I’m not sure if this is real or a joke, but a guy got a copy of a priated version of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in Chinese, which was subtitled back into English. The translations are so bad, it only confirms what we already knew: movie pirates don’t know English very well. It’s like something you’d see from the writers at mXc.
(F-bomb warning…)
http://winterson.com/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html
So a recent email thread on the OCJUG mailing list about the book “Beyond Java” and it’s accompanying review about how Java is falling out of favor due to complexity and the ascendence of other languages like Python, Ruby, etc. While I like Java and it was a great leap forward for enterprise development, the enterprise ambitions of those steering the language have forgotten about other developers that want to solve simple problems with simple tools.
So here’s a recent real-life example of some of my frustrations with just trying to get something simple done in Java: base64 encoding across multiple languages
.NET ==> Convert.ToBase64String(byte[])
PHP ==> base64_encode()
Ruby ==> Base64.encode64()
Java ==> Not in core libraries
Google “Java base64″
Go through results
Find some SourceForge thingy
Is it GPL? Can I put GPL code in this? If no, find some other sample code
Cut/paste Base64 class into project
Change class packaging
There’s probably some Apache Commons support for Base64 (HttpConnection?) but I didn’t see it in the Google results and it seems like every time I want to attach some Apache JAR to a project it comes with 3-6 other JARs I have to have and they all have to be the right version.
Sigh…
Need an previous version of some software? Check here.
It appears the alert portion of MSN uses Struts. The URL signup for RSS alerts is
http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts/login.do?{etc etc etc}
And the webserver? Netcraft reports it’s Apache 1.3.3 on Windows 2000…freaky.
There’s been a lot of speculation and rumor about what Google Base and what it is. Most of the press reports have supposing that Google is setting up a competitor to Craigslist or eBay, creating an online classifieds list of sorts where you can post your stuff you want to sell into some sort of open marketplace. I think the speculation is off the mark though.
Last week I heard from someone familiar with the innards of Google that Google Base, while it could be used as some sort of classified ads, is really something more generic. Focus on the word “Base” as in “database”. In my opinion, the real competitor of Google Base is Intuit’s Quickbase service.
So, what Google Base really (probably) will become is a way to create and share online databases. Such data could be a local soccer team’s contact list, or a collection of recipes of like-minded food afficionados, etc. Of course, one would hope there are some account and security restrictions so you could define who can see or modify your data, allowing you to create affinity groups around your “base”.
Here’s a stretch: Maybe Google Base could be like blogging for data. Imagine RSS feeds for databases, essentially you could provide database replication/synchronization via RSS assuming your DBMS impements RSS synching, but I digress and I haven’t heard anything of the sort coming out of Google.
Even larger, perhaps, is that Google Base could become something like Yahoo Groups (I use it for OCPatterns), without all of the annoying Yahoo full-page ads. Yahoo Groups has a database section for sharing databases with your group members, but the features aren’t as powerfule as Quickbase. Also, Yahoo Groups, which they acquired by buying eGroups, is pretty darn good in terms of running a group and mail distribution list, but I’ve always been bugged by the amount of banner advertising they have there.
I’ve often thought of building a bigger/better form of Yahoo Groups, but either Yahoo would improve it or Google/Microsoft would some day build one. The fact that Google Base right now, in it’s pre-launch state, requires a GMail account login connotes some form of security or membership requirements to use Google Base. We shall some day see…
My UCI student bro-in-law was trolling through the UCI bookstore the other day and called to tell me that they were having a 25% off sale on all Macs! Having wanted to play with a Mac Mini for some time he picked one up for me for $359 (normally $499 or $479 with the student discount).
Physically, it’s very simple and elegant. Technically, it’s a laptop without an LCD nor a keyboard. It’s very quiet (more quiet than most laptops) and the is powered via an AC adapter/brick you usually see with laptops. At 1.25 GHz it’s not a screamer but it’s sufficient for my non-video file crunching, lightweight development and productivity needs. And I’ve already created a shopping list of peripherals I want to attach to it.
I was able to get Java and Eclipse up and running rather quickly. Got some of my favorite PHP/MySQL apps up and running on Apache as well. Having a UNIX core provides some level of comfort and familiarity.
I just noticed on MSDN Subscriber Downloads that the final release DVD ISOs of VS.NET 2005 and SQL Server 2005 are available for download for MSDN subscribers. Enjoy!
Following up on the mash-up theme, PlaceOpedia allows users to link a Wikipedia article with a Lat/Long on Google maps. Check it out. I did Trabuco Canyon, CA.
I’ve been doing a lot of PHP work lately and found this PHP plug-in for Visual Studio .NET to be very nice. Provides debugging, collapsable code sections, color-coding, intellisense w/auto-complete and comes with an embedded web server (no need to create IIS virtual paths!). $99 after 30-day free trial. I also tried to work with PhpEd but after not getting the debugger to work properly I abandonded it until I found VS.PHP.
Nov 7th update – I went ahead and purchased the full version.
One more thing I forgot to add to my list of favorite tools is Copernic Desktop Search. I have compared it to Windows Desktop Search and Google Desktop Search and I still think Copernic is the best. Though, to be fair, I haven’t tried out Google’s v2 of their desktop search, but that’s still in beta (like most of what Google does) so I’ll have to go back and try that one when it’s released.
Copernic has the best user interface, allowing me to easily search emails, contacts, files, bookmarks, music, browser history, video, and the web. I use Outlook a lot but never use the Outlook search anymore because it’s barely useful when trying to search someone by company or area code or any other field than a contact’s name. The indexing is non-intrusive, search results appear rapidly and I can specify powerful searches for different content types.
One nod to Windows Desktop Search though is that when you download the search tool it comes part of the MSN toolbar, which adds some nice new features to Internet Explorer like tabbed browing (finally) and pop-up blocking and form-fill, all features which made Firefox a popular choice to switch to way back in, oh, say…2002!
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