Hi All,

Look at this amazing new computing technique “Surface Computing” by Microsoft.

http://www.surface.com

Some of the useful utility software’s that really helped me when needed are :

1. Free Undelete

• Web:-http://officerecovery.com/freeundelete/
• Description:-In case of accidental deletion of files on a NTFS (used by default in Windows XP, 2000 and NT), FAT32 or FAT16 file systems FreeUndelete is the utility to help.

2. Easy Cleaner

• Web:-http://www.toniarts.com
• Description:-Easy to use registry cleaner. It was a freeware when I downloaded. However now you might have to pay the initial fees for accessing products on the site.

3. cygwin
Web:-www.cygwin.com
Description:-If you need to use unix commands over windows, a really nice utility.

Rest still to come….

http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2004/10/22/obfuscation.html

http://www.javaworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x_java.cgi

Java 5 has two separate interfaces in java.io package.

• Closeable
  • A Closeable is a source or destination of data that can be closed. The close method is invoked to release resources that the object is holding (such as open files).
• Flushable
  • A Flushable is a destination of data that can be flushed. The flush method is invoked to write any buffered output to the underlying stream.

Java doesn’t have anything like C++ const. You might think that final is like const, but it’s not:

• A final variable in Java can be assigned to only once, but if the variable is a reference-type, you can still change what it refers to. Fun!
• A const variable in C++ can be assigned to only once, where it’s declared, and nothing is allowed to change about the value, whether it’s an object or not. Now that is a nice feature!

This is what Java Language Specification talks about the final variable.

A variable can be declared final. A final variable may only be assigned to once. It is a compile time error if a final variable is assigned to unless it is definitely unassigned (§16) immediately prior to the assignment.

A blank final is a final variable whose declaration lacks an initializer.

Once a final variable has been assigned, it always contains the same value. If a final variable holds a reference to an object, then the state of the object may be changed by operations on the object, but the variable will always refer to the same object. This applies also to arrays, because arrays are objects; if a final variable holds a reference to an array, then the components of the array may be changed by operations on the array, but the variable will always refer to the same array.

Declaring a variable final can serve as useful documentation that its value will not change and can help avoid programming errors.

In the example:

class Point { int x, y; int useCount; Point(int x, int y) { this.x = x; this.y = y; } final static Point origin = new Point(0, 0);}

the class Point declares a final class variable origin. The origin variable holds a reference to an object that is an instance of class Point whose coordinates are (0, 0). The value of the variable Point.origin can never change, so it always refers to the same Point object, the one created by its initializer. However, an operation on this Point object might change its state-for example, modifying its useCount or even, misleadingly, its x or y coordinate.

Just try to forward your Outlook Calendar events to gmail and get surprised. Google automatically converts that to google calendar event and you can view that on your google calendar.

The new -Xloggc:file option reports on each garbage-collection event, as with -verbose:gc, but logs this data to file. In addition to the information -verbose:gc provides, each reported event is preceeded by the time (in seconds) since the first garbage-collection event.

The new -Xcheck:jni command-line option performs additional checks for Java Native Interface (JNI) functions. Specifically, the Java Virtual Machine validates the parameters passed to the JNI function as well as the runtime environment data before processing the JNI request. Any invalid data encountered indicates a problem in the native code, and the Java Virtual Machine will terminate with a fatal error in such cases. Expect a performance degradation when this option is used.

A deadlock detection utility has been added to the Java HotSpot VM. The utility is invoked by a Ctrl+\ on the command line while an application is running. The utility detects Java-platform-level deadlocks, including locking done from the Java Native Interface (JNI), the Java Virtual Machine Profiler Interface (JVMPI), and Java Virtual Machine Debug Interface (JVMDI).

The Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, contains two implementations of the Java virtual machine (VM).

• Java HotSpot Client VM
• The Java HotSpot Client VM is the default virtual machine of the Java 2 SDK and Java 2 Runtime Environment. As its name implies, it is tuned for best performance when running applications in a client environment by reducing application start-up time and memory footprint.

• Java HotSpot Server VM
• The Java HotSpot Server VM is designed for maximum program execution speed for applications running in a server environment. The Java HotSpot Server VM is invoked by using the -server command-line option when launching an application, as in
• java -server MyApp