Aehso’s Output

Interesting post, it’ll also be interesting to see if Sun’s strategy (especially for Java servers and tooling) ever follows this reasoning. Endorsing REST by providing the tooling wouldn’t be a bad thing.

So I picked up a Core Duo Mac Mini last week while over at EclipseCon. Dinky isn’t the word, and quiet too, although that power brick is a monster. Elgato also released universal binaries for EyeTV (v2.1) last week so I’ve got my EyeTV set up already.

I really need to buy a few accessories though. First up was, err, a new 32″ accessory that is getting rave reviews. (The mini has both DVI and S/PDIF outputs so it should be able to make full use of the it). My aging JBL Pro-Logic amplifier also needs to be replaced with a unit that does 5.1 Digital box (with optical and coaxial digital I/O) but that’s not quite as urgent.

FrontRow rocks by the way, as does MediaCentral although it doesn’t show anything when I try use it to watch EyeTV. Hmmm…

So JSR #291 (Dynamic Component Support for Java), a.k.a. OSGi R4, has been approved. It is interesting to read the concerns expressed in SE Executive Committee’s voting comments. There is a huge overlap with the work that is being done under JSR #277 - that project looks kind of dead in the water now. Exactly how the JCP SE/EE can allow two competing module specifications to evolve is beyond me but it happened so it would seem the JCP is now broken. That said, JCP cannot expect to write every new specification from scratch and even not meddling with de-facto specifications (e.g. DOM) is also ocassionally appropriate.

Unfortunately, Eclipse.org is also starting to exhibit similar cracks. A cursory look at the architectures of many of the top level projects (WTP, STP, TPTP, BIRT etc.) shows the lack of intra-project cooperation is resulting in frameworks that simply don’t integrate with one another in they ways we all want them to. I’m not sure whether the PMCs are responsible for this failure or if it is also the committer’s responsibility to “fit in” to the larger Eclipse eco-system better.

The end result is a selection of overlapping frameworks (and derived vertical commercial products) that will not peacefully co-exist on a single Eclipse runtime or integrate in any meaningful manner. So much for re-usability. Of course Eclipse.org are trying to get their release processes in order (and I hope that effort works out) but architectural inconsistencies and overlaps in the platforms is a much larger and deeper rooted problem altogether.

Interesting post by Alex Barnett that highlights how interesting ideas can sometimes be just stumbled upon.  When asking for a “outline of your professional career”, the listener heard “OPML sketch of who I am and how I got here”.  Well, OPML is the Outline Processor Markup Language so it should in theory be possible. 

4th dimension-oriented OPML files, hmmm…

Yesterday, I got an invite from Megite to play around with their new RSS news aggregator. It is very similar in function to memeorandum but they do have one feature I was curious about. When invited, they can generate a personalized page using any OPML file you supply as the “guide”. Check out my personal page, generated for an OPML file that I quickly exported from my Bloglines account.

Of course they need some feedback on their clustering algorithms but the concept is the all important thing. Obvious feedback: load the OPML from a URL I specify in my account settings (they don’t have accounts yet but you know where I’m going here) rather than asking me to manually upload it to them. Then they could update the page root “guide” whenever they wanted (I’m sure they’ve heard that request before).

Less obvious feedback: create a back end that can mash up multiple structured OPML files. With some smart algorithms they might then magically end up with a very smart feed /information grazer.

The web will be truly rocked if services like these start knitting search together with disparate structured OPML files….

Initial benchmarks of the Core Duo Mac Mini’s performance relative to it’s Core Solo underling. There is not much of a difference that can’t be accounted for by the extra Ghz but wow that spare core proves very handy for those multithread tests.

I’ll be picking one up at the end of the month regardless, they seem to be reasonably capable of decoding 1080i HD streams (using VLC) from what I read so that makes it future proof enough for my living room for at least few years…