It's indeed a sad day. This is my last blog post. The reason is simple - I have switched over to the dark side. Yip I now code in java and my desktop runs on Linux. Originally I thought I would be able to keep my blog going, because I REALLY love blogging. But after the first couple of weeks it became quite aparant that I don't have anything Microsoftish to blog about anymore. I though I might take you along on my journey of java discovery, but I decided that this site is not the right forum for that and will probably just provoke a flood of oposition etc.

Kudos to Armand for creating a brilliant SOUTH AFRICAN developer community. I have not found it's equal in the java world. In fact, I'm still struggling to find a site where I can java blog for free.

So that's all folks, hope I added some value here and there in the couple of months my when blog was going good.

PS : it took some time to get this post up - the firewall at work would not let me submit it. But tonight is my first night on Hellkom dial-up, so here it is! ( my conversion to the dark side is complete :) - and YES, I am to cheap to get ADSL)

Robocode is a java program that allows you to write your own tank to fight against the tanks of other people.

Seriously cool

Get it here

MAN, finally got they guys at my new company to unblock dotnet.org.za. It's strange how blogging becomes part of ones live. Not blogging for a couple of days feels not taking a shower for a week !

But I'm back now, thank goodness........................

If you like Super 12 rugby, remember to sign up for the fantasy league, at fantasyrugby.com. [it's free]

Here it is boys !

Trying to download mdac 2.8 today, I was confronted by the “geniune windows” thing. I'd heard about it, but this was the first I saw of it. My first comment is “how can a windows installation not be “genuine” ? Windows is windows, wether you paid for it or not. So I recon it's just marketing speak for “legal windows”.

Apart from that, my gut feel says that restricting updates etc. to owners of legal windows software is not a good thing. Of course at the moment you can still download the updates without doing the validation and as far as I know it does not affect WindowsUpdate currently. But it seems to be heading in that direction. So let's say we end up in a situation where you can't download service packs etc. if you don't have a legal copy, then there will be thousands of very vunerable machines on the internet, which is a bad thing for everyone, including the guys with legal windows copies.

Overall, I think Microsoft really needs to catch a wakeup and give us a free version of the operating system. 

Any comments ?

The inside info from Rory Blyth is that MS is working on the 5th build of Notepad since 1994. He's got some nice screenshots of the new version, so go check it out!

PS: If you're looking for a nice notepad replacement [ Why the hell don't you have one yet !?! ] check out Notepad2]

Dis nogal sad dat Dalene Matthee dood is. Dit voel nie regtig of daar klomp skrywers is wat haar plek kan vat nie. Ten minste sal ons altyd weer Fiela se kind, en Kringe in 'n bos kan lees......

News24 berig

Try your hand at this one!

There is a nice series of articles on data structures using C# 2.0 (uncluding all the stuff around generics) on MSDN. The articles really go into great detail about how arrays etc. physically work in memory. Very nice if you've got some time between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning.

[PS: I was a bit undecided as to wether to post this or not, thinking that this sort of stuff was more or less common knowledge but then I rememebered an incident the other day when a colleage (not junior by the way) asked me what he should do if he wants an array of stuff, but he doesn't know beforehand how many there will be. “Use an ArrayList” was my reply. “What's that?” was his.......... ]

An Extensive Examination of Data Structures Using C# 2.0, Part 1

An Extensive Examination of Data Structures Using C# 2.0, Part 2

An Extensive Examination of Data Structures Using C# 2.0, Part 3

An Extensive Examination of Data Structures Using C# 2.0, Part 4

An Extensive Examination of Data Structures Using C# 2.0, Part 5

An Extensive Examination of Data Structures Using C# 2.0, Part 6

Check out this article on people that got fired for bad-mouthing their companies on their blogs. The bad thing is that they did not even mention the company name or any detail whatsoever! They basically just said “my job sucks” on their blogs and because someone from the company was reading the blog...... the people got fired. That really sucks!

Source : Pieter's blog

I struggled to get MSN working for behind the firewall I have to face these days. Then I came across Jabber.

Jabber is a open messaging platform which can be used by applications but is great for instant messaging. There's a whole network of servers worldwide that support Jabber. There are several jabber clients that can connect you to the network. The one I use is called Psi. What makes this a nice option is that it allows you to connect to the internet via SSL, so you avoid all those funny ports and protocols that are normally blocked by firewalls [ read more about that here ].

So in theory it's quite easy to get messaging going from behind even the most restrictive firewalls. But then all you're friends are still on MSN? No problem, a lot of Jabber servers, like jabber.org.uk support an MSN “transfer”, which means you just set the transfer up, and all your msn contacts are imported. From then on, everything runs smoothly. There is some minor iretations here and there, for example smileys are displayed as text and not as images, but on the whole, this setup is brilliant !