PS3

Phew. I'm not a big war games fan but this trailer for Killzone blew me away!

Must-have developer tools

Venkman Javascript Debugger - Yes, farewell 'alert' messages!

Javascript Minifier - JavaScript compression for faster loading.

Javascript Verifier - Lookout for potential problems in the code (syntax, unused variables, ...).

IE Developer Toolbar - For IE development. Not as refined as the Firefox Developer Extension but better than nothing.

Applications for 2006

Following this earlier post, I'm now looking for software 'gems' that I may have missed in 2005. I've already found a few candidates, courtesy of the good people at Sitepoint, that I will use and test in the next few months. Who knows, maybe they will make my list at the end of 2006.
And the candidates are:

MWSnap, though not sure if I'll replace Cropper anytime soon
TopStyle
CCleaner
Fiddler, an HTTP traffic inspector
SnagIt, hmmmm maybe I'll replace Cropper after all...
MezerTools

To be updated as I find more of them gems.

Public Domain Name Servers

This comes in handy if the SMTP server isn't an open relay, or when traveling and accessing the Web via different ISPs.
Just configure the SMTP server (Free SMTP is free) with the DNS field set to one of the IP addresses below.

Public (Level3) Name servers (these are OC192's)
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2 (fast)
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6 (fast)

Open to the Public
# ns1.la.us.opennic.glue (New Orleans, LA, US) - 68.15.165.12
# ns1.phx.us.opennic.glue (Phoenix, AZ, US) - 63.226.12.96
# ns1.sfo.us.opennic.glue (San Francisco, CA, US) - 64.151.103.120 (fast)
# ns1.co.us.opennic.glue (Longmont, CO, US) - 216.87.84.209

SpeakEasy Name servers
66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2

Sprintlink General DNS
204.117.214.10
199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10

Cisco
128.107.241.185
192.135.250.69

Useful Web2.0

http://instantdomainsearch.com/, as the name indicates, tells you instantly (as you type) whether the domain name is available or not.
Nice.

iPod ressurection

Here's a bunch of cool ideas for when my iPod runs its course.

Peugeot Ad

One of my favorite ads (together with these classics from Honda)

Fighting spam

Duke University has a Web email address 'obfuscator' available to the public. Maybe it is already too late but I'm still committed to reduce the huge amount of spam I get daily.

Icons for free

Flags: http://www.kidlink.org/icons/flagdir.html

All sorts of useful icons: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/

The Vincent Rooms

Fancy a different night out, with dinner cooked and served by future chefs spoiling you with attention?

The Vincent Rooms
Vincent Square
SW1P 2PD
02078028391

Thanks Kamila ;)

"I always wanted to be somebody.

... I should have been more specific."

From David Allen's Getting Things Done, attributed to someone named 'Lily'

Note to self

Download paper:
X Zhang, VR Prybutok, 2005, How the mobile communication markets differ in China, the U.S., and Europe. Communications of the ACM, ACM Press New York, NY, USA

Export/download link

Want to keep the browser from displaying data you want the user to download? Try the code snapshot below on the controller:

String filename = ..............
byte[] content = ...............
String mimetype = this.getServletContext().getMimeType(filename);
response.setContentType(mimetype);
response.setContentLength(content.length);
response.setHeader("Content-Disposition","attachment; filename=\"" + filename +"\"");
FileCopyUtils.copy(content , response.getOutputStream());

The Content-Disposition header will force the browser to download the content as an attachment rather than display it on the browser.

STOMP is electrifying!

Go free, entrapped, primeval, tribal soul of my urban-self, go free! There are sounds and instruments in nature waiting to be played and listened to.
Very energetic, very creative, very funny.
My favorite bits? The broom piece, the rubber tubes section, the lighters bit, and the sinks masterpiece.

Blogs as bad PR

I wonder what is the impact of an entry like this from a widely read and influential blogger on future sales of Dell?
Are people listening?
Is Dell listening?

Online repositories

Whenever I need to send large files to people or groups of people I use http://www.yousendit.com/. It is simple, intuitive, and works well. The only caveat is that files are only available to download from their servers for 1 week.
Now, thanks to the cool people at http://www.workhappy.net/, I have been given choice:

• http://www.dropload.com/

• http://www.dropsend.com/


• http://www.box.net/ (Thanks to Scobleizer)
  

I will soon be checking which one is better.

[Update]: http://www.dropload.com/ has a 100MB size limit and 7 days time limit. Guess I won't be using this one fo'sho.
[Update 2]: http://www.dropsend.com/ will definitely have a closer look, since their founder's blog is one of my top reads.

Ain't nothin' stoppin' me

This is a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

Applications in 2005

Way back in 2005, these were the resident applications I had on my Asus W1 laptop:

uTorrent, small bit torrent client
Cropper, screen capture tool
Apache 2.0.5
Tomcat 5.5.12
PowerArchiver, data (de)compressor
GreatNews, RSS aggregator
RSSBandit, RSS aggregator
WinSCP, secure FTP client
WinCVS 2.0.2-4
VobSub 2.23, subtitles to movies
ArtRage 1.0, simply beautiful, even though I don't use it often
Handy Recover, recover damaged drives
CDex 1.51, convert .WAVs into .MP3s (or any other target format)
ColorPic, grab color information from anything on the screen
DivX
Putty, Telnet/SSH client
StickIt, reminder notes floating on the desktop
Eclipse IDE
JBuilder 9 Enterprise

I did not have a similar list for 2004 but I can easily trace what changed now. I replaced obese and clumsy Azureus with tiny and elegant uTorrent (I'm not alone in thinking uTorrent rules!); chubby and messy SmartFTP had its place taken by slim and tidy WinSCP; kept a previous version of ColorPic, since the newest one fell pray to the setup trap.
The trend was to replace setup installations with equivalent executables.

But why executables? Aren't executables soooo (pre) Windows 95?
The reason is setup programs are larger, bloated, cumbersome (when not impossible) to completely remove from the system, and much harder to revert after an update.

When there is a new version of an executable, I double-click on it and try it for a few days. If I like it, I keep it and delete the previous version; if I don't I simply delete it and that's it. No add remove programs panel, no search and delete registry entries, no disk cleanup.

For a setup program I have to uninstall the previous version or watch the newer version do that for me. Uninstall operations, even when successful, do not yield tidy and neat systems: surprisingly, (system+program A) - program A != system. If I preferred the previous version I'm left with a hard to follow and hard to get rid of registry and application data debris.
The SmartFTP uninstall left a few folders with 5+ Megs of data hanging about in my system; Azureus left trails of application data and whatnot; MySQL and its tools, left wrong, obsolete, and hard to remove entries on the Add and Remove Programs panel.
One otherwise awesome tool, Inspiration, sent me to hell and back to fully remove it from my system after their trial period was over. Yes, of course I did not buy it in the end.

And I think I had enough.
Now, every time I'm given an executable alternative with the same functionality and at least the same quality I will replace without blinking.

Prediction: in 2006, Eclipse will forever replace JBuilder.

Too Darn Cute!

Do not miss this, not now, not never!

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/

Happy Holidays!

Koma

My good friend (and C++ guru) Eurico won a prize with this one:

http://www.tecn.upf.es/master/mcv03/~eandrade/

Awesome!

...And torrents for all

This site, http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/, has classic movies and B-movies that became part of the public domain available for download. Some available titles:

Metropolis
Plan 9 From Outer Space (Oh God...)
The Little Shop of Horrors
Buster Keaton
Night of the Living Dead (I died laughing when I first saw this one)
Flash Gordon
Monster from a Prehistoric Planet
The Memphis Belle
Kong Island
Nosferatu


Maybe a similar repository can be created for old TV series and computer games.