JavaJava - ProxyProxy

A new innovation – clear shoe boxes.

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:10:00 +0000

I've notice this new site (I know it's in hebrew - but still the idea is great!)
Basically, with the clearbox you can store all your shoes, boots, handbags, and accessories easily and efficiently. Not only you will be able to see where you stuff is, it will also same you space as you can stack them. Clearbox is equipped with ventilation holes (to prevent mold, bad smell, and dust), carry handle, and side opening for quick and easy access.
The boxes fit women’s size, men’s size, boots, and other items.
You can purchase it directly from the source: clear shoe and boot boxes

Amazon's S3 is down!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:39:00 +0000

If you have been using S3 for images (or any other stuff) - well... the sad true is that as from today (few hours ago) they are down! :( or in other words - "experiencing outage".
I don't know why such a huge service will be down for so long with out any blog post that give users information on ETA. I know about: http://status.aws.amazon.com/ but it's not really helpful to know that "2:36 PM PDT We have restored all internal communication across Amazon S3 hosts. We have started the multi-step process to begin accepting requests across Amazon S3 locations."
I want them up 24x7x365 (or at least 99.9999% of the time).
So to cut a long story short:
1. How come on Amazon.com you have all the photos? :) don't they were the first to use S3?
2. Sad... specially, because I like amazon and the way they push the innovation bar.

Java and Scripting Languages arena

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:13:00 +0000

Is that wonderful tool or what?
The first question is why and the answer is that combining scripting languages with the Java platform provides developers an opportunity to leverage the abilities of both environments. You can continue to use scripting languages for all the reasons you already have (e.g quick solution, flexability, easy usage, quick changes etc').
And you can use the powerful Java class library to extend the abilities of those languages (e.g. collections, collections and some concurrency - thanks to D. Lee and of course the VM hot spot).

I've used it in the past when I wanted to tests java script without rhino project or just to test JS code without online tools like http://jslint.com that 'just' give you messages and not really helping you debug your code.
So... here is the first hello foo-world:
--
import javax.script.*;
public class JScriptRunnableImpl {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
ScriptEngineManager manager = new ScriptEngineManager();
// Tell the jvm that we are going to use java script
ScriptEngine engine = manager.getEngineByName("JavaScript");
// JavaScript code in a String - note: you can also just do something like that:
// engine.eval(new java.io.FileReader("youJS_fileName.js");
String script = "function run() { println('run called'); }";
// run the script
engine.eval(script);
Invocable inv = (Invocable) engine;
// get Runnable interface object from engine.
Runnable r = inv.getInterface(Runnable.class);
// start a new thread that runs the script implemented
// runnable interface
Thread th = new Thread(r);
th.start(); }
}
--
Here is a good article about the subject from sun
For more just go and read JSR-223 - compliant script engine.

Last but not least - check out Groovy site for (yet antoer) option: http://groovy.codehaus.org

Apple sold 1M iphone over the first weekend!

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:53:00 +0000

WOW... so I guess the photo I took in down town Palo alto is one of many (many) apple stores. Father more, the app (online) store sold / downloaded more then 10 millions applications over the first 24h. That's crazy or what?
I guess that you can see some trend here aroundnd the years if in the 1970s Apple did it with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Later, in the 1990s with the iPod mania and now it's doing it once again with the new 'personal computer' you can called it iPhone.
As the main apple guru (=Steve Jobs) said over the weekend: “iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend, It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world.”

iPhone 2.0 is out in the wild

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:39:00 +0000

Well... I think that this image just tell the all story.
Yes - you can read all over the Blogosphere how the activation of the new 3G phone didn't work (or is taking too much time) and you get only 'iBrick 3G'... but in the end of the day, it's unbelievable to see the lines to a device that is 'just' an improvement for a mobile phone that is out there for the past year.
I guess one of the major aspect to these lines is the price (only $199) and the smart move apple did on approching 'all' the mainstream people that looking for exchange support.
Ohhh... there is even a GPS, right? :)

iPhone App store is in the Air

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:49:00 +0000

So... what we have here :)
It seems that in the spirit of the web - most of the applications are free. Of course the most popular one will be free (e.g. facebook, eBay, typepad) but I wonder why the sweet spot of price is some where between $1 to 10$

I've browse the applications and I must say that some of them looks very good:

Remote control - that's a must no? :)
Typepad, Wordpress and ebay to the people that use them.
The dictionaries (BTW - cost 29.99$) are useful stuff for any traveler.
Lots of poker and other games to pass the time.
'Where' - navigation... I wonder what killer features they put there.

and here is the visual of the 'HOT' (how they can be hot already?) and the 'Favorites' of the stuff in apple. I will go with these guys on most of their choices.

and of course last and not least here is a map that show you all the places where the new 3G won't work :) Where can you get 3G service? Anywhere marked highlighted in blue in this map. On the map below, blue areas signify 3G network coverage.

Stephen Hawking hits zero G - AMAZING!

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 06:17:00 +0000

Peter Diamandis is one of those amazing people that going like a fast spearhead after their dream(s).
X Prize founder Peter Diamandis talks about how he helped Stephen Hawking fulfill his dream of going to space - 4 wonderful minutes:

ohh... ya - and in our java corner :)
Meet the Java rock star! these interview with Java sinor (=real gurus!) developer is very interesting. Try my favorite... Mr. Tor Norbye

RSS, RDF, ATOM protocols

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:15:00 +0000

If you heard the terms and not really understand from where it came or where it is going...
Check out this new good intro:

and while we are on the subject lets have a short list of some cool projects that deal with the subject:

ROME - Java open source project that let you handle in java with RSS/ATOM/RDF and all their versions. It is an set of open source Java tools for parsing, generating and publishing RSS and Atom feeds. The core ROME library depends only on the JDOM XML parser and supports parsing, generating and converting all of the popular RSS and Atom formats. You can find it at: rome.dev.java.net
Pipes - Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mash up content from around the web. This web2.0 editor (disclaimer: I've help to built it!) is probably the best tool you have on the web to 'program' without the need to write code.
Google API - lots of stuff you can do with their powerful API is in ATOM. Check it out: http://code.google.com/

Have happy 4th of July!

Java on the iPhone? well you have it on the BlackBerry!

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:10:00 +0000

A friend ask for my advice on a new start up company he wish to open to the mobile market :) and yes - the iPhone is their big challenge. After Kleiner Perkins Announces $100 million iFund for iPhone Applications, who doesn't want to take a share from this (huge) cake?

Any way, there is another very large market of people that no meter what Steve Job will do - they will keep their black berry. On that front you might want to check out this: "...The Blackberry Java Development Environment (Blackberry JDE) is a fully integrated development environment and simulation tool for building Java Micro Edition applications for Java based Blackberry smart phones."

The main Features:

HTML Email Support
Enhanced Attachment Support
Spell Check API
BlackBerry® Maps Integration
New Samples showing:
- Keyword Filtering Lists
- Embedded Media Support
- Map Field APIs
- Localization Applications

Well - I've mark the spell check API and the Map integration because with the combination of these two you can really built the next amazing mobile app. that will let your users (hoply clients) to leverage the poor typing skill but still be able to search and use GIS on their mobile devices.
Another important fact to keep in mind, is that once you are on the J2ME wagon you aimming into a market of more then 1B (yep - billion) devices. So it's true that not all of them will support the black berry level of richness but still.. it's good.
Ohh... if you want to learn more about the blackBerry java IDE.

How can you recovery photos from your memory card?

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:58:00 +0000

I don't know why...
but always, when you think a task will take you few minutes it's ending up to (much) more. Is it the new M. law?
Last night, I wanted to download the photos from my camera (a task I did in the past 35,546 times).
I can blame picase, windows, mac, my wife - but in the end of the day, the photos where 'gone' from my SD card and there weren't any where on my laptop!
Now what?!
It's needless to say, I had very important photos there, right? :)

OK - I've used some good search engine (Yahoo) and after reading few blog posts I found this free application to recover your lost photos/files.
It's putting you back in the old happy days of terminals (or just simple shell) but the result is that you have your stuff back!
Since, it is coming with no GUI - I won't recommend it to people that scar from black terminal screen that ask you to read and type :) but any developer should be able to use it.
It save me some very cool photos... and time. So I hope it will do the same good job to you as well.

Java, innovation and pixar!

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:22:00 +0000

I read this very good article about innovation in Pixar. It's amazing how you can find thing trick term (=innovation) in places you won't think at the beginning but when someone point it out - it's so clear it's there.
One of the best ideas I got from their oscar winning director Brad Bird (yes this is the guy that manage the making of Ratatouille) is: "...Speaking personally, I want my films to make money, but money is just fuel for the rocket. What I really want to do is to go somewhere. I don’t want to just collect more fuel."

In the Java world you can find lots of 'guru' developers that are doing what they do with the same passion and mission. To bring something much bigger then just more 'fuel'. I'm not saying fuel is not important :) specially there days when it's reach 140$ but to see people that focusing on something bigger is always inspiring.
Take for example projects like: JBoss, Tomcat, eclipse, GWT and lots of others. In all of them, people put huge amount of effort in order to bring technology to the people. Is it great?!
Another espect to look at innovation is to make sure your team want to do the impossiable. As Mr. Bird put it: "...The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved." Then, you want to create the atmosphare that allow the briethess to threave.
Easy to say and very challanging to do. Doesn't metter if you are on the set of a movie or in the open source world working on a project.
Have a good weekend!

-- To read the full article just go to: www.mckinseyquarterly.com

Arrested development vs. Weeds!

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:11:00 +0000

arrested development is my new 'quick 21min' passtime after Weeds just stoped.
Go see it on Hulu.com and thank me later :)

cloud computing or is it cloud hosting?

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:32:00 +0000

Google App engine, Amazon EC2 (and of course S3), Mosso and other cloud networks are all targeted the new wave of developers that want to scale and have less 'hard work' on pure infrastructure.
It's true that to give the 'pro' this haed-ace is tempting but 'hey!' wasn't google App. was down few days ago?
So what? Google is an amazing company and I'm sure they will fix it and move on. In the end of the day, this will be the solution for web2.0 (and even web*.0). It's not only the scaling issue (if/when you have a 'killer face book application'), it's more important stuff like:

Database - If you tried to create master-slave on mysql you know that it's 'easy' but have some pain points you want to let some other dude to deal with (e.g. auto-id as primary key that might change). So in the cloud you have the option for Replicated database solution.
Cost - Pay only of the CPU/Traffic you are using. This is the scale of economic.
See S3,EC2 and compare them with other dedicated hosting options. It's around 1/4 of the price.
Auto scaling - we said it will save you on a 'sunny' day in the clound when you facebook application is up and running or when Digg put you on their first page.
Load Balancing - fee by design.
Operations - you don't need to get up in the middle of the night because the server is down!

Well, I'm not sure that lots of companies will move into the cloud in the next months, because services like right scale, mosso and others need to mature.
Nevertheless, the early adopters (=start-ups or as Oreilly call them: Alpha geeks) are going to jump in :)

Have lots of sunny days in the cloud arena... and specially after a night full of snow!

Imagine Life full of happines

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:56:00 +0000

I know it's all in Hebrew... but still you can enjoy the sound and the cool animated video clip.

Some of the lines that I really like are:
"... imagine yourself a world less sad from the one we are having..."
"... imagine a chance to go back to your youth..."
"... imagine that you carry out your dreams..."
"... and she is full of reflections... happiness and sadness..."
"... describe yourself life moving forward and backwards..."
"and I'm going to meet her in heaven."

Java very cool application

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:25:00 +0000

For all the ones out there that thinking about the next amazing name to called there new born. This Java application is for you. The popularity baby name application is very useful to check out the names that you like and to see the trends over the years.

Another amazing UI and statistic is Gapminder World.
It lets you explore the changing world from your own computer. Moving graphics show how the development of all countries of the world by the indicators you choose. You might want to check this amazing TED talk by Hans Rosling.

* Old photo I took from the 'tele-scope' on the bay area.

Startup - the happy (long) days

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:14:00 +0000

As you all know we are running in this start up mode for the past six months.
I decided it will be nice to save the moment/memory...
So here you go :)
this is (part of) our development environment.
All the rest is living in amazon S3 and other 'cloud networks'.
Thoughts? feel free...

FireFox3 and web development

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:33:00 +0000

Hey - It's here! Firefox 3 with all it’s new features:

Improved CSS compatibility - well, lots of sites are not showing too good... but I guess most of them will fix their issues very soon.
Efficient memory handling.
New auto complete in the address bar. It is working very fast and I think they improved the 'memory' and handling of most recent sites.

However, the readiness of the key extensions like FireBug/YSlow and WebDeveloper is a serious point to think about. I'm sure any (good) web developer can't work with out them :) so I would stay on FireFox-2 until they will have these Add-ons RC on FireFox-3.
For now, you can still have their 'early' (=beta) versions: Firebug beta for fireFox-3 and Web Developer beta for firefox-3.

Another good option is to still develop using Firefox 2, but to install this Firefox-3 which will run side by side with Firefox-2.

GWT and the nice thing about webdev

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:53:00 +0000

Since I've been 'playing' with GWT to build a new cool web app. I have some thoughts on it.
1. It's very cool project.
2. If you are swing developer - this is the way for you to step into the world of ajax.
3. If you are good php/perl/js programmer - it might not be the case unless you are weak on the JS part.
4. Like any new technology - it's still coming with a lot of noise that you wish won't be there.
For example: no hashtable :( and other important api/libraries that any java developer will want to see there.
5. Use netbean to work with it.
6. Buy a good book (for example: GWT solutions) - it will cut a lot of corner (in the good way) for you.

and here is a cool video to start lean how to use Google's API with GWT

GWT is it the best way to build a web app for iPhone 2.0?

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:21:00 +0000

It depends, no? :)
As any good/old developer the answer to this question will be changed base on what you know. If you are a strong php,ruby,python,perl girl so may be... not. However, if you being played with java in the past few years and never jumped to the wonderful world of ajax and web applications - well, that might be your best option.
It saves you the time to learn JS (not an easy task!) and above all the good 'known' benefits such as:
* You can use all of your favorite Java development tools (Eclipse, Netbean and JUnit) for AJAX development. On top of that you gain 'trivial' goodies like refactoring, auto completion etc'.
* Static type checking in the Java language boosts productivity while reducing errors.
* Common JavaScript errors (typos, type mismatches) are easily caught at compile time rather than by users at runtime.
* Java-based OO designs are easier to communicate and understand, thus making your AJAX code base more comprehensible with less documentation.

You get the 'killer feature' of putting your ideas in the wild wide web in a very quick way.
Here is a good widget library I found very useful - Ext GWT

Ohh.. ya... I almost forgot :)
you will be able to put it on the iphone 2.0 !

Negotiate Valuations

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:38:00 +0000

I use to listen to these podcast during my runs (and sometimes the bike rides)... but here is just the 'executive summary' of one that is in the top 10:

and as you can see it's from the best of the best :)
He is giving his words of wisdom on an array of topics like: pursuing initial VC funding, how to evaluate the firms and what kinds of questions to ask.
He also reminds us to treat all negotiations with respect and fairness.
I wish some of the 'old school' guys that I had the chance to do business with would have listen to him.

Ohh... and for those of you that didn't had the chance to 'meet' him :) here is a list of few founders/companies he invested in:

Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt: Google [GOOG]
Jeff Bezos: Amazon [AMZN]
Scott Cook, Bill Campbell: Intuit [INTU]
Andy Bechtolsheim, Scott McNealy: Sun [SUNW]
And the founders of Compaq, Cypress, Macromedia and Symantec

SQL injections in web applications

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:49:00 +0000

It is one of the most common and painful security holes.
Any web site that use a database (even if it's for read only!) might have some holes that the good-old developer didn't cover and one little worm or any good cracker might take advantage on.
In a nutshell, you must always make sure:

Use a 'user' that have permissions to only the 'sections' that he need. E.g. no DROP, GRANT etc' and even more, don't give all the web-app's users an INSERT or UPDATE if all they need it SELECT.
Scrub all the code that the client is passing to you on the server side and make sure it's 'clean'. For example: you should always clean the SQL string that the user pass you from all the known chars like: " ' ; etc' but you must combine it with #3.
Prepared statements that will give you another level of defense. They help increase security by separating SQL logic from the data being supplied.
See this article for more details about 'why prepared statements are important'.
Always check your code and make sure he treat anything that is coming from the client as 'contained data'.

Here are some useful posts about this:

and if this is not the best 'bottom line' on the subject

I don't know what else could move you :)

Netbean 6.1 and GWT

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Sun, 18 May 2008 04:46:00 +0000

I found myself again standing in a (familiar) crossroad... should I use a well known javascript library (e.g. yui, jquery, prototype, dojo etc') or should I take GWT.
This time (last time was immediately after the first realse of GWT), I think that the combination of Netbean 6.1 (is it the best IDE now?) and GWT is very powerful.

Few good links that will help you get started:

how to bind GWT to Netbean
GWT and Netbean - tutorial
36 Tutorial on GWT
GWT and php
last but not least - a good video from the creator of GWT

Now, the interesting stuff will be to see how the combination of the server side technologies will 'play' along with GWT. It's true, the most tech-stack going to be in JAVA. However, we do have some very cool stuff written in php.

The Car Connection - Version (web) 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:51:00 +0000

It's LIVE!
After months of hard work I am proud to bring you the new site we've just launch this week! :)
WOW - it wasn't easy job to change the airplane's engine while it's still flying high and fast. However, we did it!
The site's design is very cool and I'm sure people will find it useful before they are going to take a big decision like: buying a new car.
As always, comments are most welcome!

To read the full post on all the improvements we did please go here

Have a nice summer!

Apple, Steve Jobs and managment

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:09:00 +0000

It seems that in the past 2-3 years apple is one of the most successful companies. First the change the game of the online music industry with this amazing 'solution' of iTune+ iPod. Then, they brought to the world the iPhone. The first game-changing mobile phone that got so much Buzz that I don't need to intruduce.
Lastly, the mac book air and it's amazing price vs. laptop that make you wonder what apple is doing so right.

On thing that most of the people will agree on is that Steve jobs is very involve in make apple raise from the ashes.

When, it comes to management, you hear so many theoretical 'experts' that it's embarrassing to see how far they are from realty, in Apple case.

Here are few things that Mr. Jobs is doing so well (and 'so wrong' according to these experts):
* Success will come only by creating a 'needed' product/service.
* The customer does NOT know what she/he want.
* The road will be full with obsticaless, secrets and bad feelings.
* Marketing will be based on 'suprize' and generating hip.
* The CEO should be genuis and asshole (see 'built to last' to gain different point of view on suspenseful companies and life).

If you ask me, this is not the way to built a company unless you have someone like Steve :)

Situations in life

noreply@blogger.com (Ido) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:25:00 +0000

Today I've encounter, yet another situation at work that remind me Albert Einstein. He put it simple and accuratly: "...Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

So true...