in the trailer is by far: “This is the single greatest phone ever made.  Hold on a second, I’m emailing this video to myself.”

    Does it feel a bit like the mobile phone equivalent of a BMW Film?  The movie does look like a lot of fun and should be pretty entertaining.

    I don’t know if they’ll honor my request, but I’ve asked that the Nokia 6600 be added to the credits:

  • Top500 Supercomputer List Updated

    There has been quite a bit of shuffling around in the latest edition of the Top 500 supercomputers in the world.  The full list has been published along with a press release covering the changes to the top 10.  For a play by play report, check the highlights.  Of note are the presence of two new IBM clusters in the top 10.

    The Earth Simulator is still number one, though both IBM and HP have quite an impressive showing near the top.  California Digital has put together an impressive cluster at #2.  Missing from the list is the G5 cluster at Virginia Tech, which was offline during this survey for a hardware upgrade.  Hopefully it’ll pop back on the charts next time.

  • Eclipse on OSX: Quite Stunning

    Eclipse and Mac OS X: A Natural Combination is a page at Apple Developer Connection geared toward Mac developers that might not be aware of Eclipse.  It sure does look pretty under OS X, although not everything looks like a native widget.  The getting started directions at the bottom of the page should get first time Mac Java developers up and running quickly.

    Between XCode and Eclipse, Mac developers have some very sophisticated development tools available to them free of charge.

  • SUSE 9.1 Personal For Free

    Distrowatch reports that SUSE has released a full working version of SUSE 9.1 rather than the usual ftp install free version.  You can grab it from your local mirror.  The timing is perfect for people running older SUSE versiongs, as SUSE is discontinuing security updates for SUSE 8.0.

    This is a great move, SUSE.

  • TiVo Home Media Option Much Cheaper

    Rick Klau:

    Well guess what? TiVo announced today that Home Media Option is now bundled with the service, at no additional cost. For either $12.95/month or $299 lifetime, you get all of the normal TiVo functionality, along with the ability to stream MP3s over your home network (stored on your computer, played through your stereo), display digital photos on your TV (my kids’ favorite thing to do), schedule recordings over the web, and watch recordings in different rooms (with multiple TiVos in the house).

    Whoa!  Combine this with plummeting costs in hardware, and TiVo starts to look quite tempting to people who might otherwise not consider it.