Slashdot Mirror

Yet Another Smith writes: "CNN is running a story about the Barenaked Ladies' attempt to flood Napster with trojan downloads with ads for their new album rather than the alleged songs. Say what you want about Napster being right or wrong, at least the band isn't just doing the kneejerk lawsuit, and it sounds pretty tongue-in-cheek." I don't listen to the radio, so I downloaded "Pinch Me" from Napster, and based on that (and the fact that I rank Stunt and Gordon among the best albums ever) I bought Maroon the day after it came out (making it the only CD I've bought since the lawsuit vs. Napster started: and for someone that used to buy 5 CDs a week, that's saying something). Personally I think this is a good way to fight (but unfortunately upcoming technology will make this technique less successful) so I've got no problem with BNL doing this.

acehole writes: "Sony Corp and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) will join forces to provide movies, games and other products to households via a fiber-optic network and Sony's video game console PlayStation2. Sony hopes to use the service around the country (Japan) in full service by around 2001. A small story about it can be read here." From the article, it's unclear how deep in the network the fiber goes; anyone have more information on that? I'd like some fiber to my apartment, but it's rather far from Japan right now ...

CaptMondo writes: "It seems like HD manufacturers may be feeling the heat about MP3s and MPEGs. Fujitsu has just put out a press release about putting what they are calling 'Media ID' for their hard drives, which will identify each individual hard drive. Applications utilizing this feature can 'prevent reading of copied information.' Ugh!" From the description that link offers, it sounds like media, drives and applications would have to cooperate for this to work as intended, and that it only applies to 3.5" MO storage. Can you say technological tangle? It sure sounds like a good way to sell media though ... hmmm.

styles writes: "According to this article, two young men have been accused of gaining unauthorized access to third party computer systems. "The charges are the first under a Michigan law which makes the unauthorized alteration, damage or use of a computer system a felony." I have been a user on m-net (one of the two systems compromised) for a year and some change, and the fact that someone went and took the machine down for at least a month (more? I forget...), and that someone also hacked sshd to steal my password just kills me." And this raises the ever-sticky question of determining who is harmed, how much -- and then the stickier issue of what to do about the first. (Use your judgement in interpreting the source of this news, too.)

[Updated 19:00 GMT by timothy] As several readers have pointed out in comments, and as reader Conan Ford e-mailed, if that funny address sets your nose twitching suspiciously, note that http://www.ag.state.mi.us/AGWebSite/press_release/pr10189.htm does get you to the same place.

jhughes wrote to us with the report that Debian will be including KDE2 within Woody, and according to the article, backtracking it into Potato. Of course, you've been able to get the packages by editing your sources.list ^[?] , but apparently this will mean including it in the "official" list.

tonys1110 was one of the first to tell us that Python ^[?] 1.6 Final has been released unto the world. They've got a bit about the license, and of course, the obligatory "What's New".

sj12fn asks: "I am working on a Computer Family Tree. It's going to include every OS ever made, every piece of hardware ever produced, every computer language ever written, and every standard ever published. What I'm here to ask is if anyone out there in the Slashdot crew has any useful info for us to use." That's a pretty tall order, but it sounds like a worthwhile project, if only from a historic point of view. It looks like the recent question on the first computer OS will get more use than expected.

Smev writes: "Today, (Friday) Michael Ethetton (a.k.a. 'Maven') of Gambit Studios, author of Liberty for PalmOS, will make a special guest appearence in #palm (efnet). Not only will you be able chat with him, but he will be giving away 2 copies of the Liberty GameBoy emulator as well. This will be happening after 9pm Central. You can connect via http://www.palminfocenter.com/chat.asp or connect to any efnet server with an IRC client and join #Palm. Connect to #Palm for more information."

A long outing this time -- a litany of updates and corrections for your edification and amusement. Microsoft apps that run on Free OSes? An art contest that you won't have to go through your high-strung middle-school art teacher for (and is judged by the family Johansen)? A titanium tank which could fall from the sky? All this and more, if you're willing to read on.

You want fries with that software? If the recent report of Microsoft porting apps to *nix, intrigued you, see Paul Thurrott's piece in Windows 2000 Magazine (yes, there is such a thing). Thurrott says, in part: "I can't tell you that the port is going to produce actual products. But I can tell you that Microsoft is looking into it. No, I don't think it's smart. No, it's not what I'd do. But yes, I believe it's true. So why would Microsoft try to port its desktop applications to a platform that has absolutely no desktop market share? I've no idea." Too bad for Microsoft Linux has "absolutely no desktop market share."

Silly! The sky isn't falling! It's just sinking a little each day ... Johann writes "Here is a follow up story to last week's NY Times article which was debated here on Slashdot. The article states that 'Open water at the top of the world isn't evidence that the North Pole is melting, as an article this month in The New York Times suggested.' There are numerous quotes in the article that do suggest that global warming is fact, not fiction."

To which the dapper and elegant Party Remover adds: "The Associated Press reports that a recent New York Times story about liquid water at the North Pole was rather overstating the seriousness of the situation. It seems that the Arctic Ocean is typically 10% ice-free during the summer." And the wording of the correction is amusing, for those of us easily amused.

Getcher doo-dads! Red-hot, computer-generated doo-dads! Get 'em while they're hot, ladies and gents ... ussphoenix writes: "Regarding the /. story about Computer Makes Robot Offspring, here is an article in the journal Nature describing the system. There are also mpegs of the virtual machines and the corresponding real machines moving!"

Next week we explain the buggy-whip makers' case, too. breillysf writes: "Eric Sinrod has condensed the complicated legal issues surrounding 2600's hyperlinking ruling. You can read the article here: Upside Counsel DeCSS article. The article is concise and not filled with legal jargon. A good contribution for those with little time to understand the fundamentals of the case."

And on the DeCSS note, Jim Tyre writes "Tom Vogt, a defendant in the California DeCSS lawsuit brought by DVD CCA, has started DeArt, the DeCSS Art Contest, to further explore the expressive aspects of DeCSS. Original creations only, obviously must be related to DeCSS. The contest runs through Dec. 31, and there will be prizes. Tom and Jon Johansen are the current judges, Emmanuel Goldstein has been asked to be an additional judge. Time for Slashdotters to express their creativity in a new way." I think the most strategic contest area would be performance art. Since it must be digitized, a video recorder would be necessary, I guess. Anyone here watched Roger and Me?[grin]

And if you're feeling less artistic, don't worry: Carpman writes, "I have set up a project to create a letter to congress about the DMCA and its effects. I'm running this like an open source project, you submit, it gets reviewed, and added. Also, you can submit stand alone letters to send allong with the big letter. The page is here." Of course, note the verb sense of "carp" and this makes perfect sense ...

Oh, no, you must have misunderstood. What we meant was something totally different. thebaron writes "Here is a interesting back-pedaling by Sony in this article. One should think before opening mouth and inserting [one's] own foot, even if you're a company exec." Or perhaps especially then. As roblimo pointed out recently, big companies have trouble tying their collective shoelaces sometimes, never mind effecting their own conspiracies.

Hit that high hat, swing that hook! PenguinRadio writes: "The Washington Post notes in Tuesday's paper that Motorola has begun the necessary reporting to certain government agencies so that they can burn up the $4 billion in Iridium satellites. Interesting in this announcements is the fact that their engineers feels certain pieces of the birds may actually reach the Earth and not burn up completely. Most notably a 2 foot by 3 foot titanium fuel tank may make it through the atmosphere. Wanna bet we see it on e-bay if it does fall to earth?"

bahamat dropped this interesting tidbit into the inbox: "Has anyone compared the DeCSS case to the Connectix VGS case? The facts surrounding both are very similar: A company produces content on disks and provides an expensive player on which to view the content; then another company reverse engineers the player to produce a software version for very cheap. The big company sues the little company. In the case of Sony vs Connectix, Connectix won, the court ruling was that Sony can't bar someone else from producing compatible player. It seems to me that this case has already set a precedent for the DeCSS case. Really, what's so different about the two? Has the DeCSS legal team approached the case from this way?" One thing to note: the win in the VGS case is on patent grounds, the two copyright claims in the suit are still undecided. It was copyright law, namely the DMCA, which the decision on the DeCSS case is based. Still, are there any similarities between the two that may make a legal difference to the 2600 case when it is appealed?

BirdTor writes: "Kenny Baker, the diminutive actor who played R2D2 in all of the Star Wars up until now has been dumped. George Lucas plans to use a computer-generated R2D2 instead. I don't know, there's just something charming about the Kenny-driven R2D2 bumbling along that I doubt the new 3D-generated R2D2 will be able to capture."

Lady and Gentlemen, sit back and brace yourself for the assault of the quickies: AlexPixel sent us the curiously named Bilbo.com which actually sells feet keyboards for key modifiers and mouse clicks. cadfael sent us a sordid tale of a coder scorned. Some billboards: first from Ant we have a windows error and from mazur we have a bit of unix (must be california ;) mmca noted that scientists have discovered why candy wrappers are loudest in movie theaters. IcesTorm-I noted a supposed windows bug that will make ya wonder. DuncMonk sent us a cool comic strip called Sinfest that you might wish to add to your morning coffee. How about the x86 Still for those of you who believe that controlling your stereo, lights, garage door, and neighbors dog just isn't enough for your PC. Not out there enough for ya? How about RSA implemented entirely in javascript? (Doesn't work for me ... I leave that crap turned off ;) And finally to leave everyone on the proper melodic note, gribbly Symphony #2 for Dot Matrix Printers. Fortunately it's available in MP3 just in case you don't have a dot-matrix printer still handy...

roca writes: "Check out this new CNET article, then check out the thread that spawned it. Some random person in a Mozilla newsgroup said "hey, wouldn't it be cool to build Office-like functionality on top of Mozilla", and CNET decided this means a MozOffice project is happening (WRONG), and that millions of people need to know about this. Naturally, many readers believe them and are now flaming away because "Mozilla hasn't shipped a browser and now they're doing THIS!" What can a free software project do about this? Close the mailing lists or newsgroups to the media? Flame/sue the people who screw up? What?"

Well, it looks like James Russel has set up a site devoted to this idea on which he outlines why he thinks such a confluence would be a good idea, but he honestly notes: "This site is a placeholder that I hope to turn into an organizational centerpiece for what I think has the potential to be the most powerful side of Mozilla yet." And why shouldn't it be? Can't a modular framework grow far enough to cobble some words together? So long as it stays modular, that is. Even if a pipedream, it's an interesting that will no doubt inspire further inquiry.

mcwop writes "\ Looks like Cobalt Networks is suing Apple over their cube, according to ZDNet UK This is interesting because Cobalt Networks settled a lawsuit over their cube with Cube Computer Corp back in January. While they are both cubes one is specifically a server though the other could be used/marketed as one in the future. Technology and lawsuits seem to go hand in hand these days. " Basically, Cobalt has alleged that Apple has infringed on their trademarks. Oh, BTW, I've patented the shape "block". I'm going to be suing for past due royalties from humanity. My ownership of the block means that unlicensed use - like buildings are money to be made! Why didn't I think of this earlier?!

The reaction to the turning off of Napster's servers has been fast and furious. Whether you feel that unauthorized copying of music is a basic human right, the moral equivalent of "sharing" for yourself merchandise from Tower Records' loading dock, or somewhere in the fuzzy gray area between, you should at least know how the decision to turn off Napster for the moment has focused the various public reactions. Read on to see just a sampling of the numerous stories throughout the media related to this story.

Point Of Order, Point of Clarification Justin Maurer writes:

"it's come to my attention that a lot of news organisations, and napster themselves, have been twisting words around in this whole napster case. if you'll bear with me for a second, i can try and clear up a little bit of it.

everyone (including napster) keeps saying that the judge ordered napster to be shut down. this is not the case. the judge ordered them to make sure no one is trading copyrighted material, and the result is that napster is telling everyone they've been ordered to shut down. if you'd like, i can provide sources for this information, though i'm going to bed now :)"

[Note from timothy: Here is a link to the Preliminary Injunction Brief (pdf file) from the RIAA site; given the way Napster works, though, it does seem like its grant would have effect of shutting all but the chatroom, doesn't it?]

Are Bassists Smarter Than Drummers? JHancock17 reminds anyone who hasn't to read Courtney Love's speech as reprinted by Salon a while back, and res0 points to this ABC News interview with Chuck D. in which the P.E. frontman continues his eloquent tirade against the music industry as a whole. But Mr. D and Ms. Love have been famous outspoken in favor of Napster and electronic music exchange for a while: Now those stalwarts are joined by another big name. srcosmo writes "Radiohead have become the first British band to condemn the injunction against Napster. Their bassist, Colin Greenwood, showed enthusiasm for the availability of Napsterized live recordings, saying "We have just finished a tour, we played in Barcelona, the next day the entire performance was up on Napster and three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all the new songs and it was wonderful." An interesting change from the Metallica look at things- hopefully more artists will follow their lead."

Follow Your Conscience: What You Can Do cLn writes "Napster has been shut down and irc mp3 channels are being flooded by desperate mp3 junkies. What they don't know is that there are ways around this small problem. Napigator is a windows program that'll help the napster client connect to other servers other than the few it trys. Tripnosis works alot like napster, but you can download other files (zip, arj, rar, mov, avi, mpeg, jpg, gif, ect...), you can also search through online users files using the sites search engine."

And DrEldarion points to "http://www.kripto.org/blocks/, "an anonymous distributed file transfer system designed for people with permanent 'always on' Internet connections;" good explanation on the site itself of how it differs from other such systems.

Mad Ross (Ross McKillop) writes "Everyone now knows of the recent decision about napster's future. This is unfortunate and many still agree unreasonable but I am attempting to gather all the open source clients and alternative servers in one place and create an organised network of replacement napster servers... If anyone is interested in helping by...

• contributing a client
• helping as a server operator
• running a napster server
• etc...

or just want's to be kept informed about what is happening then please please eMail napsterlives@madross.co.uk or visit madross.co.uk -- there should be napster related pages there by the time you read this.

What Else You Can Do: Alert The Media (Mavens) battery841 writes "In light of Napster getting an injunction against it by the courts, someone decided to register riaaboycott.org and setup a petition. You sign the petition, and once it's gotten enough signatures, it's going to be sent to numerous sources, including Napster and the RIAA." And as CmdrTaco posted the other day, there are boycotts in the air.

Another Angle On The Big Picture: Danse writes "Salon is running an article with reactions from all sorts of people connected to the music industry, Napster, Napster alternatives, etc. It's pretty interesting reading. Everything from the arrogance of Jack Valenti to the apparent cluelessness of Erwin Drake to the insightfulness of Glenn Reynolds to the amazingly short (obviously not written by Lars) comment by Metallica. To sum things up, the industry thinks this is a big win and that they now have a chance to offer consumers music downloads on their own terms. This displays their current lack of understanding of the real problems that users are seeking to remedy with Napster and the other music/file trading options. Napster supporters and alternatives feel that it's a loss for free speech, but that in the long run it will only hurt the record industry as people move to litigation-proof solutions."

helleman asks: "I'm interested in finding out more about open source school administration tools. Elementary and high school system administrators (often working on a volunteer basis - like myself!) are just too busy fighting fires trying to keep the school systems running (like printers, tape backups and fileservers) than to really have time to step back and evaluate/test/develop administration software properly. I could really use some advice picking some open source software either to run with (something extendable so we could code our own custom modules) OR some pointers to which software our committee should start designing our own open source school administration software with! There are many closed source options - there HAS to be some open source ones! Report Cards, Membership reports, health records, transcripts, resource administration (room bookings) and finance/contributions are a few examples of things that need to be tracked. Help!"

NoWhere Man writes "Raging Bull has an article which states that Intel is having to shrink its die size earlier than expected to keep up with AMD's Athlon. "Intel couldn't afford to wait on developing a mainstream desktop Willamette chip," McComas said. "They've returned to the old tried-and-true Pentium III core as a quick fix." The new Pentium III speed grade will be among the first to use Intel's new 0.13-micron wafer processing with copper interconnect. At the same time, Intel is said to be readying a 200-MHz frontside bus to support the faster Pentium III."

NoWhere Man writes: "It seems that a few Asus A7V Socket A motherboards have reached the market despite AMD destroying the hopes and dreams of overclockers everywhere. A&I Computer has a few boards and has been able to reach 857Mhz. Buyoverclocked.com also got a few, and overclocked to 900Mhz, a picture of the switches is here. For those interested in overclocking the Thunderbird, Tweak Town seems to have found a way to remove the cpu mulitiplier lock"

NoWhere Man writes "According to TechWeb, Intel officials have said that they plan to ship a 1.13-GHz Pentium III in limited production quantities on July 31 >(which also happens to be the anniversary of AMDZone). Interestingly enough, at the same time, the schedule for the Itanium, the companys first 64bit processor, seems to have slipped from the 3rd quarter of next year to the 4th quarter."

NoWhere Man writes: "North Carolina-based BlueLinx, which produces consumer applications for short-range wireless systems, and" Hold on I gotta take this call.... " a telecommunications center at the University of Adelaide in Australia are developing a feature for mobile phones that interacts with Bluetooth shortwave radio-link systems in public places. The feature is designed to automatically silence cellphone ringing. Once inside the Bluetooth coverage area, cellphones with the "Q-Zone" feature will be silenced."

ilkahn asks: "I have started playing around with BeOS and I think it is an amazing client OS, with amazing speed, and great usability. I would be very interested in migrating some of the boxes I have to BeOS on the client side, however there is one major roadblock standing in my way. Most of the applications that I use on a day-to-day basis require an X server for their display, and I have found no way to display X applications inside of Be. Does anyone know of any X servers or any way of displaying X apps in Be?"

kdgarris writes: "The KDE team has released the second beta for the KDE 2.0 desktop environment. Check out the announcement here." The new-and-improved list is pretty lengthy and very impressive. Worth a look see.

Beating plows into ploughshares, turning lead into gold, casting new light through windows opened only just last week, it's another spellbinding outbreak of Slashback. Stand back, breathe slowly as the scent of humble correction wafts over you, mingling with the essence of new and perhaps intriguing information. Bruce Perens, too.

"That's not censorship, mate. This is censorship!" Carnage4Life writes: "After causing a murder trial to be aborted last month CrimeNet has been ordered by the attorney general of the Australian state of Victoria to be shut down. If the site operators refuse to shut down they will face jail time. The story can be found here. In news which can only be considered related, an anonymous kangaroo wrote: "Found a reference to this article on LISNews. Seems the Aussie Parliament pitched a hissy fit when their internet access got filtered. Oh gee, how the fsck do you think the rest of the country feels?" How indeed. That's what happens when you start introducing clashing premises, I guess. Geese, ganders, sauce.

To the moon, Alice -- To the moon! We've frequently linked to NASA photos from Slashdot; what if they said "(registration required)" after them like links to the New York Times? MousePotato writes: "NASA announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Dreamtime Holdings to provide multimedia coverage of astronaut activities. The press release details "creating a state-of-the-art multimedia portal, www.Dreamtime.com, that will, with the click of a mouse, open the door to thousands of images, sounds, documents, blueprints and plans from NASA's currently underused archives. " Interesting to note about it is the fact that they will be using HDTV to give us as well as NASA engineers high quality video." Interesting, too, that billions of space research tax dollars are being used "to create new market opportunities in the multimedia arena."

Does this mean I can watch my -- errr ... "classics" again? The DVD-under-Linux story continues, specifically with an update on LinDVD; soon, the MPAA's claims that there are legal DVD players for Linux users may hold at least a sprinking of water; johnnick writes: "Another update in the DeCSS saga. One of the arguments for DeCSS was that there was no legal DVD decoder for Linux boxes. CNET reports that InterVideo, a licensee of the software that enables DVD information to be decoded, plans to release beta software called LinDVD this month that allows people to watch DVDs on Linux machines."

Microsoft not making a run for the border: Calz writes: "Both Microsoft and B.C.'s Investment Minister have denied that Microsoft is considering moving, as reported in this Yahoo article."

In other news from planet Microsoft, the indefatigable Bruce Perens has this to say about mixed-case licensing:

"Microsoft has been caught in a trivial, easily remedied, GPL violation, which is detailed here. They have been contacted, and their response was, well, dumb.

Why do companies get involved in trivial GPL violations? Because the company picks up Free Software as part of one of their products without making a commitment to do the simple, easy, inexpensive things that are required to comply with the Free Software license. Folks, if you can't comply with license requirements as easy as those in the GPL, find other software, please.

One of these examples comes up at least once a month, and I'm going to keep submitting these stories until the situation improves. Maybe that means forever. Today's wakeup call goes to Microsoft corporation, read the account from Tim Burlowski. "

As Bruce says, this looks like a relatively easy one to fix. It could be explained by the complexities of mergers and acquisitions, general confusion, alignment of planets etc, but eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, including as applied to software. Unless Microsoft would like to declare all EULAs null and void ...

poochie asks "I'm currently in high school taking the Cisco first year course (semester 1 and 2). We're messing around with routers, and I'm starting to get the idea that routers are being outdated. We're learning switches next semester, but from what our instructor says, switches are just more specific to a LAN. In my mind, they seem more versatile in that they actually control their own ports, rather than having a router which is configured to support lans with switches on them, which have to be configured anyway, and make everything more confusing. I dunno about the purpose or the limitations of each, but from what I see, routers make life difficult for small networks. So I guess my question is twofold: Could anyone list resources on the Web about information on routers vs switches, and does anyone see switches taking over routers/hubs in the future, and making network administration a lot easier? "

Sir Joltalot asks: "I'm writing an essay about the role of Internet discussion boards in our society. I'd like to quote some comments I've found in various Slashdot discussions that have occurred, and I'm just wondering if any of you have suggestions or have devised methods for referencing such quotes (giving full credit to the author, if non-anonymous) in a formal way." We have such things for formal printed publications, why not Internet publications? Have such things been determined yet or not?

Byron Sonne wrote with word that Canada's Privacy Commissioner Bruce Phillips, in his annual report to Parliament, today criticized a national database kept by the Human Resources Department, calling it "tantamount to a citizen profile."

From the article: "The "extraordinarily detailed database" holds a dossier on almost every person in Canada with as many as 2,000 pieces of information about each person's education, marital status, ethnic origin, mobility, disabilities, income tax, employment and social assistance history."

Fear not -- Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart says that "[a]ll the information is secure, it's encrypted." Interesting, given that apparently blase attitude toward the propriety of keeping such a database in the first place, that Canada has a privacy commissioner at all -- but from the sound of this a fortunate thing it does.

bigstripes sent us a couple of websites that game chairs: The RocknRide and the Simcraft for people for whom strapping a subwoofer to your chest just isn't enough. Curious what the MST3k guys are doing? bill notes that most of the guys are working on a website Timmy Bighands, although Joel is doing his own thing. QuasEye sent us a link to a review of The Matrix: The Musical. I need footage of this, but it sounds frightening beyond measure. Frank Martini pointed us to a VinylVideo who are hawking a kit that lets your old record player play video. Sun Tzu pointed us to a list of milestones in a programmers life, while jamesoutlaw sent in a site that caricatures common discussion group personalities in Usenet ... and surprisingly enough Many of the stereotypes apply just as well to Slashdot. Schmam notes that Stevie Case, one of the designers for Quake II, now working with Ion Storm, famous for being Romero's GF, and for beating him at Quake, as well as being hot ... well she's in playboy, but you're only allowed to read the article or else I'm telling your mom. Hey, its nice to note that Slashdot took 2 People's Voice Webby Awards one in the Print & Zines and the other in Community. I'm not exactly sure what it proves tho (besides the fact that you guys like us enough to fill out a form) but thanks to those who voted us. May peace and prosperity follow you (and may the Webbies not sell your e-mail address to people bent on selling you toner). And now for the strang(er) part of the quickies, HelLfiRe leads us towards The Stinkymeat Project which is, well, a photo documentary of a plate of rotting meat. Read only on a settled stomach. Richard Stevens sent us an Amazingly Strange cartoon strip: This guy draws inane pictures based on the idiotic titles people send him. If you want something slightly better drawn, mkoscica sent us plif which is really twisted, but funny.

dmelomed asks: "I would like to Ask Slashdot about Linux's PHYSICAL limits of partition and FS size on i386 and 64 bit chips. What are the maximum real-life possible partition sizes on big RAIDs (several TB) that the kernel can work with reliably? What are better filesystems to use that handle LARGE RAIDS?"

yamgirl asks: "I've been reading up on RAID strategies for protecting against hard disk failure, particularly those RAID levels that involve recording parity on one disk to duplicate data on multiple other drives, and I've been thinking that this would also be wonderfully useful in making backups to CDROM, or even floppies. Many's the time when I've had a bagful of floppies with me, trying to install something, and found that one floppy out of the batch had crapped out, rendering the rest useless until I went home and got a new copy. If I could make a RAID-style parity disk whenever I needed to make multiple-volume disk sets, I'd only have to carry around three extra disks (one blank to write a new copy on to in case of emergency, and one disk to keep the recovery software on - but the latter two I'd just need one each of for any number of separate sets of parity disks and multi-volume sets of media.) as very effective insurance against crappy disks. Much cheaper in time and effort and disks than making entire extra copies of multi-volume sets, or for that matter of needing to go off site to track down a new copy. ANYHOW, my question is, has anyone ever seen or written any software to do this, to generate parity disks and to recover lost data with them? (And is it free? =)"

Plasmoid asks: "I am doing a school project on cryptography and its effects on society. I am looking for information on my topic. Any sort of information would be great(i.e. books, Web site, people, magazines, etc.). If you or someone you know can speak to me about my topic please e-mail me. I plan to cover NSA, Echelon, other misc. paranoia, current world treaties/laws and important historic events. Any help would be greatly appreciated." Now this sounds like a school project I wish I could work on. I wonder if Plasmoid would mind sharing the results when he's finished.

BHS_Turf writes "Check out Lego's version of CAD , and give your kid everything you never had (like unlimited Lego)... or you may find that it's something cool for you to do in your spare time! "

skeller writes, "The Gaming Intelligence Agency has a story about a way to play Region 1 DVDs on a Playstation 2 (which is set by default for Region 2). You just enter in some codes on the controller during boot up. Dunno why it works, but sort of an interesting little tidbit. " The site cautions that the success rate is only about 50% (depending on which of the suggested codes you try), but since it's a non-invasive procedure, it sounds like an experiment worth trying ... if you can get your hands on a PlayStation 2.

Jeff Hobbs writes about the " self-running demo of a new 3D, network, cross-platform space combat game called Parsec, that is being simultaneously developed for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Looks pretty *damn* cool so far...! "

Bryan asks: "What do you use to develop, debug and test java servlets on Linux? I am especially interested in debugging tools and techniques, especially those that use Apache+mod_jserv." I've just started using mod_jserv recently and am very happy with it. Something like this could sure help my development activities and I'm sure others are looking for something like this as well.

Jason Bennett has returned with a review of Mark Minasi's The Software Conspiracy. The book is basically a well-informed perspective of the state of the software industry - how it functions, what it does, and what's really going on. Click below to learn more.

The Software Conspiracy author Mark Minasi pages 271 publisher McGraw-Hill, 09/1999 rating 8/10 reviewer Jason Bennett ISBN 0071348069 summary A non-technical (but well-informed) telling of the state of the software industry

Background

A short digression before I start my review of this quite interesting book. I had the privilege of spending a few days in Seattle at a Construx Software training event on OOA/OOD using UML (hi, ImageX!). Amazingly enough, seven hours of flying each way will give one plenty of reading time, even including talking with those herding into the seats around you. Although I almost missed seeing my hometown Titans in the Super Bowl, I feel it was time well spent. Alas, I didn't get to see Steve, but maybe he'll email me if he reads this. :-)

Nevertheless, on to the business at hand. My book reviews have generally centered around the concept of software engineering, and how to apply its principles to development efforts. This week's book is more of a review of the state of the industry, and where the industry is trying to go. It should come as no surprise to most people reading this that the picture is not particularly pretty. There is, however, a glimmer of hope, but only if we can shake off the combined forces of greed and apathy. Hey, I never said it was going to be easy! <g>

What's the book about?

I believe the book's subtitle just about sums it up: "Why software companies put out faulty products, how they can hurt you, and what you can do about it." As I said in the summary, this book is geared toward non-technical software users in an attempt to explain to them why their software breaks, and why they shouldn't take it anymore. Many parts of this book will be well-known to regular Slashdot readers, but I dare say there are parts that will raise your hackles, regardless.

Chapter 1 is more or less an overview of the theme of the book: that software bugs are bad, that consumers and the media tolerate those bugs to an unreasonable extent, and that those same consumers must act to stem the trend toward more broken software. I'll address his on-point evidence as I discuss the following chapters.

Chapter 2 addresses an important, if not always obvious question: why do software bugs exist in the first place? The short answer is that it's difficult to think of every possible interaction and exception when devising an algorithm. The author employs some interesting mental experiments in the process of the discussion to make this fact more evident to non-programmers. He also mentions some historically important bugs (including the recently-historical Y2K). So far, nothing earth shattering....

With Chapter 3, the journey moves from easy to confrontational. To sum the chapter's theme in one sentence, software is buggy because programmers are slack and customers are more slack. As a counterpoint to the oft-heard statement, "Bug-free software is impossible," Minasi examines the Capability Maturity Model in detail, including how it has been shown to reduce error rates, and why most firms do not employ it. You won't feel complimented by this explanation. In short, most software firms don't try very hard to keep defects out of their software because they expect defects to occur, and (according to one survey), 15% of software firms do not even bother to test their software at all before shipping. I'm always one to quote the adage about the three kinds of lies, but somehow I'm inclined to believe this one. Why don't firms test? Basically because they can get away with it, and programmers don't want to be told they've made a mistake. The argument that bug-free software is too expensive is, of course, the same argument the meat packing industry made at the end of the 19th century, that wholesome meat was too expensive and impossible to produce. Fortunately for everyone, that excuse was eventually put to rest. Minasi believes the software excuse should be equally put out of its misery. The author does make one point that I disagree with, however, in that he claims that process isn't really for "geniuses," only "regular" programmers. I would argue, however, that everyone needs process to channel whatever genius they may possess, and that structure does not stand counter to creativity. The author also addresses some of the shortcomings of the CMM, but in the end believes that the evidence behind process, any process, is overwhelming.

Chapter 4 moves into another arena near and dear to our hearts: UCITA. As I read this chapter, I kept finding my jaw hanging open in astonishment at the gall of the software industry and the law they have crafted. This book is fairly recent, and thus the information current, although I recommend checking Cem Kaner's site or Slashdot for the most recent information. I won't go into bloody detail here, but suffice to say under UCITA the software industry can disclaim all responsibility for their software, while simultaneously putting unreasonable restrictions on your usage of that software. Amazingly convenient, huh? You could also no longer treat software like a book, as the software industry would completely control the software even after you had purchased/licensed it. Needless to say, a raw deal for the consumer.

Chapter 5 proposes an interesting rehash of Yourdon's The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer. Now, before I proceed, I've never actually read that book, so this analogy is based on my understanding of Yourdon's thesis. Basically, Minasi compares today's software industry to the auto industry of the 1950's. At that time, cars had more or less reached technological maturity. Marketing ruled the industry, as all the car were more or less the same. Planned obsolescence was invented, and quality declined as more and more useless features (e.g. fins) were added to cars. Of course, we all know the end of that story. The Japanese car industry invaded and smacked Detroit around for a while before the American automakers were able to recover. Minasi proposes that the America software industry is in a similar situation today, and UCITA could exacerbate that tendency. Could another country's software industry rise up? Minasi doesn't really offer any competitors at this point, but the threat is certainly there.

Chapter 6 exhorts users to stand up for quality software, just as they would stand up for quality in other products. Write letters. Don't pay for bug fixes. Help stop UCITA. Nothing earth-shattering again, but important nonetheless.

Chapter 7, the conclusion, paints two pictures of the future, one rosy, where buggy software is brought under control, and one bleak. I won't spoil them for you, but suffice to say the bleak one might surprise you. In any event, and effective storytelling mechanism.

Finally, there is an appendix of how to fix you current software, or at least get around its problems. Programmers might scoff at the information contained therein, but your mother will likely find it useful.

What's Good?

If you don't want too technical of a read, and you're interested in why software is in its current state, this is an excellent and informative book. The rationale is sound, and the information on UCITA is important to educate others about its dangers, especially when the time comes for a vote in your state. In short, read this book if you're tired of crappy software, or you don't know why software is crappy.

What's Bad?

On the other hand, if you think process is silly, and you're doing the best you can, dangit, you won't enjoy this book. I would like to think that most open source proponents would understand the importance of testing, but then again I don't remember reading too many test plans for OS projects. Whatever. Regardless, this book might not be for you if you want a detailed, technical discussion of the state of software, and you're already well up on your UCITA info. YMMV.

So What's In It For Me?

Regardless of who you are, coder or suit, what this book discusses will impact you. The U.S. software industry is going to be fundamentally shaped for decades to come by what happens in the next few months and years. It behooves you to understand the implications of where we are going, regardless of where you stand on the issue.

• Table of Contents
• Introduction
  1. When Some Bugs Bite, They Kill
  2. Why Are There Bugs? How Defects Happen
  3. It Doesn't Take a Genius, It Just Takes a Process: Building Good Software
  4. Software and the Law
  5. Bugs and the Country: Software Economics
  6. Fighting Back: How to Improve Software
  7. The Future
• Appendix: Software Self-defense
• Endnotes
• Index

Jason Bennett has returned with a review of Mark Minasi's The Software Conspiracy. The book is basically a well-informed perspective of the state of the software industry - how it functions, what it does, and what's really going on. Click below to learn more.

The Software Conspiracy author Mark Minasi pages 271 publisher McGraw-Hill, 09/1999 rating 8/10 reviewer Jason Bennett ISBN 0071348069 summary A non-technical (but well-informed) telling of the state of the software industry

Background

A short digression before I start my review of this quite interesting book. I had the privilege of spending a few days in Seattle at a Construx Software training event on OOA/OOD using UML (hi, ImageX!). Amazingly enough, seven hours of flying each way will give one plenty of reading time, even including talking with those herding into the seats around you. Although I almost missed seeing my hometown Titans in the Super Bowl, I feel it was time well spent. Alas, I didn't get to see Steve, but maybe he'll email me if he reads this. :-)

Nevertheless, on to the business at hand. My book reviews have generally centered around the concept of software engineering, and how to apply its principles to development efforts. This week's book is more of a review of the state of the industry, and where the industry is trying to go. It should come as no surprise to most people reading this that the picture is not particularly pretty. There is, however, a glimmer of hope, but only if we can shake off the combined forces of greed and apathy. Hey, I never said it was going to be easy! <g>

What's the book about?

I believe the book's subtitle just about sums it up: "Why software companies put out faulty products, how they can hurt you, and what you can do about it." As I said in the summary, this book is geared toward non-technical software users in an attempt to explain to them why their software breaks, and why they shouldn't take it anymore. Many parts of this book will be well-known to regular Slashdot readers, but I dare say there are parts that will raise your hackles, regardless.

Chapter 1 is more or less an overview of the theme of the book: that software bugs are bad, that consumers and the media tolerate those bugs to an unreasonable extent, and that those same consumers must act to stem the trend toward more broken software. I'll address his on-point evidence as I discuss the following chapters.

Chapter 2 addresses an important, if not always obvious question: why do software bugs exist in the first place? The short answer is that it's difficult to think of every possible interaction and exception when devising an algorithm. The author employs some interesting mental experiments in the process of the discussion to make this fact more evident to non-programmers. He also mentions some historically important bugs (including the recently-historical Y2K). So far, nothing earth shattering....

With Chapter 3, the journey moves from easy to confrontational. To sum the chapter's theme in one sentence, software is buggy because programmers are slack and customers are more slack. As a counterpoint to the oft-heard statement, "Bug-free software is impossible," Minasi examines the Capability Maturity Model in detail, including how it has been shown to reduce error rates, and why most firms do not employ it. You won't feel complimented by this explanation. In short, most software firms don't try very hard to keep defects out of their software because they expect defects to occur, and (according to one survey), 15% of software firms do not even bother to test their software at all before shipping. I'm always one to quote the adage about the three kinds of lies, but somehow I'm inclined to believe this one. Why don't firms test? Basically because they can get away with it, and programmers don't want to be told they've made a mistake. The argument that bug-free software is too expensive is, of course, the same argument the meat packing industry made at the end of the 19th century, that wholesome meat was too expensive and impossible to produce. Fortunately for everyone, that excuse was eventually put to rest. Minasi believes the software excuse should be equally put out of its misery. The author does make one point that I disagree with, however, in that he claims that process isn't really for "geniuses," only "regular" programmers. I would argue, however, that everyone needs process to channel whatever genius they may possess, and that structure does not stand counter to creativity. The author also addresses some of the shortcomings of the CMM, but in the end believes that the evidence behind process, any process, is overwhelming.

Chapter 4 moves into another arena near and dear to our hearts: UCITA. As I read this chapter, I kept finding my jaw hanging open in astonishment at the gall of the software industry and the law they have crafted. This book is fairly recent, and thus the information current, although I recommend checking Cem Kaner's site or Slashdot for the most recent information. I won't go into bloody detail here, but suffice to say under UCITA the software industry can disclaim all responsibility for their software, while simultaneously putting unreasonable restrictions on your usage of that software. Amazingly convenient, huh? You could also no longer treat software like a book, as the software industry would completely control the software even after you had purchased/licensed it. Needless to say, a raw deal for the consumer.

Chapter 5 proposes an interesting rehash of Yourdon's The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer. Now, before I proceed, I've never actually read that book, so this analogy is based on my understanding of Yourdon's thesis. Basically, Minasi compares today's software industry to the auto industry of the 1950's. At that time, cars had more or less reached technological maturity. Marketing ruled the industry, as all the car were more or less the same. Planned obsolescence was invented, and quality declined as more and more useless features (e.g. fins) were added to cars. Of course, we all know the end of that story. The Japanese car industry invaded and smacked Detroit around for a while before the American automakers were able to recover. Minasi proposes that the America software industry is in a similar situation today, and UCITA could exacerbate that tendency. Could another country's software industry rise up? Minasi doesn't really offer any competitors at this point, but the threat is certainly there.

Chapter 6 exhorts users to stand up for quality software, just as they would stand up for quality in other products. Write letters. Don't pay for bug fixes. Help stop UCITA. Nothing earth-shattering again, but important nonetheless.

Chapter 7, the conclusion, paints two pictures of the future, one rosy, where buggy software is brought under control, and one bleak. I won't spoil them for you, but suffice to say the bleak one might surprise you. In any event, and effective storytelling mechanism.

Finally, there is an appendix of how to fix you current software, or at least get around its problems. Programmers might scoff at the information contained therein, but your mother will likely find it useful.

What's Good?

If you don't want too technical of a read, and you're interested in why software is in its current state, this is an excellent and informative book. The rationale is sound, and the information on UCITA is important to educate others about its dangers, especially when the time comes for a vote in your state. In short, read this book if you're tired of crappy software, or you don't know why software is crappy.

What's Bad?

On the other hand, if you think process is silly, and you're doing the best you can, dangit, you won't enjoy this book. I would like to think that most open source proponents would understand the importance of testing, but then again I don't remember reading too many test plans for OS projects. Whatever. Regardless, this book might not be for you if you want a detailed, technical discussion of the state of software, and you're already well up on your UCITA info. YMMV.

So What's In It For Me?

Regardless of who you are, coder or suit, what this book discusses will impact you. The U.S. software industry is going to be fundamentally shaped for decades to come by what happens in the next few months and years. It behooves you to understand the implications of where we are going, regardless of where you stand on the issue.

• Table of Contents
• Introduction
  1. When Some Bugs Bite, They Kill
  2. Why Are There Bugs? How Defects Happen
  3. It Doesn't Take a Genius, It Just Takes a Process: Building Good Software
  4. Software and the Law
  5. Bugs and the Country: Software Economics
  6. Fighting Back: How to Improve Software
  7. The Future
• Appendix: Software Self-defense
• Endnotes
• Index

Schnake wrote to us with the reply that @Home has posted in news.admin.announce concerning yesterday's call for a UDP. Click below to read it - essentially, they are saying that the problem is clients who've set up proxy servers incorrectly, and that they will be more aggresive in helping customers fix mis-configured proxy servers.

To the USENET Community:

In response to the recent UDP call for @Home Network to be removed from interacting on the USENET, we are submitting an official response with a proposal of short term and long term news spam prevention initiatives. Excite@Home is very committed to participating respectfully on the Internet, and we have taken previous requests for action seriously.

We have found that the primary source of our excessive USENET posting history comes from subscribers who have installed proxy software incorrectly. Unbeknownst to the customer, this mis-configuration has allowed outside access to the @Home news servers, and has resulted in our subscribers becoming spam relays. Because these various IP addresses create holes in our network, spammers have taken advantage of this mis-configuration, and have posted thousands of newsgroup messages through our news machines.

As of today, we are stepping up our involvement and taking more aggressive action by performing frequent network wide scans of our customer base to target proxy servers. Once these customers are identified, we are suspending their news service immediately. Re-enabling will not occur until we are assured that their machines are secure. We feel that this proactive effort will dramatically decrease the amount of extraneous news traffic originating from home.com.

We are committed to promoting better Excite@Home participation on the USENET, and we are in the process of modifying our current news product and news architecture. We are also implementing more user education as a parallel initiative.

With these new tactics in place, we are asking for an extension to our USENET access beyond the 18th of January and we are confident that the USENET community will see positive news statistics coming in the next few days.

David Jackson
Manager, Network Policy Management
Excite@Home
davjackson@excitehome.net

mwdib writes "Here's a story in Federal Computing Week in which the Pentagon decides that certain forms of computer morphing could be war crimes." It was hard not to file this under "humor," but Federal Computer Week is a serious publication that almost always gets its stories straight. So loonie as this may seem, it's not a joke.

bgarcia writes "There is a PR Newswire story stating that Red Hat and RSA Security have signed an agreement to include RSA's BSAFE SSL software in Red Hat Linux Professional Edition." And Wired tells us Red Hat is coming out with with a new version that improves large system performance and speeds crash recovery. (Click below for more)

Plus, earlier this week we read about the e-commerce product they're working on with Oracle and their rumored Cygnus acquisition. Hot stuff, especially for corporate Linux users.

It looks like Red Hat is back on track, doing great Linux stuff, instead of fooling around with peripheral things like their Linux version of MSNBC (with Salon, The Industry Standard, and The Register jointly playing NBC).

According to a friend of mine who dabbles in the stock market, Red Hat's stock is up nicely as a result of their decision to go back to doing more of what they do best: improving Linux and extending its marketability.

Mazeltov!

kid_wonder writes "Nothing better to do on a lazy fall weekened? Well, go take a look at the Alien-Human hybrid skull found over 70 years ago. Be sure to take a grain of salt along. Read their report Oh, by the way. In the next week or so DNA tests are coming back, enjoy the hype while you can!" Hey! What can I say? There's not much on TV tonight, so check it out. And if you're an extraterrestrial reading Slashdot for the first time, welcome aboard. ;-P

Long-time reviewer Jason Bennett has sent a review of the official Sun tutorial on the new Swing GUI package called, not surprisingly, The JFC Swing Tutorial. If you are learning Java, use Java or want to learn Java, click below to learn more about this new book. JFC Swing Tutorial author Kathy Walrath & Mary Campione pages 953 publisher Addison Wesley, 06/1999 rating 8/10 reviewer Jason Bennett ISBN 0201433214 summary The official Sun tutorial on the new Swing GUI package Background

I was just finishing up my first year of university when Java burst onto the scene. As those of us who were around then can remember, the hype was intense. Actually, that would be an understatement. You would have thought Java was going to save the world and make your morning coffee all at once. Fortunately, things settled down almost as fast as they began, and Java started on its long road to maturity. In many ways, this book is the culmination of three years of Java maturation. The AWT, Java's original GUI library, has been replaced by a completely new one, Swing, with the release of Java 1.2/2.0. It promises to have more features, be more stable, and generally live up to the platform-specific libraries against which it competes. In many ways, Swing is the hope for Java on the desktop. Of course, you have to figure out all those APIs first....

What's the book about?

The JFC Swing Tutorial is the Sun-imprinted official word on how to code for the Swing API (note that this book is also available for free from Sun's web site [see the link in the title above]). Of it's 950 pages, literally the last 300 are source code to all of the examples in the text, while the first 600 delve into every aspect of Swing. As with most tutorials, things start off slow, with a "hello, world!" equivalent, but the difficulty ramps up quickly. There is a (relatively) short section giving an introduction to layouts, painting, and other GUI basics before the real meat of the book begins.

Chapters 12-17 are the heart of the tutorial, and take the reader through every part of the Swing API. This is broken up into top-level containers (frames, dialogs, applets), intermediate-level containers (panels, panes, tool bars), and atomic components (all the buttons, choosers, and menus). There are tables at the end of each section summarizing the various methods, along with their purposes. There are also example summaries, listing where to find the examples that demonstrate the various concepts presented. The section is quite thorough, with plenty of code interspersed through the text.

The final part delves into the other parts of Swing, including layouts, actions, borders, icons, look and feel, and chapters on event listeners, graphics, and converting from the AWT. These chapters continue the structure begun in the middle sections, with many code examples and handy summary tables.

What's Good?

Simply put, if you want to know how to do something in Swing, it's probably covered in this book to one extent or another. In fact, you're likely to find that your code has already been written for you to some extent, given the copious examples provided. Even if you cannot find exactly what you want, you can likely piece it together from what is provided. It's also nice being the official tutorial, as you can trust that the authors had decent references whenever they had a question or two. This is the official way to do Swing.

What's Bad?

Well, in short, more than I would like. Personally, I'm not well-grounded in doing GUIs. Not to say that I've never done them before, but I've had my struggles in the past. That's one reason I wanted to review this book, as I was hoping to strengthen my skills along the way. Unfortunately, I don't feel like that has happened. Don't misread the title. This isn't a GUI tutorial in any sense of the word; it's a Swing tutorial. The complexity of the text ramps up quite quickly after "hello, world," and if you aren't ready, you'll be lost in the dust. To be honest, I found this to be more of a reference book than a tutorial, at least to the extent that I wouldn't read this book cover-to-cover, but would pull it off the shelf any time I had a Swing question. The examples are thorough and there are plenty of them, but the style and layout do not make for an easy read-through.

So What's In It For Me?

Firstly, you have an amazing advantage of being able to try this book out for free. If you're interested, check out the URL and read through a few sections. Make your own review. You can buy it or ditch it at your leisure. Second, don't use this book as a general GUI tutorial. That's not what it is, and trying to use it as such will only frustrate you. If, however, you know GUIs, and you want to learn about all that Swing has to offer, this is an excellent book. You get an entire CD-ROM full of Java code for your use, plus the official Swing reference. Depending on your needs, this book will either be very helpful, or a very heavy paperweight.

Purchase this book at fatbrain.

• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Before You Start
• Getting Started with Swing
  1. About the JFC and Swing
  2. Compiling and Running Swing Programs
  3. Running Swing Applets
  4. A Quick Tour of a Swing Application's Code
• Features and Concepts
  1. Components and Containment Hierarchies
  2. Layout Management
  3. Event Handling
  4. Painting
  5. Threads and Swing
  6. More Swing Features and Concepts
  7. The Anatomy of a Swing-Based Program
• Using Swing Components
  1. A Visual Index to Swing Components
  2. The JComponent Class
  3. Using Top-Level Containers
  4. Using Intermediate Swing Containers
  5. Using Atomic Components
  6. Solving Common Component Problems
• Laying Out Components
  1. Using Layout Managers
  2. Creating a Custom Layout Manager
  3. Doing Without a Layout Manager
  4. Solving Common Layout Problems
• Using Other Swing Features
• Writing Event Listeners
  1. Some Simple Event-Handling Examples
  2. General Rules for Writing Event Listeners
  3. Listeners Supported by Swing Components
  4. Implementing Listeners for Commonly Handled Events
  5. Summary of Listener API
  6. Solving Common Event-Handling Problems
• Working with Graphics
  1. Overview of Custom Painting
  2. Using Graphics Primitives
  3. Using Images
  4. Performing Animation
  5. Solving Common Graphics Problems
• Converting to Swing
  1. Why to Convert
  2. How to Convert
  3. Conversion Resources
  4. Solving Common Conversion Problems
• Appendices
  1. Code Examples
  2. Reference
• Index

Long-time reviewer Jason Bennett has sent a review of the official Sun tutorial on the new Swing GUI package called, not surprisingly, The JFC Swing Tutorial. If you are learning Java, use Java or want to learn Java, click below to learn more about this new book. JFC Swing Tutorial author Kathy Walrath & Mary Campione pages 953 publisher Addison Wesley, 06/1999 rating 8/10 reviewer Jason Bennett ISBN 0201433214 summary The official Sun tutorial on the new Swing GUI package Background

I was just finishing up my first year of university when Java burst onto the scene. As those of us who were around then can remember, the hype was intense. Actually, that would be an understatement. You would have thought Java was going to save the world and make your morning coffee all at once. Fortunately, things settled down almost as fast as they began, and Java started on its long road to maturity. In many ways, this book is the culmination of three years of Java maturation. The AWT, Java's original GUI library, has been replaced by a completely new one, Swing, with the release of Java 1.2/2.0. It promises to have more features, be more stable, and generally live up to the platform-specific libraries against which it competes. In many ways, Swing is the hope for Java on the desktop. Of course, you have to figure out all those APIs first....

What's the book about?

The JFC Swing Tutorial is the Sun-imprinted official word on how to code for the Swing API (note that this book is also available for free from Sun's web site [see the link in the title above]). Of it's 950 pages, literally the last 300 are source code to all of the examples in the text, while the first 600 delve into every aspect of Swing. As with most tutorials, things start off slow, with a "hello, world!" equivalent, but the difficulty ramps up quickly. There is a (relatively) short section giving an introduction to layouts, painting, and other GUI basics before the real meat of the book begins.

Chapters 12-17 are the heart of the tutorial, and take the reader through every part of the Swing API. This is broken up into top-level containers (frames, dialogs, applets), intermediate-level containers (panels, panes, tool bars), and atomic components (all the buttons, choosers, and menus). There are tables at the end of each section summarizing the various methods, along with their purposes. There are also example summaries, listing where to find the examples that demonstrate the various concepts presented. The section is quite thorough, with plenty of code interspersed through the text.

The final part delves into the other parts of Swing, including layouts, actions, borders, icons, look and feel, and chapters on event listeners, graphics, and converting from the AWT. These chapters continue the structure begun in the middle sections, with many code examples and handy summary tables.

What's Good?

Simply put, if you want to know how to do something in Swing, it's probably covered in this book to one extent or another. In fact, you're likely to find that your code has already been written for you to some extent, given the copious examples provided. Even if you cannot find exactly what you want, you can likely piece it together from what is provided. It's also nice being the official tutorial, as you can trust that the authors had decent references whenever they had a question or two. This is the official way to do Swing.

What's Bad?

Well, in short, more than I would like. Personally, I'm not well-grounded in doing GUIs. Not to say that I've never done them before, but I've had my struggles in the past. That's one reason I wanted to review this book, as I was hoping to strengthen my skills along the way. Unfortunately, I don't feel like that has happened. Don't misread the title. This isn't a GUI tutorial in any sense of the word; it's a Swing tutorial. The complexity of the text ramps up quite quickly after "hello, world," and if you aren't ready, you'll be lost in the dust. To be honest, I found this to be more of a reference book than a tutorial, at least to the extent that I wouldn't read this book cover-to-cover, but would pull it off the shelf any time I had a Swing question. The examples are thorough and there are plenty of them, but the style and layout do not make for an easy read-through.

So What's In It For Me?

Firstly, you have an amazing advantage of being able to try this book out for free. If you're interested, check out the URL and read through a few sections. Make your own review. You can buy it or ditch it at your leisure. Second, don't use this book as a general GUI tutorial. That's not what it is, and trying to use it as such will only frustrate you. If, however, you know GUIs, and you want to learn about all that Swing has to offer, this is an excellent book. You get an entire CD-ROM full of Java code for your use, plus the official Swing reference. Depending on your needs, this book will either be very helpful, or a very heavy paperweight.

Purchase this book at fatbrain.

• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Before You Start
• Getting Started with Swing
  1. About the JFC and Swing
  2. Compiling and Running Swing Programs
  3. Running Swing Applets
  4. A Quick Tour of a Swing Application's Code
• Features and Concepts
  1. Components and Containment Hierarchies
  2. Layout Management
  3. Event Handling
  4. Painting
  5. Threads and Swing
  6. More Swing Features and Concepts
  7. The Anatomy of a Swing-Based Program
• Using Swing Components
  1. A Visual Index to Swing Components
  2. The JComponent Class
  3. Using Top-Level Containers
  4. Using Intermediate Swing Containers
  5. Using Atomic Components
  6. Solving Common Component Problems
• Laying Out Components
  1. Using Layout Managers
  2. Creating a Custom Layout Manager
  3. Doing Without a Layout Manager
  4. Solving Common Layout Problems
• Using Other Swing Features
• Writing Event Listeners
  1. Some Simple Event-Handling Examples
  2. General Rules for Writing Event Listeners
  3. Listeners Supported by Swing Components
  4. Implementing Listeners for Commonly Handled Events
  5. Summary of Listener API
  6. Solving Common Event-Handling Problems
• Working with Graphics
  1. Overview of Custom Painting
  2. Using Graphics Primitives
  3. Using Images
  4. Performing Animation
  5. Solving Common Graphics Problems
• Converting to Swing
  1. Why to Convert
  2. How to Convert
  3. Conversion Resources
  4. Solving Common Conversion Problems
• Appendices
  1. Code Examples
  2. Reference
• Index

Jason Bennett has returned after a long hiatus, bringing with him a review of Benjamin L. Kovitz' Practical Software Requirements. Jason's theme has been software engineering, and this review does not disappoint, drawing on themes of what you actually need to accomplish your job. Practical Software Requirements author Benjamin L. Kovitz pages 426 publisher Manning rating 9/10 reviewer Jason Bennett ISBN 1884777597 summary A different perspective on how to gather requirements

Background

Greetings, all. I apologize for my long review layoff, but between June and now, I've managed to acquire a job where I actually have something better to do than write book reviews! Bonus! :-) Regardless, in the course of designing a new system for my company, I needed to write a good requirements document. I thought I knew how to do this, and set about creating the most anal, unreadable piece of technical gobbledygook you've ever seen. Needless to say, this document didn't fly. In desperation, I fished around Amazon.com for some decent requirements books. I already had the IEEE specification for requirements, but I didn't have a book that explained how to use the specification (this should tell you something). My search finally turned up this work, which had some good reviews posted, and the rest is history....

What's the book about?

Kovitz presents a very different view of requirements engineering from the prevailing view. Most approaches to requirements focus on breaking a problem into parts, and with these parts filling in predefined sections of a requirements template. Kovitz disagrees with this approach to requirements, and offers his own. In short, he says that decomposing a problem correctly is hard to impossible without some idea of what the solution is before you begin. Thus, when presented with a problem, you should try and find out what type of problem it is, so that you can relate the problem to ones already solved. From here, Kovitz describes how best to frame problems, and gives some sample problem frames.

Of course, once a problem has been placed in its proper frame, it still must be broken out into its constituent parts so that the requirements can be enumerated. Kovitz describes a process for doing this whereby the denizens of the problem domain are enumerated, along with their relationships. Once these denizens ("sets") are enumerated, along with their individual attributes and relationships, they make up the description of the problem domain. The requirements, then, are the effects the machine is to produce on the previously-described problem domain. Kovitz also advocates a separate interface document, which describes how the machine interacts with the problem domain. The book then ends with a series of chapters on style and structure, and a comprehensive example.

What's Good?

Overall, I found the book to be quite excellent. Kovitz tries to break down the legalistic view of requirements engineering as a top-down fill-in-the-blank exercise, and instead advocates a more flexible system whereby the design is kept separate, but each project has the process attuned to its distinct needs. This is quite a refreshing view, but one that still mandates good software engineering practices that can get any project off to an excellent start. In addition, the author has an online discussion forum where readers can ask questions, and receive direct help from the author. I found this to be an excellent resource, and the author is to be commended for such participation and dedication.

What's Bad?

I have to admit, I had a little trouble applying the ideas in the book. Specifically, I had difficulty deciding what exactly were "sets" in my problem domain, and what their attributes were. It was a simple issue of translating the concepts to the reality of my project. In the end, I don't think my requirements document quite met the standard set in PSR, but it certainly benefitted a great deal from it.

So What's In It For Me?

I haven't been able to give a good software engineering lecture in a while, so I'll jump back on my high horse. All project, especially open source ones, need the solid foundation that can only come from good requirements. If you don't know what you are going to build, you have no chance of building it. Open source projects especially need a paper trail for new participants so that they can quickly come up to speed and understand the direction that the project is headed. Artifacts such as requirements speed this process and give everyone a common framework to draw from. Kovitz's approach provides for readable, coherent documents that allow people to understand what domain they are working in, and what they are trying to accomplish.

Purchase this book at Amazon.

• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Author Online
• Part I: Groundwork
  1. Problem Solving
  2. Problem Defining
  3. Two Worlds and Three Designs
  4. Problem Framing
  5. Five Problem Frames
  6. Multi-frame Problems
• Part II: Content
  1. Software Development
  2. Two Documents
  3. Classes and Relations
  4. Sequences and Events
  5. Causation and Control
  6. Special Topics
• Part III: Style
  1. Documentation
  2. Organization
  3. Small Details
• Part IV: Examples
  1. Bug Log Requirements
  2. Bug Log User Interface
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index

Jason Bennett has returned after a long hiatus, bringing with him a review of Benjamin L. Kovitz' Practical Software Requirements. Jason's theme has been software engineering, and this review does not disappoint, drawing on themes of what you actually need to accomplish your job. Practical Software Requirements author Benjamin L. Kovitz pages 426 publisher Manning rating 9/10 reviewer Jason Bennett ISBN 1884777597 summary A different perspective on how to gather requirements

Background

Greetings, all. I apologize for my long review layoff, but between June and now, I've managed to acquire a job where I actually have something better to do than write book reviews! Bonus! :-) Regardless, in the course of designing a new system for my company, I needed to write a good requirements document. I thought I knew how to do this, and set about creating the most anal, unreadable piece of technical gobbledygook you've ever seen. Needless to say, this document didn't fly. In desperation, I fished around Amazon.com for some decent requirements books. I already had the IEEE specification for requirements, but I didn't have a book that explained how to use the specification (this should tell you something). My search finally turned up this work, which had some good reviews posted, and the rest is history....

What's the book about?

Kovitz presents a very different view of requirements engineering from the prevailing view. Most approaches to requirements focus on breaking a problem into parts, and with these parts filling in predefined sections of a requirements template. Kovitz disagrees with this approach to requirements, and offers his own. In short, he says that decomposing a problem correctly is hard to impossible without some idea of what the solution is before you begin. Thus, when presented with a problem, you should try and find out what type of problem it is, so that you can relate the problem to ones already solved. From here, Kovitz describes how best to frame problems, and gives some sample problem frames.

Of course, once a problem has been placed in its proper frame, it still must be broken out into its constituent parts so that the requirements can be enumerated. Kovitz describes a process for doing this whereby the denizens of the problem domain are enumerated, along with their relationships. Once these denizens ("sets") are enumerated, along with their individual attributes and relationships, they make up the description of the problem domain. The requirements, then, are the effects the machine is to produce on the previously-described problem domain. Kovitz also advocates a separate interface document, which describes how the machine interacts with the problem domain. The book then ends with a series of chapters on style and structure, and a comprehensive example.

What's Good?

Overall, I found the book to be quite excellent. Kovitz tries to break down the legalistic view of requirements engineering as a top-down fill-in-the-blank exercise, and instead advocates a more flexible system whereby the design is kept separate, but each project has the process attuned to its distinct needs. This is quite a refreshing view, but one that still mandates good software engineering practices that can get any project off to an excellent start. In addition, the author has an online discussion forum where readers can ask questions, and receive direct help from the author. I found this to be an excellent resource, and the author is to be commended for such participation and dedication.

What's Bad?

I have to admit, I had a little trouble applying the ideas in the book. Specifically, I had difficulty deciding what exactly were "sets" in my problem domain, and what their attributes were. It was a simple issue of translating the concepts to the reality of my project. In the end, I don't think my requirements document quite met the standard set in PSR, but it certainly benefitted a great deal from it.

So What's In It For Me?

I haven't been able to give a good software engineering lecture in a while, so I'll jump back on my high horse. All project, especially open source ones, need the solid foundation that can only come from good requirements. If you don't know what you are going to build, you have no chance of building it. Open source projects especially need a paper trail for new participants so that they can quickly come up to speed and understand the direction that the project is headed. Artifacts such as requirements speed this process and give everyone a common framework to draw from. Kovitz's approach provides for readable, coherent documents that allow people to understand what domain they are working in, and what they are trying to accomplish.

Purchase this book at Amazon.

• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Author Online
• Part I: Groundwork
  1. Problem Solving
  2. Problem Defining
  3. Two Worlds and Three Designs
  4. Problem Framing
  5. Five Problem Frames
  6. Multi-frame Problems
• Part II: Content
  1. Software Development
  2. Two Documents
  3. Classes and Relations
  4. Sequences and Events
  5. Causation and Control
  6. Special Topics
• Part III: Style
  1. Documentation
  2. Organization
  3. Small Details
• Part IV: Examples
  1. Bug Log Requirements
  2. Bug Log User Interface
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index

M|U writes "Michael Cowpland, CEO of Corel, has been charged with three counts of violating securities law. CBC Newsworld has the story online, along with more details. Apparently trading of Corel stock was halted prior to the announcement. " The Corel booth at ALS has no comment at this time. The alleged current violations are insider trading, according to CBC. Update: 10/14 05:18 by H : Corel has responded in a press release. Dr. Cowpland is "looking forward to finally have the chance to clear his name..."

xTg writes "News.com is reporting that Excite@HOME is restructuring its divisions to facilitate a merger with AOL. The most important question in my mind: Does this mean I have to pay more for my cable modem now in exchange for AOL "premium" content? Does AOL like linux? blah." I don't care whether it's AOL or @home, as long as I can keep using Linux with my cable modem and they don't jack the price too hard. Whatever. We customers are nothing but pawns in all of this until the cable monopolies either get some solid competition or are forced to open their lines to outside ISPs. I second xTg's "blah."Update: 10/01 10:48 by H : Apparently, the deal is being denied by AT&T.

Justin Ng writes "CNet reports that the 8MB Palm Vx is due October 4th, and as a result Palm V and Palm IIIx models will be slashed in price. Read about it here. " Seems like it will be what the the Palm IIIx was to the Palm III. Wonder what sort of upgrade path will be provided...

Thanks to Ian Hopper> for the current story on CNN about the Visor. Pictures-and in a very cool turn of events-two very cool peripheral ports in the back of the machine. It runs about 20% faster then the Palm III or V, 8 MB of RAM in the high-end version of the machine. Oh-and about 2/3 the cost of a Palm V. Check out the Palminfocenter for more details, as well.Update: 09/14 03:33 by H :The corp. website appears to be up and running as well.

DrunkenBastard writes "I just noticed that a 2.2.12 kernel was starting to appear on the kernel.org mirror I usually frequent. " When I saw this submission, the first thing I thought was "And me with my 38 day uptime". That confirms it. I gotta go out ;)

Steve Nakhla writes "The same people responsible for the iMac-looking PC's are now shipping a dual-Celeron PC, that makes overclocking a breeze. " So the question is, Publicity Stunt, or a valuable feature that consumers want? A motherboard that makes 8x overclocking easy is certainly cool, but its definitely gonna void some warranties, and maybe even blow up some chips.