Tiago is now officially an ASF committer!
True to the proverbial "feather in the cap", I have been promoted to committer with the project I have been participating on during the last few months, Apache Derby. There's not much to say except that it feels really good to have your hard work recognized 
Apache Derby is a great project with a really nice community of helpful people and it was through Derby that I have participated and successfully completed the Google Summer of Code challenge for two years in a row! It's always a great challenge even to the sharpest mind and most advanced skills because this is an extensive project that has already been around for more than a decade. Over this period different developers have participated on it which adds to the challenge of reengineering and simple engineering of new features when the need arises. I can't say this is a disadvantage though as it is an excellent way of being exposed to actual production code from an IT giant (Apache Derby once was IBM Cloudscape). It's also exciting because the changes that you make will actually have an impact on the thousands of people that use Apache Derby and for this reason all changes have to be done with most care to keep Derby's performance up to the challenge as well as to ensure that all standards are kept.
With this said, I'll just leave here the link to the "historical" vote in the ASF list
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-dev/201008.mbox/<4C6F038C.7080708@sbcglobal.net>
10 Google Wave Invites
Yeah, it is serious I have 10 Google Wave invites to distribute to the first ten visitors to leave me a comment on this post. This is NOT a contest, I will be giving the invites to the ten first lucky people who leave a comment on this post requesting an invite. Please be sure to leave the comment with a working e-mail address, or the invite won't go through and you will lose your chance.
Comment away!
[UPDATE]: 8 invites left!
Adobe and the slap on Apple
Well, for some weird reason, Apple refuses to give in and have Adobe port Flash over to the iPhone. It would be a massive advantage if we could see an iPhone with a full blown version of Flash, as opposed to Flash Lite. But... Apple won't bend. So what does Apple do? The best it can do right now: get people angry at Apple.
Below is the image that people will see when they try to download Flash on their iPhones (courtesy of Engadget):
T-Mobile Sidekick in Danger
Well, truth to be told this had to happen at some point. According to the good folks at Engadget, T-Mobile has most probably lost the data of their customers' Sidekick phones. The T-Mobile Sidekick is a device that relies heavily on cloud-computing and simple things such as looking up contacts or reading old text messages are done through servers in the cloud (that is to say, in the Internet). So if these servers fail for some reason, or more extremely (like it happened) lose all the data they contain, then the end user is pretty much screwed.
I hope for the sake of the costumers that the data isn't just lost; I would have also hoped that T-Mobile had off-site, offline backups of all this stuff but that clearly does not seem to be the case. It is also up to our imagination whom to blame for this. Of course that for all the people affected by this problem, T-Mobile will be the one to blame, but whose fault was it in the end? Is it a bug in the servers? Will it happen again? Has it been patched?
Doesn't really matter now but here's the morale of the story: ALWAYS keep backups of your data.
Windows 7 – Adjust Aero Peek Delay
Having recently tried Mac OS X and all of it Exposé and Spaces goodness, I couldn't help but to notice that Aero Peek feels like a complete rip off of the Exposé feature. Don't take me wrong though, it is not a critic. I am of the opinion that progress can only be made if we pick the best bits and pieces out of everything that is out there and put it all into one package. So while Windows still has a long way to go on user experience matters, I see this as a move forward.
Still, Aero Peek came with an annoyance for me: it takes too damn long! Basically, when you activate Exposé on a Mac (either by having a shortcut or by hovering over a hot corner) you instantly get to your desktop and can see what's underneath - with Aero Peek this takes at least one or two seconds which isn't ideal for me by any stretch.
With that in mind, and since there does not seem to be that much documentation about this yet, Microsoft allows you to adjust that delay time with some registry hacking. To adjust the delay, do the following:
- Open regedit (Start -> regedit -> press enter)
- Go to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
- Once here, create a new DWORD (32 bit) entry with the name DesktopLivePreviewHoverTime and set it to whatever time you'd like in milliseconds. I found that 100 works best for me but I will leave that at your own discretion.
Now I'm back to testing Windows 7 RTM - have a good one!
iPhone virus – avast!
Soooo... apparently Mac's can't catch viruses but the iPhone certainly can. There is a flaw in the iPhone's software that allows any attacker to gain complete control over your phone. Flaw which Apple is aware of but still hasn't patched. The details are simple and as such I will cut to the chase: if you receive an SMS with a single square in it, by the love of God - TURN OFF YOUR PHONE.
You have been warned, be safe, buy a Palm Pré.
[via Engadget]
Windows 7 RTM’ed
Yes, that's correct. Windows 7 was officially released to manufacturing and this version should be available over the course of the next few days.
Here's the comemoration video the guy at Microsoft made to celebrate the launch:
For the whole release schedule, hit up the Windows Team Blog.
Google Chrome OS – First Screenshots! [UPDATE]
Here they are! The (supposed) first screenshots of what is to become Google's Operating System. The credibility and plausibility of those screenshots is actually flaky, but it's the best we have at the moment. Whether they are photoshopped or the real thing, time will tell.
The blog the images were taken from: here.
[via Engadget]
Update: The blog is a lie! Like I suspected, the leaked screenshots are actually fake. It didn't look so bad though!
The end of the Ubuntu vs. Windows war!
YAY!
Christopher Dawnson over at ZDNet has announced the end of the Ubuntu vs. Windows war, the world is safe again!
Till the next time!
WAIT! Hold it!
What the heck?! Wasn't ZDNet supposed to be a reliable source of information regarding technology? So what are these shenanigans about his 17 year old saying that they're the same? I'll tell you what it is: it is the most bold statement I've heard all year, and also the most idiotic one. So just because a 17 year old says that they're the same, 6 billion people will just agree and this fact will just be set in stone? Bullshit.
Windows and Linux are different; it's about time people realize that. I absolutely need both so is this proof enough that they are ultimately different?
Christopher says: "Their underlying architectures are quite a bit different, Gnome looks different than the 7 UI, etc.". The underlying architectures are quite a bit different, Gnome looks different than 7 does, but apart from that, which by the way is everything that effing matters in an Operating System, they're pretty much the same.
I have a Hyundai Getz, my neighbour has a Ferrari, but apart from the engine and the chassis they're pretty much the same. They both have wheels! A whole set of four! So they must be the same...
Come on guys... get serious.