A World with Windows but no Gates
Bill Gates, the man who started Microsoft and has been its public face throughout its three decades of existence, plans to step away from daily work at the company.
After 32 years of competition and acquisition, Gates managed to ruffle some feathers, while still making some famous friends. After the end of this month, Gates plans to spend only 20 percent of his time as a Microsoft chairman. The rest of his time will be devoted to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other pet projects.
Microsoft’s Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect, Gates said. In addition, Craig Mundie, CTO for advanced strategies and policy, will immediately take the new title of chief research and strategy officer and will assume Gates’ responsibilities for the company’s research and incubation efforts.
Gates said that he will work side-by-side with Ozzie throughout the transition period, but that a year from now, Ozzie and Mundie will begin reporting directly to Ballmer.
Gates explained that he has been working part time for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and full time for a company that has made him the richest man in the world, and he wished to reverse those priorities.
Chuck Norris Java facts
Surfing on the web today I’ve found some funny Chuck Norris facts but this time related to Java.For those who don?t know the other facts just search on Google for “Chuck Norris facts”.
It is recommended you read forward only if you ever at least attempted to program in Java.
- Chuck Norris serializes objects straight into human skulls.
- Chuck Norris doesn’t deploy web applications, he roundhouse kicks them into the server.
- Chuck Norris always uses his own design patterns, and his favorite is the Roundhouse Kick.
- Chuck Norris could use anything in java.util.* to kill you, including the javadocs.
- Chuck Norris can hit you so hard your web app will turn into a swing application, and a very bad swing application containing lots of icons of human skulls.
- Chuck Norris demonstrated the meaning of Float.POSITIVE_INFINITY by counting to it, twice.
- A synchronize doesn’t protect against Chuck Norris, if he wants the object, he takes it.
- Chuck Norris doesn’t use javac, he codes java by using a binary editor on the class files.
- Chuck Norris’ java code never needs to be optimized. His code is so fast that it broke the speed of light during a test run in Sun’s labs killing 37 people.
- When someone attempts to use one of Chuck Norris’ deprecated methods, they automatically get a roundhouse kick to the face at compile time.
- The java.lang package originally contained a ChuckNorris class, but it punched its way out the package during a design review and roundhouse kicked Bill Joy in the face.
- Chuck Norris never has a bug in his code, EVER!
- Chuck Norris doesn’t write code. He stares at a computer screen until he gets the progam he wants.
- Code runs faster when Chuck Norris watches it.
- Chuck Norris’ binary edited classes ignore Java bytecode verifier.
- Chuck Norris methods doesn’t catch exceptions becuase no one has the guts to throw any at them.
- Chuck Norris will cast a value to any type just by staring at it.
- If you get a ChuckNorrisException you’ll probably die.
- Chuck Norris is the only one who can use goto and const in Java.
- Chuck Norris can compile Java code in .NET Framework, obviously just by staring at it.
- Chuck dont need to catch an Exception because Java is afraid of the “flying tornado kick” at the moment it throws
- Chuck Norris’s code can roundhouse kick all other Java Objects’ privates
- Java visibility levels are public, default, protected, private and “protected by Chuck Norris”, don’t try to access a field with this last modifier!!
- Chuck Norris eats JavaBeans and Roundhouse Kicks JavaServer Faces!
- Chuck Norris can divide by 0!
- Garbage collector only runs on Chuck Norris code to collect the bodies.
- Chuck Norris code uses agressive heap natively
- Every single line code of Chuck Norris runs in real time. Even in a multi threading application.
- When a CPU load a Chuck Norris class file, it doubles the speed.
- Chuck Norris can execute 64bit lenght instructions in a 32bit CPU.
- Chuck Norris implements “Indestructible”. All the other creatures implements “Killable”.
- Chuck Norris only program Java web applications to get a .WAR in the end.
- Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked a Java class very hard. The result is known as a inner class.
- Chuck Norris can do multiple inheritance in Java.
- JVM never throws exceptions to Chuck Norris, not anymore. 753 killed Sun engineers is enough.
- Chuck Norris doesn’t need unit tests because his code always work. ALWAYS.
- Chuck Norris extends God.
- Chuck Norris workstation has so memory and it’s so powerful that he could run all java applications in the world and get 2% of resources usage.
- Chuck Norris codes generics since 1.3.
- Chuck Norris’ classes can’t be decompiled… don’t bother trying.
New Yahoo! domains
Yahoo! lauched yesterday two new domains “ymail” and “rocketmail”. Now you can create addresses like yourname@ymail.com or yourname@rocketmail.com .
These new domains were created because there are so many address that new users were forced to be extremly creative in finding an available name.
Except the domain there is no difference between a @yahoo.com address and a @ymail.com one.
Firefox 3 Review
For those who don’t know, Firefox 3 Final was released today. As any new version of a software product it brings a lot of new, cool and improved features.
The first change that almost any Firefox 2 user will notice is the new graphic interface. This remembers about Internet Explorer 7 GUI at some point :) The icons where redesigned, the back/forward buttons were completely changed, the address bar has new features and more customization is possible.
In my opinion one of the major updates is the Download Manager. Now downloads can be resumed even after you completely close Firefox (if the server supports this feature) – this was a feature I always wanted in Firefox.
The new address bar provides auto completion – when you start typing it displays results from browsing history and bookmarks. The links from bookmarks have a golden start next to them.
Also now it is easier to bookmark a link, just click the white start from its right and the bookmark wizard will appear. Taking about bookmarks, the bookmark manager was redesigned and offers integration with Foxmarks and similar bookmark-backup tools.
Remember when you have tried to zoom a page in Firefox 2 and only the text changed its size? Now when zooming the graphic elements change their size according to the magnification level.
If you think that’s all you are wrong. The addons manager was changed, now you can install some extensions directly from it and offers the possibility to view and enable/disable plugins (adobe acrobat, flash, silverlight, shockwave etc.).
What I’ve told until now are just visual changes. The guys from Mozilla said that the pages load faster, the memory usage was drastically reduced and web standards compatibility was improved but I cannot confirm this because I’ve been using Firefox 3 for only 8 hours.
Also, I’ve found one bug but I think that it will be fixed soon by Microsoft. Even though I have installed Silverlight, Microsoft’s website cannot find this plugin and asks me to install it. :)
Overall, the new Firefox brings some new cool and useful features and I think that any Firefox 2.x or even Firefox 1.x (are there any? :) ) should update to this new version.
Firefox Download Day 2008 – Update
Tomorrow (June 17, 2008) is the release date of Firefox 3 and the download day.
Download Firefox 3 tomorrow and help the guys from Mozilla to set up a new World Record for the most downloads in one day.
For more details about Download Day please see my other post on this subject.
The game page
Have you noticed the new Game page on the menu above?
There will always be a game for you to play. The game will be changed once a week, so check regularly to see if a new game is available or subscribe by e-mail and you’ll receive a notification when a new game is posted.
Click here to go to the Game page.
Microsoft Photosynth Preview
Have you ever been to a place and after a few month/years you wanted to revisit it but you just couldn’t? Did you took pictures of that place? If so, Microsoft Photosynth is the solution for you.
Photosynth is an amazing new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that will change forever the way you think about digital photos.
Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.
With Photosynth you can:
- Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
- Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it’s megapixels or gigapixels in size.
- See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
- Find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing.
- Send a collection – or a particular view of one – to a friend.
This tool is just amazing. You can fly around the place, zoom in/out, view individual pictures, choose the area you want to view etc. If you want to convince yourself just take a look at the screen shots below or even try it.
For the moment you cannot create you own galleries but the guys from Microsoft told that this you be a feature in the next version.
It installs directly into the browser as an ActiveX control so please try it in Internet Explorer. The official Photosynth page is http://labs.live.com/photosynth.
Download Day 2008
The quote below is from the official Download Day 2008 website. The guys from Mozilla want to set up a new World record for the most downloads in 1 day.
Set a Guinness World Record
Enjoy a Better WebSounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours – it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.
If you want to help just click the one of the links above. :)
The download date is not yet known but they will announce it soon. That day will be Firefox 3 launch date.
Operating System Poll
[poll id="4"]
Skype Gadget
Skype Gadget is a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget developed by me. It comes to help Skype users who don’t want to go to this application every time they need to call/chat to someone.
It integrates with the Sidebar, displays all your contacts and gives you options for call and chat.
Uses Skype4COM, a component offered by Skype, in order to communicate with the program so it might need administrative rights on the first run because of DLL registration.
The features of version 1.2:
- Contact list
- Small list and big list (8 or 16 contacts displayed at once)
- Start/end a call/chat with a contact
- Displays contact status (Available, SkypeMe, Away etc.)
- Call phone feature
System requirements:
- Windows Vista
- Skype
- Internet access
- Administrative rights on first run
For more details check the gadget’s page.