NetBeans 6.5 Beta Reviews

1. NetBeans 6.5 beta – Useful Productivity Enhancements for Java EE, Missing Some Features As Well — Adam Bien’s Weblog, 8/20 Adam Bien posted some feedback on 6.5 Beta after working with NetBeans for some time. He pointed out that Field Level Access is generated now for Entities, but that they are still marked as serializable, which he felt was unnecessary. Adam also listed some features that he thought would be nice additions, such as a design query function, code completion in XML for Java Code and support for orm.xml.

2. So you can’t afford DreamWeaver — Symbioxys, 8/18 Xander Erkamp said that when NetBeans 6.5 releases, you could just download the full installer and PHP would be integrated. Xander noted, "NetBeans is a one stop shop for a developer on the road to open source freedom." 3. NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta for PHP Developers — More Than Scratch The Surface, 8/18 Stephen Cronin said that the NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta had just been released and that it now catered to PHP developers. He noted that NetBeans is small to download, has built in debugger, and further added, "There’s no doubt that NetBeans is the one to seriously consider." 4. Maven-like Dependency Management for NetBeans Projects — David Heffelfinger’s Notes on Software Development, Technology, and Life, 8/17 David Heffelfinger became a NetBeans fan because of its outstanding support for Maven. He noted that as he worked with NetBeans he came to appreciate many of its features, such as Visual Web JSF development, JSF CRUD generation, automatic generation of JPA entities from an existing schema, etc. 5. NetBeans 6.5 Beta — Narnio, 8/16 The blogger said that NetBeans 6.5 Beta fixed a bug in recognizing the names of function parameters that he’d been experiencing from version 5.5. The blogger also liked the new style for debugging and code editing. The blogger added that with larger web applications NetBeans 6.5 hung and stopped responding. 6. NetBeans 6.5 PHP edition — ActiveCodeline, 8/15 Branko Ajzele said that good code completion is one of the features he expects in a good IDE and he found that in NetBeans 6.5 it looks awesome. Branko said that there are still some issues with NetBeans; but he felt more comfortable now, using NetBeans than using Zend or NuSpere. 7. NetBeans 6.5 impressive ~! — My Brain Served !, 8/15 Chandra Garre said that the C++ development features in NetBeans 6.5 Beta were very impressive and that it had excellent code completion. He noted that he preferred NetBeans 6.5 Beta to VC 2008, but added VC uses less RAM. 8. NetBeans development process rocks! — Van Couvering Is Not a Verb, 8/14 After more than 17 years of working on large software projects, David Van Couvering felt that NetBeans had one of the best development processes he’d ever seen, and commented, "NetBeans follows a beautiful middle path – not too much process, but not too little." 9. NetBeans 6.5 beta is out — Not Geekly Correct, 8/13 The blogger said that he used NetBeans 6.1 to develop on Ruby on Rails and found its editor to be, "fantastic and powerful." The blogger noted that 6.5 was faster than 6.1, and that its PHP/JS support worked very well. 10. NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta – Auto Download for Subversion Client 1.5 in Windows — NetBeans, 8/13 Tushar Joshi pointed out that the NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta no longer needed a Subversion client installed on a Windows XP machine. Tushar commented that the NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta took a good step by providing the bundled Subversion client, making the installation and use of Subversion even easier. 11. NetBeans 6.5 Beta Is Available…Grab It and Test! — The JJ Blogger – Java, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and More…, 8/13 Josh Juneau had been testing NetBeans 6.5 Beta and felt that users would be pleased with the latest release. Josh liked the Groovy/Grails support, and added that users would appreciate the automatic deploy on save feature. 12. NetBeans 6.5 Beta Released — Sunny Talks Tech, 8/13 According to Saptarshi Purkayastha, NetBeans is "the only IDE that you need." He noted that new features were quickly implemented and each development team coordinated with all the quality managers and community to get the best features out in this version. Saptarshi commented, "The new database tools for designing queries, and viewing connections, tables, views, procedures is great. It’s still a work in progress, but I must say it’s a pretty good job for a first-time release."

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Positive ComputerWorld review of Sun Fire X4150 server

In an ongoing evaluation, Martin MC Brown of ComputerWorld wrote about some comparative performance testing he has completed on Sun Fire X4150 server. MC is quite enamored with the X4150, "The box is very powerful for what is a single U high pizza box. The eight cores and potential for up to 64GB of RAM make this a small powerhouse of computing, even before you include the storage that you could fit into the same space." In his testing, MC ran a series of web applications with the goal of creating real-world performance examples. For comparisons sake, he put the X4150 up against a T1000. "What I was really looking to compare was the power usage of the box between the T1000, which is a low power, low-MHz, but many threaded box against the multiple cores of the X4150 in terms of the response times and performance," noted MC. MC also examined the differences in performance between ZFS (RAID-Z) and RAID-5 finding, "RAID-5 showed a small benefit in favor of the hardware, but by less than 5% in real terms. This is impressive, both for the hardware, and the efficacy of RAID-5." Overall, MC found that the difference in performance of the X4150 is evident. He is still tallying up the results, but promises to cover other aspects of the X4150 in upcoming posts later this week.

VirtualBox reviews

1. VMWare beware: Sun’s FOSS VirtualBox hits the sweet spot for Linux – iTWire, 8/11 David Williams of iTWire spoke positively about VirtualBox, especially for its use in Linux-based environments. He described the key features and support available for VirtualBox, also commenting on product supporters by saying, "With the range of features available, and the tremendous effort which has gone into programmability and extensibility, it is easy to see why fans of VirtualBox are passionate about it as a virtualisation solution." 2. xVM VirtualBox — HubPages, 8/8 The blogger reviewed the functionality and utility of VirtualBox. He wrote about VirtualBox’s ability to operate without dual or multiple boots, installation of a new OS, creation of more OSes including Windows and Linux, and its capability to be installed on a virtual hard disc that is in fact a file. He mentioned that one could improve its performance by installing VirtualBox Guest Additions.

3. VirtualBox Shared Folders Protocol Error in Ubuntu Guest — VM/ETC, 8/6 Rich Brambley initially found it difficult to make shared folders work in VirtualBox 1.6.4 on his WinXP notebook inside an Ubuntu 8.04 guest — he was receiving "protocol error" messages. He found a VirtualBox.org forum thread which solved the issue with the right command. It also helped him to work on mount folders in his home directory and enabled him to access the shared folder when he exited the super user mode.

Reviews and Tips from MySQL Users

1. MySQL 5.0.67 — ComVan, 8/12 The blogger finds MySQL database server very fast, reliable, and easy to use. He comments that MySQL offers a rich and useful set of functions, and its connectivity, speed, and security make it highly suited for accessing databases on the Internet.

2. Controlling MySQL from the Command Line — GM-RAM Limited, 8/12 James Mansson commented that while there are many excellent graphical tools for administering and using MySQL, sometimes the command-line interface to the database server is the simplest method of getting things done. In this post, James looked at some common things in addition to the usual database queries that one can do with MySQL from the command line.

OpenOffice.org User Reviews

1. Using a Latin Dictionary in OpenOffice — RayBenjamin.Com, 8/12 Ray Benjamin is a science fiction writer who uses OpenOffice, "since I don’t have the money to shell out for Microsoft Office and can’t find any compelling reason to do so if I did have the money." Ray needed a way to use Latin in OpenOffice, shared the Latin dictionary file he found, and commented, "it worked like a charm for me."

2. Intro to OpenOffice — the eyrea, 8/10 Katherine Hajer wrote an overview of OpenOffice.org with the functions and features of each of its applications. She listed the pros and cons of each application, along with what she uses them for. For example, Katherine enjoyed the file converter of Writer and the actions and formatting of Calc, but didn’t like the default templates of Impress and the auto-incrementing field tool in Base.

OpenSolaris nuggets

1. Solaris reboot with no message — Creek’s Scratch, 8/11 Jajang Kavita saw his Solaris server rebooting without any message left in /var/adm/messages. He gives clues of how to get these messages from ALOM, and finds that something has happened to the system board.

2. Changing Solaris Run Levels And Clearing Up Some Common Misconceptions — The Linux and Unix Menagerie, 8/11 Mike Tremell has a detailed post on "run level 4" and how it has evolved over time. 3. Solaris, OpenSolaris, Nevada, Indiana, SXDE, SXCE – What? — Fukien, 8/10 The blogger writes on what different Solaris versions and distributions actually exist, and what the differences are amongst them. 4. OpenSolaris snv_94 — Andrnils’s Weblog, 8/10 After returning to using OpenSolaris, Andreas Nilsson noticed that compiz was running a lot smoother. He also liked the reboot option that was added in the list of options available while turning off. 5. A month of ZFS under Linux — tummy.com, 8/8 Sean Reifschneider set up a new Linux machine to migrate 3TB worth of ZFS snapshots from an OpenSolaris system that he had been having problems with. He found that the zfs-fuse daemon died during one of the sends, which was something that had never happened on OpenSolaris. Overall, Sean had mixed results. 6. Stunning OpenSolaris running on VirtualBox — James Selvakumar’s Blog, 8/7 James Selvakumar decided to try out OpenSolaris using VirtualBox. After installing and using the OS for a while, James commented, "Overall, I was very impressed with OpenSolaris and looking forward to use it for my Java development. The user interface is slick and easy to use."

Reviews from NetBeans Developers

1. NetBeans Code Folding and the Case for Code Folding — Dustin’s Software Development Cogitations and Speculations, 8/11 Dustin Marx makes a case for code folding and explains how to use it in NetBeans 6.1. NetBeans provides automatic code folding for import statements, and Dustin finds the advantage of automatic IDE-provided code folding is that the code is not touched in any way.

2. Real-world experience with the new NetBeans PHP and JavaScript editors — Van Couvering Is Not a Verb, 8/7 David Van Couvering downloaded the daily build of the NetBeans PHP bundle for 6.5 and started working with it. He felt very comfortable and productive in this environment and commented, "The PHP support even has FTP integration to make it easy to push to a remote site." 3. NetBeans 6.5 – Project Properties Additions — The JJ Blogger – Java, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and More…, 8/6 The new features of NetBeans 6.5 that Josh Juneau liked included Groovy and PHP support as well as automatic project deployment on save. He also liked the addition of the JavaScript Libraries to the project properties menu, which gives users the ability to add their own libraries. 4. Project-based formatting in NetBeans 6.5 — Big Al’s Blog, 8/6 As a part of the NetBeans Community Acceptance Testing (NetCAT) Programme, Allan Lykke Christensen gets to try out all the new features planned and influence how they will work before being released to the general public. An upcoming feature that Allan liked was formatting by project, and hoped that the next NetBeans version would also make template management by project.

Gorilla Nation

Gorilla Nation Media, world’s largest online advertising representation firm, has selected a MySQL Enterprise database subscription to help power its business intelligence platform. The company exclusively handles media sales for more than 500 high traffic websites. They have opted to build a business intelligence platform on MySQL that manages more than one terabyte of data and provides vital real-time traffic and advertising campaign performance information.

(Logo courtesy: Gorilla Nation Media)

"Gorilla Nation has experienced huge growth in recent years and subsequently we needed strong database technology that we could operate quickly and efficiently without paying the huge upfront licensing costs required by proprietary software," said Alex Godelman, VP, Technology, Gorilla Nation. "MySQL Enterprise has delivered outstanding performance — allowing us to scale efficiently as more and more publishers and advertisers have begun to use our service." More details here.

JavaFX receives praise from InfoWorld Test Center

In a InfoWorld Test Center evaluation, James Borck examined the JavaFX Preview and said, "There’s a lot to like about the new SDK. It’s rich in capabilities, and its Java-like syntax makes it a good springboard to RIAs for Java developers." James particularly liked the grammar and semantics of the new JavaFX Script and was wowed by the great data-binding capabilities, palletized library of widgets, and features for programmatically directing 2-D keyframe animations. Further, he liked the less-verbose declarative syntax employed in JavaFX.

Overall, James was pleased with the JavaFX SDK Preview, noting, "easy integration with existing Java apps should make JavaFX an immediately attractive option for creating enterprise dashboards or bringing a modern look to Java relics." He is very hopeful about the future of the SDK stating, "The Java camp finally has a heavyweight in the RIA game. It’s long overdue."

OpenOffice.org wins three SourceForge.Net Community Choice Awards

OpenOffice.org takes home awards in the categories of Best Project, Best Project for the Enterprise and Best Project for Educators in this year’s Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards. Finalists for these awards were chosen by the SourceForge.net community, based on the top ten nominated projects in each of 12 categories.  The Best Project award is the granddaddy of all awards, awarded to the to the project with the best technical design, most helpful community, and most powerful product. The Best Project for the Enterprise award recognized that product which solves the problems that keep you from providing superior value to your customers or users.  Lastly, the Best Project for Educators award is presented to the project that makes it easier to educate and share knowledge together. Congratulations OpenOffice.org!!!