More Eclipse Projects Moving to Git

6. June, 2011

With Indigo, more Eclipse projects will move to Git.

Kudos go to the Git Task Force.

I’m especially happy that BIRT and the Eclipse platform is on the list.

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Posted by digulla

Googling Stack Traces

4. June, 2011

How often did you run into a problem, googled for it and eventually found a solution because someone else had had the same problem?

In this process, the key issue is to find a good query for Google.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your computer would support you here?

It wouldn’t even be hard to implement: When an error happens, programming languages have context, say, a stack trace. Some programs like the H2 database and Maven already use something like that: Every error message contains a URL where you can find additional information.

So what we would need is a wiki for stack traces.

And a plug-in for our favorite IDE to find similar stack traces in this wiki.

Kudos go to Marcel Bruch for the idea.

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Posted by digulla

LED Globe

3. June, 2011

Fun with LEDs: “TSUNAGARI” Project.

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Posted by digulla

OpenOffice Dead, Too

2. June, 2011

After the huge success with Hudson, Oracle boldly continues in its way to k…er…save OSS projects by dum…donating OpenOffice at Apache.

Remember: Jenkins strives, Hudson is caught in the gears of a long and tedious legal process called “IP due diligence.” Something OSS developers couldn’t care less. So Jenkins pumps release after release every week. Hudson … well, we’ll see. Sometime. Maybe. When all the dubious “IP” has been replaced, removed or at least moved to plugins.

Since this worked so well, Apache gets the OpenOffice project after all important committers left to join LibreOffice.

We have to see this through the corporate lens: Oracle, a multi-billion dollar company is used to make tough decisions and see them through. Just use their database and you will instinctively feel their priorities: The product is powerful yet clumsy. A lot of things could be solved in a much more simple way. But if they did that, it would cost Oracle money. As it is, it just costs those who use it. Note that these are not the people who made the decision to buy Oracle. They just follow the orders from people who see the world through shiny leaflets.

So LibreOffice committed the most horrible crime possible: They ignored Oracle. They came, saw and left without ever looking back. Outrageous! If you make $26 billion revenue, you can’t be wrong. Impossible!

Still … I’d be surprised if there will ever be a release of OpenOffice that anyone will care about.

Related articles:

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Posted by digulla

Nintendo’s “Paedophile” Game “Dead or Alive Dimensions”

1. June, 2011

If you asked me a week ago, I’d say that “Nintendo” and “Paedophile” are opposites. Nintendo makes family games: Colorful, loud, funny.

Then came two things that also seem unrelated: Sweden and “Dead or Alive: Dimensions”

Sweden recently tightened its laws again child abuse. Good.

Nintendo released the 3DS handheld game console. Good.

Nintendo released the game “Dead or Alive: Dimensions” for the 3DS. So what?

Well, the main characters of the game are (according to the manual) 16 and 17 years old. No problem so far.

If you switch to the free camera mode, you can look under their (short) skirts. And suddenly, the game might classify as child pornography.

Something similar happened to a poor professor for Art, who is a renown expert for Manga translation. In a long trial, he was found guilty of possessing child pornography by a Swedish court. Translation: He had some Japanese Mangas on his PC.

The publisher he was working for has kicked the man out after the court sentence but it didn’t kick out the comics. Understandable. It’s immoral to work with a pedophile. It’s not immoral to make money from his work …

Well, to avoid getting bad press, Nintendo’s published decided to fly low and withdrew the game.

My comment: If you’ve followed my blog, you know that I have a sound opinion on child abuse and rape. But my opinion isn’t based on FUD. Instead, it’s based on knowledge and facts.

So I find this troubling. Is a story about child abuse the same as actual bruises? Is a painting about rape the same as real rape? If so, please turn yourself in because I’m sure you have some high quality printings of ancient “adult” artwork, or maybe something printed in the 1960s which contains explicit adverts.

Where to draw the line? If there is no reliable criteria, then there is no way to use such a rule in court. It would always be unjust.

So the problem isn’t Nintendo but the unjust new laws in Sweden.

Unfortunately, there is little to be gained to fight such stupid laws. Parents will object for no good reason but their own insecurities. And it’s laws like this which make the problem worse for everyone. Pedophiles are afraid to seek professional help before something happens. They put more pressure on their victims to keep quiet after the rape. Victims fear even greater humiliation.

Related posts:

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Posted by digulla

Don’t Use Class.forName()

1. June, 2011

If you use Class.forName(), then you should read this: What You Should Know about Class Loaders

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Posted by digulla

Lockheed Martin Attacked – Follow-up of RCA Attack

31. May, 2011

It seems that hackers got more out of the RSA attack one month ago. Apparently, they got access to so called “seeds” which allows them to create valid “one-time passwords” (OTPs).

They are now using those to attack highly secured networks like the one of military equipment producer Lockheed Martin.

FAIL

Another great example why security by obscurity doesn’t work.

Related articles:

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Posted by digulla

Mocking AJAX in jQuery

31. May, 2011

When developing small web applications, it would be great if I could mock AJAX requests.

Apparently, Jonathan Sharp had the same problem and created a solution: Mock Your Ajax Requests with Mockjax for Rapid Development

Very nice. Thank you!

 

 

 

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Posted by digulla

Spray Graphiti – Xtext for the Eyes

30. May, 2011

I’ve come to love Xtext. It’s powerful out of the box, simple enough to grasp and the rough edges cut you just once (i.e. after you put tape over them, the hurting stops).

But sometimes, a picture says more than a thousand words. Unfortunately, creating a graphical editor is still a daunting task. Which probably explains why most graphical editors aren’t worth the shadow the mouse pointer casts over them.

If we only had a compact language to define UI editors … but wait, we have. Or rather we could have with a bit of help with Xtext.

Welcome project Spray. Spray is a DSL to create Graphiti editors.

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Posted by digulla

Allied Telesis Security Blunder

27. May, 2011

Another reason why security by obscurity is bad: Allied Telesis builds network components. While this page was loaded in your browser, there is a chance that equipment of them was involved somewhere.

Those components have access protection with the common user/password scheme. If you lost your password, the support could tell you the name and password for a backdoor, that is a login that would always work but one that isn’t visible when you, say, request a list of all known users.

Sounds good? It is. Saves a lot of hassle.

The problem? Someone posted the details for all backdoors in the public support section. Which means that crackers all over the globe now have free reign over them.

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Posted by digulla

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