The blog has moved to a new location: www.freshblurbs.com

Pierre has pointed me to a very interesting article about how infrequent (in quantity) but large number (in distribution) of items can be a significant contributor (or missed opportunity) of your sales.

The author, Joe Kraus, is the the co-founder of the Excite and the founder of JotSpot, so no surprise - he knows what he is talking about :)

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505 I find it very interesting. Not so much that it's a deep philosophy or anything, but it is interesting in the sense - it shows a piece of Steve Jobs, probably one of the most remarkable persons of our and the end of previous centuries.

Apple released JDK5 implementation quite some time ago. The installer does not overwrite the default 1.4 installation but rather installs paralelly (good!). It also comes with a tool for switching between 1.4 and 5 JDKs. However that tool does not do crap (bad). We discussed this at TheServerSide when JDK was released and I posted a solution but today I was setting up my new Powerbook and, of course, I did not remember the solution and had no desire to figure it out again.

So, I am posting the solution here, in case I will need it again and maybe it will, also, be useful for folks who do not read TSS but read my blog (LOL), and are interested in Java.

Solution:
1) Install JDK5 from Apple
2) Follow these steps:
> cd /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions
> sudo mv CurrentJDK CurrentJDK-old
> sudo ln -s 1.5 CurrentJDK

Steve Jobs made a Keynote presentation at WWDC today. Regardless whether I like that Apple is switching to Intel processors vs. Power line or not is  a different story but the thing that has been proven, once again, for me is - Steve is a genius! Absolute, complete, incredibe.

Having been developing Mac OS X for Intel, too, "just in case", all this time? Being apple to screw IBM up and deep like that? When IBM tried to screw around with them (possibly, not without the help of the Redmond company) turning around and telling Big Blue to go ... themselves? And not just saying that bu having everything ready to jump to a completely different architecture? I like that!

I hate Vendor Loc-In (well, maybe only when it's not me a vendor, but anyway). That's where all the evil was born from and if somebody has any common sense - that's the first thing to avoid. Makes sense? And how many, out there, do avoid? Steve did. I bet he may have SPARC version of Mac OS X hidden somewhere, too :)

Kudos, Steve! You are my role-model!

Doug's Blog, my source for "cognitive" information, mentioned (a while ago, I confess) 20q.net. The first time I read it - I chuckled and passed by because I was running late to work and did not have time to check it out. But I did this morning and I was literally ROFLMAO-ing.

First I thought of a BMW. At 13th question system made some stupid guess but at 19th it asked if I was thinking about a fast, sporty car. So, I must admit - that was a win on their side. Then, I went dirty and nasty and thought about the next best thing that can happen to you after a BMW, namely (yo, under-18 get off the monitors) - boobs a.k.a. nice, sexy breasts.

Well, I did give poor system a lot of hard time with this secret word. It made 2 stupid guesses prior to 20th question and when it passed 20-question mark, it seemed so hopeless, I continued to answer just because I was wondering when would it shut up its stupid mouth....  suddenly, damn, at 29th question, it declared:
"Q29.  Get your mind out of the gutter! I am not allowed to talk about stuff like this, but, I am guessing that it has something to do with sex?"

There was nothing else to do, other than declare myself royally defeated :-)

And then came the explanations of where system believed I mislead it (20q gives you that summary, too). That was so funny, I thought to share that one, too. So, here it goes, original and authentic, what computers think about "something to do with sex" differently than a human (me):

You were thinking of something to do with sex.
Does it help accomplish tasks? You said Irrelevant, I say Yes.
Is it something you bring along? You said Irrelevant, I say Yes.
Is it fragile? You said Irrelevant, I say Yes.
Does it smell sweet? You said Sometimes, I say No.
Does it taste good with butter? You said Irrelevant, I say Yes.
Does it have cash value? You said Sometimes, I say No.
Contradictions Detected

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P.S. Four (the ones the feet, too) thumbs up to 20q.net :)

 

Even though I do get a satisfaction close to physical, seeing a clever Object-Oriented design, it never stops to amaze me that, as OO purists are ready to cut each-others throats over certain design decisions, the most important and sophisticated piece of software we use - operating systems - are almost entirely written in a non-OO language like C and some of it - even in Assembler, for that matter. This is quite ironic but shows the most important point that is, unfortunately, often forgotten - it's not the "best practice" techniques or "design patterns" that matter!