So can somebody clarify a few things related to html5 video for me?
The video is encoded in one of these formats correct? ( H.264, WebM, etc). Then in html5 it is introduced into the page via some sort of video tag. So, if I'm using a browser that supports WebM, I still need it to support H.264 if I'm browsing a site that has videos encoded in H.264. Is this correct?
So what is really the big deal about html5 vs playing video with a plug in? Just one less process running on the computer in favor of an additional browser process running (or a more bloated browser process)? Are the benefits that we now get tighter integration with the browser interface so you can now scale video or do weird stuff like rotations ala the firefox demo?
In other words, is this really any different than, say, building quicktime playback natively into the browser rather than needing a plug-in?
I understand that html5 offers a lot of new functionality but the video part of it seems unnecessary beyond removing a plug-in unless I'm not seeing something. And in some cases you still need a plug-in if your favorite browser doesn't support a certain kind encoded video.
Thanks for any info.
I actually tend to like Windows and other Microsoft products but for some reason whenever they have to make a change for security or try to integrate something new, they seem to do so in a completely confusing way.
For instance, could the extra security on IE 6&7 for allowing active x controls be any worse? What about the macro warning on basically any useful Access DB? It wouldn't surprise me if the XP compatibility feature in Win 7 is indeed a confusing mess.
My theory is that they design this stuff by committee rather than having one smart person architect the stupid stuff. Thus, interface and process design gets convoluted and confusing.
Ok, so this is all still in beta but it often surprises me why a lot of this stuff gets to public beta before people notice the confusion. I think the UAC was a good example of this... it should have never got out the door in its initial state.
Helpful Stuff from Java based CS degree
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Java, Where To Start?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
My CS degree from University of Washington was based on Java. These are all recommendations from working through that degree.
To learn the basics of Java I highly recommend Sun's books online. They are as well written as most things out there and I never found a need to use much else. The class library for Java is also much more straight forward and enlightening that anything Microsoft makes.
Before I got itno the online resoursces, I actually referenced a lot of C# primer plus as the two languages are so similar.
For Servlets and JSP I really like Murach's Java Servlets and JSP. Its a good basic intro and it will have a lot that you already know. However, its one of the best written books I've read and gets right to the point rather than filling pages with bloat. I'm really a big fan of Murach's books... they come out at a slower pace but have a lot more quality control than other series.
For development I highly recommend either starting with Dr. Java or getting Eclipse and downloading the Dr. Java plugin. TextPad is also a good backup compiler to use. On one hand, Dr. Java is very simple and easy to use but has some bugs, but Eclipse is a big IDE to get into at first and start loading plugins can be confusing if you're not use to it. However, either way Dr. Java is an incredible learning resource. It allows you to play with Java in real time, so if you make an object, you can go into the Dr. Java interactions window and make an instance of your object and call its methods to see how it works all without making a wrapper class to test it. You can also play with core Java code too. So you can go in and type something like:
int x = 8*2;
x;
and it will print out the value of x for you. All done without compiling or even having a file open. Its really nice to use to get use to how arrays and various other data structures work in Java.
I also like some of the Java Data Structures and Algorithm textbooks just because those are good ways to see how the basics of the language work.
However, I have always found for things like Swing, JOGL (openGL in Java), multithreaded programing or multiprocessor programming, etc I just prefer to use the resources online on Sun's site or through a google search. So many universities use Java now that you will get lots of.edu sites with really good tutorials.
I can't stress how good of a resource Dr. Java is though.
It seems like this sort of thing has been tried numerous times already and I don't see anything here that will make this any sort of success... Did the Viiv thing work for anybody? Tell me this, does having another case sticker help anybody? When I go into the local stores the computers are already plastered with so many Intel inside, vista ready, media ready, blah blah blah stickers that I doubt the average person even knows what they mean. So what's going to make anybody look for an AMD Game! sticker... In addition, how does it even benefit the gamer past 6 months or a year? Sure the pc will run games at 30fps today but then what? You just run into the same problem because you have no versioning... If it was AMD Game! 1.0 the user could then know it a 1.0 game could play on it but not a 2.0 game. But this isn't manageable in the industry because you got to get software makers to work with you.
The other problem is that you have one manufacturer trying to change the industry and it just won't work. The only people who could possibly do this by themselves would be Microsoft. I was hoping that the Games for Windows thing would take off but its too closely tied to Vista and the Xbox team.
To get anything like this to work, it will have to be done by a task force made up of several companies or somebody like Microsoft will need to do it but in a way that's a bit more protected from Microsoft itself. If MS didn't care about DX 10 being vista only and trying to get people to pay $$ for Live services this could really go somewhere.
The only other company I can see being successful is Valve with Steam. Its just a fantastic system and all that needs to be added is pc performance scoring to tell the average joe what they are able to play or what they need to upgrade in order to play a game. It already has the content protection nailed down.
Wild tangent is trying this but they really have to prove themselves on this one... Wild tangent itself wasn't relevant to any mainstream gamers that I know of.
I guess I should also point out that my use of SSL certs is just to secure data tranmission. I certainly see the use of them if you are running a commerce site and want to ensure people that you are a legit company. In that case the expensive certs are useful to a degree. For our company, we don't have any need to prove to the client that we are a legit company via ssl certs as there is already an established relationship.
I have found it laughably bad in terms of how ssl certs are granted though. A few years ago we ordered some certs from verisign for a lot of $$$. All they wanted from us in order to prove that we were a legit company was a faxed letter on our company letterhead... not necessarily a deterrent for a scam artist. I could easily make up any letter head and send it along.
But Firefox 3's warning makes the average user think the site is broken as it looks too similar to a page not found error rather than giving a warning in a message box. Even one of my developers was confused by the Firefox 3 SSL warning because he didn't read the screen but just interpreted it to mean that the site was down. I think this and IE7 have alarmist reactions to certs.
Consider that intercepting data traveling between client and server is not a common source of security breaches and is actually very difficult in most situations (where the user is hooked directly to their ISP). If company's understood this and read the news they'd realize that its much more worthwhile to worry about encrypting their databases and data stores rather than the connection to their clients. Every occurrence of stolen data that I can think of has not happened during the transmission of data but at the storage location. That's not to say that SSL certs are worthless, but its not something my company worries about as much as securing the data we have on site. We buy our cheap SSL certs and leave it at that.
I have to disagree with you and others stating that Windows 7 will be a huge flop due to the backwards compatibility issue. First, if they do indeed do it the same way Apple has, then the end user experience will basically be transparent. Perhaps legacy apps will be running in an emulated environment, but if to the user it just looks like the application still pops open by itself and if they can still access their hard drive and files the average user won't know the difference. I'm certain the end user experience will not be like using a virtual pc or vmware machine. The other reason is because Microsoft has several corporations locked in with licensing. My company pays for software assurance so we'll get the licenses eventually. Microsoft also has the gaming market on the PC and I'm sure they'll have a way to support old Direct X games, not to mention that they'll have whatever new version of DX. Linux will probably never be "the" gaming os and, while Apple could have a chance, I doubt they'll ever really try it.
Finally, I think people overstate the importance of backwards compatibility. Microsoft's strength really is that they are very good at marketing, supporting developers, and working with other companies (or buying them). That means people like nvidia, amd, and intel will continue to work with Microsoft and make exclusive goodies for Win 7. Oh and don't forget that Windows 7, despite backwards compatibility issues, will still maintain the fact that Windows is the only platform that supports Office. For company's that's a huge factor.
Um, sorry but no. Latency affects more than games and very few sat providers are using phone lines now. Up and Down speeds are not the problem. Lat is the problem. We use satellite for my bosses home office out in the middle of nowhere and for another remote employee. Download speeds are at least 1.5 mbps, upload is slower but in the 256kbps range. The killer is latency and makes any vpn system other than an SSL based systems drop a connection. If the point is gaining remote access then latency is going to ruin that (or you have the $2000 bill for a good ssl vpn appliance that allows true local lan access). Web pages download really fast except for the 15 second wait to actually start getting the page due to latency, once the page comes though it is instant. Downloading any file usually runs over 100k per second which is typical of most T1 and slower dsl services.
We go through Hughes and service w/ speeds like this is only about $80 per month but quite a hefty startup fee. Residential plans start at $50. None of the competitive companies are really using phone lines for up data anymore though.
My thoughts exactly. Currently, most phishing attacks my users have asked about have been for domains such as www.amazon.com.evildomain.com
In the rare event that a user does look at the url they see that first.com and don't bother with the rest of address. I don't see how a.bank would help at all.
Now, perhaps if bank sites didn't do immediate redirects when you visited them and kept the url in the address bar simple, then that may help. That way, if a user sees anything other than www.bank.com it should raise suspicion. But for the average user even a relatively simple url such as http://www.wamu.com/personal/default.asp will cause their eyes to glaze over when all they typed in was www.wamu.com. So why should they look past the.com and try to make any sense of the rest. Like I said, this is a simple example, some of my banksites have long strings of numbers after the.com, change the alias in the address from www to something else, etc.
Is that with the same ISP? I've handled T1 installs in Washington DC and Washington State and have experienced much cheaper prices. I have seen many ISPs keep customers on ancient prices and sometimes it requires switching the carrier to get a new price. Is somebody like speakeasy not available in your area?
Saying that T1 prices haven't changed is crazy. Of course they have changed! 7 years ago my company was paying over $1000 per month for half a t1 (before broadband was really available). Since then we've gone to full T1 for $800 and now a dual bonded T1 at 3mb up and down is at that price. Speakeasy has full T1 for $300 per month. Of course its more expensive as its a guaranteed service , a loop must be brought to your location, and equipment like the dsu is spendy. But saying that the price hasn't changed is ridiculous. The price has changed more than broadband prices in my opinion.
This isn't a problem with Toshiba. My custom built machine at work does this as well. I custom built the machine some time ago just for Vista (of course then Vista was delayed and delayed). Its as follows: AMD x2 3800+, 2GB kingston memory, Nvidia 7600gs, nforce 4 motherboard (430 I believe). The machine was completely stable on XP. Ever since installing vista there is one thing that will blue screen it nearly every time - watching.mov files in iTunes. Opening actual.mov files outside of iTunes doesn't always bluescreen it but the videos play like a powerpoint show. I've installed every nvidia video driver out there, even the latest beta drivers.
Of course, the other way to bluescreen my system is to install nvidia drivers. So perhaps its nvidia and not apple?
In any case, Vista has been a terrible experience, and seeing as I'm in charge of the IT department at my company we have canceled our plans to upgrade anytime soon. Perhaps after sp1. We rely heavily on MS applications as we consult for other companies that use MS apps so going to Linux or Mac is not an option. But we'll stay with XP for as long as possible. In fact, as an admin I've loved XP. The improvement from 95 to 98 to 2000 and then XP and the improvement from NT 4 to Server 2000 & 2003 had really gotten my hopes up that Microsoft would deliver on Vista.
I loved my 3DO. It was the first system that Need for Speed came out for. In fact, the only system that had a better version of the first need for speed was PC, as the 3D0 version was superior to the Playstation version that came out later. But before that, racing games on consoles sucked. This was the first game where you could stop an oncomming car and start pushing it around with your car. I also enjoyed that capture the flag game where you could use a jeep, helicopter, or tank... I can't remember what it was called but I played that a ton! The system had tons of great games that where far better than anything that was out at the time. It was expensive but had a good library of games and was not lame. Heck, the system also came with a video CD in the box with an episode of batman and 2 stupid dogs on it. It also would display a pretty cool 3D visualizer when you played a music CD in the system. What was lame was the M2 being canceled. Oh how I wish Panasonic was still in the console biz.
My program is called Computing and Software Systems. Its a CS program but also puts some emphasis on project management and related skills. One problem with current CS curricula is that they are geared for computer scientists when most people in CS programs are there to become software engineers. Most schools don't make a distinction, and very few people learn how to engineer software. I think this is one of the biggest problems in our industry and is the cause for the large amount of buggy and insecure code. So, yes, I think teaching the software development life cycle is important.
However, there are a few problems with programs like mine. The first problem comes from trying to implement a team based strategy. In the workplace, there is always a boss who can fire somebody, or a lead engineer who can make the final call on a design decision, but at school it is very hard to establish a real chain of command. Getting this to work in school is an entirely different matter. The other issue comes from trying to give one large assignment for the entire quarter to teach this. The problem with this is that the full importance of some stage, such as planning and prototyping, isn't realized until the later stages of the process. At this point its too late for students to go back and assess what they needed to improve in a previous stage. It would be much better to have 2 or 3 short projects due so the students can apply lessons learned from each project. If on the first project they realize that making a class diagram really does help but its too late to implement that, then they can at least practice this on the second project.
I would avoid anything that complicates the process of learning. That means that text editors such as vi shouldn't be used and IDEs like Eclipse shouldn't be used. The learning curve can get in the way of the initial portions.
Using a simple IDE or text editor really helps the student focus on the language itself. If I were teaching a Java course I would use Dr Java (I believe its provided by Rice University). Dr Java is about as simple as an IDE can get but the reason to use it is due to its interactions pane. Basically the interactions pane allows you to type a line of Java and hit enter and see what it does and all lines in a session are remembered so I could create a new String by typing: String test = "hello"; and then hit enter and the pane will tell me it was successful. Then I could type test.equals("goodbye"); and the pane would return false, so I'm learning how the String's methods work rather than having to put them in a class with System.out.println() statements. This was extremely valuable to me learning Java as you can write a new class and immediatley test it without writing a main method. You can also play in real time with things like ArraryLists or arrays and see how they function rather than spending long hours trying to figure these things out inside of your program. Also, it really requires little setup. There are a few downsides to Dr Java such as a few bugs but they are minor. However, I learned Java much more quickly than other friends who were stuck writing wrapper classes for their programs to test out simple functionality. If you're not using an IDE, I would have the students use Textpad as it supports Java and is simple.
Perhaps as extra credit I would have students independently learn vi or Eclipse and demonstrate what they learned.
BTW: Dr Java's interaction pane is available for Eclipse as a plugin and it really is great for Java developement.
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So can somebody clarify a few things related to html5 video for me? The video is encoded in one of these formats correct? ( H.264, WebM, etc). Then in html5 it is introduced into the page via some sort of video tag. So, if I'm using a browser that supports WebM, I still need it to support H.264 if I'm browsing a site that has videos encoded in H.264. Is this correct? So what is really the big deal about html5 vs playing video with a plug in? Just one less process running on the computer in favor of an additional browser process running (or a more bloated browser process)? Are the benefits that we now get tighter integration with the browser interface so you can now scale video or do weird stuff like rotations ala the firefox demo? In other words, is this really any different than, say, building quicktime playback natively into the browser rather than needing a plug-in? I understand that html5 offers a lot of new functionality but the video part of it seems unnecessary beyond removing a plug-in unless I'm not seeing something. And in some cases you still need a plug-in if your favorite browser doesn't support a certain kind encoded video. Thanks for any info.
I actually tend to like Windows and other Microsoft products but for some reason whenever they have to make a change for security or try to integrate something new, they seem to do so in a completely confusing way. For instance, could the extra security on IE 6&7 for allowing active x controls be any worse? What about the macro warning on basically any useful Access DB? It wouldn't surprise me if the XP compatibility feature in Win 7 is indeed a confusing mess. My theory is that they design this stuff by committee rather than having one smart person architect the stupid stuff. Thus, interface and process design gets convoluted and confusing. Ok, so this is all still in beta but it often surprises me why a lot of this stuff gets to public beta before people notice the confusion. I think the UAC was a good example of this... it should have never got out the door in its initial state.
My CS degree from University of Washington was based on Java. These are all recommendations from working through that degree. To learn the basics of Java I highly recommend Sun's books online. They are as well written as most things out there and I never found a need to use much else. The class library for Java is also much more straight forward and enlightening that anything Microsoft makes. Before I got itno the online resoursces, I actually referenced a lot of C# primer plus as the two languages are so similar. For Servlets and JSP I really like Murach's Java Servlets and JSP. Its a good basic intro and it will have a lot that you already know. However, its one of the best written books I've read and gets right to the point rather than filling pages with bloat. I'm really a big fan of Murach's books... they come out at a slower pace but have a lot more quality control than other series. For development I highly recommend either starting with Dr. Java or getting Eclipse and downloading the Dr. Java plugin. TextPad is also a good backup compiler to use. On one hand, Dr. Java is very simple and easy to use but has some bugs, but Eclipse is a big IDE to get into at first and start loading plugins can be confusing if you're not use to it. However, either way Dr. Java is an incredible learning resource. It allows you to play with Java in real time, so if you make an object, you can go into the Dr. Java interactions window and make an instance of your object and call its methods to see how it works all without making a wrapper class to test it. You can also play with core Java code too. So you can go in and type something like: int x = 8*2; x; and it will print out the value of x for you. All done without compiling or even having a file open. Its really nice to use to get use to how arrays and various other data structures work in Java. I also like some of the Java Data Structures and Algorithm textbooks just because those are good ways to see how the basics of the language work. However, I have always found for things like Swing, JOGL (openGL in Java), multithreaded programing or multiprocessor programming, etc I just prefer to use the resources online on Sun's site or through a google search. So many universities use Java now that you will get lots of .edu sites with really good tutorials.
I can't stress how good of a resource Dr. Java is though.
It seems like this sort of thing has been tried numerous times already and I don't see anything here that will make this any sort of success... Did the Viiv thing work for anybody? Tell me this, does having another case sticker help anybody? When I go into the local stores the computers are already plastered with so many Intel inside, vista ready, media ready, blah blah blah stickers that I doubt the average person even knows what they mean. So what's going to make anybody look for an AMD Game! sticker... In addition, how does it even benefit the gamer past 6 months or a year? Sure the pc will run games at 30fps today but then what? You just run into the same problem because you have no versioning... If it was AMD Game! 1.0 the user could then know it a 1.0 game could play on it but not a 2.0 game. But this isn't manageable in the industry because you got to get software makers to work with you. The other problem is that you have one manufacturer trying to change the industry and it just won't work. The only people who could possibly do this by themselves would be Microsoft. I was hoping that the Games for Windows thing would take off but its too closely tied to Vista and the Xbox team. To get anything like this to work, it will have to be done by a task force made up of several companies or somebody like Microsoft will need to do it but in a way that's a bit more protected from Microsoft itself. If MS didn't care about DX 10 being vista only and trying to get people to pay $$ for Live services this could really go somewhere. The only other company I can see being successful is Valve with Steam. Its just a fantastic system and all that needs to be added is pc performance scoring to tell the average joe what they are able to play or what they need to upgrade in order to play a game. It already has the content protection nailed down. Wild tangent is trying this but they really have to prove themselves on this one... Wild tangent itself wasn't relevant to any mainstream gamers that I know of.
I guess I should also point out that my use of SSL certs is just to secure data tranmission. I certainly see the use of them if you are running a commerce site and want to ensure people that you are a legit company. In that case the expensive certs are useful to a degree. For our company, we don't have any need to prove to the client that we are a legit company via ssl certs as there is already an established relationship. I have found it laughably bad in terms of how ssl certs are granted though. A few years ago we ordered some certs from verisign for a lot of $$$. All they wanted from us in order to prove that we were a legit company was a faxed letter on our company letterhead... not necessarily a deterrent for a scam artist. I could easily make up any letter head and send it along.
But Firefox 3's warning makes the average user think the site is broken as it looks too similar to a page not found error rather than giving a warning in a message box. Even one of my developers was confused by the Firefox 3 SSL warning because he didn't read the screen but just interpreted it to mean that the site was down. I think this and IE7 have alarmist reactions to certs. Consider that intercepting data traveling between client and server is not a common source of security breaches and is actually very difficult in most situations (where the user is hooked directly to their ISP). If company's understood this and read the news they'd realize that its much more worthwhile to worry about encrypting their databases and data stores rather than the connection to their clients. Every occurrence of stolen data that I can think of has not happened during the transmission of data but at the storage location. That's not to say that SSL certs are worthless, but its not something my company worries about as much as securing the data we have on site. We buy our cheap SSL certs and leave it at that.
I have to disagree with you and others stating that Windows 7 will be a huge flop due to the backwards compatibility issue. First, if they do indeed do it the same way Apple has, then the end user experience will basically be transparent. Perhaps legacy apps will be running in an emulated environment, but if to the user it just looks like the application still pops open by itself and if they can still access their hard drive and files the average user won't know the difference. I'm certain the end user experience will not be like using a virtual pc or vmware machine. The other reason is because Microsoft has several corporations locked in with licensing. My company pays for software assurance so we'll get the licenses eventually. Microsoft also has the gaming market on the PC and I'm sure they'll have a way to support old Direct X games, not to mention that they'll have whatever new version of DX. Linux will probably never be "the" gaming os and, while Apple could have a chance, I doubt they'll ever really try it.
Finally, I think people overstate the importance of backwards compatibility. Microsoft's strength really is that they are very good at marketing, supporting developers, and working with other companies (or buying them). That means people like nvidia, amd, and intel will continue to work with Microsoft and make exclusive goodies for Win 7. Oh and don't forget that Windows 7, despite backwards compatibility issues, will still maintain the fact that Windows is the only platform that supports Office. For company's that's a huge factor.
Um, sorry but no. Latency affects more than games and very few sat providers are using phone lines now. Up and Down speeds are not the problem. Lat is the problem. We use satellite for my bosses home office out in the middle of nowhere and for another remote employee. Download speeds are at least 1.5 mbps, upload is slower but in the 256kbps range. The killer is latency and makes any vpn system other than an SSL based systems drop a connection. If the point is gaining remote access then latency is going to ruin that (or you have the $2000 bill for a good ssl vpn appliance that allows true local lan access). Web pages download really fast except for the 15 second wait to actually start getting the page due to latency, once the page comes though it is instant. Downloading any file usually runs over 100k per second which is typical of most T1 and slower dsl services.
We go through Hughes and service w/ speeds like this is only about $80 per month but quite a hefty startup fee. Residential plans start at $50. None of the competitive companies are really using phone lines for up data anymore though.
My thoughts exactly. Currently, most phishing attacks my users have asked about have been for domains such as www.amazon.com.evildomain.com
.com and don't bother with the rest of address. I don't see how a .bank would help at all.
.com and try to make any sense of the rest. Like I said, this is a simple example, some of my banksites have long strings of numbers after the .com, change the alias in the address from www to something else, etc.
In the rare event that a user does look at the url they see that first
Now, perhaps if bank sites didn't do immediate redirects when you visited them and kept the url in the address bar simple, then that may help. That way, if a user sees anything other than www.bank.com it should raise suspicion. But for the average user even a relatively simple url such as http://www.wamu.com/personal/default.asp will cause their eyes to glaze over when all they typed in was www.wamu.com. So why should they look past the
Is that with the same ISP? I've handled T1 installs in Washington DC and Washington State and have experienced much cheaper prices. I have seen many ISPs keep customers on ancient prices and sometimes it requires switching the carrier to get a new price. Is somebody like speakeasy not available in your area?
Saying that T1 prices haven't changed is crazy. Of course they have changed! 7 years ago my company was paying over $1000 per month for half a t1 (before broadband was really available). Since then we've gone to full T1 for $800 and now a dual bonded T1 at 3mb up and down is at that price. Speakeasy has full T1 for $300 per month. Of course its more expensive as its a guaranteed service , a loop must be brought to your location, and equipment like the dsu is spendy. But saying that the price hasn't changed is ridiculous. The price has changed more than broadband prices in my opinion.
This isn't a problem with Toshiba. My custom built machine at work does this as well. I custom built the machine some time ago just for Vista (of course then Vista was delayed and delayed). Its as follows: AMD x2 3800+, 2GB kingston memory, Nvidia 7600gs, nforce 4 motherboard (430 I believe). The machine was completely stable on XP. Ever since installing vista there is one thing that will blue screen it nearly every time - watching .mov files in iTunes. Opening actual .mov files outside of iTunes doesn't always bluescreen it but the videos play like a powerpoint show. I've installed every nvidia video driver out there, even the latest beta drivers.
Of course, the other way to bluescreen my system is to install nvidia drivers. So perhaps its nvidia and not apple?
In any case, Vista has been a terrible experience, and seeing as I'm in charge of the IT department at my company we have canceled our plans to upgrade anytime soon. Perhaps after sp1. We rely heavily on MS applications as we consult for other companies that use MS apps so going to Linux or Mac is not an option. But we'll stay with XP for as long as possible. In fact, as an admin I've loved XP. The improvement from 95 to 98 to 2000 and then XP and the improvement from NT 4 to Server 2000 & 2003 had really gotten my hopes up that Microsoft would deliver on Vista.
Unfortunately, they FUBAR'ed it.
I loved my 3DO. It was the first system that Need for Speed came out for. In fact, the only system that had a better version of the first need for speed was PC, as the 3D0 version was superior to the Playstation version that came out later. But before that, racing games on consoles sucked. This was the first game where you could stop an oncomming car and start pushing it around with your car. I also enjoyed that capture the flag game where you could use a jeep, helicopter, or tank... I can't remember what it was called but I played that a ton! The system had tons of great games that where far better than anything that was out at the time. It was expensive but had a good library of games and was not lame. Heck, the system also came with a video CD in the box with an episode of batman and 2 stupid dogs on it. It also would display a pretty cool 3D visualizer when you played a music CD in the system. What was lame was the M2 being canceled. Oh how I wish Panasonic was still in the console biz.
My program is called Computing and Software Systems. Its a CS program but also puts some emphasis on project management and related skills. One problem with current CS curricula is that they are geared for computer scientists when most people in CS programs are there to become software engineers. Most schools don't make a distinction, and very few people learn how to engineer software. I think this is one of the biggest problems in our industry and is the cause for the large amount of buggy and insecure code. So, yes, I think teaching the software development life cycle is important. However, there are a few problems with programs like mine. The first problem comes from trying to implement a team based strategy. In the workplace, there is always a boss who can fire somebody, or a lead engineer who can make the final call on a design decision, but at school it is very hard to establish a real chain of command. Getting this to work in school is an entirely different matter. The other issue comes from trying to give one large assignment for the entire quarter to teach this. The problem with this is that the full importance of some stage, such as planning and prototyping, isn't realized until the later stages of the process. At this point its too late for students to go back and assess what they needed to improve in a previous stage. It would be much better to have 2 or 3 short projects due so the students can apply lessons learned from each project. If on the first project they realize that making a class diagram really does help but its too late to implement that, then they can at least practice this on the second project.
I would avoid anything that complicates the process of learning. That means that text editors such as vi shouldn't be used and IDEs like Eclipse shouldn't be used. The learning curve can get in the way of the initial portions. Using a simple IDE or text editor really helps the student focus on the language itself. If I were teaching a Java course I would use Dr Java (I believe its provided by Rice University). Dr Java is about as simple as an IDE can get but the reason to use it is due to its interactions pane. Basically the interactions pane allows you to type a line of Java and hit enter and see what it does and all lines in a session are remembered so I could create a new String by typing: String test = "hello"; and then hit enter and the pane will tell me it was successful. Then I could type test.equals("goodbye"); and the pane would return false, so I'm learning how the String's methods work rather than having to put them in a class with System.out.println() statements. This was extremely valuable to me learning Java as you can write a new class and immediatley test it without writing a main method. You can also play in real time with things like ArraryLists or arrays and see how they function rather than spending long hours trying to figure these things out inside of your program. Also, it really requires little setup. There are a few downsides to Dr Java such as a few bugs but they are minor. However, I learned Java much more quickly than other friends who were stuck writing wrapper classes for their programs to test out simple functionality. If you're not using an IDE, I would have the students use Textpad as it supports Java and is simple. Perhaps as extra credit I would have students independently learn vi or Eclipse and demonstrate what they learned. BTW: Dr Java's interaction pane is available for Eclipse as a plugin and it really is great for Java developement.