Monthly Archives: February 2009

Daily del.icio.us for February 23rd through February 25th

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  • The Rise and Fall of Dynamic Languages | Ruby Zone – In this interview, Ruby programmer and consultant Rick DeNatale provides his perspective on the fall and rise of dynamic languages, including Smalltalk and Ruby. Rick#039;s work through the years has given him a unique and low-level perspective of what works and why.
  • DRY CRUD DAOs with iBatis – Gregg Bolinger – I blogged before about writing DRY CRUD DAOs using JPA. I was able to improve on that thanks to many comments from other users. So thanks for the tips. On a recent project we decided to go with iBatis and I wanted to see if it was possible to use the same methods that I use for JPA based DAOs.
  • 12 CSS Tools and Tutorials for Beautiful Web Typography | Web Design Ledger – Achieving beautiful typography with CSS on the web is no easy feat, and there are many limitations to what can done with type on the web. However, there are generous people out there that have taken the time to build tools and write tutorials to help you overcome these limitations and create websites with beautiful typography.
  • Strategies – The Index Funds Win Again – NYTimes.com – THERE’S yet more evidence that it makes sense to invest in simple, plain-vanilla index funds, whose low fees often lead to better net returns than hedge funds and actively managed mutual funds with more impressive performance numbers.
  • Red Hat debuts virtualization software – Red Hat Inc. today introduced an entire line of virtualization software aimed at disrupting current market leader VMware Inc.#039;s position by giving customers an open-source option for virtualizing their data centers.
  • State of the Art – Amazon.com’s Kindle Goes From Good to Better – NYTimes.com – With those caveats, the new Kindle edges even closer to the ideal of an e-book reader. The reading experience is immersive, natural and pleasant; the book catalog, while not yet complete, is growing and delivered instantaneously; and apart from the clicky keyboard (an unnecessary appendage 99.9 percent of the time), the design feels right.
  • Citrix to offer free XenServer; Takes shot at VMware | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com – Citrix on Feb. 23 will detail plans to offer free licenses to its XenServer virtualization application and team with Microsoft to swap support. Citrix and Microsoft will also extend their 20-year partnership into the virtualization market.

    In a nutshell, Citrix will work with Microsoft to provide system management, Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V. Microsoft’s System Center will support XenServer.

  • It’s official: Citrix aims to blow up enterprise virtualization pricing | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com – Citrix officially launched a free version of its XenServer and Essentials virtualization software in a move that is designed to take aim at VMware. Separately, Citrix extended its long-running partnership with Microsoft to cover virtualization.
  • 9 Must-Try Adobe AIR Apps for Better Productivity – With this new age of “application neutrality,” I wanted to take a brief look into some Adobe AIR apps you have to at least try. Each one is focused on increasing an area of productivity.
  • Application Development Trends – Sun Expands GlassFish into Web Platform – Sun Microsystems last week announced a new bundle of open source projects assembled around the GlassFish application server to create a quot;high-performance Web platform.quot;
  • Wikis and Wall Street: A Perfect Match? – By focusing on improving productivity and supporting mission-critical apps (but not touching customer and transaction data), wikis can be used to deliver major ROI without requiring integration with legacy systems or storing customer data outside the firewall.
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Daily del.icio.us for February 19th through February 22nd

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Daily del.icio.us for February 13th through February 17th

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  • A Unix Utility You Should Know About: Netcat – good coders code, great reuse – Netcat is often referred to as a “Swiss Army knife” utility, and for a good reason. Just like the multi-function usefulness of the venerable Swiss Army pocket knife, netcat’s functionality is as helpful. Some of its features include port scanning, transferring files, port listening and it can be used a backdoor
  • 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know – The Book [97 Things] : Near-Time – The following are the 97 axioms selected for the book, 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know, which will be published by O#039;Reilly Media in early 2009. The contents are now being edited for publishing – you can see them here. All edits will be contributed back to the 97 Things web site on this page
  • IntelliJ IDEA :: New Features – This release brings you a noticeably faster IDE. We’ve reworked its engine to boost the overall performance, improved the file indexing for better processing of external changes (e.g. updates from VCS) and optimized the compiler caches to significantly reduce the compilation time
  • What Microsoft Can Learn About Retail from Apple and Best Buy | Robert Scoble’s innovator’s and geeks’ blog | Fast Company – Now that Microsoft has decided to open up its own retail stores, they need some help from all of us in building a great retail experience
  • Microsoft and Red Hat team up on patent-free interoperability | The Open Road – CNET News – Today both Red Hat and Microsoft lowered their guns long enough for customers to win. They did so without encumbering interoperability with patents, which will be critical to ensuring that Microsoft can lower its guard further to welcoming open-source solutions to the Windows fold as a full partner.
  • Microsoft Recite : Announcement – Microsoft Recite – Technology Preview – Microsoft Recite is a search technology for your voice that runs on Windows Mobile* devices. With Microsoft Recite, you can use your voice to easily store, search and retrieve the things you want to remember, where and when you need them.
  • » Computer Repair Utility Kit – Technibble – A Resource for Computer Repair Technicians to get PC tech support help. – For those of you who don’t know, the Computer Repair Utility Kit is a combination of computer repair tools in one easy to use pack. The Computer Repair Utility Kit allows you to run all of the repair tools from your portable drive (eg. USB Flash Drive, External Hard Drive, IPod etc.) and comes with an easy to use, right-click menu.
  • Fresh Espresso: Java Architecture Management – To break a dependency cycle you can should introduce an interface; this reverses the dependency. It is that simple. This lead to the observation that quot;good codequot; can be recognized using certain metrics (see also a white paper by Robert Martin. Good code should have a certain ration of abstractness (classes vs interfaces), and if more code depends on your code, you will likely need more interfaces
  • U.S. foreclosure image is 2008 World Press Photo of the Year – The international jury of the 52nd annual World Press Photo Contest have selected a black-and-white image by American photographer Anthony Suau as World Press Photo of the Year 2008 it was announced on February 13, 2009. The picture shows an armed officer of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department moving through a home in Cleveland, Ohio, following eviction as a result of mortgage foreclosure. The winning photograph, taken in March 2008, is part of a story commissioned by Time magazine
  • Saki’s Ext Examples Page – Complex Data Binding – This example shows how to implement component communication using data binding. The data is kept in records in grid store. When a cell is clicked, the underlying record is bound to both show panel and form.

    Changes made in the grid are automatically reflected in both Show Panel and Form, changes in Form are updated in both Grid and Show Panel – data is changed in one place, the record, in fact.

Formula 1 in 2009 is going to be awesome

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I cannot wait for the start of the 2009 Formula 1 season – To get ready for the season, here is a fantastic computer-animated clip featuring Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel racing on track, as they bring to life the biggest rule changes in the history of Formula One.

It will also be interesting to see how major sponsors and car manufacturers are going to continue supporting Formula 1 with no end in sight of this global financial crisis.

If YouTube doesn’t give you an option to view in HD, add a &fmt=22 after the link in the address bar of click this link.

Daily del.icio.us for February 12th through February 13th

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  • InfoQ: Language Parity: Closures and the JVM – In this presentation from the JVM Languages Summit 2008, Neal Gafter discusses closures on the JVM. Topics covered include the JVM libraries, the challenges of running other languages on the JVM, language-specific wrapper/shim libraries, ways of making the JVM more language-friendly, whether lambda expressions are too hard, the history of closures, and forking the JVM to support closures.
  • The Role of Architect vs. The Role of the Software Architect, A Reality Check from Beautiful Architecture – O’Reilly FYI Blog – We recently released Beautiful Architecture, a beautiful new book with a lovely image of a nautilus shell gracing the cover. The collection of essays from more than a dozen of today#039;s leading software designers and architects illuminates the necessary ingredients for robust, elegant, and flexible architecture. Here John Klein, Software Engineering Institute, and David Weiss, Avaya Laboratories, grapple with the multiple definitions of architect.
  • File Folder Unlocker (freeware): Unlock in use files – File amp; Folder Unlocker is a powerful yet easy-to-use system utility that gives you complete control over the locked files and folders on your computer. Like our other free utilities, File amp; Folder Unlocker is free for both commercial and non-commercial use
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3: Screenshots: Insight – Software – ZDNet Australia – RHEL 5.3 includes support for Intel#039;s latest chip architecture, Core i7, codenamed Nehalem. It also includes the Open Java Development Kit, an open-source implementation of Java SE 6 supported by Sun Microsystems. This inclusion is intended to support Red Hat#039;s Java application server, JBoss.
  • 10 Ways Microsoft’s Retail Stores Will Differ From Apple Stores – PC World – Instead of a quot;Genius Barquot; (as Apple provides) Microsoft will offer an Excuse Bar. It will be staffed by Microsofties trained in the art of evading questions, directing you to complicated and obscure fixes, and explaining it#039;s a problem with the hardware — not a software bug
  • Saturday Night Live – Pelosi/Reid Open – Video – NBC.com – SNL Quote of the Day: quot;Maybe if we spent more money on schools amp; condoms, there wouldn#039;t be so many stupid people running around ruining our economy.quot; (via Reddit.com)
  • "Google Devalues Everything It Touches" – Wall Street Journal Chief – Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google but it#039;s terrible for content providers
  • Obama’s BlackBerry brings personal safety risks | Surveillance State – CNET News – When the mainstream media first announced Barack Obama#039;s quot;victoryquot; in keeping his BlackBerry, the focus was on the security of the device, and keeping the U.S. president#039;s e-mail communications private from spies and hackers
  • Introducing Outlook Live for schools – and cool new features for everyone – With Exchange 14, you can access OWA or Outlook Live with Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer. I have to say, I#039;ve been dying to tell you about this, especially after all the comments on our last video! Openness has always been part of Exchange#039;s DNA, which you can see from how we license Exchange ActiveSync to partners and competitors alike, in the variety of mobile phones we support, from the iPhone to Nokia phones to Windows Mobile, in our support for web services, and now in the browsers we support.
  • Is the Relational Database Doomed? – ReadWriteWeb – In this post, we#039;ll look at the current trend of moving away from relational databases in certain situations and what this means for the future of the relational database.

Daily del.icio.us for February 10th through February 11th

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  • JsonML (JSON Markup Language) – JsonML (JSON Markup Language) is an application of the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) data-interchange format. The purpose of JsonML is to provide a compact format for transporting XML-based data via JSON
  • Fresh Update: IntelliJ IDEA 8.1 | JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA Blog – Fresh news, everyone! Hope you share our point of view on new features: there’s simply never enough of them. And performance: you can always get more of it. This is why we’re happy to tell you that IntelliJ IDEA 8.1 is just released. It’s been a really short time since we aired version 8, but thanks to working six days a week without lunch breaks we managed to deliver you this bunch of improvements:
  • Brett Favre tells New York Jets he is retiring – ESPN – Without the tearful public ceremony that accompanied his retirement announcement from the Green Bay Packers just 11 months ago, quarterback Brett Favre has told the New York Jets he is retiring.
  • Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive Chris Pirillo is wrong about best pocket video cameras « – The Flip is the best because it is the best designed and smallest. It is — in talking with my friends — the most likely to end up in their pocket. A camera carried is a camera that is used and a camera that is used, even if it has slightly lower quality that some other camera, is one that’s better.
  • Enterprise Java Community: Java EE 6 Overview – The details of Java EE 6 have been getting hashed out for quite a few months in the JSR 316 expert group, which I am part of. The goal of this article is to give you an overview of the changes in Java EE 6 as well as encourage your feedback
  • TeamPostgreSQL released, showcases Google Web Toolkit – Webworks S.A. just released TeamPostgreSQL, their web administration and team platform for the PostgreSQL database.

    A JEE web application with a rich AJAX client, the application serves as a showcase of what GWT can deliver in this arena, featuring a complex yet highly dynamic, customizable user interface and fast service invocations that are immediately reflected on the client.

  • FinancialStability.gov – On Tuesday, February 10th, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner outlined a comprehensive plan to restore stability to our financial system. In the address, Secretary Geithner discussed the Obama Administration’s strategy to strengthen our economy by getting credit flowing again to families and businesses, while imposing new measures and conditions to strengthen accountability, oversight and transparency in how taxpayer dollars are spent
  • 1440 Wall Street: Desperation Time for America as Geithner Lays an Egg – It would appear Timothy Geithner#039;s plan to save the world is reaching an impasse – what is going on behind closed doors in Washington?
  • InfoQ: A Message Type Architecture for SOA – One key aspect of SOA Governance that is often overlooked is how Data Governance can complement SOA Governance. Even though they both have very different objectives, they both share a set of metadata often called the “Enterprise Data Model”
  • Every Swear Word on Every Episode of the Sopranos, Ever, in Chronological Order. (video) – Boing Boing – A fun, weird little experiment by director Victor Solomon. quot;I#039;ve been chopping away at it for a year, here and there between other jobs,quot; he explains.

    I was laughing for the first 30 seconds, then kinda hypnotized, then just creeped out, and still couldn#039;t stop watching. Simple and brilliant.

  • DynamicJasper :: Making Jasper Reports dynamic – DynamicJasper (DJ) is an open source free library that hides the complexity of Jasper Reports, it helps developers to save time when designing simple/medium complexity reports generating the layout of the report elements automatically.

I love Wordle

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Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide and I love playing with it. Every couple of weeks, I’ll stumble onto Wordle again and fall in love all over again :). Here is a tag cloud of all of the tags from my del.icio.us bookmarks.

I love Wordle

I love Wordle

Go create your tag/word clouds at http://www.wordle.net/.

Daily del.icio.us for February 8th through February 9th

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Daily del.icio.us for February 4th through February 7th

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  • Fonera 2.0 Smart Router Connect Devices | Business 2.0 Press – The La Fonera 2.0 is a new smart wireless internet router that will let you connect a plethora of devices to access the internet from the router easily, anything from a printer, to hard drives, laptops, mp3 players, to other USB devices
  • The importance of Composition | Code of Doom – In this article, I really want to discuss the importance of composition. I feel as programmers, many of us find inheritance easier and we often use it without thinking about the repercussions it may bring to us.
  • Mitchell’s Blog » Blog Archive » The European Commission and Microsoft – Last month the European Commission stated its preliminary conclusion that “Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.”
  • From Java to Java EE: Seven Principles of Lean Software Development – Lean Software Development has its roots in Toyota Production System and it helps software organizations optimize their processes and production methods in order to deliver their products to the market much faster and with better quality
  • Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash – Lean Software Development presents a set of thinking tools based on
    lean thinking that leaders continue to find useful for understanding agile software development.
  • InfoQ: VMware Open Sources the View Client – VMware has open sourced its View Client software which enables connections from Linux clients to remote Windows desktops managed by VMware View. VMware would like to see their partners developing the client for non-x86 devices using operating systems other than Windows XP or Linux.
  • Better Null Handling Strategies for Java | Code Monkeyism – Uploaded a presentation on “Better Null Handling Strategies for Java” to SlideShare
  • Outside the Box() » Springing Around with ExtJS – To finally scratch that itch, and move further along the Spring amp; ExtJS path, I turned my demo project into a basic template. The zip archive that you can grab at the bottom is a fully-configured Spring web application, including Tiles, Spring Security, Spring MVC, custom JSON view, Transactions and a Datasource.
  • Announcing This Year’s IDEAL Plugins! | JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA Blog – We’re glad to announce the winners of the 3rd JetBrains IDEAL Plugin Contest!
    First of all we want to thank everyone who participated for their efforts and, of course, the plugins they have submitted. It was really exciting to examine every last submission. JetBrains staff, and especially the Contest Jury, had many pleasant and memorable moments reviewing and judging them all.
  • Announcing the Article Search API – Open Blog – NYTimes.com – The Article Search API is a way to find, discover, explore, have fun and build new things. We’ve accumulated quite a few blocks/articles over the last 28 years — all of them tagged and labeled with loving care. So if you’ve ever wanted to do any of these things: