I recently obtained a copy of a Java IDE that calls itself “J Creator Pro”. Considering that Java has native Unicode support, I was amazed to find that J Creator Pro does not.

It only supports a handful of character sets, such as ASCII, ISO8859-1, ISO8859-2 and a few Mac encodings. Obviously the developers of the product are unaware that there is any non-Latin character set. Since my existing source includes some Japanese, the IDE was completely unable to recognise the characters from UTF-8 files.

This hurdle stopped any possible testing, and has create an impression that the product should be called “JCreator very amateur“.

The newest edition of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser is due to be released on the 17^th of June 2008.

It promises dramatic improvements in speed, performance and memory usage.

New features are set to include:

• Enhanced security
  • - even safer to use than before and even further ahead of Internet Explorer
  • Additional anti-virus integration
  • Integration with Windows Vista Parental controls
• Easier to Use
  • Full page zoom of text and graphics - This was a feature that distinguished Opera
  • Better Integration with Windows and Apple Macintosh
  • Resumable downloads - no need to restart a large download because of a glitch in your connection.

Having seen that Sony Ericsson have updated their PC-Suite for communicating with Sony-Ericsson mobile phones, such as my S500i, I looked in vain for an update option on the software. I feel that failing to implement direct updates is a poor practice from a company that claims to be in the forefront of technology.

Since there was none I had to go direct to the Sony Ericsson web site to download the newest update of the suite.

The instructions warn that you should (manually) unsinstall the older version of their PC-Suite. What they don’t tell you is that the uninstallation takes around 20 minutes on a 2.4 GHz Quad core PC running Windows Vista.

Then, it requires a reboot….

Installing version 3 of the PC-Suite seems interminable as it sits on a screen explaining that the drivers are being installed. It actually took around 35 minutes to install, and this time was capable of installation with Firefox as the default web browser.

Version 3 of Sony Ericsson’s PC-Suite does seem somewhat better than version 2.
It allows direct editing of the phone contents, such as the address book. It also recognises the Windows Vista Contacts and Windows Calender as legitimate sources of data for synchronisation. It does not however realise that bookmarks could be synchronised from Mozilla Firefox.

it is a definite improvement on version 2, as long as you have a spare hour or so for the installation process.

Sometimes, it’s useful to get an idea of your actual, rather than quoted broadband speed. This is a simple tool that can give your broadband a quick check.

It was wonderful to see that Microsoft have finally realized that the lack of standards compliance in their web browser is actually holding back the internet. Regrettably, they still seem to have a long way to go.

In the Microsoft Developer Network Blog Chris Wilson, an IE Platform Architect, writes that IE 8 will have an extra mode where it actually complies with the World Wide Web Consortium standards.

Unfortunately, the IE8 team have decided that the best way to comply with web standards is for all authors to add their own non-standard meta tag to indicate that the content is compliant, otherwise they intend the product to render content in their own irregular way.

Full marks to Microsoft for finally realizing that standards are essential, but probably the solution to backward compatibility deserves a D-.

A better solution would have been to render pages that are served to IE8 in the new “super standards” mode, and to render broken, or IE5, IE6, or IE7 specific pages in a compatibility mode, whilst displaying a message warning users that the page is flawed. This would encourage web developers to comply with web standards and would reduce the risks from malware that relies on quirks in rendering of malformed HTML.

In Java, it is necessary to put a letter “L” after a numeric constant when it of type long.
Although Java permits a lower case “L” it is better to consistently use an upper case “L”, as the lowercase “L” can be easily confused with a numeric 1, when reading code.
For example, both variables x and y, are assigned the same value here, but can easily be read as having different values.

long x=10l; //watch out, this has a lower case "L" not a numeric 1 at the end.
long y=10L;


Wordpress have recently released a security update for their blogging software.

The security updates have been downloaded from http://wordpress.org/download/ and installed.

Wordpress makes the upgrades trivially easy, as long as you have direct ftp access to the server.

Having spent the last day and a bit re-installing software on my Dell Inspiron 530, I was disappointed to find that the “Send To” option in Micorsoft Office 2007 was greying out “email recipient”, despite having a fully working Copy of Mozilla Thunderbird to communicate with.

I assume this is an error in the installation, rather than a protectionist measure by Micorsoft, although it may be there to encourage people to install Microsoft Outlook, or use the Microsoft mail client that is built into Vista, as a replacement for Microsoft Outlook Express.

There is a fix, but it does require a registry edit that worked for me on Micorsoft Windows Vista Premium. It will probaqbly work on other versions of windows.

You should only attempt this if you are happy editing your windows registry with Regedit and understand that there are terrible consequences if you make some errors.

1. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Messaging Subsystem
   Locate the following registry values. Typically, these values are listed in the Windows Messaging Subsystem key.
   
Name Type Data
MAPI REG_SZ 1
CMC REG_SZ 1
CMCDLLNAME REG_SZ Mapi.dll
CMCDLLNAME32 REG_SZ Mapi32.dll
MAPIX REG_SZ 1
MAPIXVER REG_SZ 1.0.0.1
OLEMessaging REG_SZ 1

2. If any of these registry values are missing, follow these steps to add the values:
   1. Click the Windows Messaging Subsystem subkey, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click String Value.
   2. Type the name of the missing value, and then press ENTER.
   3. Click the new value, and then click Modify on the Edit menu.
   4. In the Edit String dialog box, type the correct value for the missing string value in the Value data box.
   5. Repeat steps a - d for each value that is missing from the table that is in step 1.
3. On the File menu, click Exit

Finally, when you restart your Micorsoft Office 2007 application, the “send” option on the file menu will include “Email” as a functional option and Microsoft Word or Excell will be happy to send documents as attachments using Mozilla Thunderbird, or some other Email client.

The new shiny Dell Inspiron 530 has finally arrived. It appears that Dell have moved away from their old dark grey to a shiny Steel look.

The computer seems robust and well made - I only hope it lasts longer than the Fujistu Siemens machine.

I learnt from my previous PC that apart from some software incompatibilities, Windows Vista does not support the majority of powered USB Hubs.

Fortunately for me, the Dell Inspiron that I have ordered has 8 USB ports, which means I probably won’t need a USB hub for all my devices.

I would hope that Microsoft could see its way to creating a patch for Vista which will allow all the XP compatible Powered USB hubs to work.

Apparently most unpowered USB 2.0 hubs do appear to work on Windows Vista, but that means it is essential to pick and choose which devices are connected through such a USB hub. Device that are self powered, such as printers and UPS’s will be fine, as will other very low power USB devices, but items that charge from a USB port, such as mobile phones and MP3 players, need to be connected directly to the PC.

I have just spent several hours trying to install my academic version of JBuilder 2005 on my new Quad core Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo P PC, which came with Microsoft Windows Vista Premium pre-installed.

I have a legitimate license for JBuilder 2005 and no desire to purchase the most recent version of JBuilder

Somewhere during the installation process on Windows Vista, Borland’s JBuidler 2005 installer just hangs. I used Google to search for instructions or assistance with this problem, but found nothing. Even trying to get the executable installer to run in compatibility modes for older versions of windows failed - suggesting a failure in the design of Vista or implementation of its compatibility modes, even a year after its release.

Finally, I tried copying the complete hierarchy of my old installation of JBuilder from my old XP based computer to my new Vista based one. once I had done this I found the JBuilderW.exe file in the \Borland\JBuilder2005\bin\JBuilderw.exe and double clicked it to start.

JBuilder 2005 started quickly and asked for the Serial number and Authorisation key. Once those were provided, I was able to register my copy of JBuilder 2005 and it appear to be running beautifully on Windows Vista.

If this has been of help to you, then please let me know. If there are any corrections or additions that need to be made, please comment.

Like many people, I own a Swiss Army knife made by Victorinox. (actually I own more than one). One of them is a Victorinox USB2 with 1GB memory stick.

I recently lost mine, and was quite upset. Eventually the pen-knife turned up in the laundry, after passing through the washing machine in a 40 degree wash.

I tested it straight away. All the blades were fine, as was the LED torch, the pen and amazingly the memory stick itself. I was seriously impressed, and must award particular credit to Swissbit, who manufacture the USB memory stick on the knife.