Related link: https://dotgnu.info/pipermail/developers/2002-March/006634.html

Rhys Weatherley asked Eben Moglen, Free Software Foundation General Counsel, whether a programmer could look at the Shared Source CLI source code and then work on Portable.NET. Rhys posted Eben’s response to the DotGNU developer’s list. That made for some interesting morning reading…

Related link: https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2002/03/27/gettingstarted.html

So, you’d like to experiment with Rotor. Given that it’s made up of
approximately 9,700 files and 1.9 million lines of code, it is definitely a
little intimidating. Fortunately, the build process is simple… read the full article here.

Related link: https://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3668,a%3D24177,00.asp

From the eWEEK Labs article: “The upshot is that IE cannot be used as a Web client for any Apache-based Web application that uses digest authentication. In addition, every non-IE browser we tested couldn’t be used as a client for any Internet Information Services-based Web application that uses digest authentication. (We tested this with Mozilla.org’s Mozilla 0.9.9, Opera Software ASA’s Opera 6.01 and the W3C’s reference browser implementation Amaya.)

Related link: https://www.ams.org/notices/200203/fea-knuth.pdf

“Donald Knuth is a renowned computer scientist and creator of the revolutionary typesetting language TeX. In a recent lecture to an audience of 350 on October 5, 2001, at the Technische Universitat Munchen, he fielded a variety of questions about his life and work.”

At a former job, I worked on a small part of a big system. Although I got to work with some extremely cool stuff, the part of the system that got me drooling was based on a main-memory database system. Even though I didn’t get my hands dirty with that database, I got to sit in on product pitches from Polyhedra and TimesTen as well as a few high-level design meetings. Along the way, I learned that main-memory databases are popular with anyone who needs real-time database access. Telecommunications companies love this stuff. The main memory databases are also popular in places where there is no disk (embedded devices). And at the time I spoke with the sales reps,
e-commerce types had just begun sniffing around in that area, hoping to make their web sites faster and faster.

Ever since then, I’ve been hoping to find time to play around with a main-memory database. But, there are only so many hours in a day, and there is so much other fun stuff competing for my attention.

Main memory databases are very cool. Once you throw away the assumption that everything is stored on a disk, you get a lot of advantages. For example, you can use hashtables for indexes instead of B-plus trees. That makes everything a lot faster, but you’re not allowed to perform partial matches in queries (perhaps you are in some implementations, but the queries would be very expensive).

Of course, there is a lot of weirdness, too. Since all your data would disappear if the power went out, you need a good replication architecture. Or, you could use the main memory DBMS as a super-cache for something like Oracle. In that configuration, you could send UPDATE and INSERT statements directly to Oracle, but perform all your SELECTs against the main memory database.

If you want to play around with an open source main memory database, you might already have one installed. Check out MySQL’s HEAP tables. I haven’t evaluated how they compare with Polyhedra and TimesTen, but MySQL’s HEAP table implementation seems comprehensive.

Here are some main memory database links I picked up on a quick Google search (if you have more links, please suggest them):

• Examining Main Memory Databases (although the author of this article sells a main memory database, he makes some interesting points).
• FastDB, an open source main memory database. (mirror)
• Main Memory Database Systems: An Overview by Hector Garcia-Molina and Kenneth Salem (IEEE subscription required for full text).

Speaking of Google, this article suggests that Google uses main memory databases to make their searches so darn fast. The Slashdot discussion of this piece makes for interesting reading, too.

Have you worked with a main-memory database? How did it compare to traditional relational database offerings?

Ever want to know what really happens behind the headlines that you read about. Jason Hunter gives us an account of some of the recent Apache and JCP events in this Servlets.com weblog posting.

My favorite quote:

This week, the last week before JavaOne, discussions reached a fevered pitch going all hours of the day. It’s an odd experience being awakened in the early morning by a call from a Sun Vice President. It’s even more odd when you’re not surprised.

Enjoy the look behind the scenes.

Over the past few weeks, discussions between the Apache Software Foundation and Sun Microsystems have reached a fever pitch over several concerns raised by Apache. Apache’s position, led by Jason Hunter (author of Java Servlet Programming and one of the minds behind JDOM), requires several changes to the JSPA (the document that members of the Java Community Process sign). Sun has agreed to make changes to the upcoming JSPA revision that address Apache’s concerns.

Rob Gingell (Sun Fellow & Vice President as well as Chair of the Java Community Process) has posted a letter on the JCP Website detailing the changes that Sun will be making.

What does this mean? It means that Open Source developers will have the right to implement Java specifications. It’s now in writing. It also means that we will see more Open Source Java projects. Maybe even more develoment effort on an Open Source JDK.

Personally, I’m really happy to see this happen. This builds on many of the things that were started when I helped launch the Jakarta Project several years back. From that experience, and from almost daily conversations over the last few months, I know that Jason has put a tremendous amount of effort into this and should be congratulated by all that see him next week at JavaOne. Chuck Murcko and the rest of the guys at Apache should also be given kudos. It’s been a heck of a few weeks.

Not that this means it’s over. There’s no final victory here. This is just a step in the right direction. Hopefully there will be more.

What do you think about this change in the Java landscape?

At MacWorld Tokyo, Apple announced availability of a new iPod that can store 10GB of music. Even better for those of us that already bought iPods, there is new iPod (1.1) and iTunes (2.0.4) software available.

The two new features that I notice are the new contact application and the ability to “scrub” (rewind and fast forward) in a track while it is playing.

The contact feature in the iPod software is nicely done and works with industry standard VCF files. Apple also provides a couple of scripts that will import your contacts from Entourage or OS X’s Address Book. You can also just drag VCF files (or addresses from either Entourage or Address Book) directly to the Contacts folder on your iPod. The only real advantage to using the scripts is the ability to sort your contacts by last name.

The new iTunes software simply adds expanded AppleScript support and claims to have better performance and stability.

Neither piece of software has adequately addressed my long standing complaints about gaps that occur between tracks that contain continuous tracks of music. iTunes’ ability to have a 0 second crossfade almost eliminates the problem, but falls a bit short. In music with a steady beat, it sounds as if somebody walked up to a turntable and bumped it.

Related link: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/technology/circuits/21TALK.html

NYT reporter, Neil McManus, give his lamp, television set, and boombox a good talking to. “The training process can be pretty humbling. First of all, you are talking to a household appliance. Second, you are saying the same words over and over, hoping to get your point across. It’s embarrassing when you say something important and somebody doesn’t understand. It’s even more embarrassing when that somebody is your toaster.”

Related link: https://news.com.com/2100-1023-864086.html

Despite claims that Morpheus is spyware-free, News.com is reporting that StreamCast Networks is rolling out a browser plug-in that silently re-routes requests for certain destination sites via a third-party server for the purposes of observing surfing-habits. “The new Morpheus marketing program is based on a technology called browser helper objects (BHO), which attach themselves to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.” While, to their credit, Morpheus (at least the current Gnutella-based version) doesn’t require registration information and CEO Steve Griffin does state that no personal information is being collected, it does feel a little like splitting hairs on the definition of “spyware.”

Related link: https://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/20/0143248&mode=thread&tid=156

CodeCon, “the premier event in 2002 for the P2P, cypherpunk, and network/security application developer community,” has made their (MP3) archives available via the P2P download magic of BitTorrent.

Related link: https://www.sciserv.org/sts/press/20020311.asp

The American Sign Language translator won first place in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search. Ryan Patterson’s glove and sensors converts ASL to written text. Check out this summary of the top ten winners.

Related link: https://rcs.userland.com/

Userland has unveiled Radio Community Server as a $0 add-on for Radio Userland and Frontier/Manila. RCS is all about building communities of Webloggers, be your community public or private, a corporate knowledge base or online publication. There’s such an amazing amount of interconnection — they’re digging deep into honest-to-goodness Web Services — going on in the Radio community, it’s well worth checking out.

Related link: https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0319/p08s02-comv.html

As understanding of the true nature of the SSSCA spreads, so too does the call to arms against it. The Christian Science Monitor:
“Instead of trying to entrench the status quo, filmmakers and others would be smarter to seek out ways to lure online customers with fair pricing, big selection, and convenience. That kind of innovation, plus the inclination of most consumers to obtain their movies or TV shows legally, may solve the need to protect creative work in a digital age. Heavy-handed legislation probably won’t.”

Related link: https://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?id=690

Columbia Newsblaster scans online news reports, reads them using natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, and spits out a rather nicely written summary. Online Journalism Review: “It interprets the importance of different facts, based on its own news judgment, reflecting factors such as where a fact is mentioned in the published reports, how often it is repeated across reports dealing with the same event or subject, and the news value of those individual facts…”

Related link: https://www.newarchitectmag.com/documents/s=2453/new1015627574510/index.html

I’ve said it before: while those to whom P2P is so, like, last February, the vast majority are still having their “a-ha!” moments. New Architect takes a gander at “Emerging Platforms for Peer-To-Peer Application Development.”

Related link: https://radio.weblogs.com/0101679/stories/2002/02/15/aBusyDevelopersGuideToWsdl11…

Sam Ruby’s Busy Developers Guide to WSDL 1.1 (parts I and II) “demonstrates how the process of achieving meaningful interoperation between different environments can be achieved in a simpler and less error prone manner by applying some of the basic concepts described in WSDL 1.1.”

Related link: https://www.omnigroup.com/ftp/pub/software/MacOSX/.sneakypeek/

Like many of you, I try a variety of browsers regularly to see where they are with performance and support of features I think I need. For Mac OS X, I check out Opera which is still beta 4 version 5, Mozilla which is supposed to release .99 at any moment, Chimera is at version 0.1.3 and shows promise (although their web site notes that they excel in performance because all they do right now is performance) iCab at 2.7.1 and others. It’s not that I have anything against IE, I’m from the choice is good school of thought

Code Bitch at Mac Edition regularly comments on browsers and their support (or lack of support) of standards. CB is not a fan of the Omni Group’s browser but I’ve come to use it as my alternate browser and now that the Java support has been fixed and Java Web Start has been added — I may use it even more. Download the latest version of the Omni browser from their sneaky peak page.

Omni has had support for Java for a while, it just didn’t look right. The applet was rendered a bit too high covering up content that used to be above it and leaving a black band in the space where the bottom should have been. Omni said that this was an Apple bug but it was fixed by Omni between updates from Apple. In any case, Java seems to work fine now.

At the MacWorld Expo in SF I stopped by the Omni booth and asked them about support for Java Web Start. There just didn’t seem to be too much involved in this — you have to map the type to the application (already part of the standard install) that handles it. On most browsers you’ll be taken to the Sun page to download the plug-in. Don’t do it — you already have the plug-in. You can, of course, just set files with that file extension to download to your computer and run them from there, but Java Web Start should do this for you seamlessly. The engineer I talked to at the Omni booth looked at the source on the Java Web Start demo page and agreed that this should be an easy fix. In the mean time, they’ve been busy and I’ll admit, the demand for JWS is probably pretty low on their customers’ list of desirable features. Never-the-less, I pinged someone at Omni asking when this support might happen and was told that they could have it in the next sneaky peak. True to their word, it’s there, it works, and I haven’t fired up IE yet today.

The great news is that there are now lots of browsers to choose from on Mac OS X. The selection and feature set continues to improve. Check out the Omni Group offering and see if you like it.

I know browser discussions are religious, what are your thoughts on the state of Mac OS X browsers.

Related link: https://www.musiccity.com/home2.htm

Morpheus/Music City — suffering both DoS attacks on Music City’s servers and on Morpheus users themselves via an encrypted message bombarding clients connecting to the Morpheus User Network and affecting registry settings — are dashing to Gnutella for safety. Morpheus CEO Steve Griffin: “These attacks have forced us to more quickly deploy our new [Gnutella-based] software product in order to allow you to bring the largest p2p community back together. Since it appears that the attack on your computers came from the closed proprietary FastTrack-Kazaa software, we have opted not to continue with this p2p kernel.”

Related link: https://www.razorsoft.net/weblog/stories/2002/02/28/thatKeynoteyouKnowTheOne.html

Peter Drayton’s thoughtful writeup of Don Box’s DevWeek keynote. “One of the most interesting talks this week was Don Box’s keynote on Tuesday, where among other things he declared that “HTTP is the cockroach of Internet protocols” :-). Although this comment and others were widely reported in the trade press, the keynote actually covered much more, and was very interesting and insightful.”

Don Box is speaking at the sellsbrothers.com Web Services DevCon, March 21-22, 2002 in Beaverton, OR and tutoring at The O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, May 13-16, 2002 in Santa Clara, CA. I look forward to attending both events.

There’s more than one way to skin an OS — and that just may be a problem. osOpinion talks with Jef Raskin, UI authority, creator of a little thing called the Macintosh project, and author of The Humane Interface, on skins, themes, preferences, and other ways to boggle customize your GUI.

[There’s] science behind interface design, it isn’t all opinion and guruism. Unfortunately, it’s easier to believe that you know what’s best (because you’re a human) than to go and learn the science.
. . .
Right now, the available systems are dreadful. I can’t blame people for wanting to customize them. Too bad you can’t customize them in the right ways.

While I hop my iBook up with my share of UI enhancements and key-combo tricks, I tend to steer clear of anything that obscures usability for my guests or my ability to make head-or-tail of a factory configured system. More akin to the sub-optimal (and, let’s face it, just plain sad) viewing experience of an un-TiVO’d television than a hell-on-earth, tricked-out, key-remapped emacs disaster. So cmd-space doesn’t bring up LaunchBar, there’s only one dock, and IE’s navigation buttons are HUGE; at least the scrollbar’s still a scrollbar, clicking on the titlebar doesn’t sprinkle the window with invisibility dust, and shift-cmd-q still logs me out.

Related link: https://www.researchbuzz.com/news/2002/feb28mar602.html#regaubry

Discovered by Reg Aubry, and fully explained by Tara Calishain is Google’s “phonebook” syntax. Explains Tara: “The phone number feature allows you to enter a phone number or name and get phone book lookups in your Google search results. For example, “phonebook: starbucks, boston” will get you a listing of the two dozen odd Starbucks in Boston, all on one page. Information listed includes business name, phone number, address, and links to two map generators for that location.”

Related link: https://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/01/1352200&mode=thread&tid=124

Slashdot says it’s being forced to accept the mega banners you see on so many sites these days (O’Reilly Network included). But if they really gall you, you can pay to live without them, starting at $5 for 1,000 page views.

Its model is a bit more complex than subscription models at sites like The Wall Street Journal (where you pay to read any articles) or Salon (where you pay just to read the good ones) — and that’s fitting for a site tailored to readers used to dealing with complexity. Subscribers will be able to choose which pages they don’t see maga banner ads on, and which they do.

Being in the same business of online publishing, I sympathize with their dilemma — having to accept the increasing demands of advertisers for more screen real estate, more animation, more ATTENTION PLEASE, or stop publishing. We’ve had to make the same trade-offs at O’Reilly Network, serving ads we might rather have passed on, and waiting for the outcry. (We’ve said no to ads, too — some of the stuff they’re asking for just makes too great a demand on our readers.) But we’ve felt that if the content is still readable, and it’s clear what’s editorial and what’s an ad, then the trade-off is worth it. Those ads, after all, pay the freight on the good articles we publish.

By and large, I’m happy to report that our readers get it. Where I expected a torrent of objection, I’ve received a few emails — most from readers with legitimate complaints that their platform/browser/screen-resolution combination turned the ad into a roadblock. And, sure, we’ve received just a few from readers who object to ads on principle and don’t really understand the online publishing business model. All along, our traffic has grown, and we’re making it through a pretty tough recession, publishing more articles than we were a year ago.

So from the team at O’Reilly Network, thanks for weathering the ads and sticking with us. We appreciate it. (And, by the way, if you’ve stuck with me this far, here’s a tip: when ads get you down, there’s always the Print page.)

Hate our ads? Don’t mind them? Let me know.