Finally back :)

Finally I am back! :) It was very nice to see my girl again after a week. :)
We've done a lot of work in USA. Unfortunately I cannot discuss what we have been doing for now. Maybe when the official announcement will be out. Ant what I have been hearing it will be soon. And it will rock this region. :)))
I've been sleeping for 11 hours and I'm still sleepy. Maybe because my body still goes by an hour that is 5 hours behind my local one.

Japanese restaurant

Yesterday was a good working day. We've done so much. I've also heard one of the guys that are helping us with our project that we are three days ahead of schedule.
We went to some Japanese restaurant to get dinner. They have multiple chefs that prepare your food right at the table. I've never seen or experienced it. It was great ! :)) Our chef talked like Latka. :)

First day in Raleign - Durham

I'm writing this in my hotel room and the air-conditioning is turned on. Outside is very hot and humid. I hate it. :((
Of course I also had problems with my luggage, since they managed to tear my suitcase apart. Ahhhhh !!!!
I reported my damaged baggage and hope I get refunded for it. Now I have to buy myself a new suitcase. Since this is my second suitcase that got trashed on the trips to America I guess I won't spend much money on it. I hear you can get 4-5 suitcases for 30-40 USD in Target or Walmart. Next time I'll wear all my clothes. :))

Raleigh, NC

It is confirmed. :) I'm going to Raleigh, NC on Saturday. Me and some of my colleagues are going to be working at IBM site there on a project I cannot discuss now (there is an NDA in place).
This is not the first trip to the USA (in fact it is my fifth or sixth) and I hope I'll go to some game there. Weather it is basketball, football, ... I don't care. I just want to see what the fuss is all about. :)

Ubuntu 6.06

I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 from when it was released. I've never used Ubuntu before (I was a Mandriva guy), so when I got a new machine (with my HDD from previous machine) today it didn't start into gdm. Hmm... I knew that the graphics card is not the same anymore and I couldn't find the program to set X up. So I changed the graphics driver to vesa, boot it up and searched for a solution. I only found out that X does support SIS graphics cards (this one is integrated into motherboard). So I changed the graphics driver to sis, rebooted and it dows work now. At last! :)))
I'd really like to know what programs to use, to update the system and tell it what drivers to use, ....
Any help is welcome. :)

New development machine

Wohooo!
Today I got a brand new development machine. It is a Lenovo 3000 J Series. Oh, well at least I have an DVD burner now. :)))
It took my company almost 5 years to get a burner into my machine. :))
And at the rate they sell machines I guess I'll have it for about a month :)

My first day

Today is my first day after my vacation. I got up at 6:00 as usual, but it felt like 3:00. :))
I hope the day will be more productive and not so sleepy.

End of vacation

My vacation is going to end in a day. So on monday morning I have to get up eary and go to work :(
Why can't the company change it's policy and let me work at home? It would be good for me and several researches are saying more productive too. Hmm.. maybe this will change is the comming years. Maybe not. :)

Old NetBeans API

A while ago there was a post on mailing list someone wanting to know more about the history of NetBeans. Reading it and the FAQ about the Lookup made me think that there are a lot of old APIs that ware replaced by better, faster, .. ones. But the fact is that the older APIs are still used today.
I'd like to see them get deprecated and also removed from the sources. In this way we would get a clean codebase that would be smaller, faster and easier to learn.

NetBeans API Book

I'm enjoying my vacation :) so I have the time go over some of the NetBeans API and learn some things.
Well, there is a lot on this topic (javadoc, tutorials, blogs, ...), but I do feel we need a good book on this topic. The one that you can buy today is 4 years old and talks about 3.6 release. We have come such a long way from the 3.6 times.
PLEASE, give us a new book!

Hot summer

On the first week of my vacations I didn't do anything useful, since it is very hot here and I don't have air conditioner. If we (me and my girl) ever buy our own apartment, I want air conditioner in there. :))

Global war

I know I'm on vacation, but I had to come to the office to make a call and to check my e-mail. Well and guess what. Since everyone I usually communicate with know I'm on vacation, there were no interesting e-mails, only SPAM ! :((
I don't like, even hate spam. And since our mail server admin does not turn the spam filters on (don't ask me why, I get all those viagra, sofware, morgage loans, ... into my Inbox.

Someone should start a global war on spam. :)

Speed of light = constant

Einstein's theory said that the speed of light is a constant (around 1000000000 km/h). Some weeks ago I've been reading an article at slashdot.org that scientists have been able to slow down light to 65 km/h.
Since I didn't read Einstein's theory I have a problem now. :)
If Einstein said that the speed of light is around 1000000000 km/h and the scientists have slowed it down to 65 km/h then Einstein was wrong about the constant speed, right? But if Einstein said that the speed of light is a constant, not mentioning the actual speed of it or mentioning that the speed of light in a vacuum is 1000000000 km/h, then the speed of light in some other medium can be still a constant, but at different speed, right? So both, Einstein and scientists, can be correct, right ?

Showing CVS version in NetBeans

The new CVS implementation does not show file versions in editor tabs and project nodes, but there is a way you can turn this feature on.
Edit $NETBEANS_HOME/etc/netbeans.conf and add this line
-J-Dnetbeans.experimental.cvs.ui.statusLabelFormat= {0} {1} {2} {3}
into netbeans_default_options variable.
Meaning:
{0} stays for revision
{1} stays for status
{2} stays for branch or sticky tag
{3} stays for binary flag

In my experience this is now working properly. When I commit a file into CSV then sometimes this labes are not refreshed. Oh well, the variable says that it is experimental. :))
I hope 6.0 will be way better in this regard.

Vacation

Today is my last day at work before my vacation starts next week.
Sadly I'll have to come to work on monday. :)) At least I'll get paid for the vacation and a day at work. :)
Today is going to be a very relaxed day, since we don't want to do something that will break during the vacations. :))

String Theory

I've started reading The Elegant Universe. A book about the string theory. It promises to be a theory that links together all theories in one. Hmm... We'll see. They have been working on it for about 20 years now.
Reading a book about Einstein and this one I have a feeling that we live in a time where we are always on the edge of somekind or technological revolution, but the revolution is always couple of year ahead.
Id' like to fly with the speed of light. heck even faster. I'd like to go to space (and not paying 20000000 US), to Mars, to the next star. I'd like to live in Star Trek. :)))
Oh well, at least I can hope my grand-grand-grand-children will be able to go to space for about 100000 EUR. :))
Maybe they will find a way how to freeze a body for hunderds of years and I can witness the revolution itself.

E=mc²

I've just finished reading a book by David Bodanis E=mc².
It describes how the terms "mass" and "energy" were first used and by whom, how Einstein "designed" his theory, how the equation describes movement of the energy into mass and mass into energy and how this equation was important when developing the first A bomb. Germans came very close during the second world war to the A bomb. I hate to imagine how the world would look like if they had it first.
I like the book because of the way it introduces sientific terms and data to the public.
I recommend reading it. :)
Now my next project is reading a book about the String theory. It is said that this book is also written in a very way everyone can understand it. I'll see.

Integrating OpenOffice SDK into NetBeans

If you want to develop applications that use OpenOffice with NetBeans do the following:
- I have OpenOffice installed in /usr/lib/openoffice (OOO_HOME)
- create a project (OpenOffice for example)
- create a class library (OpenOfficeLib for example):
- in Classpath put:

• OOO_HOME/program/classes/juh.jar

• OOO_HOME/program/classes/jurt.jar

• OOO_HOME/program/classes/ridl.jar

• OOO_HOME/program/classes/unoil.jad

• OOO_HOME/program/classes/officebean.jar

• OOO_HOME/sdk/classes

- right click OpenOffice project and choose Properties:
- Libraries: add OpenOfficeLib library on Compile tab
- Run:

• Main Class: com.sun.star.lib.loader.Loader

• Arguments : YOUR_MAIN_CLASS

• VM Options: -Djava.library.path="OOO_HOME/program" -Dcom.sun.star.lib.loader.unopath="OOO_HOME/program"

- put the following code into your class:
XComponentContext xLocalContext = Bootstrap.bootstrap();
XMultiComponentFactory xLocalServiceManager = xLocalContext.getServiceManager();
Object desktop = xLocalServiceManager.createInstanceWithContext("com.sun.star.frame.Desktop", xLocalContext);
XComponentLoader xComponentLoader = (XComponentLoader) UnoRuntime.queryInterface(XComponentLoader.class, desktop);
PropertyValue[] pPropValues = new PropertyValue[0];
XComponent xWriterComponent = xComponentLoader.loadComponentFromURL("private:factory/swriter", "_blank", 0, pPropValues);
- run your project with F6 and voila. You get OpenOffice Writer opened. :)

Then use the OpenOffice Developer's Guide to create something useful. :)

Singleton vs. Static

Yesterday I was asked a question if it is better to use Singleton classes or classes with static variables and methods.
Here are couple of good answers:
http://www.bitchwhocodes.com/archives/2006/04/singleton_vs_st.htmlhttp://www.cs.colorado.edu/~kena/classes/6448/s05/singletonStatic.html
http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/articles/129545.aspx

Blade Runner

Couple of days ago I read a book titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. This book was the basis for the Blade Runner movie. I have to say I like the movie better. Usually I find the book better but not in this case. I think that the book does not have "that something".
I've also played the Blade Runner game couple of years ago. My opinion is that the game is one of the best adventures I've played. In the same group belong Laisure Suir Larry, Master of Orion I and II, but not III.