LiteStep

Here's something you might be interested in exploring. It replaces Explorer as the Windows shell and gives you a very linux-like feel to the desktop, including multiple virtual desktops. I read stuff about it for an hour or two looking for "Oh my god, I installed this and it thoroughly trashed my system!" messages and found none. Having done my due diligence 8-) I installed it this morning and it's working like a champ.

WebSphere Studio Version 5.1.2 JavaServer Faces Redbook

The draft is available now.

Fiber to the Premises

After walking down the street, looking at all the little yellow flags and flourescent orange spray paint that showed up some time today I see a reference to this press release on slashdot and The Reg.

Sprayed in red on the sidewalk at the corner "OK SBC" and "OK COMCAST".

The press release states that SBC is looking at 15-25mb/s down and 1-3mb/s up. Now I wonder just how much of this is related to the changes in third party access to the ex-AT&T local networks that went into place recently.

Struts And WSAD

• Writing a Simple Struts Application using WebSphere Studio V5
• Using the Struts Framework with WebSphere Studio V5
  Part 1- Using Struts with Tiles
• Using the Struts Framework with WebSphere Studio V5
  Part 2- Using the Struts Validator

Gambas - Gambas Almost Means Basic

This should be of interest to an old VB hacker. Yet another one drops off the "reasons I have to run Windows" list. http://gambas.sourceforge.net/

Another Microsoft Gaff

Lord have mercy. Microsoft is really starting to lose it when they start suing critics rather than responding directly to their charges. Lawrence Lessig is reporting that Microsoft is suing a Brazilian government official for describing their OS pricing tactics as a "drug-dealer practice." They also didn't like being accused of using Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt as a standard marketing ploy. All I've got to say to that is, "If you don't like it when people point out what you're doing then stop doing it, Bill."

Favorite Web and Email Tools

First, let's get one thing clear. Microsoft has not made the Web what it is today. They totally missed the importance of the Internet, they still don't understand it and they're deathly afraid of the fact the Web makes the user's computer operating system irrelevant. The company that made this obvious was Netscape. Netscape is gone now as a company but the technology has evolved through the open source Mozilla Foundation; the dinosaur became the bird.

There is no better web browser than the Mozilla Firefox browser. One of its biggest benefits is the elimination of unwanted pop-up windows without requiring the user to install an add-on "popup blocker" that is itself a piece of spyware. A web developer working without Firefox is basically working in the dark. Microsoft has made it where you can't uninstall Internet Explorer but you can install Firefox and make it your default browser. Do it today!

The single biggest threat to email as we know it today is Microsoft's Outlook Express email client. It is responsible for the distribution of 99% of the trojans and viruses that plague modern computing. Uninstall Outlook immediately then get Mozilla's Thunderbird and make it your default mail and news reader. It won't keep you from being an idiot and running unknown programs attached to messages you receive but it will not execute arbitrary programs on its own. A big feature I use daily is Thunderbird's Junk Mail filter. It deals with the spam that isn't caught by my mail hosts' filters by collecting it up in a Junk folder, the content of which I can forward to the mail providers so they can better tune their filters.

If you'd like the best of browsing, email and news along with a web page editor then you can still get the combined product, commonly refered to just as Mozilla. In general I prefer it that way, too, but I took the time to switch to Firefox/Thunderbird and now I kind of like the fact they can be updated separately at their own speed. One of the primary benefits to open source software is that there is no rush to market pressure so things get fixed as needed and features are not added until they are probably ready to work correctly.

The Redmond Worms Turn Again

"Microsoft changes its mind again" is pretty much a "dog bites man" item but my reader says he needs more content. A short time ago MS announced it would allow XP/SP2 to upgrade any system, pirated or not. Well it only took them about a week to reverse themselves on that one based on this report at BBC News. This is unfortunate for the Internet as a whole since infected current generation Windows systems are the major source of DDOS attacks. These are completely of MS's making due to incompetent MS developers and managers and should be repaired regardless of MS revenue considerations. I wonder how many of those "20 most pirated" keys belong to big F500 customers. Wouldn't it be a hoot if a few of them found themselves unable to install a critical patch set due to the "key leakage" of their employees?

Also in the same article was the fact that MS's UK XP manager admitted the abandonment of another practice that was probably still born at MS anyway. Real OS publishers know that you NEVER release new software along with patches designed to fix problems. Of course MS never understood this principle but for one shining moment they claimed to have put that behind them. Alas, Paul Randle said, "We are breaking our own rules that said we would not put new code into service packs." Now I'll have to admit that I can't find any example of a statement that MS ever actually made such a rule.