Thursday, May 25, 2006

News

Lately i have been very busy with school becuase it is the end of the year and exams and summatives are coming up...anyway after JavaOne there was lots of new in the Java world. You can check it at planetnetbeans.org and planetsun.org . I also jsut found that Ubuntu 6.06 dapper Release Candidate is out. I am just downloading it now...hopefully they have fixed some bugs (esspecialy the gstreamer error [I noticed it while using Flight 7]). I also found a newer linux distro called RR4 (or RR64 if you have a 64 bit pc) that comes with ATI propriatary drivers built in which in it's self makes this distro very apealing to me because my laptop has a ATI Radeon Express 200M. It is also built on Gentoo which is also very apealing. I am going to be trying it so i post what i think of it later on this week or next. You can check out RR4/RR64 at http://www.lxnaydesign.net/.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Upcoming NetBeans Releases

I have lately been trying out the Q-builds of NetBeans 6.0. It is just awesome and has so much stuff added. I am interested in seeing how Matisse matures as well as the new features in the enterprise pack and creator pack. I also really like the NetBeans module development support. One thing i would like to see is "visual branding" so people who are making rich client applications can simply just select which menus/menu-items they will be using. Another thing i would like to see for NetBeans 6.0 is scripting support. It maybe could be downloaded as another pack...it could maybe be called the "dynamic language pack". Anyway there has been lot's and lot's 0f interesting java news this week because of JavaOne so check planetnetbeans.org for current updates...Aw...i so wish i could have gone to JavaOne...next year for sure...anyway have a nice weekend.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Wow...i think i am getting popular... just kid'n

I searched areound today and found quite a few blogs about me...i thaught cool...so i decided to blog it...Here are the links:

Muthu's web log
Seeking Knowledge
Rajmahendra's Blog
Waves

What I want to see in Linux & Results from my quest for a OS

Over the weekend i tried many OS's. I tried Fadora Core 5, SuSE 10.1, Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 Flight 7/Beta 2 and Kubuntu. I was mainly looking for hardware support (specificly for laptops (my compaq R4000) and an out-of-the-box linux. I found for the best "out-of-the-box" experiance, software wise is SuSE 10.1 and Fadora Core 5. The best "out-of-the-box" experiance, Hardware wise was Ubuntu/Kubuntu (Dapper 6.06 Flight 7).

Out of all the OS's i tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu was my favouriteUbuntu/Kubuntu still needs a little more work...I readlly liked the new network manager...it is phenomenal. I would like to see it be able to detect what type of hardware has been added to the system and then install the correct drivers by connecting to a repository) and then have a simple way to configure it. Don't get me wrong i love the command line (it is fun) but it would be nice to be able to have things working without have to compile things into my kernel. I would like to see more usability and user-friendlyness (specificly out of the box software support (ex. Media codecs installed, able to play DVD's, ect...). I would also like to see more avalablity of deb packages so any users could simply use Ubuntu/Kubuntu.

Next i tried Fadora Core 5. It was very pretty and nice to look at but i found that it was not very good on laptops. It comes with lots of software and it seemed resonably easy to install. I did not explorer this as much as i would have liked to but i wanted to explorer others.

Finally i installed SuSE 10.1. I used to use SuSE 10 all the time but got frustrated with it after time because of some bugs in YAST and minimal hardware support...at least on my laptop. (Note: Laptop support in linux NEEDS to be improved [it has been in the past year but i would like to see more]). It is one of the prettiest OS's i have ever seen. I would like to see Gnome updated to the current version and have some bugs worked out...my favourite thing about SuSE 10.1 is the out-of-the-box software support. I like how it comes with the helix engine and media codecs (if specified).

Anyway that is my take from two days of installing OS's and testing them. So as you have prabably noticed i would like to see better hardware support specificly on laptops and a more user-friendly OS. I am known to bash windows but i must say it is nice that everything "just works" . Next i will try Gentoo (v2006.0) and Solaris, so stay tuned!

Thursday, May 11, 2006

NetBeans 5.5 Beta Released

Instead of repeating what was already said in quit a few places I will just link and give my opinion of NetBeans 5.5 Beta. I think it is absolutely awesome....It is almost time for eclipse to give up...(see Eclipse Killer ). There could be some improvements to the editor and maybe some in areas where I am not very educated (J2EE and J2ME [Although from what I have done of J2ME in NetBeans it was very easy to pick up]). I really like the new Welcome screen and I especially like the UML support. I also like the C/C++ support. You can download NetBeans 5.5 from here. You can read more about it at NetBeans.org or at the following:

Alessio Pace's blog
Paul Walk's blog
Geertjans Blog (Part #1)
Geertjans Blog (Part #2)

Friday, May 05, 2006

Friday Fun

Today i came across some very funny advertisments for Firfox. My favourite is this one. Anyway it is very late in Canada so i am going to call it a night.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

What Operating System should i Use?

I have a compaq R4000 laptop and currently have windows XP and SuSE 10. I have been having a hard time trying to decide whether i should use SuSE, Ubuntu or Solaris. It would be nice to have some comments on what you prefer and what you like/dislike about the mentioned Os's.

Note: I have to have XP for the little amounts of time when i decide to play halflife 2 or Doom 3.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

I am on NetBeans.org!!

Check netbeans.org 's homepage. I was interviewed by Roumen Strobl a little while ago and it is live!! Anyway you can comment on the interview here.