DOCX vs. DOC or: Proprietary XML Formats vs. Proprietary Binary Formats
In the comments to my last post, Charles asked why a proprietary XML format was better than a proprietary binary format. Well, my point wasn't that it is. But: I believe, the XML based Office 12 formats are better than the old DOC/XLS/PPT formats. Even if they are still proprietary. Here is why.
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About the Uselessness of OpenDocument
OpenDocument is a waste of time and money. At least if you believe Dave Winer. Unfortunately, Dave got the facts wrong.
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What's up with hard drives these days?
A little bit more than a year ago, my hard drive died. It was a rather unpleasant affair, I lost a lot of important data. I bought a new drive, set up the computer again, and went on with life. Five days ago, this drive died as well.
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History Repeating
It's said that history doesn't repeat itself. Back in 1997 I went to a show that I consider to be the best rock show I've ever been to: Social Distortion played Berlin's SO36 supported by the then young and unknown Backyard Babies. Unfortunately, Social D don't come over to Europe really often, so that show has been the first and last time I've seen them live.
This will change!
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Kitikat: Why Should I Use It?
I found the Kitikat framework via Erik's linkblog. "Funny name, let's check It out" I thought. The problem is: I studied the whole web site and I still don't know what this thing is about.
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Green Day Takes Early Records From Lookout Records
Wow, this is big news in punk rock land: Green Day pull their early two records from Lookout Records. In response, the label lays off 6 of it's nine employees. Lookout used to be a huge independent label and was responsible for the pop punk explosion in the mid-Nineties.
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The History of Ant
Conor gives a fascinating summary of the development of Ant. I found the bits about Ant2 particularly interesting.
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The Best Way to Add a Context Menu to Text Components
There's an excellent
discussion over at Javalobby on how to add context menus to Swing text components in.
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Alternatives to Java Native Interface (JNI)
Inspired by the announcement of xFunction, I searched the web for libraries that ease the use of native code. As it turns out, it's quite a few.
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JNIWrapper has new Web site
JNIWrapper, my library of choice when it comes to Java Desktop Integration, unveiled a new website. Finally, they have support forums.
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He seems to have humor, at least
He may not be pretty, he may not be handsome, but he seems to have a sense of humor.
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Psycho Test
A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met this guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much her dream guy, she believed him to be just that! She fell in love with him right there, but never asked for his number and could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister.
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Access COM objects with Java
Val has a nice article about
accessing COM objects with Java. It shows how to feed data into Excel and generate charts using J-Integra's COM-Java-Bridge.
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When Unit Tests Go Bad Over Time
Today I had one of those I-didn't-change-anything-why-did-it-stop-working moments. Out of a sudden a unit test broke. I checked out an older release from CVS --it still broke. Effectively, the past has changed.
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It All Depends On The Perspective
Today, when I put my watch on it's band was wet. We have a 9 month old who puts everything in her mouth. It turned out my disgust wasn't justified.
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Open Source At Adobe.com
Today,
Adobe unveiled two open source
libraries for handling complex GUI issues. This is great news. But I
still hate them for Adobe
Reader.
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Don't Buy A Creative Zen Touch MP3 Player ...
... or any other big MP3 player for that matter. It keeps you from doing anything useful. For two weeks I've been spending my spare time ripping CDs. I didn't read news, didn't watch TV, didn't blog. I didn't ego surf or checked referers. It's that bad.
All joking aside, the
Creative Zen Touch is a great unit.
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Fighting Referer Spam. Round 2.
I'm at a point where my referer logs simply become useless. OK, I can't prevent referer spam from hitting my site. But I can filter the log file later.
Derefspam does exactly that.
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The ONElist File -- The Story Of Yahoo Groups
Mark Fletcher of Bloglines fame also was the founder of ONElist. The
ONElist file chronicles the story of ONElist from inception to the point where
Yahoo bought them. It makes for an interesting read, even if it's still work in progress.
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The French Cafe Technique -- Or How Samba Was Written
Via a
post on Groklaw, I found an fascinating
article about how
Samba was written. The Samba guys don't call it reverse engineering. They like to compare it to a French Cafe.
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Resources for Automatic Updates of Java Applications
On my
quest for tools that help with automatic updates of Java applications I found a couple of articles, tools and libraries.
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Fighting Referer Spam
I found a nice
resource about how to fight referer spam using a .htaccess file.
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How Do You Deliver Updates To Users?
My question to the lazy web: are there any best practices, techniques or tools available that help with updating applications at the customers site?
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Politics-Oriented Software Development
On Kuro5hin: A brief guide to software development in the real world: How to cover your ass in a sleazy office environment.
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Johnny Ramones' Statue Unveiled
I love the RAMONES. Johnny always was the coolest. But, honestly, this statue is ugly. And it shows that someone has bad taste.
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Ant and Due Diligence
Today, I received an email from Matt Besson, an Ant submitter. He asked for the right to include one of my code snippets in Ant's codebase. I agreed, of course.
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Another Happy CityDesk Blogger
Eric Armstrong is pleased with CityDesk.
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How to Sort Files and Directories
Via Technorati's new tag feature I found a quick and dirty algorithm for sorting files and directories. The author asked for improved versions. Here's mine.
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Company Names That Should Be Forbidden
I know I have a sick little mind. But still, one shouldn't call a company Snecma.
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Dealing With Information Overload In Emails
Dion asks for better handling of duplicate emails. I sympathize with him. But from a UI standpoint I have to object.
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Stellenangebot für einen Java-Entwickler in Berlin
Mein Arbeitgeber sucht einen erfahrenen Java-Entwickler. Die Aufgabe umfasst Softwaredesign und Entwicklung von Multi-Tier Applikationen auf Basis von J2EE. Hinzu kommen Wartung und Erweiterung bestehender Systeme.
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Gmail Invites
I have a couple of Gmail invites. Email me if you want one.
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Free Throwaway Email Addresses
Do you need a couple of email addresses to throw away?
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Creating Professionally Looking .NET Applications
What is it with us Java developers? We always whine about the lousy looking desktop applications; at the same time, .NET developers are jealous of our variety of look and feels.
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Review: 3rd Party Spell Checkers for Windows Applications
I had the need for a third-party spell checker that works with every Windows application. After a bit of research, I found a couple of products. Two of them, Spell Check Anywhere and Spell Catcher Plus, I put to test.
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