Tuesday April 15, 2003

I need a Fix

Erik's site has been down for more than a day now, and I think I'm going through withdrawal! Where else will I turn for linking goodness? Erik is the best aggregator I've found yet!
( Apr 15 2003, 08:38:24 AM ) Entertainment Permalink [Trackback]

Monday April 14, 2003

But what do you mean?

I enjoy reading Chiara as much as the next guy (okay, maybe not), but as often as not I'm not sure what she is saying. Today's response to Matt's obsession with productivity is one such example: I read the whole thing, and I don't know what she is saying.

Is Chiara saying Matt's whole attitude is wrong? That he is wrong to blame his obsession on the "American work ethic"? Or is she agreeing with him? That she feels the same thing but doesn't let it paralyze her? Or that it does? I cannot tell.
( Apr 14 2003, 04:04:41 PM ) Entertainment Permalink [Trackback]

Sunday April 13, 2003

Same old code, new lame name

Under threat of persecution prosecution I've renamed the project formerly known as Sniffer _{[a registered trademark of a large and ruthless company]} ... jSniffy! Woohoo. Just for shits and giggles I did a Google search for "sniffer": my little project showed up on page 14, long after many other possible "trademark infringements", several of which look to actually compete with the no-longer-named company's product.
( Apr 13 2003, 07:37:46 PM ) News Permalink [Trackback]

Wednesday April 09, 2003

Roller is ready to Hibernate

Some time ago I laid the foundation for Roller to have a pluggable persistence layer. Dave has followed up by implementing a Hibernate layer. Perhaps this will inspire me to finish the Prevayler work I had started (mostly as an opportunity to play with the technology). But then, as Dave says, "it is no fun maintaining two implementations of the very same thing"; do I want to make it three?!
( Apr 09 2003, 08:36:28 AM ) Roller Permalink Comments [1] [Trackback]

Monday April 07, 2003

What SuperHero Are You?

Everybody else posts these What The Hell Are You? quizes, so here's one a pal sent me: What SuperHero are You?
( Apr 07 2003, 03:39:30 PM ) Entertainment Permalink [Trackback]

For further reading on today's posts:

Erik's Weblog : zAIM : [@128] Jupiter Free Webinar: “ Usability: Optimizing Web Site ROI ” on April 10, 2003. Scott — Feedster: A "7th Wonder" — How About That? TiVo Desktop 1.0 streams photos, music to your Mac. Screenable Menu Bar 1.0 , a set of Java classes to make menu bars conform to the Mac OS requirements and other platforms. Blueprints and Adventure Builder Java Live Chat . Inderjeet Singh, Sean Brydon, and Vijay Ramachandran will be live on April 8, at 11am...

Saturday April 05, 2003

Cease and Desist

I received a letter today from Network Associates, instructing me to stop using the term "Sniffer" on Brainopolis. NA on their site claims their Sniffer is a set of "network monitoring and analysis products".

As you likely don't know, "Sniffer" is the name I gave my Java browser detector library. There are actually many registrations for products named "Sniffer", you can do your own search at MyCorporation, look for Serial Number 73803458. As I cannot afford a lawyer I guess I'll have to go looking for a new name for my little project. How about BrowBoy (BrowserBoy)? Or given some of the name variations I saw can I use jSniff?

The funny thing is that when I started this project a couple years ago I did a websearch to see if anyone else was using the term Sniffer, and I didn't find anything but pages about packet sniffing. Robert Graham makes this comment on his page about packet sniffing:

The word "sniffer" is a registered trademark by Network Associates referring to the "Sniffer(r) Network Analyzer". However, the term "snif" is used in many other products (some of which are listed in this document) and the term "sniffer" is more popular in everyday usage than alternatives like "protocol analyzer" or "network analyzer" (as far as my search on AltaVista reveals). I'm not sure what this means in trademark law, where brandnames like "aspirin", "escalator", and "cellophane" lose their distinctiveness over time.

( Apr 05 2003, 12:15:38 PM ) Technology Permalink Comments [4] [Trackback] [Link]

Wednesday April 02, 2003

"You've been quiet lately"

I'm not the kind to speak up on every little thing, it has to really catch my attention and fire my imagination. I haven't seen anything like that lately, at least not that hasn't been adequately discussed elsewhere...
( Apr 02 2003, 02:02:57 PM ) Personal Permalink [Trackback]

Wednesday March 26, 2003

Perl 6 I must be behind the times, but I read an article in the April 2003 issue of Linux Magazine (on newstands now) about Perl 6. Cool! I haven't looked at Perl for about 5 years, but I really like what they've got planned.

I particularly like how given-when behaves, and the fact that "given" and "when" can be used independantly of each other: they're really seperate tools that fit together to produce a switch-case model. A lot of the other stuff planned should really minimize the inherant obfuscatability of Perl (the new Object definitions make *much* more sense!). Finally, I'd love for Java to have the new junctions coming in Perl 6 (nice shortcut expressions).

The only downside is that Perl 6 is years away (cannot find the exact statement now). :-(
( Mar 26 2003, 09:26:23 AM ) Technology Permalink Comments [2] [Trackback]