The Remains of the Day

Google Web Toolikit

2006-05-17T10:09:00.000+03:00

In another extension of Google - Yahoo rivalry, as I gather it, Google unveils its own AJAX implementation toolkit dubbed Google Web Toolkit. Yahoo open-sourced its Yahoo User Interface Library, a couple of months back, providing the Web Development community with powerful tools for developing the so-called Web 2.0 generation of applications.

Google Web Toolkit is a server-side Java Framework that will add AJAX functionality to your Web pages, dynamically generating the respective HTML – JavaScript Code for the AJAX implementation. Upon this framework , Google have built their own famous Web apps, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps etc.

Thanks guys !

GWT features

Google Web Toolkit Features

* Dynamic, reusable UI components
Create a Widget by compositing other Widgets. Lay out Widgets automatically in Panels. Send your Widget to other developers in a JAR file.
* Really simple RPC
To communicate from your web application to your web server, you just need to define serializable Java classes for your request and response. In production, GWT automatically serializes the request and deserializes the response from the server. GWT's RPC mechanism can even handle polymorphic class hierarchies, and you can throw exceptions across the wire.
* Browser history management
No, AJAX applications don't need to break the browser's back button. GWT lets you make your site more usable by easily adding state to the browser's back button history.
* Real debugging
In production, your code is compiled to JavaScript, but at development time it runs in the Java virtual machine. That means when your code performs an action like handling a mouse event, you get full-featured Java debugging, with exceptions and the advanced debugging features of IDEs like Eclipse.
* Browser compatible
Your GWT applications automatically support IE, Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, and Opera with no browser detection or special-casing within your code in most cases.
* Interoperability and fine-grained control
If GWT's class library doesn't meet your needs, you can mix handwritten JavaScript in your Java source code using our JavaScript Native Interface (JSNI)

Easy Ubuntu

2006-04-18T13:58:00.000+03:00

EasyUbuntu is an easy to use script that gives the Ubuntu user the most commonly requested apps, codecs, and tweaks that are not found in the base distribution

The program will install commonly requested both free and non-free packages. It aims to run on both ubuntu and kubuntu while supporting all the three architectures Ubuntu supports - x86, PPC and AMD64.

Multimedia

* Enhance video player: Install a better multimedia motor (totem-xine replace totem-gstreamer)
* Free Codecs: Add Support for playing mp3 and other non-free formats
* Binary Codecs: Add support for proprietary video and audio formats (w32codecs)
* libdvdcss: Read commercial and encrypted DVDs
* RealPlayer: A proprietary software to read Real audio and video streams
* MIDI: Add support for playing midi files

Web

* Flash: Enable the Macromedia Flash plugin
* Java: Enable the Sun Java plugin (Java 1.5)
* Videos: Enable viewing videos embedded in webpages
* Firefox icon: restore the official Mozilla Firefox icon
* Firefox forms: install nice buttons integrated with GNOME

Archives

* RAR: extract and create RAR archives
* ACE: extract ACE archives
* 7-Zip: Extract 7-Zip archives

System

* Repository list: Main, Universe, Multiverse and PLF (replace your previous sources.list
* Fonts: Install Microsoft and other nice fonts
* DMA: Enable Direct Memory Access to improve DVD reading
* Num Lock: Enable the Num Lock at system startup
* KDE/QT integration: QT/KDE apps with a GNOME look'n'feel (work in progress)
* Ctrl+Alt+Del: Windows-like shortcut to run the system monitor
* Nvidia: install the official driver to enable 3D on Nvidia graphics cards
* ATI: install the official driver to enable 3D on ATI graphics cards

Voice Over IP

* Wengo: a free Voice Over IP software (work in progress)
* Skype: the most popular VoIP software

Web 2.0 for the masses

2006-02-14T17:56:00.000+02:00

Yahoo has released its innovative JavaScript code library, open-sourced, with web developer goodies as seen on a Web 2.0 social app near you.

First, they have released Yahoo! User Interface Library, which is a BSD Licensed UI Library full of various JavaScript components that let you add some dynamic UI features in your web app / site. It's a small easy-to-use framework for building AJAX applications.

Number two, they have released the so-called Yahoo! Design Patterns Library, with implementation secrets (and example code coming up) of various "Web 2.0" features, such as field auto-completion etc.

Yahoo is eventually trying to standardize their UI, for your web site to be "integrated" with the famous search engine / portal. Smart move.

Oracle QA

2006-01-17T10:45:00.000+02:00

A new site on Oracle Database related Questions & Answers, is gathering some interesting queries on various categories such as DBA issues, HTMLDB, SQL, Database Tuning etc.
Even supports RSS feeds that updates regularly

Firefox P2P Extension coming up

2006-01-05T11:22:00.000+02:00

Around the Blogsphere there is talk that a new Firefox Extension will be the next big thing that happend to Firefox popular browser... after Firefox itself. The new extension, to be released soon, seems to offer colaboration and media file sharing between users, while you can see your sharing friends on-line status, as in IM. Another trigger to piracy flamed discussions or just another usefull tool? Check out the AllPeers Screen Shots

Sun's own Technical Tip Article on AJAX & Java Technologies

2005-12-13T15:14:00.000+02:00

Web 2.0 enthusiasts will find Here a very nice walkthrough on the AJAX programming paradigm along with Java Technology.
The Technical Tip assumes Java on the Server and GlassFish (Java EE 5)

The article starts with an overview of AJAX and proceeds with an "auto complete" Google-Suggests-like example of HTML input field auto completion. Provides all pieces of code for the client and the server side, including Xml HTTP Request init with cross browser support, and a step-by-step guide for running the sample.
Mind you that GlassFish is only requried for JSTL's sake only--- if you want J2EE 1.4 (i.e. Servlet 2.4, you must include JSTL jar libraries manually)

It's nice to finally have a vendor of this magnitude, providing some insight on this smash-hit Web technology in a single article, after all the scattered orgs and frameworks around.

Production Simulation Database Environments

2005-11-18T15:06:00.001+02:00

I have been debating with software developers and more importantly, with System and Database Administrators that a heavy-duty Database-centric IT Department should maintain Four (at least!) database environments; One for Production, of course, one for UAT (User Acceptance Test), one for development and one for Production Simulation! i.e. a fully blown production-like database, periodically updated from production (off-line) that has the same hardware characteristics and data volume, as the real production system

This particular environment becomes handy when software development is over with, production rollout is coming up and quality assurance has to take place. It is common in database development that programs, especially SQL queries perform and behave differently between development and production environments. The development servers are usually scaled-down cheaper machines, and so are UAT environments. The talk-back I usually get from SA's and DBA's is of course cost of ownership. Not all IT Departments can afford to buy and maintain double (or triple in case they have redundant, fault-tolerant environments) database servers, as both hardware and maintenance/administration high costs are involved.

It might be the case some times that a production Oracle RDBMS system appears to execute queries in different query plans, when using for example the CBO (Cost Based Optimizer). Developers need to have the exact same execution plan in their development RDBMS in order for exhaustive test and query optimization to take place in the production's environment terms. As the famous Ask Tom Oracle Service suggests, simply copying the production statistics is not always the right approach to the issue, although it is technically feasible (using dbms_stats to import/export stats).

Another strong point made here, on the fact that a production simulation environment must exist on every database site. The point is that even if application developers had the same execution plan in their dev environment, they wouldn't have the same volume of data to test upon anyway. A query, for example, might execute in light-speed on a table of 1,000 rows in dev environment, using rules and an appropriate index. The same code on prod env with a table of 1,000,000 rows of production "real" data might have exactly the opposite effect, resulting in a hectic first-day after rollout.

Ubuntu on the Road

2005-11-14T11:35:00.000+02:00

There is a nice coverage at Tom's Hardware on Ubuntu H2 a combination of the famous Debian distro and a 1" USB flash drive. One can install Ubuntu on the drive with the accompanying mini dvd, and have their operating system ready to boot from any computer supporting USB, just by asking their system to boot from usb. A nice idea, if you want to carry around a linux distro with applications and your data to a friend's computer or between home and work. On the downside a long boot sequence (avg 4 min), and the fact that you may come upon a computer that does not support bootin' from USB.

SysInternals Discovers Sony Using Rootkits to Cover their DRM

2005-11-03T13:19:00.000+02:00

Ever thought that an innocent Audio CD from specific companies (such as Sony) would ever try to install a "Trojan like" software called rootkit and spy on your system, as part of DRM measures? This is an excellent track-down of the issue by Mark's Sysinternals blog. I’m sure that some ethics are involved here but anyway... beware. One can always use nice tools such as BlackLight to check out their systems for hidden rootkits...
UPDATE -- 10/11/2005 California consumers file lawsuit on Sony Corp.

Soundtrack Soft Vox wave Programming on the Motif ES

2005-10-21T15:24:00.000+03:00

A sound that many will try and program at some point in time is that of a vox. It can seem be one of the hardest waveforms to master if you your approach is wayward. Over the years I've seen many try and fail with just about every vox waveform provided in an instrument. The MOTIF ES is rich in vox sounds and has a diverse amount for you to choose from. In this tutorial, you are going to program a vox sound that is best described as soft and gentle on the ears, slow attack with a long release. This type of vox sound you would hear in a soundtrack.

Soft Vox - MotifES VOICE programming

Microsoft Admits Adobe's PDF Dominance

2005-10-03T13:10:00.000+03:00

REUTERS India reports that MS Office next release code-named "Office 12" will allow saving documents in the popular PDF format, as more than 120,000 users have requested every month

The Million Dollar Homepage - Own a piece of internet history!

2005-09-13T17:05:00.000+03:00

Increasingly blogged and press covered... A British Student makes University money selling.... pixels (@ 1$ each) of his homepage out of 1m pixels in total, for links/ads etc. Lets see if he will make it.... 8700 pixels sold to-date.

Google Desktop Search - The final frontier

2005-06-07T12:21:00.000+03:00

Old News but,still, good news. The Final Frontier of your desktop searching has been reached by Google Desktop Search.
The search engine that full-text searches your local files, emails, AOL chats, Web History and more, has gone where no search engine has gone before. Check-it out it is amazing. It takes like a couple of hours (mean-time) to index your system (only when it is idle). The results are fast fetching. This is a TCP/IP Service only available from your localhost (for extra security)

AMD launches dual-core Athlon 64 X2

2005-05-31T12:16:00.000+03:00

Computex 2005 AMD formally launched its Athlon 64 X2 dual-core desktop processor today and pledged superior performance across the range than Intel's rival dual-core offerings can deliver. The X2 series is available in two flavours, one with 1MB of L2 cache and the other with 2MB, in each case split 50:50 between the two cores. The latter is the 'Toledo' chip, which has been on AMD's public roadmap for some time, but the smaller-cache part, codenamed 'Manchester', is a new addition. The full story

Go Chelsea !

2005-05-27T12:03:00.000+03:00

In the midst of the roars at Liverpool, Chelsea are celebrating the Premiership Championship, although the water is troubled under Stamford Bridge, after a disappointing Champions League march…. The light at the end of the tunnel is next year’s League, where the Liverpool will be absent (to date)

Google Suggest - Yet another great Beta

2005-05-24T14:07:00.000+03:00

Google Suggest is another great service straight from the Google labs. What it actually does is, that when you type a search word or phrase in Google search text box, Google guesses your search phrase and returns a drop-down list of suggested searches along with the estimated result count!

Here is the link to the service http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en”%3ehttp://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en%3c/a..... and here is a smart analysis of how it actually works.

Google gets personal on you

2005-05-23T15:34:00.000+03:00

Recently introduced, a personalized Google home page, moving in a direction rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN portal have already charted.

The personalized Google home page integrates other already available Google features, such as its e-mail service Gmail, news, weather, stocks, driving directions, movie listings and the like.

Configure your own personalized google home at http://www.google.com/ig

Greece Wins Eurovision

2005-05-23T12:11:00.000+03:00

The Greek song won the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest (after decades of mizery).... and aren't we all happy? But what remains afterall, is that the pop-mainstream scenery prevails in Europe. Old-time classic rock (without "'n' roll") seems to be striken out of such competitions. Hence the final result of Moldova, Norway etc....

Serious Athlon 64 Overclocking

2005-05-20T12:35:00.000+03:00

You into AMD 64b ? Wondering about multipliers?
Some serious Athlon 64 Overclocking in a nutshell as posted on Slashdot
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/05/05/20/037236.shtml?tid=222&tid=142&tid=137
and... the original aricle:
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=gethowto&howtoID=58

Hello World (Γειά)

2005-05-20T11:39:00.000+03:00

This being my first post.... greetings! This will be a variety blog, with lots of personal thoughts, links to interesting places, and some technical issues encountered in a poor computer programmer's day.