I'll be presenting JBoss Messaging at Irish Java Technologies Conference on January 7th & 8th 2009 at Dublin. The presentation will be mainly about JBoss Messaging 2.0 and what the team has cooked for this major release.
I am also looking forward to attend Charles Nutter's presentations about JRuby and the versatility of Java.
See you at Dublin, the 7th & 8th January!
TangTouch and TangTouch Lite are displayed in the grey area at the top of the iPhone shell, below the last two 0 of 10,000+
[via Daniel Jalkut]
I noticed today that O'Reilly just released JRuby Cookbook. I have a few ideas I'd like to implement using JRuby and I was browsing the table of contents to check if the book could be helpful.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that it contains a section about "Performing Remote Management with JMX" using jmx4r (you can read a preview of the section by expanding it from the table of contents).
I'm obviously biased but I deeply believe that a small library such as jmx4r (less than 200 SLOC for the main file and 1/3 are comments) shows what the combination of Ruby and Java can achieve.
JRuby leverages the strong Java runtime (with its garbage collection and hotspot) and allows to access a wide range of Java libraries with all the strengths of the Ruby language.
For example, in jmx4r case, I extensively use Ruby metaprogramming toolset to dynamically create the properties and methods correponding to the MBean attributes and operations.
There are also other stories which demonstrates what JRuby brings to the table coming from the C-Ruby world.
I'm looking forward to read this cookbook and write some ruby code built on top of the Java platform.
Pierre Chappaz reported today that Kelkoo has been sold to a private-equity firm by Yahoo! (Yahoo! bought it for 475M€ in 2004 and apparently sold it for less than 100M€)
I worked at Kelkoo for a short time in 2004-2005 after the acquisition. I made good friends and there is a bunch of smart people in this company.
I'm sure they will rebound and innovate again now that they can focus on their own core business.
Good luck to my ex-colleagues!
For the posterity, the paper prototype for TangTouch's main view:
and the 1.0 release available from the App Store:
The Preferences paper prototype:
and the 1.0 version:
TangTouch is now available on the App Store.
It is a Tangram puzzle game for the iPhone or the iPod Touch.
I wrote this game as a way to learn more about Objective-C and Mac/iPhone development. The bulk of the application was written months ago but I waited until I had an iPhone 3G to finish it and test it in situ.
It's a very simple game but I find it quite fun to play (being the author, it's possible I'm biased...)
I released 2 versions:
This way you can download the free version with no strings attached. And if you like it, you can buy the commercial version.
Enjoy!
[Update: thumbs up to Apple for listening and dropping the NDA]
Learning that Apple extends NDA to rejection letters on the same day that the first phone with Google Android is launched sends a bad message to developers hesitating between the two platforms.
PC Vs Mac circa 1990, all over again? We know how it ended for Apple.
When I think about it, there is more lessons to learn from the Macintosh than the iPod to know what lies ahead of the iPhone. Apple needs developers to make a long term success of the iPhone. They provide a good SDK to create applications and the platform is really good. However, it they continue to prevent open communication (through the SDK NDA) and reject applications without a well-defined policy, they will scare a lot of developers from building on this platform and send them into Android's arms.
If Apple wants to be consistent about the App Store acceptance policy, it must reject every application.
Given that the reason MailWrangler was rejected is that
[The] application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion...
and knowing that the Zawinski's law states that
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
The inevitable conclusion is that every application will end up "duplicating the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail" and thus must be rejected.
Apple has rejected another application from the App Store this time because:
… Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. …
If Apple was enforcing the same rule for Mac OS X, I could not use Thunderbird which I find more usable and responsive than Apple Mail.
What Apple needs to realize is that some of the best applications for Mac OS X (TextMate, Coda, Delicious Library, NetNewsWire, etc.) come from other places than Apple.
The iPhone could only gain from better applications and better competition (if only to push Apple to add landscape mode to MobileMail...).
Less crappy widgets, more usable applications and let the users decide.
[via df]
I found this funny list while playing with Apple Remote:
To locate your devices router IP address, navigate to the following locations:
- iPhone or iPod touch: Settings > Wi-Fi > [Network Name]
- Apple TV: Settings > General > Network
- Mac OS X: Apple menu > System Preferences > Network
- Windows XP: Start > Control Panel > Network Connections > [Network Connection Name] > Properties > TCP/IP Properties
- Windows Vista: Start > Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > View Status > Properties > TCP/IPv4 Properties
And I wonder why it took me hours every time I had to install or configure Windows!
To be fair, I've not checked how to locate the network settings in Windows CE but I bet for at least 7 or 8 submenus before finding it.
Next time someone asks me why I prefer to use a Mac than a PC, I'll show him this list.