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With all the bad press about how horrible Windows Vista is, and the fact that Mac OS X Leopard doesn’t much have support for the latest JVM, I think I will be sticking around with Windows XP. Here are some free Power Tools from Microsoft which can make your Windows experience just a bit more pleasant.

XML Notepad 2007
It’s no XML Spy but it is free and it is all you need for viewing or editing simple XML files.

PowerToy Calc
Allows you to graph custom functions. You can also save the graph as a bitmap.

Alt-Tab Replacement
When you have too many windows open, you can hit Alt+Tab to view the icons of open windows so as to find the one you need quickly. Alt-Tab Replacement adds a small thumbnail of the application window in addition to the application icon.

Virtual Desktop Manager
Adds four virtual desktop, like Leopard Spaces. In each virtual desktop you can place and arrange different applications and easily click through each desktop. From the Taskbar, right click and select Toolbars | Desktop Manager. At the right hand side of the taskbar you will see the numbers 1 through 4, which represents one of you

Image Resizer
Right click on images and select ‘Resize Pictures’ from right click menu.

Open Command Window Here
This small application installs a new right click menu option. You can right click on a directory and find a new Open Command Window Here option which when selected will open a new command prompt positioned at the chosen directory.

Technorati Tags: windows, xp, macosx, mac, os, powertools, powertoy, xml notepad

Prism is a new project from Mozilla Labs that essentially dresses up a web applications as desktop applications. Prism can create desktop, start menu, and quick launch desktop shortcuts for any given URL. The shortcuts launch the web application in a undecorated application window running Firefox underneath.

Prism works well for web applications, where all the links point to the domain where the application is running from. If you there are links to other domains, Prism will open those links in FireFox instead of the Prim application window. Other than launching the web application in a undecorated application window, I don’t see how different this is from just creating a internet shortcut. The web application is not downloaded, you still need internet access, and you are still limited by the browser limitations for it to really feel like a desktop application.

I think some great opportunities will emerge if you can mashup Mozilla Prism, Google Gears, and some great JavaScript libraries like YUI!, jQuery, or Ext JS. This is definitely a technology to watch.

Technorati Tags: firefox, mozilla, prism, gears, web, webdesign

Here is an extensive list of top programming books available for preview on Google Books. Google Books provides scans of thousands of textbooks. The scans are not the best, most books have visible scan defects in them.

Even though the scans are not the best, there are some features that just work well. Just like Google Maps, where you can send a link to a map (with a set size, address, etc), with Google Books you can send a link to a specific page in a certain book with specific words highlighted. Google also has handy links such as the table of contents, popular passages, and where to buy the book (perhaps in a better quality PDF format).

All the books listed here have a ‘limited preview’, meaning that some pages are not available for viewing but for the most part you can browse through most the the book. Google Books does indicate the pages that are not available.

Java
The Java Language Specification
Effective Java Programming language
Java: The complete Reference
Java In A Nutshell
Head First Java

C/C++
Practical C++ Programming
C++ The Core Language
The Concurrent C Programming Language
C++ Primer Plus

.Net/C#
The C# Programming Language
The Visual Basic .NET Programming Language
Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform
Learning Visual Basic .NET
VB.NET Language in a Nutshell

Python
Python in a Nutshell
Learning Python
Visual Quickstart Guide: Python
Python Pocket Reference
Python Cookbook

JavaScript/DOM
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide
Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and AJAX
The Book of JavaScript
The Complete Reference JavaScript
JavaScript Bible
DOM Scripting

Ruby/Rails
Ruby in a Nutshell
The Ruby Way
Beginning Ruby
Ruby on Rails: Up and Running
Rails Solutions: Ruby on Rails Made Easy
Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce

PHP
PHP in a Nutshell
Programming PHP
PHP Cookbook
Learning PHP and MySQL
Learning PHP 5

Database
Visual Quickstart Guide: MySQL
MySQL Cookbook
MySQL in a Nutshell
MySQL Tutorial
Programming SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2005: Developer’s Guide
SQL Server 2005: A Beginner’s Guide
Beginning SQL Server 2005 Express

Technorati Tags: java, php, database, programming, language, .net, ruby, rails, google, book search, dom, javascript, python, vb

Mac OS X Leopard is out, and so is the verdict. Apple claims over 300 features, but one key feature missing is Java 6! If the next version of Mac OS X does not include the latest version of Java, my next upgrade will be to Ubuntu. Since I can’t get what I want with Leopard, I need to use bootcamp to dual install Windows XP too.

Here are some links to reviews, upgrade instructions, and development news for Leopard.

Reviews

• An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard
• Mac OS X Leopard
• Four Web 2.0 features we love
• Leopard vs. Vista: feature chart showdown
• Once you go Mac you don’t go back

Upgrade

• How Fast is Apple OS X Leopard On Old Macs?
• Ten Things You Should Know Before You Upgrade to Mac OS X Leopard
• Leopard on an 8 year old G4 Power Mac — can it be done?
• Install Leopard on your PC
• Some Leopard upgraders see ‘blue screen of death’

Development

• Leopard doesn’t have Java 6
• Steve, may I have some Java?
• Some Leopard + Ruby Notes

Technorati Tags: leopard, mac, macosx, os, macbookpro, java, ruby, development, windows, upgrade, 13949712720901ForOSX

Have you ever been on the road or away from the office when you are struck by an idea for a new features and wanted to debug or prototype your application but found yourself without access to the code base? What if you where able to connect to the Eclipse running on your work desktop from anywhere in the world using a browser? Well, now you don’t have to wonder. EclipseWebEnabler is a Eclipse plugin from IBM AlphaWorks that allows you to connect, interact, and manipulate an instance of the Eclipse IDE via FireFox. Basically, the plugin converts the Eclipse SWT-based UI to XUL which can then be delivered to a browser via the Jetty server.

For EclipseWebEnabler to work you do need an instance of Eclipse to be running on your desktop. Once the Jetty server embedded with the EclipseWebEnabler plugin has started you can point your browser to it, any change you do in browser will be reflected in Eclipse, and vice versa. You can edit Java code files in FireFox and the new edits will be reflected in Eclipse, in near real time.

Even though I think that the EclipseWebEnabler plugin is innovative, I soon discovered that it doesn’t enable completely or well. EclipseWebEnabler, as of this writing, is lacking a lot of fundamental features. Closing source files from FireFox is not implemented. The ia no code syntax coloring or highlighting at all. You can’t resize views. There is too much flickering when moving between source files. And there is no security whatsoever.

Even with it’s obvious shortcomings, I think that the EclipseWebEnabler plugin take the price for Most Outrageously Innovative Idea 2007 award. I haven’t seen an application features this thought provoking since GWT took the price in 2006.

Once the kinks are worked out, it might be possible to write a fat client application using the Eclipse RCP and then have the EclipseWebEnabler generate a web version for said application.

Technorati Tags: eclipse, webenabler, eclipsewebenabler, firefox, plugin, xul, swt, java, ide

This tutorial describes some of the basic graphic capabilities of the Shoes Ruby-based mini-GUI toolkit.

Shoes Fade
Here is a good example of Shoes oval method in action. For a lack of a better name I call this example Fade Into Black. It is just a series of circles getting 25%.

Here is the source code for the above image.

[source:ruby]
Shoes.app :width => 600, :height => 600 do
nostroke
draw_circle(self, 0.9, 600)
end

def draw_circle(app, color, size)
r = size/2
app.fill gray(color)
app.oval app.width/2 – r, 0, size, size
draw_circle(app, color – 0.04, 3*size/4) if (color > 0.4)
end
[/source]

Shoes Worlds
Taking the above example one step further with using the mask method.

Here is the source code for the above image.

[source:ruby]
Shoes.app :width => 600, :height => 600 do
nofill
draw_circle(self, 0.1, 600)
mask do
250.times do
x = (20..580).rand
y = (20..580).rand
s = (20..60).rand
oval x, y, s, s
end
end
end

def draw_circle(app, color, size)
r = size/2
app.fill blue(color)
app.oval app.width/2 – r, app.height/2 – r, size, size
draw_circle(app, color + 0.04, 3*size/4) if (color < 0.7) end [/source]

Technorati Tags: shoes, gui, tookit, ruby, ui, graphics, gradient, color