Posts by jwenting

heck, some people claim to be able to see the difference between 1000 and 1001 frames per second, doesn't mean they can.

The human brain can detect motion at about 30 Hz, the eye can detect maybe up to 60 Hz but the brain can't handle that information.

Most likely this condition has nothing to do with his screen whatsoever (unless it's a really old really bad one) and certainly not with the refresh rate (a low refresh rate can cause headaches, not blurred vision).
What CAN cause eye trouble is poor illumination, having the screen set too bright in relation to the surrounding area.

http://www.hacknot.info/hacknot/action/showEntry?eid=76 has an excellent rant about the problems of visual editors (aka GUI builders).

While he talks specifically about Java, the same holds true for all of them. And yes, that means Visual BASIC and Delphi as well, languages which traditionally are seen as almost purely visual.
I've done several midsized Delphi applications and in all of them I ended up writing custom code to manipulate the screen layout and content on the fly, something GUI builders have always promised to make a thing of the past but fail to deliver.

no, beginning users shouldn't use any IDE.
It prevents them from learning the basics by hiding those basics from them.

Beware that more than a few "free" programs install spyware on your machine as a way of getting income from you anyway.
Not sure which of the above do so, but beware and always very carefully monitor the license and other documentation for such software (and be prepared for a hard time removing them if you get tricked anyway).

Especially download managers and mediaplayers are often inflicted with this, though no category is completely safe.

You don't get anything ;)
As we're talking web applications here the browser gets the file and sends it as a datastream in the HTTP request.
The server can then parse that stream into a byte array (for example) and write it out to disk.

Never yourself use any of the sun.* packages and the classes in them.
Those classes are not guaranteed to exist in any other version of the language (or even in different platform implementations (for example it might exist in Sun's 1.4.0 but not in their own 1.4.2 nor in IBMs 1.4.0).

They're for internal use by other classes only, and sometimes for internal use by the JVM.

You can't, period.

The normal way is to have the main method do nothing except handle commandline arguments, create a single instance of the application (usually its own class), and start that instance.

I think mods should have the option to move topics to a place they're more appropriate :)

That's exactly what I meant. I've seen sites and publications taking isolated phrases from the Q'uran (and the Bible and others) out of context to justify murdering people.
That's exactly what Islamic terrorists do of course, and in the past what the Spanish Inquisition used to do, and there are and have been many other examples of such behaviour.

I agree that Islam when taken purely from the Qu'ran doesn't condone (let alone advocate) physical violence against anyone except in self defense (in fact, the term Jihad which is often abused to mean armed conflict to spread the faith originally was meant to indicate pilgrim work, spreading the gospel like catholic priests did who went to African and Asian villages to set up clinics and schools).
But as all religions the Q'uran isn't the only source of wisdom for those who practice Islam and many Islamic groups (especially the more violent ones) adhere more to other writings which often do preach violent actions against those not of the faith (which led in modern day Turkey for example to people being murdered after converting to Islam under torture in the 17th and 18th century and maybe even later).

There's nothing in the so-called Bermuda triangle except some seaweed and maybe a sandbar or two :)

I've nothing against killing animals for food, but in case of caviar (and shark fin soup too) what gets to me is the incredible waste.
A fish potentially weighing a hundred kilos or more is killed for a few kilos of caviar or its fins, massive amounts of meat being thrown away.
Even if the meat might not be the most tasty for human consumption (probably the reason it's thrown away) they could at least use it for petfood or bait (for example).

yes, having a button as an optional way to fill the file location is fine.
But you should not require the use of that button by not providing an input field for manual entry.
Pressing a button, launching a popup, filling the location in that, clicking another button, that's 4 steps to fill the file location.
Just filling it directly is a single step, far faster.

Maybe not that important on a hobby site where people may use it once a month or so, but on a professional intranet application where it's used by many people many times a day it becomes first a major annoyance and then reason for the application to require changing to improve performance.

Also, one should never rely solely on clientside validation (which forcing the user to select an option from a popup dialog effectively is), as someone will come who circumvents that in some way.

That was my immediate idea when seeing your question (which I'd never seen before).

But had you tried to set the JVM memory parameters?
things like

-Xms<size> set initial Java heap size
-Xmx<size> set maximum Java heap size
-Xss<size> set java thread stack size

maybe also enable incremental GC which might help keep the required memory down.

-Xincgc enable incremental garbage collection

Most "caviar" served at parties isn't.
It's other fish eggs instead (or other things altogether flavoured to taste similar).

Of course that's assuming you don't have parties in places with Michelin stars ;)

You should always allow manual entry as well.
It works a LOT faster if the user knows what he wants to enter.

But I'd not validate paths at all. The client is solely responsible for that, all the server should do is gracefully handle the situation in which the file doesn't exist.

And NEVER let the user enter a path and/or filename existing on the server and have the server do something with that file. That's a massive breach of security.

If your Java skills are weak you need to improve those skills, not ask people for ready made solutions.
Get a good book (or 2, or 10, or like me buy them until you run out of money), read the API docs, and experiment.

DateFormat, Calendar, and Date together are extremely powerful but that makes the system a tad complex.
Aren't we lucky it's so well documented in the API docs then?

trying a C++ forum to ask C++ questions might also be a good idea...

Contact Microsoft sales for sufficient licenses for all clients.
You will also have to purchase terminal server or a similar product.

There's nothing wrong with either path...
And what about other operating systems?

Of course those translations are usually of a very poor quality and completely useless for technical stuff, humour, etc. etc.

Best thing is to learn the other language. German isn't that hard, especially reading it.
I've been speaking German reasonably well since about the age of 4, and I'm very bad at learning languages (in fact I didn't master English until I was 17).

One part of showing you're ready for your diploma is to show you can think for yourself.
Thinking of something to write is a part of that. Of course actually writing it is a very large part as well.

Sounds like either a bad keyboard or a bad keyboard controller.

Try using a different keyboard, if that doesn't work you're looking at a new motherboard (though sometimes a USB keyboard works when a PS/2 keyboard doesn't, but that's rare).

Intel all the way, certainly for machines that need stability and a long uptime.
Intel beats AMD hands down when it comes to reliability, even if AMDs sometimes have slightly higer performance when measuring raw speed (and even there, AMD often deceives customers by listing performance comparisons between their highend CPUs and Intel Celeron while listing those Celerons as Pentiums).

hmm, prawn cocktail.
Grilled prawn, indeed with soy sauce.
Also make a great ingredient for paella.

Regardless of my support, then and now, I am not so blind or stupid as to believe that any other outcome in relation to Terrorism other than an increase in it was ever going to be the outcome of the Iraq war.

And most of it brought about by our own media which make (potential) terrorists see the west as weak, divided, ready to give in to any demand no matter how absurd if they only destroy our image of invulnerability.

United we stand, divided we fall. When did we forget that lesson, or more properly when did the media forget that lesson and started to actively work against the best interests of the people they're supposedly serving with information?

US troops now drop footballs and running shoes from their helicopters instead of the handgranades and poison gas Saddam's forces used.
Where is that reported in our media? Where are the stories of villages and towns where people have a future again?

ah, another terrorist sympathiser trying to turn Iraq into Vietnam.

Like it or not bozo, but there are less people dead in Iraq from violence than there are people dead from traffic accidents.
In fact, the number of troops hurt in Iraq due to accidents that would happen in peacetime is higher than the number hurt in Iraq (per 1000 people).
The daily casualty count due to Saddam's violence against his own people was several times higher than the number of people being hurt right now (and most of those are terrorists).
Of course you don't want to acknowledge that because it doesn't fit your agenda.

And then we don't even mention the good our troops do there.
Building schools, hospitals, providing education and healthcare to scores of people that never had it before because Saddam didn't like them.
But then you don't want that known do you?

Because all you want is to turn the world against the US and in favour of Muslim fundamentalists, to establish Muslim law as the law of the land all over the world and mullahs as the rulers of the planet.

Javascript validation can be easily circumvented.

A classic (and true) story is an online store that used only Javascript validation.
A customer quickly found out what requests to send and was thus able to modify his order to a price of $1 for goods worth tens of thousands.

The company took him to court where the judge threw out the case on the grounds that a website is effectively a storeclerk and if a storeclerk charges you an amount that's what you have to pay.

Or if it's a small number of pre-recorded tapes just buy the DVD as that will be easier and quite possibly cheaper as well :)

interesting site, will have to see how objective they are though (oftentimes individual quotes from the Qu'ran (and other religious scriptures like the Bible) are taken out of context to make them appear to say something they don't).

Another fact: the Caspian sturgeon has seen its population drop by over 90% since the collapse of the USSR ended state control over the catch.
The fish (which is the main source of the best caviar) is now nearly extinct.

They've failed to rig the elections in their favour twice already. Unless a lot of people that voted for Bush decide to vote independent in protest against his inaction against the destruction of civil liberties by the US suppreme court I think they'll fail a third time.

had caviar (not that brand though I think), didn't like it.

I know it's a sin to say that, but so be it :)

1) this isn't urgent at all, certainly not to me. Don't try to get people to give you preferential treatment by claiming you're more important than others.

2) use proper English. I won't answer any question that uses "u" "ur", etc. etc. as words.

The most important thing about getting JSTL to work, and is documented almost no where, is you have to use a Servlet 2.4 style web.xml instead of a Servlet 2.3 style web.xml.

Wrong, dead wrong.
You need a 2.4 servlet container ONLY to use JSTL 1.1. The questions are clearly related to JSTL 1.0 which is part of the 2.3 spec (though may need separate installation of the JSTL jars depending on appserver in use).

Ant won't fix programming errors :)

:cheesy: :cheesy: :cheesy:

OHHHH NOOOO! And to think that women will probably run for president in the upcoming election....

I knew the so-called "democratic" party (ever noticed that true democrats never call themselves democrats?) were stupid but I didn't think they had a deathwish :mrgreen: :cool: :p

Looks fishy. Proudly displaying a CDR on your frontpage doesn't inspire my confidence in their legality...

Prices are also too low to be legit, below even OEM and educational prices (and those are available only under strict conditions which these guys don't seem to enforce).
And of course in his FAQ he mentions a lot of incorrect things about downloading but nowhere mentions it's illegal...
His method for installing Windows XP is invalid for legal versions which boot from CD, his software does not ship in the original packaging and does not have manuals.
I guess you got CDRs?
He will deliver on CD or DVD on order thus he burns his own which reputable dealers NEVER do as they get complete and legal packages from the manufacturer.
He says you shouldn't register the stuff you buy from him with the manufacturer (guess why, the manufacturer will then know you have a pirated version...).

Sorry, but you got ripped off by someone selling pirated software. I suggest you contact Scotland Yard's computer crimes division.

Don't HP make compaq pcs?

Yes and no. They took over Compaq and so own the production lines, but Compaq have separate design and production facilities from HP (for as long as it lasts, I expect "consolidation" to happen in the not too distant future).

Their printers are even subpar, a good printer has seperated ink tanks.. not combined..

I prefer the way HP does things. No trouble with having to send the printer in for repairs when the printhead gets clogged up with ink after not using the thing for a while (had that happen more than once).
And even if you do have to throw some ink away once in a while it's in my experience still usually cheaper too than separate inks (each cartridge for say a Canon here costs about the same as a multi-colour HP cartridge having almost the same amount of ink of EACH colour in it).

And of course they last very long and keep supplying ink for out of production printers years and years into the future.

I'm guessing you took the picture in your avatar?

Yes, duck sticking its head out of tall grass.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050705 UFI about Google.earth :)

My condolences having him as your senator.
Your only comfort can be that it could be worse, it could be Hillary :)

ah, the MX1000. I have its slightly cheaper brother, the MX700. Indeed a great piece of kit.

I'll see what I can do Catweazle, took it a few years ago so will have to look in my older CDs of scans to find it.

SC, I took that just a few kilometers from where I live on a freezing february afternoon while testing my new camera and lens.

The things you talk about there aren't aspects of a socialist system of organisation but rather the dangers of allowing power to run without adequate checks and balances in place. The same sort of outcomes can (and do) result from the implementation of a capitalist system of organisation.

Maybe. But in a capitalist society there's a (slim) chance of such things happening, in a socialist society they're certain to happen simply because all checks and ballances in a socialist society are controlled by the same people who have a vested interest in making them happen and therefore are useless except as a means to make the people believe that "Big Brother is caring for you".

I wouldn't call anyone making $500 million a year legally an idiot :)
He's a powermad maniac, and certainly not the person I'd want to hang around with, but he's not an idiot.

put the money in the bank and keep it there.
Maybe you could invest in another gigabyte of RAM if you have memory intensive stuff but otherwise you have a system that should last you another year or two (I know I plan to keep mine for another 2 years and it's inferior to your rig in everything but RAM).

I guess they're all USB devices?
If so (and especially if they're connected through a USB hub) you may have power problems.
If you can't get enough electrical power to the devices (many unpowered USB hubs have that problem when they're full) some or all may fail.

don't make your data members static!

http://www.usefilm.com/image/116336.html bit of selfpromotion :)