Peer Pressure » Eclipsing Firefox

Peer Pressure » Eclipsing Firefox: "Okay, so I’m spoiled, but what I want is Eclipse (IBM’s amazing Java-based IDE), but inside Firefox. So I’m in my browser with the development sidebar open and displaying the full hierarchy of all my project files. I click on a file and it opens inside Firefox’s built-in code editor (were such a beast to exist), checking it out of my source control system if necessary. "

Games News

IGN PC for PC Games, PC Game Cheats and Computer Games: "The IGN Editors' Choice Award is a sign of excellence reserved for only the best products. The award signifies excellence in entertainment value, performance, design, originality, and lasting appeal. A product bearing this award has our unequivocal recommendation and is sure to become a classic in its field. "

Elixir Studios to close following cancellation of key project
Rob Fahey 11:59 28/04/2005
Closure blamed on lack of room for small independent developers wanting to work on innovative and original ideas

There are still original titles being produced within the industry - but sometimes they lack something in terms of execution or marketability e.g. The Great Art Race

There are plenty of RTS titles worth a look at the moment though,
Hot on the heels of Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War and LOTR The Battle for Middle Earth came World of Warcraft MMO - which everyone tells me is awesome.

An announcement on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault - the first Expansion pack to Dawn of War - not entirely unexpected!

Then there are some more games to take a look at:

Act of War: Direct Action
Act of War: Direct Action
It's rather nifty.
by Dan Adams
March 14, 2005

GamingHeadlines review

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Star Wars: Empire at War Preview
The most promising Star Wars RTS yet.
by Tom McNamara
April 21, 2005

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Empire Earth II
Also known as: Empire Earth 2
Empire Earth II
Mad Doc looks to conquer the planet with their awesome new RTS.
by Dan Adams
April 25, 2005

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Dragonshard
Also known as: Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard Wars, Dungeons and Dragons: Dragonshard Wars
Dragonshard Multiplayer Hands-On
Not just an RTS with the D&D label.
by Tom McNamara

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X3: Reunion
Also known as: X³ - REUNION, X2 III

Gaming Headlines News article

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Sparta: Ancient Wars
Also known as: Sparta - Ancient Wars

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Earth 2160
Earth 2160 Preview
The rabbit hole goes deep.
by Tom McNamara
February 28, 2005

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Interesting news - a blast from the past resurrected from the scrapheap:
Prey Confirmed
Hunting a live one: 3D Realms' shooter is back from the dead.
by David Adams
April 26, 2005

Thought this one was dead an buried!

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Battlefield 2
CES 2005: Hands-On: Battlefield 2
It's time to re-enlist in EA's mass combat FPS.
by Nix
January 10, 2005

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RPG style game:
Guild Wars
Guild Wars Preview
An up to date look at ArenaNet's eye-catching online action RPG
featuring persistent characters in a fantasy world
January 14, 2005

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Shooter:

Pre-E3 2005: Hellgate: London
The makers of Diablo invite you to experience hell on Earth.
by Dan Adams

April 26, 2005

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PC Pro: News: Google turns to RSS news feeds for placing ads

PC Pro: News: Google turns to RSS news feeds for placing ads: "News
[Internet]
Friday 29th April 2005
Google turns to RSS news feeds for placing ads 10:24AM
Google has begun testing the placing of adverts within RSS news feeds.

The ads are beginning to appear in feeds from several of Google's testing partners; the first instances were in around 60 feeds from LonghornBlogs and have since appeared in Engadget's feed."

The last realm of advertising free space has just been invaded.

MSN Tech & Gadgets

MSN Tech & Gadgets: "Lexar JumpDrive Lightning

The product: While USB flash drives are nothing new, Lexar has taken it upon itself to make a snazzy version that will be attractive to executives. The new JumpDrive Lightning (to be released in the first quarter of 2005) features a shiny stainless-steel exterior with rounded edges. The only other physical details are a keychain/lanyard loop, Lexar's logo, and the LED that sits on the drive's broad side.
"

Sennheiser RS130 Intro - Sennheiser RS130 review - Headphones/Headsets - CNET Reviews

Sennheiser RS130 Intro - Sennheiser RS130 review - Headphones/Headsets - CNET Reviews: "CNET editor's take


Reviewed by Steve Guttenberg
Edited by David Carnoy
Reviewed April 27, 2005

Editors' rating:
Good
6.7
out of 10

Wireless headphones are popular among home-theater devotees who like to indulge in uninhibited late night soirees, as well as music lovers who don't want to be tied down to their receivers or computers. Sennheiser is one of Germany's leading headphone manufacturers and a major proponent of wireless technology, so we couldn't wait to try its new-for-2005 model, the RS130 ($170 list)."

infoSync World : The 7", 100 GB AV700 media viewer from Archos

infoSync World : The 7", 100 GB AV700 media viewer from Archos: "Leaving competitors in the dust, Archos' due-out-shortly AV700 portable media viewer offers a whopping 7' display coupled with up to 100 GB of storage."

infoSync World : Preview: Nokia N91

infoSync World : Preview: Nokia N91: "A 4 GB hard drive, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and 3G: live from Amsterdam, Jørgen Sundgot sneaks a peek of Nokia's N91"

OK that's a feature set I could live with - plus 2Megapixel camera.

RedHanded » Sparklines for Minimalists

RedHanded » Sparklines for Minimalists: "Sparklines for Minimalists #
by why in inspect

If you’ve read Joe Gregorio’s Sparklines in data: URIs in Python, then you know that he’s presented us with an incredibly compelling use for data: URIs. Namely, this is not an external file: But we don’t have Python’s image library, so what are we to do?

What if I offered you a handful of code that could generate inline sparkgraphs without library code? Presenting Bumpspark."

Ask E.T.: NEW... Sparklines---new revised draft from Beautiful Evidence

Ask E.T.: NEW... Sparklines---new revised draft from Beautiful Evidence: "

Topic

NEW... Sparklines---new revised draft from Beautiful Evidence
.

-- Edward Tufte, May 27, 2004

Here is a much-revised and extended draft of the sparkline chapter for Beautiful Evidence (2005).

The chapter is now 18 pages long and probably will require a high speed connection. Images that are blurry on the computer screen are crystal clear on paper. Stephen Malinowski, Brad Paley, and Bonnie Scranton helped with several important graphics. New examples or helpful comments much appreciated"

Sam Ruby: Sparklines for Minimalists

Sam Ruby: Sparklines for Minimalists: "Thu, 28 Apr 2005
Sparklines for Minimalists

Joe Gregorio I am deeply impressed with the work being done on RedHanded, which is not only sparklines in Ruby, but they’re generating BMPs and PNGs from scratch. Wow.

Wow is an understatement. I’m humbled."

Sparklines in data: URIs in Python | 2005-04-25 | BitWorking

Sparklines in data: URIs in Python | 2005-04-25 | BitWorking: "Sparklines in data: URIs in Python

Sparklines, as defined by Tufte, are intense, simple, word-sized graphics. Kind of like this: . I seemed to stumble across them at just the right time, as I have regression tests I am adding to on a daily basis. The result is a flood of information. I believe sparklines may be the answer to my information avalanche."

ONJava.com: Generic Types, Part 1

ONJava.com: Generic Types, Part 1: "Generic Types, Part 1
by David Flanagan

Editor's note: Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition covers the extensive changes and new features in 5.0, chief among them generic types. In part one, author David Flanagan walks through how to use generic types, and in part two next week, he covers how to write your own generic types and generic methods."

Google Blog

Google Blog: "Wednesday, April 20, 2005

From lost to found
How many times have you used Google to find an obscure funny website or fun facts about 'The Wizard of Oz,' but then got distracted by other web pages and tasks? I know - me too. Wouldn't it be great to find them again, and for that matter review all your Google searches over time? Which is exactly why we built My Search History. "


Google imitates A9

Beyond Tables: Dealing with the Convergence of Relational and XML Data

Beyond Tables: Dealing with the Convergence of Relational and XML Data: "Beyond Tables: Dealing with the Convergence of Relational and XML Data
Developers are under increasing pressure to work with heterogeneous information. The advent of XML provided a data representation suitable for both regular (database tables) and irregular content, and was a significant step forward, but representation alone is not enough. We need a powerful standardized method for querying that data as well. XQuery fulfills that need.

by Jonathan Bruce April 27, 2005"

SOA: Refactoring Mainframe Applications into Dynamic Web Applications, Part 2

SOA: Refactoring Mainframe Applications into Dynamic Web Applications, Part 2: "SOA: Refactoring Mainframe Applications into Dynamic Web Applications, Part 2
By refactoring your mainframe applications into Web services, you separate presentation from logic, and gain the ability to reuse mainframe data in Web applications. The second part of this two-part article completes the refactoring by showing you how to build a browser front-end that uses the XMLHttpRequest object to query the mainframe services exposed through the new Web interface described in Part 1.

by Jeff Hanson April 11, 2005"

Nvu - The Complete Web Authoring System for Linux, Macintosh

Nvu - The Complete Web Authoring System for Linux, Macintosh: "Finally! A complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver.

Nvu (pronounced N-view, for a 'new view') makes managing a web site a snap. Now anyone can create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML."

New Announcement Apr 14, 2005:

The fourth pre-release version of Nvu 1.0 Preview Release is now available for download. To download the installation files for available platforms visit the download section.

NewsForge | Firefox news readers run the gamut

NewsForge | Firefox news readers run the gamut: "Mozilla
Firefox news readers run the gamut
Tuesday April 26, 2005 (07:00 PM GMT)
By: Kevin Quiggle

Mozilla's Firefox browser includes a built-in capability (Live Bookmarks) for working with news feeds. However, there are numerous news reading extensions available that provide a full range of additional capabilities, from 'just the basics' to options for managing and using collections of news feeds."


Tech-guide admin: Personally - I'm a big fan of Sage.

Stefano's Linotype ~ On the new HTML tag

Stefano's Linotype ~ On the new HTML tag: "On the new HTML tag
April 28, 2005 ~ 12:14

Mozilla turned on the new HTML tag, so I expect Firefox 1.1 to have it.

is a was first introduced by Apple in Safari for their implementation of the upcoming 'DashBoard' in MacOX 10.4 (aka Tiger) and now it's part of new, non-W3C effort to improve HTML for richer client-side web applications. It introduces the notion of an 'image you can paint on' programmatically. People have been doing this with applets, then shockwave, then flash, then svg, now this. The trend is clear: smaller, leaner, faster to startup, more integrated in your environment (means real event interoperation with the page!), easier for DHTML designers to understand.

This leads me to think that is going to be huge. By the time the new Adobe+Macromedia colossus decide the faith of flash+SVG, this little HTML tag will slowly make both suboptimal for many simple tasks they are used for today."

index

index: "
Getting Started with HttpUnit and JDeveloper 10g

Written by Olivier Le Diouris, Oracle Corporation
February 2004.

Popularized by the eXtreme Programming, JUnit allows you write the unit tests for your Java code.
From Java as well, but to test application running over the internet, HttpUnit intends to achieve the same kind of goals."

JDevelopr making coffee

JDevelopr making coffee: "

Teaching Oracle JDeveloper to Make Coffee
Getting started with JDeveloper extension development

Shay Shmeltzer
May 2004

Ask any serious Java developer what are the tools in his arsenal and coffee will sure be one of them. Coffee is what keeps the developer's eyes open after hours of staring at his code trying to figure out why it doesn't work. I was surprised to discover that JDeveloper - although being a comprehensive Java IDE - is missing support for making coffee cups straight out of the IDE. I figured out that this could be a helpful feature that will attract many new developers to use JDeveloper. So I decided to go ahead and add coffee making capabilities to JDeveloper."

No Magic releases MagicDraw UML 9.5

No Magic releases MagicDraw UML 9.5: "No Magic releases MagicDraw UML 9.5

Posted by: webmaster on Tuesday Apr 26, 2005 Viewed: 58 times

No Magic has announced the release of MagicDraw UML Version 9.5, the award-winning UML modeling and CASE tool that includes Eclipse integration enhancements and improvements."

Oracle10g SQL Time-series Tuning

Oracle10g SQL Time-series Tuning: "Oracle10g SQL Time-series Tuning

by Donald K. Burleson

This article is a brief overview of SQL tuning in Oracle10g, with a focus on the new 10g SQL tuning features. The main new features of SQL tuning in Oracle10g include the following:

* Oracle10g now automatically collects and refreshes schema statistics using the dbms_stats package, and histogram collection is now easily automated with dbms_stats
* One common cause of sub-optimal SQL is missing materialized view and indexes, especially function-based indexes. The SQLTuning Advisor and SQLAccess Advisor provide an easy method for identifying and tuning SQL with sub-optimal execution plans.
* SQL Profiles are a great improvement of Optimizer Plan Stability (stored outlines).
* The new dba_hist tables contain a wealth of historical information about historical SQL execution statistics.
* Time-series analysis of object usage within SQL can give us important insights into holistic tuning for SQL statements."

Using JConsole to Monitor Applications

Using JConsole to Monitor Applications: "Article
Using JConsole to Monitor Applications

By Mandy Chung, December 2004

The Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0 release provides comprehensive monitoring and management support. It not only defines the management interfaces for the Java virtual machine, but also provides out-of-the-box remote monitoring and management on the Java platform and of applications that run on it. In addition, JDK 5.0 includes the Java Monitoring and Management Console (JConsole) tool. It uses the extensive instrumentation of the Java virtual machine to provide information on performance and resource consumption of applications running on the Java platform using Java Management Extension (JMX) technology.

The article describes how JConsole can be used to observe information about an application running on the Java platform. The article first gives an overview of the J2SE 5.0 monitoring and management architecture and how JConsole plugs into the architecture. It then describes how to use JConsole to access several core monitoring and management functionalities provided by the Java platform including:

* Detect low memory
* Enable or disable GC and class loading verbose tracing
* Detect deadlocks
* Control the log level of any loggers in an application
* Access OS resources—Sun's platform extension
* Manage an application's Managed Beans (MBeans)"