Good news for Netbeans 5.5 users - now the bug is fixed by the development team of UML Modeler pack.
Thanks, guys, now there won’t be any headaches of transfering
For those who need UML integrated in their Netbeans IDE, there are two solutions:
Working on one of my projects, I had to create some UML diagrams, not only for submitting it to the supervisors, but also for tracing the process of software development, and analysis stages.
I was really amazed trying to install new UML Modeler Plug-in for NetBeans IDE and seeing a nice shiny window:
“You can install the packages, but you won’t activate them!”
Just because of some dependencies incompatibility, their official website offered you a partial product: “Watch, but don’t touch!”
Hopefully, the development team decided to include some of those necessary plug-ins in the main part of NetBeans 6.0 version, so there would be no need of installing it again. From now on, I’ll have to switch to ArgoUML to finish up the stuff and patiently waiting for bug fixes of module dependencies 
The polemics on the topic of Microsoft’s death reached its more less structured level even though in many different portals like Slashdot, Techmeme etc. this subject has been discussed in any possible way, but let’s get a bit detailed about it.
Paul Graham in his article says that:
When did Microsoft die, and of what? I know they seemed dangerous as late as 2001, because I wrote an essay then about how they were less dangerous than they seemed.I’d guess they were dead by 2005.
So, how dead is Microsoft? Giving his opinion, Duncan Riley wrote an article in 901am blog:
Micorsoft is alive and mostly well. Has it clearly failed in a range of endevours? absolutely, Microsoft’s internet strategy sucks and most people will take that for a given. Zune? do most people even know what a Zune is? probably not. Was the Vista development program a shambles? yes.
Main reasons, Paul mentioned in the post were:
So lets check it out step-by-step.
Microsoft didn’t pose itself as leading web company, and the rise of Google killed not only Microsoft with its msn.com search engine, Google became the leading search engine on the Web, and it was one of the first companies pushing the idea of Web applications and promoting Ajax. Definitely, Web 2.0 bubble moved desktop apps development in the shade, giving more opportunities for the developers to launch their start-up companies. At some point, it’s easier to create a web application with less OS or hardware dependencies. Everything is based on the Web standards and your own Broadband. Since I’ve mentioned Ajax here, the XMLHttpRequests was originally implemented by Microsoft, but only now they got involved in Ajax community.
Apple. What’s about Mac computers? Or all the services Apple Inc. produces. Yesterday, Apple Store declared that they’ve sold the 100 millionth iPod. Of course, it’s an impressive number for this market, where iPod dominates without no doubts, and the Zune mp3 player couldn’t equally compete with Apple’s product. For sure, it’s hard to produce devices which do more less the same things and differ at few dozen dollars and the company label at the back. The simplicity of the device was the key of success for iPod.
Talking about OS X killing Windows - you must be kidding me! According to the stats, it’s hard to say that Mac really made Microsoft worrying about OS domination on the market:
It would be more correct to say, that other Operating Systems got more attention because of overestimated expectations for Windows Vista and the increase of antitrust policy in the EU about Microsoft. Other operating systems just increased their market share, like .Nix based Os, BSD based OS X, at the same way not counting the number of PC’s which has two or more OS installed.
It’s really hard to believe that strategic management of Microsoft couldn’t expect the growth of Internet Broadband. But, I assume that focusing on the OS development they’ve underestimated it, and lost the Web Browser market with IE 6.x, which they’re trying to get back with the Internet Explorer 7. Web is all about standards and compatibility, which Microsoft couldn’t admit with IE 6. Always coming up with alternative solutions like ASP versus Perl/PHP, or ISS vs. Apache servers, they were continuously cleaving the Web, while they could have got more income on implementing some support services for existing Web development solutions in my opinion.
Going back to the main question of Microsoft’s death, you can see that they aren’t so true. Microsoft has a huge financial potential and ability of winning back lost positions at the market, but it will be harder year after year.
As Timur mentioned yesterday (already?):
I am beginning to think that Wordpress is one of the most stable web applications I have seen.
Due to some plans, I’ve made a small research on the point of using a e-commerce CMS to perform basic shopping transactions. After few minutes of googling, I came out with Zen Cart, osCommerce, NucleusCMS and Wordpress as open-source solutions for installing your personal e-commerce shop.
It looks that I’ll stick to WP platform due to small facts that can be taken as an advantage of WP:
These are the main advantages, you can notice from the first sight, after using Wordpress for a while. But I’ve never thought that things can be worse then this. They can. Zen-Cart Templates database almost made me cry.A main advantage of this CMS is XHTML template architecture, therefore, it’s very easy to accommodate for user needs. osCommerce amazed me with .pdf files in template archives, instead of ready-made solutions: you expect of getting a nice, handsome template, but as the result you get an Acrobat manual “How to customize your website”.Thanks! Therefore, this platform give a really good payment support for the products: Paypal, Google Checkout, Credit cards and so on.
NucleusCMS showed itself as a great CMS, which bunch of plug-ins, facilities you can install on your on-line shop, but after Wordpress admin panel, it’s really inconvenient to switch for Nucleus after Wordpress.
Although, Wordpress got few minor disadvantages for being used as on-line shop:
4 versus 4. A tie, but these disadvantages seem to be minor for Wordpress in comparison with support & development features of mentioned CMS. Maybe I’ve overstated negative features of those CMS’es, or I wasn’t searching an appropriate solution in a right way.
What over CMS can you suggest and describe their main features which you like?
Right now, Stanford University is about to launch a new project, that will help out to discover a new computational features of a human brain.
Now Kwabena Boahen, a neuroengineer at Stanford University, is planning the most ambitious neuromorphic project to date: creating a silicon model of the cortex. The first-generation design will be composed of a circuit board with 16 chips, each containing a 256-by-256 array of silicon neurons.
It looks like more and more people become attracted by the R&D of artificial systems, in other words, millions of investitions are going for research facilities of creating human like computing and imitating human capacities like human vision, an ability to identify the smell. Human still remains the most interesting subject of analysis as for digital programmers working on image processing methods to create the appropriate vision, as for computer scientists - in order to reach human like way of processing the information, and engineers - to imitate balancing abilities of a man.
The latest robot for “snow collecting” in Japan took 7 years of researches just to produce correct vision navigating and identification system - so the robot will identify how to move, where to move, and finally, where is the snow. I doubt that this project, of creating an artificial silicon brain will take less time, but humanity always set impossible goals for itself in order to answer that there is nothing impossible in the world. And the more people will be interacted in those researches, the better will be the feedback of science reflected on our life.
Not every kid can program, while every kid can make a website! If you can argue with me about the first part of the phrase, the second has no doubt.
Definitely, website can be varied differently according to its level of complexity and tools used to make one. While almost everybody knows basic HTML and its continuations like XHTML and other add-ons, which help webmasters to simplify the code, like CSS, DOM technologies, sometimes people forget about the exact look of the website.
First person, who started organizing the colour behaviour and studying its harmony was our lovely Isaac Newton: I don’t remember, before that “apple accident” or after it, but this scientist was the first who offered color wheel.
Of course, nowadays, you don’t have to renovate the wheel (don’t mess with Newton, that guy was stoke by The Apple!), you’ve got whole ton of different tools, which can help you to eliminate most friendly colours to organize the composition of colours on your website! Wellstyled offers two colour management schemas: Color schema generator, and the second schema which gives you an ability of seeing the intersections of chosen colours - in some way it can be easier.
Some other services give you a ready made coded variety of colours to be used in your web development environments. And while you are choosing kinky colours for your website, take a break and think: why all the alarms are using red colour? Maybe it’ll make you pay attention on the psychological point of choosing colours for your project, because each colour means something in our daily life, and what if the your well built colour schema won’t effect visitors of your website in the needed way? In this case, psychologists made a good review of colour stereotypes.
So next time, when you think of making another website, develop a good and appropriate colour schema.