Darwin's Theories - books tag

Seam Leaves Home (on good terms)

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:58:00 GMT

In addition to cranking out a new stable release (2.0.1.GA) and a new early access release (2.1.0.A1), The JBoss Seam framework has been renamed to "The Seam Framework" and has a new website, http://www.seamframework.org/. This represents a "growing up" of sorts, similar to e.g., Jakarta Tomcat becoming Apache Tomcat, and differentiates Seam from the many smaller projects that are also part of JBoss - see the new diagram at http://labs.jboss.org/projects/, and note that Seam is right there at the top of the web tier. While still funded by RedHat/JBoss, with this new domain Seam is obviously being positioned to compete head-on with similarly-named project The Spring Framework.

As part of "moving out", Seam has been given a new logo, see http://www.seamframework.org/Community/GetASeamIcon. This is used in their new web site, which is of course running on Seam and available as part of the downloads (http://www.seamframework.org/Download). Speaking of downloads, if you're using a version older than 2.0.1.GA, now would be a good time to download and upgrade.

Also, there is a new book about Seam, Seam In Action (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933988401), which you can now buy in Early Access (http://www.manning.com/dallen/) - you get EA PDF's now and the final version when it's released, and optionally a paper copy then too.

Finally, JBoss Tools - the all-encompassing Eclipse tools for developing Seam and Hibernate projects - has been upgraded to 2.0.1.GA. You might want to download this as well.

Bit o' good news, The real 'An Enemy of the State', etc.

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:45:00 GMT

In the U.S. Congress, the House Democrats finally stood up to be counted, voting through their own bill which does not provide a unilateral amnesty for all the law-breaking that went on after 2001-09-11 by the big telecoms violating everybody's privacy. Although this bill is rather unlikely to get signed into law, it's a big baby step forward for a Democratic majority that was voted in, in large measure, to oppose Bush's crushing of the constitution.

The title "An Enemy of the State" is most often associated with a popular 1998 Will Smith movie. But it was used several times before that. The most relevant one for me is Justin Raimondo's 1992 biography of Murray Rothbard, entitled of course An Enemy of the State. Lew Rockwell has finally done this book justice with a detailed review, entitled "Still the State's Greatest Living Enemy".

I also note that Benedict D. LaRosa has written a gun control article that's worth reading. Written shortly after the Virginia Tech murders, this article lays the blame squarely on the University Administration and the state government, but brings in other American examples. It could be read in conjunction with this UK information (UK government lied about gun crime to try to make the populace think that their draconian gun control was "working"). And this Canadian item that shows gun homicides actually on the decline, which also points out that criminals don't obey gun laws any more than any other - they are criminals, after all.

Speaking of lies, this article notes that the US Government was using prohibited weapons in Iraq and lying about it. But that should surprise nobody who's got an IQ greater than that of a wheat germ.

To end on a lighter note, here's a piece entitled The REAL Reason We Use Linux, which applies just as much to BSD.

Ian's Top Ten Today, #1

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:51:00 GMT

Here are some links that I found worth passing on recently. This is not a monthly or even a regular listing; I'll repeat this when I have another ten.

End Software Patents
Jacob C. Hornberger: Hillary Should Have Apologized for Waco in Waco
Building a Green PC at ArsTecnica
Canadian Politics: Let Elizabeth Speak (although, despite the noble-sounding URL, it only pleads for one of our minority parties)
Managing Your Inbox courtesy of RIM
Microsoft dupes consumers into buying crappy hardware just to pinch Vista out the door (Caveat: this blog contains statements admitted in evidence but not "proven" by trial, and doesn't know how to spell "dilemna")
Free book downloads in CS/Eng/Programming from www.freetechbooks.com/index.php
Senator denies $40,000 in telecom corporate donations could affect vote on telecoms immunity bill (I can just see Jay Leno delivering that line, can't you?)
MPAA lies about college downloading, agitates for legal interventions, and laughs its $10B profits all the way to the bank
Humor: PHD Comics, especially this strip (thread continues about 8 strips later).

Like I say, tha-tha-that's all (for now), folks. When I get another ten, this'll be back.

A Bigger, Better Tomcat Guide

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:40:46 GMT

My colleague in communications, Jason Brittain, has finished revising Tomcat: The Definitive Guide. The Second Edition was just released (October/November, 2007) and covers Tomcat 6.0. Coverage has been expanded in almost all areas; the first edition's 295 pages are dwarfed by the second's 462 pages. If you're using Tomcat, this is the book you should have to help you along!

New Java Cookbook Recipes

Thu, 03 May 2007 01:24:06 GMT

Since I hope someday to release a third edition of the Java Cookbook, I've been thinking about what recipes need to be replaced, added, removed. I've set up a directory with some new/replacement recipes. Some are complete but some are just placeholders. Feel free to look and, as always, comments welcome.

As usual with O'Reilly, the text is copyright but the code is free to use.