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I recently upgraded RubyForge to Apache 2.2 and it's been such an improvement. mod_cache is great, the worker MPM is solid, and now I can run ViewVC under mod_python. And there's mod_proxy and mox_proxy balancer for making Rails apps work nicely with Mongrel. If you're still back on 1.3, I highly recommend 2.2.

I think we'll stick with PostgreSQL for our little database.

Terra Nova did this, what, 4 days ago? Nice to know slashdot is on the cutting edge of news.
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/11/ever y_time_you_.html

> For those of us who can't afford to run a commercial database package,
> and have been running open source databases from the beginning,
> this isn't news. MySQL and Postgres are your friends.

Right on. Those of us with over 16 million records in a PostgreSQL database are pretty happy with what we're seeing. And we're willing to run the same database on production servers as well.

It's in the upper left corner (the about section) of his blog at http://wesnerm.blogs.com/.

And I in no way mean for this to sound racist in the slightest, but why is it that the only people I've ever known who get involved in 'entrepreneurship' are black? (I'm referring to at least half a dozen separate instances). Everyone else I know either 'freelances' or 'goes into business for themselves'.

Your information about MS half-baked implementation of links only applies to Windows XP. Vista introduced true UNIX-style symbolic links in addition to the junctions introduced in earlier versions of NTFS. The new links were incorporated from Windows Services for UNIX. See my posts on Vista Symbolic Links from a month ago. http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2006/10/ symbolic_links_.html http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2006/10/ symbolic_links__1.html

Your information about MS half-baked implementation of links only applies to Windows XP. Vista introduced true UNIX-style symbolic links in addition to the junctions introduced in earlier versions of NTFS. The new links were incorporated from Windows Services for UNIX. See my posts on Vista Symbolic Links from a month ago. http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2006/10/ symbolic_links_.html http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2006/10/ symbolic_links__1.html

The beauty of podcasts is that I can listen to them in my car - videocasts demand my full attention. It's great to be able to keep up with the latest Java news while sitting in traffic; makes that time feel less wasted. This interview wasn't too bad neither.

Actually, it has been anounced that Apollo will be based on WebKit, the framework that is behind Apple's Safari. They will be using the open source version rather than Apple's internal version, but the differences are minor.

...on rubyforge.org. Fortunately Apache 2.2 has things well in hand.

...check out the Dojo project's JavaCC ECMAScript grammar.

It looks like they rolled their own parser for Tamarin - AbcParse.cpp looks hand coded to me. Maybe that was more efficient than yacc?

I had no idea perl6 was doing STM.
http://pugs.blogs.com/pugs/2006/06/software_transa .html
http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl6.internal s/browse_frm/thread/8431e8ffbf74d77a/319b36760b1d5 a74#319b36760b1d5a74

STM will kick your concurrencies ass.

Most people in the U.S. can't use Fon's service anyway. Between this and handing out stock options to blogging pundits in return for a kind word, they seem to be a pretty shady company.

Sure, I guess that's one way to view things.

Or, for those of us who prefer some sanity, there's the other description: When Clinton was in power, negotiations successfully stopped Korea's plutonium refinement process, and no weapons were produced. Bush, on the other hand, abandoned that agreement, resulting in Korea restarting their plutonium refinement program, producing several nuclear weapons, and testing one of them successfully.

So why exactly are we thanking him again?

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006 /10/do_you_feel_saf.html is a good recap of the situation around the DPRK's nuclear weapons program, going back to the first Bush administration.

i don't actually know the answer! :) i'm just shooting out ideas to jog your memory.

i can think of some things not owned by one of those three, but here's a list!

You had the same problem I had, not knowing where to go.

SL is huge, and there's no helpful "quest givers" out there to give direction and purpose to it. So you have to talk to people in world, or read about SL on the various blogs and websites or both.

Start with the New World Notes That will get you started, tons of links.

http://nwn.blogs.com/

The communicating is very important, because in SL what you know and who you know is important It also determines your subcommunity. Scripters tend to know each other, but work with builders and content creators. Fashionistas hang out together but often know builders and scripters.

And don't be afraid to explore.

... the district court rightly rejected StreamCasts overly broad conception of the misuse defense as arising in the presence of any use of copyright in violation of public policy. If a defendant in an infringement suit could escape liability merely by invoking some open-ended notion of public policy, the exclusive rights afforded copyright owners in Title 17 would just about cease to exist.

The original poster was trying to make us all believe that if IBM prevails in their misuse of copyright claim then the ruling would be the same as a ruling where the misuse of copyright claim was denied. The argument given by the original poster is completely refuted by the very case they cite for support. Is it any wonder I thought they are working for SCO?

... the district court rightly rejected StreamCast's overly broad conception of the misuse defense as arising in the presence of 'any use of copyright in violation of public policy.' If a defendant in an infringement suit could escape liability merely by invoking some open-ended notion of public policy, the exclusive rights afforded copyright owners in Title 17 would just about cease to exist.

If you read the Grokster decision, you'll find a comprehensive discussion of copyright misuse, but as the PrawfsBlawg points out, for those who wish the short version, the penalty is not getting to enforce for as long as the misuse continues: "The effect isn't to invalidate the copyright, but rather to preclude its enforcement so long as the misuse is ongoing."

Larry Lessig has suggested it *ought* to be penalized with forfeiture, but that isn't the law. People who are not lawyers or in any way trained in the law should probably be careful not to assert things that they don't know or can't prove, and should put links to proofs others can check, so others are not misled. A little modesty goes a long way.

So it's the fault of "NeoCons" that corrupt Democrats accepted bribes from Abramoff?

http://sibbyonline.blogs.com/sibbyonline/2005/12/m ore_sd_democra.html

Whatever you say, PaleoLib. Don't let facts get in the way of your idiocy, please carry on.

Don't forget the beer and strawberry pop-tarts.

http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2004/11/hurricane_ comin.html

...unless you're a self-important asshole with no consideration for the other attendees. Better solutions are to keep your meetings really short, or schedule breaks.

Jessie was a region in Second Life, not a person:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2003/07/war_of_the_jess.h tml

"Social factor" my butt. Lets get real:

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/02/alon e_together_.html

"The palestinians do not want their own land, they dont want to do anything with the land they have. And, yes they do stand on top of their rubble and shout "we won". Because if they're not actually fighting for land or rights, then the battle itself is their victory."

http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2006/08/20 _august_2006.html

A similarly bloated planet has been found before (HD 209458b), so these puffed-up planets may be quite common.
Right you are, Ken, you needn't look further than Kirstie Alley.

'Phones are outselling dedicated MP3 players by six to one. Apple had the market for MP3, but they lost it.'

Before anyone takes this article too seriously, it's worth examining the credentials of the "expert" quoted in the article. Tomi Ahonen is a self-declared "technology strategy consultant", whose primary field of consultancy is wireless and mobile telecoms. Last year he predicted that mobile games consoles would also be crushed by mobile phone usage. The weak PSP represented an easy target, I'm not so sure that the iPod is as passé as he would have us believe.

If anyone has any doubt regarding Tomi's views, look no further than his blog. Clearly he has a vested interest in seeing the iPod fail, so take his opinions with large doses of salt.

...I recently wrote an article for Better Software (details here) showing the duplicated code and some other static analysis-type problems that PMD turned up in two fairly popular open source Java apps - Azureus and Columba. Both these programs are excellent open source apps, but both also had a number of places that could be improved.

This is kind of a Slashdot permathread, but anyhow, static code analysis is not a replacement for smart people also looking at the code. Rather, it augments folks' efforts and provides a safety net to catch little problems that can slip through. A duplicated code detector is especially useful because it can scan a massive codebase and help pick out chunks of code that can be refactored away. This reduces the lines of code, eliminates the possibility of duplicate bugs, and is great fun.

Impossible to implement in a business world! How could you even dream of a really nice slide http://presentationzen.blogs.com/.shared/image.htm l?/photos/uncategorized/complexity_bill.jpg without PowerPimp?

Check out http://presentationzen.blogs.com/. The main focus of this great blog is to get presentations to tell a story, and to use highly visual images to enhance that story. The focus remains on the presenter, however, and not the slides. Handouts are still cool, and in fact recommended, so you don't have to create a "slideument" that fails as both a presentation aid and hardcopy documentation, but they should be able to completely stand alone from the presentation (a.k.a something like a white paper).

Tufte's main area of concern seems to be in technical, scientific, and academic presentations. This blog focuses more on business presentations, and while they advocate different styles, I don't think they're necessarily contradictory.

The Java static analysis utility PMD was a spinoff of a government project; it's survived the end of the sponsoring project and is carrying on nicely with a pretty recent release.

It's great that the folks running that particular government project had both the foresight to realize that this utility would be valuable outside that project and also the organizational savvy to figure out how to make it available as open source. Good times.

Well, it was based on British surveillance as well, but you're right the whole thing is beginning to look fishy. First off, the idea of liquid explosives is not new. Eleven years ago the Bojinka plot tested their use. Second, British authorities claim that the theat was imminent, but some of the alleged terrorists didn't even have passports. Third, to date, the police have not reported the discovery of any bombs or bomb-making supplies.

According to this site, A4 envelopes are either C4 (folded in half) or DL (folded in thirds).

To print to an envelope, method 1:

1. Open a new Writer document
2. Format->Page
3. Click on the "Page" tab
4. Change the "Format" to "C4" or "DL" (if you want A4; #10 if you want US letter folded in thirds; there are other paper/envelope sizes available
5. You probably also want to set the page to "Landscape" mode
6. Click the "OK" button
7. Your envelope is now ready; type on it as you wish.

To print to an envelope, method 2 (or attach one to a document):

1. Open a new Writer document
2. Insert->Envelope
3. Click on the "Format" tab
4. As before, set the "Format" ("Size" sub-category) to the envelope type desired.
5. Click on the "Printer" tab and verify how your printer will be printing on the envelope
6. If desired, you can click on the "Envelope" tab to set sender/receiver addresse and you can even use the "Database" "Table" and "Field" lists to configure a list of addresses to print envelopes for. More information is available here and here (the second and first major results for a Google search for "a4 envelope openoffice" by the way)>
7. Click "New Doc" to create a new document consisting of your envelope, or "Insert" to insert it into an existing document
8. Enjoy!

(I understand that you're a troll and can't help but spread misinformation, but this is for those with an open mind who found your post "insightful".)

Free speech go to hell. Why don't you get it?

My favorite painting of mohammed is by Salvador Dalí

You forgot to wear your "I'm a telemarketer -- Kiss me!" button today.

Sadly, there's no built in grammar for COBOL... but you can use the "any language" option. There is a JavaCC grammar for Cobol, but I'm unable to contact the author so I don't want to include it with CPD...

Richard Brandt argues with passion that Google will eclipse Microsoft. The idea is that all the reasons why Microsoft beat everybody else don't apply to Google. I disagree, however, because I don't see Google's advantage as having much sustainability.

On the other hand, I was fairly late to realizing how sustainable Microsoft's advantage would prove, back in my stock analyst days, so do consider the source ...

Tomcat is even more popular than Sun's application server from what I can tell.

I thought tomcat was Sun's application server? Wasn't it originally Sun's reference implementation of a servlet container that they donated to Apache?

As for JBoss being somewhere in there, the only studies on this I've seen are from BZ Research (http://www.jboss.com/pdf/bzresearch_study.pdf, http://rmh.blogs.com/weblog/2006/05/bz_research_on _.html) and they consistently have JBoss tied with IBM for first place (and both growing: 37% in 2005, 34% in 2004), with BEA trailing behind (27%) and Oracle just catching up to tie BEA.

They don't officialy include Tomcat, but reportedly it's pretty close to BEA/Oracle, if not more popular.

Of course these types of surveys tend to have all the dependability of /. polls; and the question was "check all of these that your company uses"-type, so it could very well be "Yes we use IBM WS: it runs our multi-billion dollar production line" and "Yes we use JBoss: it runs our employee baby picture guessing contest", but coupled with anecdotal evidence, I think it's pretty safe to say that JBoss is competing head-to-head with the Big Boys.

Oh and speaking from personal experience, BEA can die in a fire - most frustrating platfrom I've ever used.

Audrey Tang thinks that Perl6 may be here before Vista, possibly even by the holidays...
http://pugs.blogs.com/pugs/2006/06/yapcna_talk.htm l
The slide show links show some terrifying code snippets.
These Perl-merlins are wicked, indeed.

I see Sun-sponsered OpenOffice.org ads on the sides of buses every damn day.

Didn't realize that it was just because I live near Redmond.

Thanks to RubyCentral, RubyForge is getting new hardware and a nicer hosting location. Donations are appreciated and are tax deductible!

I've heard it said that materials science is the slowest science - and it's almost certainly true. It is taking forever to get consumer products from carbon nanotubes (with a few exceptions).

But all the uses found for a new material and all the new applications discovered - in many respects it certaily seems to be the most fruitful science (at least in the engineering and day-to-day sense).

Most of the folks I know just download the MP3s in one shot, put them on a player and listen to them on the commute. The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs was good for a couple of weeks... and there's the excellent JavaPosse for keeping up with the latest Java news.

But anyhow, I never "stream" these recordings; I just download them for offline listening.

...if your code is in a CVS or Subversion repository. It uses enscript for syntax highlighting which works pretty well for a variety of languages (for example, Ruby).

I agree with some of the other folks here, though - a good IDE makes an excellent code browser. IntelliJ IDEA is awesome if you're working with Java code...

I'm slowly working my way through it; it's a great book on a number of levels. The writing itself is very nice, with a real personality showing through and not just the usual dry technical flavor. The illustrations are done in a nifty "drawing" style that looks good and portrays the data well. The technical insights are very helpful; after reading what I've moved through so far I've rewritten some of my Rails code to be more efficient.

I highly recommend this book; the $40 you'll spend on it will be repaid the first time you delete a swath of Java looping code and replace it with an additional subquery. If I can do half as well on my next book I'll consider it a job well done.

Even then you're still subject to VBA rounding issues which even most programmers are woefully ignorant of.
I mean locking cells is nice. Understanding the functions you're using is even more important.

> Postfix evolved out of perceived difficulties with sendmail

I just converted a good-sized system from Sendmail to Postfix; here's why (with charts!). Go Postfix!

The Chinese government won't even let their citizens use the keyboard and mouse:

http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2005/ 06/confirmed_all_t.html

That's just flat-out wrong.

And Canadian productivity? Funny you should ask.

1. Biometric 'signature' of a person's fingerprint stored as a small data file
2. Digital signature w/certificate of the biometric signature generated by a 'signature authority' with a valid certificate chain.