Hot acquisitions

Last evening was a very good evening for me: I finally managed to get my own notebook, a HP NX6125 Turion based notebook.
As first look, I'm content about the package contents for the spent money. There are some things to be improved ..or some flaws, but I'm trying now to enjoy my new acquisition.
To complete the joy, I did managed to install and configure a wireless router (the D-LINK DI 624+) and the wireless network.

The configuration of the notebook is the following:
- Turion ML-34 1.8Ghz
- 80 GB 5400 Hdd
- 512 MB RAM Infineon DDR333
- SXGA (1400x1050) 15 inch display
- X200 Espress ATI graphics card with 128 MB UMA
- Bluetooth
- Broadcom WIFI a/b/g
- fingerprint sensor for enhanced security
- X90 56K modem
- Windows XP Home (unfortunatelly)

for 1010 EUR (VAT included)
I'll come back with some more and detailed news ..

Opteron Madness forces Dell to market IBM servers

The Register says "Opteron Madness forces Dell to market IBM servers" .. it has come to this !
During a Dell-hosted conference call this week with reporters, Kirk Skaugen, Intel's general manager of servers, started detailing new four-way systems based on Intel's Paxville MP chip. Dell needed this chip bad, as its main competitors have had access to a four-way capable Opteron chip from AMD since April.

D- Link Wireless Router DI 624

In my try to build a home wireless network I was interested in getting a wireless router to connect may older Ethernet PC with a new WI-FI notebook.
And I found one very interesting piece of equipment D- Link Wireless Router DI 624 which has a very good reputation and nice reviews.
I'm eager to try it at home, today is the purchase day .. I'll be back with my pertinent comments.

Product Features:
- Up to 108Mbps*
- Advanced Firewall & Parental Control
- Easy Installation
- 802.11g, 802.11b Compatible
- Increased Security with 802.1X and WPA
It has 4 ethernet ports and 1 WAN port.

*(with other selected D-Link devices)

Add [...] button to any TableCellEditor

The article published at Javalobby is an iteresting one and helps implementing a nice usability feature.

JTable allows editing with TableCellEditor. Sometimes the table might contain some complex objects, whose editing may not fit it the small area allocated to TableCellEditor. In such case it is good idea to add custom-editor button to TableCellEditor. CustomEditor is a button with icon [...]. On clicking this button, a more sofisticated UI in a dialog will popup. This is very common in PropertySheets.

Try it and enjoy !

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 RC1 Available

The first release candidate of Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is now available for download. Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 1 is intended to allow testers to ensure that there are no last-minute problems with the Firefox 1.5 code. There will be at least one more release candidate before the final launch of 1.5.
Firefox 1.5 RC1 can be downloaded from the Firefox project page. Users of Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 will be offered RC1 through the software update system. More details can be found in the Firefox 1.5 RC1 Release Notes.

Mantis Bug Tracker 1.0 rc2

Mantis Bug Tracker is a php/MySQL/web based bugtracking system.
Worth trying it, because it seems to become a more mature product (as the version number shows) and is sustained by more and more companies.

Launch4j version 2.0 released

Launch4j is a Cross-platform Java application wrapper for creating Windows native executables and a software tool to look for when you need a open source solution.
I tried it, one thing I didn't find there is a way to specify the libraries dependencies, the multiple library classpath.
I believe it is posible to specify that in the main jar manifest file, but not in launch4j.

JasperReports version 1.1.0

JasperReports 1.1.0 has a list of new features, some of them very long waited by me such as styles and frames.
On the other hand is good to know that iReport author (and iReport project) has joined JasperReports. I'm eager to try the new version of iReport after this move.
Best thoughts for JasperReports larger team !

Oracle to offer free database | CNET News.com

Oracle to offer free database : is a hot news, isn't it ?
This is a move related to the DB2 free edition released by IBM for PHP development or the Microsoft intention to release a free Express version of SQL Server 2005.
Oracle 10g Express Edition will be available for use with servers with one processor, with 4GB of disk memory and 1GB of memory.

Romain Guy's Drag and Drop Effects

Romain Guy's Weblog - Drag and Drop Effects a very nice work done !
Very interesting ideas and as usually, sharp looks !

Sun freezes hell, gets IBM to sell Solaris on blades from The Register

Sun freezes hell, gets IBM to sell Solaris on blades | The Register it's a new story of what business has become these days !
Enjoy !

Browser launcher in Java

BrowserLauncher is a nice library to use in case you need to launch the default platform browser from java application.

LogDistiller

LogDistiller is a log files analysis tool. It reads log files, parses them into structured log events with attributes, then classify them according rules configured in an XML file. Classification results go into reports, which are published according to the rules configuration : simply stored in a file, sent by mail, or even added in a news feed.
For me it seems to be of use in parsing and analysing log4j generated files.

Swing: Get Started with Flexdock

Swing: Get Started with Flexdock is a nice artcle about a open source project that offers you the posibility to create complex docking application like Eclipse or Netbeans.
Worth a look !
PS: the link is not correctly written in the article, the real one is https://flexdock.dev.java.net/

SwingFX: Using the Draggable API

SwingFX: Using the Draggable API is an interesting article about creating GUIs with drag and drop utilisability feature in a easier way.

Paint App Tutorial : Netbeans module guide

Netbeans platform: Paint App Tutorial is a nice written tutorial about creating applications using the module base of Netbeans.
This article includes branding of application and some bug workarounds :)

Improving Code Layout Can Improve Application Performance

Nice and very interesting article about speeding your application execution with some optimisation techniques.

"Forever For Now" Web Site Discovered

Forever For Now it's a intersting site with some very nice graphics and ideeas. Stop by to give it a look !

Eclipse - Splitting Editors on the Same File

This has been a question about Eclipse capabilities asked by two of my mates who were using JBuider at that time and to my real shame I wasn't able to provide a concise answer to that. We did find some workaround in other facilities of Eclipse but not exactly what thy really asked.
This is for you, Cornel and Rares ! :)

New project in final stage

As all of you that used or use the Apache Derby Database know, there is no well known GUI for interfacing with the database. I'm working on a project that uses Derby database as embeded database and I needed to create, test the structure and the data inside .. so that was the beggining of developing a simple user interface for using Derby as a network database server, creating databases and a simple front end for issueing SQL commands.
In a couple of days the "product" will be ready to be published as open source project.