Javability (Java, Zaurus, Linux, Live)

29.4.05 22:47 Windows vs Linux: a modern desktop comparison (

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Windows vs Linux: a modern desktop comparison. The page contain a nice comparison of Windows, Ubuntu and Suse screenshots.

Personal opinions:
- booting: Windows black background is nice, Ubuntu, Suse looks very professional
- login: now Windows begins to look like a bonbon, Ubuntu, SuSe is most consistent (same then boot screen)
- Desktop: Windows, Ubuntu and Suse win because of nice artwork
- Menus: I like having menus on the top like Ubuntu have (I also us put my Windows start bar on the top). KDE has the richest taskbar (frequently used apps, desktops, mixer, time+date)
- browser: my top 3: firefox, konqueror, IE
- E-Mail: does Suse really have evolution as standard-mail cient? I though it is kontact
- MediaPlayer: Windows MP is cool. In KDE, it depends what you wanna do: kaffeine for videos, Amarok for music
- IM: choose your network ... not possible with MSN client
- Document folder: I don't like gnome folder. Konqueror is beautifull and powerful (KIO_slaves). Windows explorer is only beautiful.
- System administration: Windows blue background looks cool. Most consistent administration tool is Yast
- Trash: ? no big differences here
- Help: Windows look&feel wins
- run: ALT-F2 is your friend. Many options also.
- Search: I hate Windows default search, switching it back to old search as asap. Don't use search very often with Linux ...
- Taskbar: many addons for KDE
- system update: Yast, one tool for update and installation
- clock: Windows look&feeld wins
- Text editor: windows 0, gnome 1, kate 10. One of the best text editors ever
- File manager; Windows one is not bad, but konqueror is much faster
- image editor: windows 1, gimp 10
- command prompt: windows 0, gnome 10, konsole: 20 (because of tabs)
- add/remove: I generally use Yast or synaptic for package management. Windows: what is package management
- display, keyboard, mouse, sound, taskbar properties: Windows is very easy to use, KDE very powerful.
- use raccounts: L&F: windows
- running processes:
- performance monitor: gnome/KDE have most

As you see, KDE is my preferred desktop. I would use it for my daily work if other things would be as simple as with Windows (printer, network, plug&play, ...). I'm using KDE at home since 6 years at home, and it is becomign better and better. Same for Linux: kernel 2.6 was a big step, hardware detection is working great. I think it is only a matter of time until I will use it for my professional work too.

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14:05 JCifs: soTimeout (

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I had a problem today with jcifs soTimeout and writing a 'growing' file.

By default, socket timeout is set to 15sec. The following happens: start writing a file, wait 30 seconds, continue to write the file.

All data's before the timeout are corrupted (file size is correct, but 0x00 are written in the file instead of original data's). Seems that jcifs is not properly re-opening the connection after socket timeout.

Not sure what's happening exactly. I see that the file is correctly written at the beginning and also correct after socket timeout. But after writing again to the file, previous data's are replaced by 0x00.

Waiting for reponse from mailing list ...

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28.4.05 19:55 ScrapBook Firefox plugin (

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One of my favorite Firefox plugins: ScrapBook

It allows you to save web pages or part of a page (snippet) in an hierarchal (bookmark like) manner.

You can search (fulltext), add comments, annotate pages, mark as important, import/export, compress, ...

(Picture from http://amb.vis.ne.jp/mozilla/scrapbook/screenshot/main.png)

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09:50 2005/Week17 Javability news (

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I'm back in Europe. Here what happend in the meantime:
- Airbus A380 Completes Maiden Test Flight
- kernel 2.6.12 expectations: trusted computing and SELinux, address space randomization, Xen, Reiser4, clustering and embedded systems, software suspend improvements, file and kernel events notification
- not very feedback from Paul Thurrott and other commenters
- Firefox approach 50 Mio, nearly 10% of browser market, and is used by 1 of 10 business professionals
- Email Worse Than Marijuana For Intelligence?
- Borland open sources JBuilder
- 8GB in your pocket?

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21.4.05 09:17 (

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Surfing around:

David Flanagan: Five Favorite Features from 5.0

Desktop Java Features in Mustang: some personal highlights: true double buffering, JTable sorting, filtering and highlighting, SwingWorker in core, low level graphic acceleration (hardware, single threaded rendering...), Improved text quality, mixing of heavy and lightweight components, tray icon, .ico, Add/Remove Programs" integration on Windows, Direct execution of JAR files on Linux

Chet Haase: Swing Update: No More Gray Rect

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20.4.05 21:21 Today and last two years: So many things to write about (CLK, Egypt, Java, Linux...)... (

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and no time for it.

Tomorow
tomorrow will be my 2 year birthday of blogging. My first blog entry is from 21.4.03 16:18 and did announce kernel 2.5.68 (current is 2.6.11.7).

Anyway, instead of writing, I will just build an image gallery of what's going through my head. All pictures from myself or from Wikipedia, or the source is named below the picture.

Linux

Suse 9.3 is out. I will wait few weeks before updating my workstation, in the meantime I've installed it on 2 test PC's and already found first bugs.

Car
My car: Mercedes CLK 208: I'm not so happy with it (quality), still remembering my lovely Peugeot 406.

Holiday
Egypt holidays: my first and probably last all-inclusive hotel. But valley of the kings (impressive) and karnak temple (too many people) were worth 8 hours bus tour through the desert.

Few days later we had a Jeep tour in the desert which was much more fun.

Java
Mustang change notes are always interesting to read (grey rect solved)). And "Sun needs you", go and help instead of complaining. Sun did many things for us (build best dev language), time to give them back a little bit.

OpenZaurus
OpenZaurus 3.5.3 has been released and I'm playing a little bit with it. But once more, no time for serious usage.

Money
Two interesting (German) web sites about money:
- modern-banking
- geldsparen.de/
Since I'm reading MyMoneyBlog, I'm telling myself to not waste money. After checking accounts (and switching after 15 years from my old bank to a new one), I yesterday changed wheels on my car by myself (Winter -> Summerwheels). I want to change my provider as well, as German Telekom is expensive (ISDN+DSL+flatrate ~70), but I will wait until bank account change is over (don't do too many things at once).

(image from http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_331b.html)

(image from http://www.peshawar.ch/fotos/job/thailand/images/change-wheel_jpg.jpg

Blog
Preferred blogs by category:
- StarOffice/OpenOffice: Erwin and the StarOffice Tango
- J2ME: Hinkmond Wong
- Gadgets: Engadget
- Netbeans: Tor Norbye
- Kernel: kerneltrap.org
- Linux: Mad penguin
- Mobile: Russel Beattie
- Money: MyMoneyBlog
- Live: girl_from_mars
- KDE: Planet KDE
- Eclipse: Eclipsepowered

Family
Last but not least, my girl friend Maike and my rat Husky.

(more picture on his homepage)

Future
Next weeks I will be busy again: bussiness trip, WJS Landeskonferenz, soccer training camp in Fénétrange. Still I wil try to keep this blog alive...hope you enjoy it.

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16.4.05 09:54 OpenEmbedded 3.5.3 (

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OE 3.5.3 has been released. Releases for c7x0, c8x0, sl5x00, sl6000 can be found here.

For each platform you will find a bootstrap (boot only+shell), an opie 1.2 (OpenZaurus) and a gpe (familiar). Familiar 0.8.2 also supports several IPaq platforms.

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6.4.05 17:08 Enlightenment E17 (

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There are some nice videos of Enlightment 0.17pre5 on rasterman.com file directory: 1, 2, 3, 4

E17 includes vitual desktops, xinerama, multihead ...

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14:12 David A. Wheeler: Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? (

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Do you need arguments for OpenSource Software?

David has summarized many many information about OpenSource, marketshares, costs, security and TCO on his web page.

And if you need arguments for OpenOffice, read OOoSwitch: 501 Things You Wanted to Know About Switching to Open Office.org or check the FAQ to get answers about how doing things with OpenOffice.

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11:09 Java GUI flash demos (

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There are some nice flash demos on Java GUI development:
- Eclipse + Java-GNOME Demo
- JFormDesigner demo
- IDEA GUI designer
- Abacus GUI builder
- Foam - Java GUI Developer

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5.4.05 10:39 Holiday is when ... (

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you spend only 10 hours in the office. At least so was my first holiday day :-(
Today I promised my girlfriend to come home after 3 hours. Tomorow I hope not coming to the office again. It's difficult to start holdidays ...

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