September 24, 2004

Quartz Scheduling System

Pragmatic Automation
Quartz is an open source job scheduling system written in Java that can be embedded within a Java/J2EE application or run as a stand-alone application.
Posted by ronlusk at 12:42 PM

September 20, 2004

Found in McGee's Musings: Philosophy in my inbox:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Champagne in one hand - strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO - What a Ride!"
Posted by ronlusk at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)

Trailing-Edge

Trailing-Edge identifies itself as Software and Information Archives for the Trailing Edge of Computing.
Trailing-Edge's staff maintains several public-domain archives of vintage software, spanning five decades. If you have any material to contribute to these archives, please let us know what you have to contribute.

Looks like I contributed more than I knew: the RMS sources have my fingerprints all over them, as in the RMS error processor from 1983.

Posted by ronlusk at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

More on writing

In Writing and knowledge sharing Ralph wonders,
What's the relationship between facility with writing and the quality of thinking in organizations?

I'm reminded of the article Unskilled and Unaware of It, in which

Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd.
It may be that the people who fear writing are those who are actually capable of doing so. It often seems that the Internet as a whole offers ample evidence that those who are—well, less capable—have little or no fear of writing for their peers.
Posted by ronlusk at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)

Dismay

This morning, the Eclipse IDE asked if I wanted to update it, since the latest version of the software (3.0.1) had been released. Not wanting to miss the latest changes (in case they added tint control, for instance), I accepted the offer. Looooooooooong download, which failed midway and needed to be restarted.

I'm not sure the failure caused the problem, but once I installed the system and restarted Eclipse, I got an configuration error (with lots of evil messages). Among other things, the application identifier wasn't available.

I ended up downloading the full 3.0.1 kit, unpacking it over the existing directories, and starting Eclipse. It worked, happily. Sigh....

Posted by ronlusk at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)

Shoveling Mint

Notes From Dresher: Shoveling Mint
Now, underneath the snowpack,
I shovel-cut into the spreading shoots
Releasing a pungency - the long forgotten scent of summer
Into the cold, crisp winter air.
Sweet, and a treat for all the senses.
Posted by ronlusk at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)

System upgrade: bumpy road ahead

I just upgraded the luskwater host from SuSE Linux v8.2 to SuSE Linux v9.1. It's taken a little work to fix the mail system and what not (upgraded from Apache HTTP v1.3.x to v2+). Not sure all is well, especially with mail, but I wanted to run the upgrade on a "test system" before upgrading my production/development systems at work.
Posted by ronlusk at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2004

Highlighting Search Terms

A List Apart has an article on Enhancing Usability by Highlighting Search Terms that looks like a great idea. If I can find the time, and the readers who would be interested, this might be fun to try. (I'm still a top "source" for information on cello repair in Boston, if only because I posted a query about it a few years ago. All I need to do is highlight the terms in appropriate colors.)
Posted by ronlusk at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2004

Language identification and Information Technology

Language identification and IT: Addressing problems of linguistic diversity on a global scale looks like an interesting paper to read, from the folks at SIL International.
Posted by ronlusk at 07:08 AM | Comments (0)

September 03, 2004

Synergy

I just discovered Synergy
Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).
If you look at how my desk is laid out, I've got two flat-panel monitors on my Linux box that I use for nearly all my development work, and a bulky old monitor for my Win2000 machine for Windows-specific applications, maintenance, and monitoring. I nearly always work on the Linux machine, but occasionally need to work (usually database work) on Windows. I'd end up with the Windows keyboard in my lap, two mice near each other, and invariably typing something into the wrong window somewhere (an IM reply to my wife gets entered in a database field, or vice versa).

I now have a Synergy server running in the right-hand screen of my two Linux screens. If I move the mouse to the right, it appears in the Windows screen (where a Synergy client is controlling the interface), and I can then use my "Linux" keyboard to type into the Windows programs. Select something on Win2K, copy it into the clipboard, bring the mouse back to my left-hand Linux screen, and paste the selection right into an app on Linux! Synergy gives you one keyboard, one mouse, and one virtual clipboard.

Oh, by the way: the program also (to some degree) synchronizes screensavers. It doesn't appear to work with the KDE screensaver, but with ordinary xscreensaver it will synch the Win2K screensaver with the X screensaver. Impressive to demo, but doesn't seem to work as desired everytime with my configuration. (I have slightly different versions on each box, so your mileage may vary.)

Posted by ronlusk at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2004

Space Age Pop

Interesting site: The Songs of Space Age Pop Music. My co-workers were discussing hurricane Frances and its approach to Florida (we have a number of retirement communities in Florida, so this is business-related). I felt the discussion needed some multi-media context, so I searched out Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries on the web, and found this site.
Posted by ronlusk at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)