The “Break it Down” Blog
Archive | August, 2006
What are closures in Java?
I first ran across an explanation of this new buzzword for Java 7 in the JavaLobby front page. I saw Rick’s comments about Neal’s ability to describe complex topics easily so I went ahead and clicked over to his explanation of what colsures are and why I should care. 10 minutes later I was completely [...]
Continue reading...PostgreSQL compared to MySQL 4.1 and 5.0
21. August 2006
Ran across a fairly good tabular comparison of PostgreSQL and MySQL 4.1/5.0. I’ve personally always held the belief that a good way to determine which one you should use is to ask yourself: Do you want Oracle or MS SQL Server without the commercial prices? NO: Using MySQL is fine YES: Use PostgreSQL Do you plan on coding all [...]
Continue reading...Software Contractor Invoices Bill Gates for Lost Data
21. August 2006
An upset software contractor sends Bill Gates an invoice for £1,200 sterling to cover work lost after leaving his machine to take care of a family emergency only to come back to it to find the damn thing has rebooted itself because of a “critical update”, obviously closing/killing everything that was open. He goes on to [...]
Continue reading...Linux Laptop Installation/Device Support Results
21. August 2006
Ran across this excellent survey of thousands of writeups about installing different Linux distrobutions on all different types of laptops. I’m thinking of getting a ThinkPad T60 or the Core 2 Duo update after the T60 and was really curious how Ubuntu did. It was really easy to click the ThinkPad series and then scroll [...]
Continue reading...Optimal user settings for the Samsung HL-S7178W
20. August 2006
If you or someone you love has purchased or is purchasing the 71″ Samsung HL-S7178W behemoth: ‘paxi’ pointed me in the direction of recommended optimized settings from Eliab on AVS (Professional ISF calibrator). These are the settings you can realized out of the box using the user menu, no need to enter the service menu: Digital NR [...]
Continue reading...Class Action Lawsuit against Sony for “Green Haze” or “Green Blob” SXRD Problem
19. August 2006
Update #6: Leo called Sony demanding a replacement and Sony replied that they only thing they could offer is a repair. Upon further pushing Leo was told that he could write the Executive Review Committee with his concerns. Here is the contact information courtesy of Leo: Executive Review Commitee 12451 Gateway Blvd. Fort Myers, FL 33913. They asked [...]
Continue reading...Sony KDS-A2000, more “Green Haze” problems
19. August 2006
More confirmations in the KDS-A2000 thread on AVS that the “green haze” issue for the Sony SXRD sets is not fixed in the A2000 model. User ‘buccikong’ provided a faint but good image of the green haze being displayed in the following scene: It may not be that evident right off the bad but he did [...]
Continue reading...Professional ISF Calibrators on AVS Forum
19. August 2006
The question of professional ISF calibration for new HDTV sets has been coming up a lot in the Mitsubishi 731/732/831, Sony KDS-XXA2000 and Samsung thread… most likely others as well. The reason it keeps coming up is that there is a set of 4 or more common posters to AVS that are infact professional ISF [...]
Continue reading...Worst toString method ever
19. August 2006
Erik threw up a post with the worst toString() method he’s ever run into… I have to admit, this is pretty incredible: public String toString() { if (this != null) return “**** implement me”; return “i am null”; } That is like set-yourself-on-fire-and-do-society-a-favor terrible. If this != null on a non-static method? Nice. Maybe the original developer should throw in some [...]
Continue reading...Explanation of why Linux doesn’t need defragmenting
18. August 2006
This blog entry gives an excellent, detailed and illustrated explanation of why Linux doesn’t need defragmenting while FAT-based disks suffer from fragmentation more readily.
Continue reading...Sony KDS-A2000 HD Pictures
18. August 2006
Over on AVS Forums ‘psincubus’ has put together an awesome collection of pictures, fully organized by content type, showing off his KDS-60A2000 set. He has pictures of the TV showing HD sources, SD sources, DVD sources from his Oppo upscaling DVD player and “video game” sources, even though it’s sort of a Zelda-ish RPG game [...]
Continue reading...Touchscreen + XGL = Painfully Awesome
18. August 2006
Wonder what a touchscreen monitor on a Linux box running XGL would be like having? Yes, interacting with your desktop using your fingers is what it would be like. Mirco Müller’s blog pointed me over to this video on youtube. Just awesome.
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22. August 2006
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