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"I think a brand spanking new SunBlade can be had for like 999 dollars."


After double-checking Sun, I managed to find a Sun Blade 100 for $995 USD. The system "boasts a 64-bit high-performance UltraSPARC® IIe processor, provides plenty of internal disk and memory, and features a fast PCI bus for enhanced I/O. It provides both USB and IEEE1394 interfaces for connectivity to a wide variety of third-party peripherals. And with graphics options that include the on-board Sun PGX64[tm] graphics accelerator". The $995 model has a 500Mhz CPU, 20GB 7200rpm hard disk, and 128mb of PC100 memory (max of 2gigs).

After sitting and thinking about... I'd prob'ly save myself $600 and just buy a Walmart branded Desktop/LX system. Seriously, there are only two possible reason to purchase a Blade 100: A) the coolness factor of having a Blade sitting there, or B) you need to run very specific software which absolutely requires using Sun boxen.

Sun earns its bread 'n butter off of the incredible stability and (to an extent) security Solaris boxen have. The redundancy features of their larger servers is legendary. But as a desktop, there is none of the redundancy features found in their server lines. So, that leaves performance: While the UltraSPARC II is no slouch, and UltraSPARCs have certain nifty features that x86's lack... that does not change the fact that Sun's processors have never been speed demons. The fact that this processor is a 64-bit design does little, if anything at all, to make this a more appealing system for any form of desktop work... I'll explain: this system still maxes out with 2 gigs of RAM(not even the 4gigs that a good x86 board can do). That fact alone negates 90% of the reason anyone would ever need a 64-bit machine. So the extra 32-bits the processor has is basically wasted real-estate. What's more, pushing 64-bit data to and from memory will obviously take more time than it would to push 32-bit data.

All in all, I can't see any reason to waste so much money just to have a Sun box. Comparing a Blade 100 against a $350 Walmart box, I see that I can get easily twice the performance for nearly a third of the price. And I would expect this little Linux box to be nearly as stable as Solaris 8 is.

At any rate, that's just my 2 worth. Hope I didn't step on anyone's toes. If you can find an actual, logical reason to spend the money for this Blade 100 that I haven't listed, please feel free to let me know.

"I think a brand spanking new SunBlade can be had for like 999 dollars."


After double-checking Sun, I managed to find a Sun Blade 100 for $995 USD. The system "boasts a 64-bit high-performance UltraSPARC® IIe processor, provides plenty of internal disk and memory, and features a fast PCI bus for enhanced I/O. It provides both USB and IEEE1394 interfaces for connectivity to a wide variety of third-party peripherals. And with graphics options that include the on-board Sun PGX64[tm] graphics accelerator". The $995 model has a 500Mhz CPU, 20GB 7200rpm hard disk, and 128mb of PC100 memory (max of 2gigs).

After sitting and thinking about... I'd prob'ly save myself $600 and just buy a Walmart branded Desktop/LX system. Seriously, there are only two possible reason to purchase a Blade 100: A) the coolness factor of having a Blade sitting there, or B) you need to run very specific software which absolutely requires using Sun boxen.

Sun earns its bread 'n butter off of the incredible stability and (to an extent) security Solaris boxen have. The redundancy features of their larger servers is legendary. But as a desktop, there is none of the redundancy features found in their server lines. So, that leaves performance: While the UltraSPARC II is no slouch, and UltraSPARCs have certain nifty features that x86's lack... that does not change the fact that Sun's processors have never been speed demons. The fact that this processor is a 64-bit design does little, if anything at all, to make this a more appealing system for any form of desktop work... I'll explain: this system still maxes out with 2 gigs of RAM(not even the 4gigs that a good x86 board can do). That fact alone negates 90% of the reason anyone would ever need a 64-bit machine. So the extra 32-bits the processor has is basically wasted real-estate. What's more, pushing 64-bit data to and from memory will obviously take more time than it would to push 32-bit data.

All in all, I can't see any reason to waste so much money just to have a Sun box. Comparing a Blade 100 against a $350 Walmart box, I see that I can get easily twice the performance for nearly a third of the price. And I would expect this little Linux box to be nearly as stable as Solaris 8 is.

At any rate, that's just my 2 worth. Hope I didn't step on anyone's toes. If you can find an actual, logical reason to spend the money for this Blade 100 that I haven't listed, please feel free to let me know.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agenda.

Sick, disgusting antichristian perverts, the lot of them.

In addition, many of the Linux distributions (a 'distribution' is the most common way to spread the faggots' wares) are run by faggot groups. The Slackware distro is named after the 'Slack-wear' fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes. Furthermore, Slackware is a close anagram of claw arse, a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting. The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists, and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator. It was also chosen because it is an anagram for dark amen and ram naked, which is what they do.

Another 'distro,' (abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like 'Disco,' which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970s), is Debian, an anagram of in a bed, which could be considered innocent enough (after all, a bed is both where we sleep and pray), until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares. 'Woody' is obvious enough, being a term for the erect male penis, glistening with pre-cum. But far sicker is the phrase 'Frozen Potato' that they use. This filthy term, again found in the secret homosexual 'Sauce Code,' refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag, shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus, then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid. The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen 'potato' up his own rectum, squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasm.

And Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpiece.

The fags have even invented special tools to aid their faggotry! For example, the 'supermount' tool was devised to allow deeper penetration, which is good for fags because it gives more pressure on the prostate gland. 'Automount' is used, on the other hand, because Linux users are all fat and gay, and need to mount each other automatically.

The depths of their depravity can be seen in their use of 'mount points.' These are, plainly speaking, the different points of penetration. The main one is obviously /anus, but there are others. Militant fags even say 'there is no /opt mount point' because for these dirty perverts faggotry is not optional but a way of life.

More evidence is in the fact that Linux users say how much they love `man`, even going so far as to say that all new Linux users (who are in fact just innocent heterosexuals indoctrinated by the gay propaganda) should try out `man`. In no other system do users boast of their frequent recourse to a man.

Other areas of the system also show Linux's inherit gayness. For example, people are often told of the 'FAQ,' but how many innocent heterosexual Windows users know what this actually means. The answer is shocking: Faggot Anal Quest: the voyage of discovery for newly converted fags!

Even the title 'Slashdot' originally referred to a homosexual practice. Slashdot of course refers to the popular gay practice of blood-letting. The Slashbots, of course are those super-zealous homosexuals who take this perversion to its extreme by ripping open their anuses, as seen on the site most popular with Slashdot users, the depraved work of Satan, http://www.eff.org/.

The editors of Slashdot also have homosexual names: 'Hemos' is obvious in itself, being one vowel away from 'Homos.' But even more sickening is 'Commander Taco' which sounds a bit like 'Commode in Taco,' filthy gay slang for a pair of spreadeagled buttocks that are caked with excrement. (The best form of lubrication, they insist.) Sometimes, these 'Taco Commodes' have special 'Salsa Sauce' (blood from a ruptured rectum) and 'Cheese' (rancid flakes of penis discharge) toppings. And to make it even worse, Slashdot runs on Apache!

The Apache server, whose use among fags is as prevalent as AIDS, is named after homosexual activity -- as everyone knows, popular faggot band, the Village People, featured an Apache Indian, and it is for him that this gay program is named.

And that's not forgetting the use of patches in the Linux fag world -- patches are used to make the anus accessible for repeated anal sex even after its rupture by a session of fisting.

To summarise: Linux is gay. 'Slash -- Dot' is the graphical description of the space between a young boy's scrotum and anus. And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled 'stumpers.'

FEEDBACK

What worries me is how much you know about what gay people do. I'm scared I actually read this whole thing. I think this post is a good example of the negative effects of Internet usage on people. This person obviously has no social life anymore and had to result to writing something as stupid as this. And actually take the time to do it too. Although... I think it was satire.. blah.. it's early. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well, the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux 'Sauce code' once. Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer (and haven't you always been worried about the phrase 'Monolithic Kernel'?), this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race, as well as a few of the major animal species. It has shocked and disturbed me, to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to warn them of the impending homo-calypse which threatens to engulf our planet.

You must work for the government. Trying to post the most obscene stuff in hopes that slashdot won't be able to continue or something, due to legal woes. If i ever see your ugly face, i'm going to stick my fireplace poker up your ass, after it's nice and hot, to weld shut that nasty gaping hole of yours. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Doesn't it give you a hard-on to imagine your thick strong poker ramming it's way up my most sacred of sphincters? You're beyond help, my friend, as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man. Are you sure you're not Eric Raymond? The government, being populated by limp-wristed liberals, could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy. Hell, they've given NAMBLA free reign for years!

you really should post this logged in. i wish i could remember jebus's password, cuz i'd give it to you. -- mighty jebus, Slashdot

Thank you for your kind words of support. However, this document shall only ever be posted anonymously. This is because the 'Open Sauce' movement is a sham, proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom. I speak for the common man. For any man who prefers the warm, enveloping velvet folds of a woman's vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child. These men, being common, decent folk, don't have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture. I am the unknown liberator.

ROLF LAMO i hate linux FAGGOTS -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

We shouldn't hate them, we should pity them for the misguided fools they are... Fanatical Linux zeal-outs need to be herded into camps for re-education and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society. This re-education shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of Baywatch until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism.

Actually, that's not at all how scrotal inflation works. I understand it involves injecting sterile saline solution into the scrotum. I've never tried this, but you can read how to do it safely in case you're interested. (Before you moderate this down, ask yourself honestly -- who are the real crazies -- people who do scrotal inflation, or people who pay $1000+ for a game console?) -- double_h, Slashdot

Well, it just goes to show that even the holy Linux 'sauce code' is riddled with bugs that need fixing. (The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me.) The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this, with their queer slogan: 'Given enough arms, all rectums are shallow.' And anyway, the PS2 sucks major cock and isn't worth the money. Intellivision forever!

dude did u used to post on msnbc's nt bulletin board now that u are doing anti-gay posts u also need to start in with anti-black stuff too c u in church -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

For one thing, whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing, NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film, enjoying the restriction enforced onto them. Remember, a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Clearly, the only god-fearing Christian operating system in existence is CP/M -- The Christian Program Monitor. All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems. It is the only route to salvation.

Secondly, this message is for every man. Computers know no colour. Not only that, but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by a Black Man . Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher.

And don't forget that slashdot was written in Perl, which is just too close to 'Pearl Necklace' for comfort.... oh wait; that's something all you heterosexuals do.... I can't help but wonder how much faster the trolls could do First-Posts on this site if it were redone in PHP... I could hand-type dynamic HTML pages faster than Perl can do them. -- phee, Slashdot

Although there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a woman's breasts, squirting one's load up towards her neck and chin area, it should be noted that Perl (standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally) is also close to 'Pearl Monocle,' 'Pearl Nosering,' and the ubiquitous 'Pearl Enema.'

One scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages. Take the following code: LWP::Simple -- It looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? But look at the line closely: There are two colons next to each other! As Larry 'Balls to the' Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation, Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate it's programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts -- having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of 'colon kissing,' whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide, pressing their filthy torn sphincters together. They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone. This is also referred to in programming 'circles' as 'Parameter Passing.'

And PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration. Didn't you know?

Thank you for your valuable input on this. I am sure you will be never forgotten. BTW: Did I mention that this could be useful in terraforming Mars? Mars rulaa. -- Eimernase, Slashdot

Well, I don't know about terraforming Mars, but I do know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years.

That's inspiring. Keep up the good work, AC. May God in his wisdom grant you the strength to bring the plain honest truth to this community, and make it pure again. Yours, Cerberus. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

*sniff* That brings a tear to my eye. Thank you once more for your kind support. I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lord's work, but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man here.

However, I should be cautious about revealing your name 'Cerberus' on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot. It is a well known fact that the 'Kerberos' documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing, in intimate, exacting detail, how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals; be they domesticated, wild, or mythical. Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide, treating it as an 'extension' to the Linux 'Sauce Code,' for the sake of 'interoperability.' (The slang term they use for nonconsensual intercourse -- their favourite kind.)

In fact, sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties, (Love of Anal Naughtiness, needless to say.), wherein they entice a stray dog, known as the 'Samba Mount,' into their homes. Up to four of these filth-sodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect, throbbing, uncircumcised members, conkers-deep, into the rectum, mouth, and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal. Eventually, the 'Samba Mount' collapses due to 'overload,' and needs to be 'rebooted.' (i.e., kicked out into the street, and left to fend for itself.) Many Linux users boast about their 'uptime' in such situations.

Inspiring stuff! If only all trolls were this quality! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

If only indeed. You can help our brave cause by moderating this message up as often as possible. I recommend '+1, Underrated,' as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation. Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture. Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened 'Bender'???

If we can get just one of these postings up to at least '+1,' then it will be archived forever! Others will learn of our struggle, and join with us in our battle for freedom!

It's pathetic you've spent so much time writing this. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I am compelled to document the foulness and carnal depravity that is Linux, in order that we may prepare ourselves for the great holy war that is to follow. It is my solemn duty to peel back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.

As with any great open-source project, you need someone asking this question, so I'll do it. When the hell is version 2.0 going to be ready?!?! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I could make an arrogant, childish comment along the lines of 'Every time someone asks for 2.0, I won't release it for another 24 hours,' but the truth of the matter is that I'm quite nervous of releasing a 'number two,' as I can guarantee some filthy shit-slurping Linux pervert would want to suck it straight out of my anus before I've even had chance to wipe.

I desperately want to suck your monolithic kernel, you sexy hunk, you. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I sincerely hope you're Natalie Portman.

Dude, nothing on slashdot larger than 3 paragraphs is worth reading. Try to distill the message, whatever it was, and maybe I'll read it. As it is, I have to much open source software to write to waste even 10 seconds of precious time. 10 seconds is all its gonna take M$ to whoop Linux's ass. Vigilence is the price of Free (as in libre -- from the fine, frou frou French language) Software. Hack on fellow geeks, and remember: Friday is Bouillabaisse day except for heathens who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins. Those godless, oil drench, bearded sexist clowns can pull grits from their pantaloons (another fine, fine French word) and eat that. Anyway, try to keep your message focused and concise. For concision is the soul of derision. Way. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

What the fuck?

I've read your gay conspiracy post version 1.3.0 and I must say I'm impressed. In particular, I appreciate how you have managed to squeeze in a healthy dose of the latent homosexuality you gay-bashing homos tend to be full of. Thank you again. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well bugger me!

ooooh honey. how insecure are you!!! wann a little massage from deare bruci. love you -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Fuck right off!

IMPORTANT: This message needs to be heard (Not HURD, which is an acronym for 'Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator') across the whole community, so it has been released into the Public Domain. You know, that licence that we all had before those homoerotic crypto-fascists came out with the GPL (Gay Penetration License) that is no more than an excuse to see who's got the biggest feces-encrusted cock. I would have put this up on Freshmeat, but that name is known to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boy.

Come to think of it, the whole concept of 'Source Control' unnerves me, because it sounds a bit like 'Sauce Control,' which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation, thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receiver's scrotum. And 'Open Sauce' is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later. Obviously, 'Closed Sauce' is the only Christian thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about.

Contributors: (although not to the eternal game of 'soggy biscuit' that open 'sauce' development has become) Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, phee, Anonymous Coward, mighty jebus, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, double_h, Anonymous Coward, Eimernase, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward. Further contributions are welcome.

Current changes: This version sent to FreeWIPO by 'Bring BackATV' as plain text. Reformatted everything, added all links back in (that we could match from the previous version), many new ones (Slashbot bait links). Even more spelling fixed. Who wrote this thing, CmdrTaco himself?

Previous changes: Yet more changes added. Spelling fixed. Feedback added. Explanation of 'distro' system. 'Mount Point' syntax described. More filth regarding `man` and Slashdot. Yet more fucking spelling fixed. 'Fetchmail' uncovered further. More Slashbot baiting. Apache exposed. Distribution licence at foot of document.

ANUX -- A full Linux distribution... Up your ass!

I stumbled across Sun's Mainframe rehosting the other day and thought it was interesting. Runs CICS programs on SPARC/Solaris, and seems like it's pretty real.

Sure, may not do everything a mainframe can, but could be an interesting way to transition to open platforms.

You could write your own a simple one in java wouldn't be too hard using the JMF and this screen grabber datasource. The output file can be in anything that JMF supports .avi or .mov by default.

You could write your own a simple one in java wouldn't be too hard using the JMF and this screen grabber datasource. The output file can be in anything that JMF supports .avi or .mov by default.

You could write your own a simple one in java wouldn't be too hard using the JMF and this screen grabber datasource. The output file can be in anything that JMF supports .avi or .mov by default.

Here's the problem with that statement. .NET is Microsoft's replacement for the dreaded Win32's and the DLL hell problem that has plagued them for years. It in itself is not a direct competitor to java as it aims to fix windows related problems. Longhorn (the next edition of windows) are to include a new API set based on .Net and begin the phase out of the win32s.

If you don't believe me that .Net is not a direct competitor, just compare the two philosophies: Sun write once, run everywhere on anything, Microsoft: Runs Amazing on windows, and maybe if we have the time other places (eg, IE for Sun, Mac). Yes .Net works on other platforms but just count the number of platforms it runs on... (Hint 3, windows, Mac OS and BSD) and only one of them you have a legal license you use it for commercial stuff. There's work being done for the other Unix like mono, but none will really have the power of the full functionality set found in Microsoft's proprietary implementation, .Net as we know it. The free one just doesn't come with critical things like ASP, ADO, Winforms, etc. Without this fundamental functionality other projects like mono or Rotor don't even come close!. Oh... and did I mention that Rotor implementation doesn't include a GUI api?..

It seem more to me that Sun is finding it more difficult to sell its Java vision (that being that everything would run it, from a mainframe down to a ring. If you don't believe me, just look at what they're trying to get out of their settlement.

Unbundled tied products like Internet Explorer, IIS, Active Directory, Exchange, Windows server and .NET framework

Removing Active Directory form of administration from the windows world is as fundamentally removing shell scripting and the telnet daemon from a unix box. They're both key ways of working with the platform and have nothing to do with java. If Sun wants more admins and end users to accept java, they should focus on making the end user experience the best instead of trying to throw stuff down your throat as they claim Microsoft does. They've gotten better but they've had a terrible history, I certainly had a hell of a time installing Java 1.x way back in the day because the instruction were far too cryptic, hell I even caught unix setup instruction in the win32 distrib man. If they want to woo the average man or admin they should embrace the platform their on and use what's there. An Intellimirror install that could be admin'd and easly distributed by Active Directory would go a lot father in helping than trying to cripple windows by removing something unrelated. It only shows that Sun is trying to be as anticompetitive as they are claiming Microsoft is by trying to cripple windows so that you don't have much of a choice but to switch.

My philosophy is if your going to pick a fight and you can't beat them your way, beat them their way... that way the victory is soo much sweeter.

But that's my 2 cents.

'cos you know, Sun isn't doing ANY R&D, they're just suing Microsoft in hopes that the money gained will hide the fact that they're not innovating.

'cos you know, Sun isn't doing ANY R&D, they're just suing Microsoft in hopes that the money gained will hide the fact that they're not innovating.

JavaScript was horribly named by inept marketers at Netscape back in 1995. Its real name was "LiveScript" but they changed it at the last minute so they could coast on Java hype. It has nothing to do with Java

the windows plugin can be downloaded from http://java.sun.com/getjava/.

It's about 8MB in size- On windows machines it installs automatically like other browser plugins.

What's nice is that this is a plugin maintained by Sun, not one of your own creation. You just write apps that leverage the technology. So far Sun's java WebStart works on windows, MacOS X, Solaris and Linux. Not too shabby!

A recent and good introductory article about JSF is A First Look at JavaServer Faces

Craig McClanahan mentioned the transition to using JSP Faces in one of his Struts presentations at the recent ApacheCon and it has been discussed on the Struts mailing lists (e.g. http://www.mail-archive.com/struts-dev@jakarta.apa che.org/msg08457.html

It's also becoming part of the J2EE spec in a slightly altered but hopefully interoperable form.

Sun is calling it JavaServer Faces. Principal Struts developer Craig McClanahan is on the committee.

I sure hope the pending SDK has support for the latest version of Java. I have yet to get the latest version of Cryptix OpenPGP to work with the J2SE v 1.4.1.

I don't know what the 'other stuff' is. but Java, Matlab, and Maple are all available for Linux.

Part of the cost of maintenance on the Linux platform is surely regular installation of upgrades which are freely available.
By contrast, who keeps a Microsoft product for five years without upgrading it? Especially in a corporate environment? That means that two years down the road, it's time to pay for a new version. . .

Not only that, using plain C spares them a lot of ABI problems that, for instance, g++ has been through recently. They had to use C++ for the Java plugin for Mozilla/Netscape, look what trouble it brought them into.

Not quite sure how old your information is, but Solaris is now FREE (as in free beer) only for single CPU capable machines.

Anything bigger needs a licence from Sun. Go enjoy Solaris 9 for X86 on a single CPU machine today

dear reader the gnome armageddon has started,

first of all i want to clarify that this text was meant to be a source of information otherwise i wouldn't have spent so much time into writing it. belive me it took me a couple of days writing this text in a foreign language. even if you don't care at all for gnome, you may find some interesting information within this text that you like to read. please try to understand my points even if it's hard sometimes, otherwise you wake up one day and feel the need to switch to a different operating system.

on the following lines i'm trying to give you a little insight of the gnome community. the things that are going on in the back, the information that could be worth talking and thinking about.

many of us like the gnome desktop and some of us were following it since the beginning. gnome is a promising project because it's mostly written in C, easy to use, configurable and therefore fits perfectly into the philosophy of u*nix. only to name some of its advantages.

unfortunately these advantages changed with the recently new released version of gnome. the core development team somehow got the idea of targeting gnome to a complete different direction of users. the so called corporate desktop user. in other words they're targeting people that aren't familiar or experienced with desktop environments. usually business oriented people who are willing to pay money for getting gnome on their computers.

having this new target in mind, the core development team mostly under contract by companies like redhat , ximian and sun decided to simplify the desktop as much as even possible by removing all its flexibility in favor of an easy clean simple interface to not confuse their new possible customers. so far the idea of a clean easy to use desktop is honourable.

some of the new ideas, features and implementations such as gconf , an evil windows registry like system, new ordering of buttons and dialogs, the removal of 90%-95% of all visible preferences from the control center and applications, the new direction that gnome leads and the attitude of the core development team made a lot of users really unhappy. these are only a couple of examples and the list can easily be expanded but for now this is enough. now let me try to get deeper into these aspects.

you may imagine that users got really frustrated because their beloved gnome desktop matured into something they didn't want. during the time, the frustration of a not less amount of people increased. more , more and more emails arrived on the gnome mailinglists where users tried to explain their concerns, frustrations and the leading target of GNOME.

but the core development team of gnome don't give a damn about what their users are thinking or wanting and most of the time they come up with their standard purl. the reply they give is mostly the same. users should either go and 'file a bug' at bugzilla or the user mails are being turned so far that at the end they sound like being trolls or the user feedback is simply not wanted. whatever happens the answers aren't really satisfying for the user. even constructive feedback isn't appreciated.

if you gonna think about this for a minute then things gonna harden that they are directing into the commercial area. the core development team actually don't care for the complaining home user. it's more important for them to reach the customers with the cash. it seems that this has been told to them by the company leaders. everything about gnome has been decided already, a way back or direct communication isn't possible. don't get trapped by sentences like 'we listen to our users'. they listen to you - yes, to make funny silly jokes about you afterwards.

i thought that everything was build up on friendship, build on programming for fun, build on understanding each other. but the reality looks like it's all for the big money. the cash is what matters everything else is a lie and a dream. time for people to wake up.

not long ago they threw one of the most important long year core developer martin baulig out of team. a guy who worked really hard on getting gnome into the right direction. a nice friendly person who put all his time into gnome. but narrow minded gnome elites such as havoc pennington were responsible that he left the gnome project. the trouble and the pressure that was put on him was to much.

with the new gnome desktop a lot of user interface changes happened such as button reordering . needless to say that this confuse people who are used to the 'right' button ordering for ages. even our fellow linux guru alan cox wasn't thrilled about this idea. but the gnome elites such as havoc pennington, seth nickell, calum benson and dave bordoley knew it better. why following the road of any other desktop that exists ? why not doing something that don't confuse their users and still stay usable ? well it seems to be too easy. gnome needs to be different than anything else so they changed the button order which was one of the reasons that users became unhappy. they said that there was a hard fight about this and the decision was made to change the buttons. but i belive they simply copied the behaviour of macos because most of the gnome developers use a macintosh as either laptop or desktop. sad that they forgot to keep in mind that users tend to mix applications and that this will lead into weird button searching and clicking.

but as if this wasn't enough the same people decided that the new gnome human interface guides were the ultima non plus ultra in human interface guides. the announcement contained informations that the kde usability people got initiated into it. unfortunately the kde people heard about it the first time when seth nickell went to the kde mailinglist which happened after the announcement. you can imagine that they got highly pissed off about this attitude. you can read more on this link . to summarize it, the kde people clarified that gnome should care for their own business.

the problem that came with the new interface guides was, that every little gnome hacker started to become an user interface expert over night. a lot of gnome programs that we like to use matured into a disaster over night. hackers that never programmed correctly for their life started to blindly follow the hype of simplification. for an example look what happened to galeon's interface (pay attention for the last paragraph). even philip langdale a long year galeon hacker got highly indignant by the target that gnome leads and wrote this email to the galeon mailinglist.

here another reason why users became angry. the elite assumes, that the user knows nothing about their system. you find a couple of heavily insulting mails on their mailing lists containing sentences like the quoted ones.

"the user don't know what a window manager is",

"the user don't know what themes are",

"the user don't know what a homedir is",

"the user can't compile a kernel",

"the user don't want to customize their desktop",

"the user shouldn't see preferences which purpose they don't know"

you may imagine that a lot of people are being offended by such lines because it's exactly these gnome users who are meant by these phrases. to read more such lines on the gnome mailinglists, simply click on this link and grep in their archives. be said that most of these sentences are coming from havoc pennington.

such evil practices shouldn't be tolerated by the users and need to be fighted. u*nix users aren't stupid people. who actually gave havoc pennington the rights to decide what the user wants and what not ? various users told him that people who use a u*nix like system are well aware of their capabilities dealing with such a complex system. there's a reason why people are switching from alternative operating systems. they want to learn, they want to use the full power of the system, they want to change everything they like.

to top all this, look at the future plans of nautilus . the current maintainers got the idea of changing the whole nautilus concepts into an object oriented user interface design. you may be highly interested in reading the exact words of alex larsson's vision for nautilus' future direction by clicking on this link .

to summarize it, it's assumed that the user don't need to deal with his homedir or his whole filesystem because it may confuse him or because he don't understand it. the new concepts of nautilus should be that the user deal with symbols in the nautilus view. e.g. you get a cdrom symbol and by clicking on it you see the directory of your cdrom, you get a photo symbol and by clicking on it you get a list of all your pr0n pictures, you get a music symbol and by clicking on it you get a list of all your mp3's. you don't know where all these files are located because you don't deal with the bottom layer of your homedir or filesystem anymore as mentioned earlier.

the question is why are people that know nothing about their users, that know nothing about correct user interface design destroying gnome ? the users don't deserve all this specially those that backed gnome for all the years. even sun threw a bunch of so called user interface experts together and have them work on gnome. don't forget that sun are the creators of the common desktop environment . we don't need another cde clone named gnome. even havoc pennington author of the good user interfaces text isn't able to get his own written software following his rules.

not long ago there was an report about the 'two captains of nautilus' where the reporter (uraeus a gnome contributor himself) reported alexander larsson and david camp. you may imagine that such a report can't be taken serious because it's done by their own people. we here have a saying that sounds like this 'one crow doesn't hack the eye of another crow out'. now you can click on this link and read more. it may be interesting to read the replies from various users all over the globe of what they think about gnome and nautilus in general (please pay attention to the listed ip's there). another nice and informative reading can be found by clicking on this link .

the fileselector problem was a long discussed issue in the gnome community. finally they came to an solution for this and have decided to go for this ugly fileselector instead going for this one which was developed by a free volunteer for a long time and in general looks and behaves better.

most users have no problems with the idea of keeping things simple and clean. removing some not needed preferences was indeed a good idea but it doesn't stop. people started to remove everything from their apps. you're forced to use dubious programs like gconf-editor which basically works like the windows registry editor, to tweak uncommented preferences. i don't think that this is an advantage. even the possibility to tweak preferences with an editor was taken away with that ugly implementation of gconf. all your preferences are stored in a directory tree with an unknown amount of *.xml files. even if you delete programs their keys are still remaining orphaned in these trees and finding them is like playing trivia. at the end it's worth a discussion if a system driven by a single home user needs such a registry like system. we didn't need such a system for over 30 years but the gnome development team got the idea copying one of the most retarded systems from windows to u*nix. not to mention that the copy is more retarded than the original.

it's a shame to see how such a nice desktop got thrown into the trash by such people. but there is a lot more behind the scenes that i don't know about. everything around gnome is a big marketing strategy. poor people are working the hell out of gnome for nothing and companies such as those mentioned above are getting the big cash. for sure you could say - go and fork gnome - but seriously how can you go and fork gnome ? such a big project which needs a bunch of people to keep the code alive and compatible. well you know it's all about open source the code is signed under the gnu/gpl or gnu/lgpl, you can't own it. even the companies are aware of this. but if you can't own the code - go and hire their developers. you can direct them like puppets in any direction that you - as company - like. exactly this is happening with gnome.

well you could easily come up and tell me to simply not use gnome and let them do whatever they like. well, you are right with that but things are more complicated nowadays. gnome is influencing a lot of third party projects such as xfree86 which recently added a lot of gnome components into their cvs repository. please know that with the next coming xfree86 version you get a lot of gnome components without even knowing it. code like, gnome-xml , pkgconfig , fontconfig , xcursor and xft2 were mainly written by people who're heavily involved into gnome development. also the gimp is maturing more and more into getting the look and feel of a native gnome application. the cvs version of the gimp has a lot of gnome pixmaps inside and they are heavily working on integrate the gimp into gnome. if not today but the direction is sure and i fear the day this gonna happen.

it's ok that these things exist and it's ok to see xfree86 and the gimp are beeing hacked on. but please think about the people that don't like or use gnome. what about them ? why force them to have gnome components installed on their systems ? why can't gnome go the same way that kde went e.g. doing their own stuff without infecting other projects like aids. seeing more and more libraries and applications that were in no way related to gnome jumping on the pkgconfig boat which's really not needed. look what will happen to solaris, the world famous operating system on u*nix used by big companies and long years experts. they really plan to replace cde with gnome. i know that cde wasn't the best invention of desktops but it rarely crashed and it fits far better into the philosophy of xfree86 with their configuration system than gnome. you know the good old way having your settings defined with .xdefaults and all nice default configurations are going into /etc/x11/app-defaults/ and so on. understandable that the good old way may be blocking the future of applications for multiusersystems - but why must it have to be a windows registry like system that replaces future configuration ?

well to come to an end i personally don't like many of this stuff. i can't stand the button reordering, i don't like the gconf system and even more i don't like the commercial outsourcing of gnome and the bad influence that gnome has on other applications. the bad attitude of some gnome developers is another story since we are all different reacting humans. luckily there are people sharing some of my thoughts otherwise i wouldn't be able to proof my text with so many links. even amongst the gnome developers there are silent voices of people that hate many of these decisions and silently use something else. right now if you checkout the gnome cvs repository every day you find out that the whole gnome development seemed to came to an halt. the contributions to their cvs are poor. while projects such as kde are reaching easily 10-20k commits per month - gnome is getting around 1-2k per month on it's best times. it really looks like the situation of gnome is unclear so it would be better to have it not influence so much other programs or at the end we deal with an disaster.

now i hope this text was informative for you. i hope that you start to think about the situation and the global direction. the situation of gnome is unclear, their target is groggy too since i can't belive that the users that they are targeting ever heard of u*nix or linux. they plan to get out of the 0.05% desktop niche but this will for sure not happen if they continue their current direction and their bad ugly attitude.

Well the Solaris 9 x86 version is probably for their entry level LX50 servers

http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/lx50/index.html

what do you think ?

I think if you went to the original announcement, you'd see it was for both the LX50 and non-Sun hardware.

Sun says Sol9 is Linux compatible. They also include many of our favorite Open Source apps, and many of those are Sun supported.

If we didn't need SPARC binary compatibility for some of the libraries we don't have source code for I could probably convince the Powers That Be to take a look at this at work, especially since I could build a dual CPU Athlon 2400+ development box for cheap. (I have one at home. Real MP 2400+ chips should be available later this month, saving you the nuisance of hacking XP series chips.) Being able to use the same GTK+/GNOME GUI source for both Linux and Solaris development is very, very interesting. Windows has probably already won where I work, but who knows?

Sun says Sol9 is Linux compatible. They also include many of our favorite Open Source apps, and many of those are Sun supported.

If we didn't need SPARC binary compatibility for some of the libraries we don't have source code for I could probably convince the Powers That Be to take a look at this at work, especially since I could build a dual CPU Athlon 2400+ development box for cheap. (I have one at home. Real MP 2400+ chips should be available later this month, saving you the nuisance of hacking XP series chips.) Being able to use the same GTK+/GNOME GUI source for both Linux and Solaris development is very, very interesting. Windows has probably already won where I work, but who knows?

on a solaris system do a man on snoop.. or just use docs.sun.com if you don't have a solaris box handy..

Of course the examples are biased; look at the website. It looks more like a press-release or an advertisement than a community site. It's more in the vein of this, this, and this than it resembles this, this, or this. Water is clearly being developed & marketed from "dazzle the PHB with buzzwords" angle. The big difference is that Clear Methods doesn't really have the size, reputation, or money to stuff something like this down everyone's throats. It's an even harder sell when you have tojustify the cost in comparison to the competition, which is free.

Section 1, In addition to the strict listing, however, are hundreds of examples of how to use the classes; some basic, some obvious, and some you probably haven't seen.

All the examples.

Section 2 provides a listing of every class in the covered packages in alphabetical order, along with all the signature of every public method in those classes.

Part 3 goes through every major JDK release, starting at 1.0, and tells you everything you could possibly want to know about that release.

I guess you would have to figure this part out yourself, but what real value is it anyway?

I know, I know, it's nice to have this in book form, but the sooner you learn how to parse through what javadoc provides, the better. Especially if you are serious about learning/using java, you need to become familar with javadoc. Plus the APIs are still changing, and the Sun website will always have the most up-to-date information. It takes a while to get used to looking at documentation online, but once you are familar with it, you will be proficent in finding what you want in no time.

The real value of the books seems to be the examples, but they are all on-line too.

Seriously, don't buy this book. If you want something that will truely make you a better Java programmer, get Effective Java. That book is worth its weight in gold.

Why would I ever need to buy a book with the Java api? They aren't updated, don't have hyperlinks, don't support copy/paste, don't open to the correct page when I press help, and aren't free.

I concur. I don't buy Java books that reprint the entire API, because they're going to be obsolete in a hurry. Plus, it strikes me as sort of a ripoff, selling some poor beginner sap something they can readily get for free at

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/api/

or included with the free JDK. OTOH, it sounds like this book has more to offer than just the API, so maybe its only crime is being a lot thicker than it needs to be.

Here's more detail:
tuning JVM v1.4.x+

What about this thing?
What else would you need to port a kernel to it? It descibes about everything you want to know about the UltraSparc

Maybe if the OpenBSD guys could get SMP working or something, someone might take them seriouesly

someone like sun?

openssh, created by the openbsd project, is a standard part of solaris 9. gripe about smp all you want - i would prefer they focus on security and crypto - but your bias isn't applicable on this point.

while sun should provide this kind of documentation anyway, it's absurd that they don't provide it to the very people that freely provided them with tools they have rebadged as their own (sunssh) and tout as a feature.

I've often thought over the last few years that we've made too little progress in making programmers more productive. I largely blame that on Microsoft, simply because it drives more software development with it's tools than any other entity. One language I've categorically made a decision to avoid is Visual Basic. I have always felt it was basically (sorry) a waste of brain cells. It has certainly done nothing to advance the state of the art.

In my opinion, one of the best things to come along in a long time is Java. The gentle reader may recall earlier posts along those lines. I enjoy C, and have spent the majority of my career doing C and C++. However, I have also spent _way_ too much time tracking down memory-related bugs. Often, they were in third party code. That is no way to run a railroad.

Java addresses almost all of the glaring deficiencies of C++, both in language design and in runtime safety. In my opinion, the best programming tools will be those that enable single programmers to tackle larger and larger projects.

Compared with C++, Java enables me to tackle much more ambitious projects with confidence. A team approach can never attain the efficiency of a single programmer approach. The "sweet spot" of software engineering efficiency is the largest project one person can tackle. Extreme programming is a useful hybrid that attempts to turn two programmers into one programmer. ;-) (Also teams can be nearly as efficient as single programmers if the system is properly decomposed into subsystems separated by simple interfaces. This rarely happens smoothly, in my experience. It takes a top notch group of people.)

One last note on Java - performance is now almost completely on par with C++. On my most recent round of benchmarks, Java (JDK 1.4.1_01) on both Linux and Windows outperformed C++ (gcc 3 and VC 6) on most tests. Dynamic compilation and aggressive inlining are that effective. The VM also soundly spanked the gcj ahead of time compiler in gcc 3. It thoroughly rocks to have truly cross-platform code that runs faster than native! Think how many religous wars would be avoided if 99%+ of software was available on all OS platforms...and think how much it would help Linux! :-)

If you want to see what's out there for Java, download either the NetBeans IDE project, or the Eclipse IDE. Both are free and each has its strong points. NetBeans is a Swing app and includes a Swing GUI designer. Eclipse uses a new open source "native widget wrapper" library from IBM called SWT which has it's interesting points. You'll also need a Java VM (there are also others available from IBM etc.).

One last thought - wouldn't it be cool if web browsers had support for something like Java? I mean, you could deploy apps just by putting them on a web page! It wouldn't matter what the target platform was! What a great idea! (This paragraph was sarcasm in case you were wondering.)

It is obvious that Microsoft has been the fantastic driving force behind software innovation over the past two decades. Their uncanny ability to feel out new markets and met the needs of their customers with cost effective, friendly licensed, quality software has forced all other developers to increase the quality of their products.

You are reaching if you think that combining Sun's statement on the JCP together with some minor revisions of Java2 mean that Sun makes available all their patents for free Java implementations.

Your ignoring the last paragraph quoted from Effort on the edge, Part 1

Gingell notes that, "When J2SE is available under the terms of JCP 2.5, if someone wanted to implement it from specifications, they could do so without also licensing the reference implementation. They would have to license the TCKs to verify that they'd made a compatible implementation. They would thus have to be a TCK licensee, which would be available for free to qualified nonprofits."

g4dget wrote:"Sun has made no legally binding commitments on keeping Java open.".
At least Sun's Robert A. Gingell Sun Fellow & Vice President has published a Letter of Intent which includes the declration

Again in the interests of meeting the spirit of the requirements, Sun will modify the specification licenses of all the JSRs currently in progress to reflect Apache's requirements as met in the new draft JSPA. And we reaffirm a previous statement that we would work over time to change the licenses of previously completed JSRs to comply with the new JSPA draft. We specifically commit to doing such changes at a minimum for:

JSR 31 (JAXB), JSRs 52, 53, 152, 154 (JSPs/Servlets), JSR 63 (JAXP), JSR 67 (JAXM), JSR 93 (JAXR), JSR 101 (JAXRPC), JSR 127 (Java Server Faces), JSR 172 (J2ME Web Services)

As noted in the introductory summary, we believe these changes constitute a full meeting of Apache's requirements both in letter and in spirit.

It's a start, and it's value should not be dismissed lightly. Once again, Where are the equivalent public declarations from Microsoft?

Why will not Sun pull out of this accord? - Because, increasingly, it is not in Sun's self interest to do so.

Sun has adopted the LGPL/GPL licensed GNOME Desktop for both it's Solaris and Linux systems. In fact so much more open sourced software is being deployed on their systems, adding value to the platforms, that it is not in Sun's interest to limit free lisenced code interoperation with the Java frameworks.
For similar reasons IBM and other Java licensese are pressuring Sun to further open up the Java enviroment.

In it's comments of the voting for the new JCP IBM even commented:

IBM's vote is based on the technical merits of this JSR and is not a vote on the licensing terms. IBM supports licensing models that create an open and level playing field by allowing third parties to create independent implementations of Java Specifications and that do not allow individuals or companies to exercise unnecessary control for proprietary advantage. We support open source as a licensing model for contributions in the JCP, and would hope others will support this direction. This comment is not necessarily directed at the current business or license terms for this JSR, however, it is a statement of IBM's preferred licensing model.

Forces are moving into place which is going to make it very difficult for Sun to backslide to a close model again.

As for FUD, it seem to me that over time, Microsoft is becoming the sole dominant player in lies based on untruths.

By the way g4dget, are you any relation to John Carroll?

Sun does this too

I just wanted a frickin' laser, or maybe some grep(1) hooks. A regex API, for God's sake. Geez.

I think this is a very important addition to Internet Programming. IMHO forms and client side programming are currently HTML's weakest point and standardizing this areas growth is very wise.

I think we are heading towards a richer standards friendly front end for our web browsers.

One year from now I will probably be building web apps in JavaServer Faces + SVG, that are just as responsive and fast as using all the evil proprietary IE goodies.

also known as J2ME. Incase you're new to Java, this page at sun's site should give you a reasonably good intro to Java. Download the appropriate (J2EE, J2SE, J2ME) SDK, go through a few online tutorials, look at some code samples and you're good to go. I guarantee you, you'll have your hands filled.

also known as J2ME. Incase you're new to Java, this page at sun's site should give you a reasonably good intro to Java. Download the appropriate (J2EE, J2SE, J2ME) SDK, go through a few online tutorials, look at some code samples and you're good to go. I guarantee you, you'll have your hands filled.

also known as J2ME. Incase you're new to Java, this page at sun's site should give you a reasonably good intro to Java. Download the appropriate (J2EE, J2SE, J2ME) SDK, go through a few online tutorials, look at some code samples and you're good to go. I guarantee you, you'll have your hands filled.

also known as J2ME. Incase you're new to Java, this page at sun's site should give you a reasonably good intro to Java. Download the appropriate (J2EE, J2SE, J2ME) SDK, go through a few online tutorials, look at some code samples and you're good to go. I guarantee you, you'll have your hands filled.

also known as J2ME. Incase you're new to Java, this page at sun's site should give you a reasonably good intro to Java. Download the appropriate (J2EE, J2SE, J2ME) SDK, go through a few online tutorials, look at some code samples and you're good to go. I guarantee you, you'll have your hands filled.

Everything you need, documentation, tutorials, jdk's, forums, etc. can be found here: http://java.sun.com

If you do want to buy a book to learn from, I can't recommend "Just Java 2" by Peter van der Linden highly enough. The best beginner's Java book I've ever seen.

Everything you need, documentation, tutorials, jdk's, forums, etc. can be found here: http://java.sun.com

If you do want to buy a book to learn from, I can't recommend "Just Java 2" by Peter van der Linden highly enough. The best beginner's Java book I've ever seen.

Everything you need, documentation, tutorials, jdk's, forums, etc. can be found here: http://java.sun.com

If you do want to buy a book to learn from, I can't recommend "Just Java 2" by Peter van der Linden highly enough. The best beginner's Java book I've ever seen.

Java exists for Smartcards too

More information

I'm hedging my bets. I've taken the pains to learn both .NET and Java (there are _some_ differences!-). I'm fortunate enought that I can use both at work. Then again, that's the reason I stay there.

That said, perhaps a place to look-n-see what you might need to study are some of the tech job postings via a source like Monster.com or the Wash.Post tech page?

one possibility is a pimped out linux box. obviously you will NOT find the same quality hardware for a intel based box as you would for a try "heavy duty" unix box.
est price: $ 5,000
you could get a Sun Blade 2000. [price/config ]
which would TOAST anything else people have brought up in I/O , and pure CPU power.
est price: $ 20,000

you could go the mac route mac
which is the best combo of price/usability (ie you get all sort of cool little apps to run and can use it has a full desktop system, and be "cool")
est price: $7,000

and of course the SGI which you already have priced/configured. i know enough about SGI to know that they are very solid boxes, but i have a hard time thinking that a single (or dual) 600Mhz Mips would beat a dual 1Ghz Sparc. of course i dont have either one here to benchmark so i maybe wrong.
to be honest i would go with the sun box. if for no other reason than it has the most powerful overall setup. bar none. Solaris is not a "fun and cuddly" OS but it wont EVER crash and it has a very high end graphics card (if you choose it in the "config").

the Lintel system will be the cheapest hands down since you wont have any "extra software tax" (obviously maya still costs $$$)
i also think *not sure* you could probally get the sun box down to 15,000 with cutting some stuff out of the config and haggling the sales rep.

Anyway, if you browse the full component lists at SunSolve, you can see exactly what model numbers Sun uses in their systems. For example, the IDE-based Blade workstations list various Seagate drives, and the FibreChannel Blades list a mix of Seagate and Fujitsu drives. Again, I'd bet these drives have been selected for specific MTBF criteria (e.g., 24x7xMany Years).

Please don't classify Sun in the same boat as your local Best Buy, Circuit City, or other "white box" pushers.

As an aside, Sun just published what should be considered the 'Rosetta Stone' for Solaris. If you get into wrestling matches with Sun systems and need a good comprehensive introduction, you need to download this one RIGHT NOW.