Bart has a very interesting article about BITS, the download-manager/scheduler behind the infamous Windows Update technology. Following his instructions, you can use BITS as a free downloadmanager. Let’s see if somebody can come up with a nice GUI, instead of having to use the commandline utility “bitsadmin”.
Don’t forget: as of January 1st, 2005, Microsoft will no longer support Windows NT 4.0. No more pay-per-incident, Premier or online support. NOTHING. See this page.
If you download and register Omea Reader before January 1st, you can get a license for free. Omea Reader is an RSS reader, and I guess this release falls in the category “abandonware” or “orphanware”: software houses releasing old software for free or as open source. To get into the picture, since they are supporting the Open Source / Free Software initiative(s). Or to get rid of things they don’t need/want anymore. As a sort of self-endorsed Escrow.
Anyway, Jetbrains has a new product Omea Reader Pro, so their non-pro version is now to be had for free.
With 10g Release 2 supporting .NET CLR from within the database, Oracle tries to take a piece of the .NET pie. With their announcement to release a Visual Studio .NET plugin, they show they’re eager to get that piece of the pie!
Oracle Developer Tools will be an add-in for Visual Studio .NET. It consists of an explorer to browse Oracle-schema’s, designers and wizards to create/alter schema’s, a PL/SQL editor, and the ability to drag-n-drop schema-objects onto your form and the code is automagically generated.
A beta version of the Developer Tools will be released at the end of this month. Watch this space.
If your company is a one-man-band, like mine, you’ll like this story: Finding a Product Idea for Your Micro-ISV.
In a follow-up to Perry’s post (again) I wonder: why should one buy Delphi 2005 instead of Visual Studio for .NET? A manager sees:
Delphi 2005 Architect edition: $3000 (new user). Support is an optional product. Cheapest level includes only 3 incidents for 12 months (whatever comes first).
MSDN Universal: $2800 (new user) and that gives the user VS.NET Enterprise Architect, ALL Office applications (including previous versions for testing), LTU (albeit for development only) for all Windows OS-es, including pre-releases only available to subscribers, online support with a garantueed response of 2 days, 4 phone incidents)
If you or your company has a history with Delphi and you want to keep your existing codebase, I can see why Delphi 2005 is a logical step. If you’re choosing tools for a new project, I cannot see why one would not choose MSDN Universal.
In the light of recent events (if you don’t know what I mean, ask) I am cleaning up. The house is one thing. The effect that it has on your overall state of mind is astonishing. Although I thought I didn’t mind working/living in a messy place, having it tidy (well, tidier, it’s not completely done yet) sure makes a lot of difference. My head feels lighter, you can focus more on things you want to do, instead of things you should be doing.
Today I cleaned my desk at work. Not only can I find my stuff now, but it looks like I’m an organized person 🙂
When you want to accomplish something, you have to be creative. As a matter of speaking, or literally. This blogpost has some tips. Read them, you will notice that some (or all!) of the tips can be very useful.
If you’re into Java and you like Borland’s JBuilder, then you will be pleased to hear that they are giving away the Foundation edition of JBuilder 2005. You can either download the trial version of the Enterprise or Developer edition, and after 30 days either one will revert to the free Foundation version. Or you can download the Foundation version. For the Enterprise or Developer version you will need a BDN account, but that’s free as well. Click on the title to go to the download page. JBuilder has versions for Windows, Solaris, Linux and Mac.
Sun released Java 5. It’s the new numbering system they will use from now on, since it is basically 1.5.0. You can read about the new and enhanced features here, or go straight to the download page.