Chaos Magnet

Python is cool

I'm crash coursing on Python right now, and I came across Instant Python. Very cool. Very, very cool.

Oh, and I added the Python versions of Use an if-then statement, and Use a while loop, Use a for-next loop, Output to the command line to the Programmer How-To. Nothing complex, but then it looks like very little is when it comes to Python...

Have I mentioned that it's cool?

Use JavaScript to display RSS on a web page

Here's a nice little piece of code. Feed2JS lets you enter information about an RSS feed and how you want it to look (including styles) and generates JavaScript code you can drop on your site to make it happen. Source code is also available.

Interactive streaming video?

I haven't had a chance to really even thoroughly read this yet, much less play with it, but I didn't want to loose it. Apparently you can now "combine interactive advertising with streaming video. Users can actually click on objects within a running video ad to trigger an associated message" with a new product called Shoshmosis. We'll see.

Eulogy for Usenet

I got my first tech job off Usenet. I remember lots of conversations in rec.arts.starwars, back when you could actually HAVE a conversation. Ah, it's sad to see the decline of Usenet. I hope Molly's right, and that the departure of AOL will make it less desireable for spammers so the rest of us can come back and enjoy our little town.

Long Way Round: the book

I'm a little bit frustrated to realize that Long Way Round is almost a DVD. That is, Ewan MacGregor and Charlie Boorman's bike trip around the world has been released in Europe, but not here in the states. This series was just absolutely captivating, and I don't even like motorcycles. Please, please, go to the above link and tell Amazon you want to know when the disc will be released. You don't have to buy it, but Amazon will use it to tell the production company approximately how many people are waiting for it. In the meantime, though, if you did see the show, Ewan and Charlie (Like how I use their first names? Sorry, guys, I just feel like I know you after this. Don't worry, I know I really don't. :) ) wrote a book about it, Long Way Round : Chasing Shadows Across the World. Reviews hint that if you didn't see the show, you might not appreciate the book, but if you did, like me, it seems like a great reminder of how life changing that trip must have been for them.

And if you didn't see it, all the more reason to tell Amazon you want the DVD! (And for anybody who's got a PAL TV, you don't have to wait to buy the Long Way Round DVD!)

Cringely and Apple movie predictions

Here's something interesting. Cringely proposes that the Mac Mini is actually Apple's first step into the movie distribution business. I'd have to reprint the whole thing to explain it all, but basically he proposes that Apple is preparing to dominate the pay-per-download HD movie business -- think HD NetFlix without waiting for the mail -- the way it dominates the pay-per-download music business with iTunes and iPod. If he's right, this would actually be pretty cool.

Now if I could only get an HDTV for less than an arm and two legs...

Hitchhiker's movie, Spaceballs TV, Beowulf film

Here's a couple of pieces I don't have time to write up for the Vanguard Science Fiction Report: Hitchhiker's Guide becomes a film, and Stephen Fry plays the guide and Neil Gaiman and Robert Zemeckis take on Beowulf. I did get a chance to write up Spaceballs: The Cartoon.

Starting the day off right

There's nothing like a reminder that life isn't all bad to get you going in the morning. Check out The Goodness of Life. Takes a few minutes to cycle through, but it's worth it.

The resilience of the web community

I ran across this interesting quote in an old piece about the infamous backroom deal setting webcasting royalty rates:

Every new technology medium seems to enjoy a delicious moment, between being born as a vehicle for human creativity controlled by no one, into a Pigopolistic advertising channel, controlled by very few.

What's interesting to me is how the web keeps spawning medium after medium for creative expression. As one closes down, another appears. Is this the promise of the web?

What I want in an aggregator

Almost a year ago, I wrote about what I want in an RSS aggregator, and now, as I actually write one in C++ (see, I told you I was doing it) I've gone back and found that all of those requests are still valid. And I still don't see anybody doing all of it.

A question

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

EasyTimeline

Here's a cool little ditty. EasyTimeline provides a way that you can use a script to create all kinds of timelines, both graphical and text-based, on a web page. And sometime I may figure out how to get it incorporated into another wiki I'm working on...

Groovy

Everybody seems to be talking about Groovy, "a new agile dynamic language for the JVM combining lots of great features from languages like Python, Ruby and Smalltalk and making them available to the Java developers using a Java-like syntax." I'm not entirely certain what that means, but I suspect I'm going to have to find out.

IBM releases 500 patents

Via Ned Batchelder, IBM is releasing 500 patents for royalty-free use in open-source projects. I think we're going to see more and more of a push for open source from IBM this year.

My predictions for 2005

I've actually got a pretty good track record of seeing trends as they're coming along, but I've never before been forced to actually write my predictions down. This year, all of us InformIT guides took it upon ourselves to document our predictions for the coming year. I sweated over mine for about 3 days, and I'm actually pretty happy with the results. (We'll see how happy I am in 11 months. :)) They're posted in the guide itself, but I've also reposted them in the blog, as Predictions for 2005, part 1 and Predictions for 2005, part 2. I wish I could have gotten them all in one posting, but there it is.

A better UML tutorial

I'd listed a UML tutorial in my last posting, but it was, frankly, awful, so I've removed it. Here's a muc better UML Tutorial.

Not so far behind, after all

I majored in Physics in college and not Computer Science, so when I got my first job as a programmer, about 4 years after I graduated, and my boss, a couple of years younger than me, started talking about "design patterns," I was sure that I had missed out on a lot by skipping computers in college. Later, when I started to encounter Unified Modeling Language (UML), I was once again hit with this feeling of inadequacy. Now, I'm on a "find out what I've been missing" kick, because I've discovered that I didn't know about design patterns when I was in college is because they didn't freakin' exist yet! Ditto for UML, but I'm picking them both up pretty quick.

Open source Java spell-checker

I'm looking for a phone number for the Jazzy company -- the one that sells wheelchairs -- and ran across the Jazzy open source spell checker, which includes an API you can use in a Java app. Not that I need it right now, but you never know.

Use the GLA with the Log and Trace Analyzer with Release 2 of the Autonomic Computing Toolkit

Now featured on IBM developerWorks -- Use the GLA with the Log and Trace Analyzer with Release 2 of the Autonomic Computing Toolkit: The GLA and LTA are Eclipse-based tools that enable logs to be parsed for occurrences of pre-defined events, relate those events to situations, and recommend actions based on information in a knowledge base. This tutorial is of particular interest to developers and administrators of applications with dependencies on multiple servers, such as DB2, Apache, and WebSphere. The key lesson imparted here is how to use the GLA to create your own adapter for custom application logs. Additionally, the tutorial introduces the underlying elements of the log adapter process. These low-level enablers of autonomic computing systems are an important contributor to the creation of more autonomic computing systems. This tutorial takes you through an example of how high-level open standards, such as the Common Base Event description, can be incorporated into development and administration functions at a practical level.

500 Terabytes, 5 DBAs

Here's a little tidbit for you. Wal-Mart's data warehouse, which includes both customer data and inventory and sales data, has passed the half-a-petabyte mark. And they have just five DBAs. Chew on that for a while.

Jarwars: Episode III

Java 1.5, to be released soon, has a new feature that I'm glad I learned about before I hit it in my C++ crash course: generics. I point that out because you'll laugh a lot more at madbean.com: Revenge of the <T> if you know that the <T> means. But even if you don't, funny, funny funny -- for the seriously geeky among us. You know you love it.

Want privacy? Don't blog

When will people learn that blogs are not private? I mean, when I'm tempted to write something about my personal life, or about work, I think very, very hard about it. I know you think the person you're talking about would never in a million years read your blog. Guess what. You're wrong. If you can't get over the deep seated need to write about your deepest, most private thoughts, save yourself some heartache and get one of those diaries with a lock on it.

How to explode TV news

Jeff Jarvis has a great post on how to explode TV news. Basically, exploit the web by giving in to it. I hope they take him up on it.

The best prediction list I've seen so far

My money's on Chris Pirillo.

Programmer How-to Additions

I've gone ahead and added some new content to the Programmer How-To:

• Use a while loop (in Java and C++)
• Use a for-next loop (in Java and C++)
• Use DOM Level 3 Load and Save to read and save XML (in Java)
• Use an if-then statement (in Java and C++)

Insaniquarium

Caution: Insaniquarium is a serious time sink.

Pick a Java, any Java

Ever needed an old version of a product that's no longer supported? Sometimes it can be next to impossible to lay your hands on, but thankfully, Sun's got a products download archive page where you can download just about anything they've supported at one time or another.

Career advice

Hehehehe.... Tim's brother Kevin's career advice:

You're screwed. If you get in a bind and they call a meeting make sure the room has a skylight. That way you can use the 'ole Batman smoke bomb and spear gun escape. no one could ever hold poor work against someone who escapes a pressure situation in that fashion.

Can't really argue with that.

The glass half full

I'm thinking about my plans for the next year, and part of it includes what new content I'm going to write. Simon St. Laurent has given me an interesting thought, in Starting Small. He points out that most resources about J2ME and its counterpart, the .NET Compact Framework, focus on what's missing -- what you can do in "regular" Java and .NET, but not on the smaller systems. Why not teach them from scratch, as though they're all there is? Hm.

British to American translator

Ran across this while reading a year's worth of Simon St. Laurent's blog. The British to American dictionary. Also translates from American to British. Fun.

What's next for XML/SOA/Web Services/Grid/Autonomic?

I've usually got a good knick for predicting what's coming next, but now I'm being put on the spot about it. Next week's InformIT guide entry is supposed to be about what I think is going to happen in XML/Web Services/SOA/Grid/Autonomic in the coming year. What do you think?

Tsunami Relief

What a way to start a new year. Check out The Command Post for links to places where you can help victims of the tsunami. Last night the body count reached 150,000. My God.