I just installed Eclipse Ganymede on Leopard, and within minutes noticed weird screen artifacts and GUI problems. The welcome page had these big tooltips that were always chopped off. I’d show a picture here, but I can’t figure out how to get back to that page.

I then tried installing the Terracotta plugin, and eventually see this screen:

Although no plugin apears, it really is there…somewhere behind the broken GUI. I clicked next and proceeded through the installation successfully.

Other Eclipse screens show similar screen artifacts. For example, check out the weird blue button at the end of the Description field:

That is a real button…you can click on it, but I’m not sure what it does.

Do these Eclipse Ganymede problems exist on other platforms? Will porting SWT to Cocoa fix these artifacts?

I ran Vista since day one, on my relatively old desktop computer. Vista actually ran fairly well, and for the first year I had few performance complaints. Stability was good too. In the entire time I had Vista, I recall only one blue screen of death. That was due to an old video driver, I believe, and it never happened again.

I dutifully installed SP1, and Vista seemed to work fine. But then, over a period of many weeks, performance began to suffer. Each day, Vista slowed down a bit. I tried everything I could think of, for instance I ran CCleaner every night, uninstalled most apps, disabled the sidebar, disabled indexing, defragged routinely, etc. I even manually tweaked the page file settings.

Nothing helped, and no particular process in task manager was an obvious culprit. Vista SP1 just kept getting slower and slower, until it finally became unbearable.

Poor Vista performance is another reason I recently purchased my MacBook. I had the option of buying a high-end PC, but I had little confidence Vista would use that power efficiently. I hate spending a lot of money on computer hardware, but I hate waiting for sluggish computers even more.

Vista supports hardware-accelerated graphics. WPF seems to support really cool things like vector-based UIs. Yet where are the “native” Vista apps?

The Wikipedia WPF article mentions a handful of WPF apps, but for the most part, the Windows ecosystem is mired in backward compatibility hell. Bundled apps like Notepad, Paint, and the DOS shell are a disgrace, and have not really changed in years.

How can Microsoft expect third parties to develop Vista-specific apps if the bundled utilities don’t even take advantage of Vista features? This is incredibly hard to understand.

Good luck, Microsoft. I’m typing this on my new MacBook Pro, and it looks like I have plenty of native Cocoa apps from which to choose.

Java 6u10 is not called Java 7. Because of this name — and the rules associated with JDK update releases — no new APIs can be added. But is this really the full story? For example, with 6u10, you can create translucent and shaped windows.

However to really leverage this feature, you need to use the AWTUtilities class. What’s that?

The translucent and shaped windows feature is available through the new com.sun.awt.AWTUtilities class. Note that this class is not part of an officially supported API.

By back-dooring stuff into “com.sun.*” packages, we can still call this an “update release”. But seriously, folks. This is just an API semantics game. It reminds me of a famous Clinton quote:

That depends on what your definition of “is” is

So I guess this depends on what your definition of “API” is. Is Sun producing demo apps and publishing articles describing how to use this new class? Yes. Are they calling it an “API”? Sort of, but within the confines of what an update release allows. Does this mean I should use it?

Translucent and shaped windows are huge new features I have wanted for years. This is exactly the sort of thing rich client applications will use, but I also want my Swing apps to run on all platforms.

Will Java 6u10 be ported to OSX, and when? Will the com.sun.awt.AWTUtilities class work just through a simple JAR file addition to the boot classpath, or does this require OS-specific native code?

I’ve heard chatter that the JavaFX demos at JavaOne were done on Macs. The problem is, as far as I know, Java 6u10 isn’t available for OSX. So what’s up with that? Is Sun working on porting JavaFX to OSX, or were they maybe using Apple hardware but running Windows or Linux?

Someone help me understand this.

I don’t understand this claim:

Another problem is that it only supports 64 bit applications. Bye bye applets in Safari.

I found that in this article about Java 6 on Mac.

I always assumed that Java .class files are the same regardless of platform. A .class file compiled on one system should still run on Macs, even though their VM is 64-bit. But that quotation sounds as if the .class file format is different and code must be specifically compiled in some 64-bit mode to run on Macs. What am I missing?

By now you’ve seen the shuttle picture showing an iPod in the window:

Based on every implementation you’ve seen so far, what’s the first thing that comes to mind…

…when you read this news?

I really like Google Reader’s shared items. This way other people (hopefully with similar interests) filter the good stuff for free. For instance, I’ve noticed Crazy Bob shared several Chumby links. Which made me think…wtf is Chumby?

Chumby is a little clock radio that gets crap off the Internet via wifi. So I guess you are supposed to put it on the nightstand by your bed. When you wake up, you roll over and look at your Chumby. It’s fun explaining this to your Mom:

No, Mom…I didn’t say I had a “Chumby in bed”…I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. My Chumby is on the nightstand next to my bed.

When you wake up, you stay in bed for an hour to listen to the latest JavaPosse episode. OK, that seems weird to me. I never lay in bed and listen to my clock radio. The alarm goes off, I hit snooze a few times, and get up. Then again…the prospect of browsing certain kinds of craigslist ads while in bed may appeal to some people…if you’re into that sort of thing.

But wait…this article says Chumby is for your desk. That’s nice and all, but my desk already has a computer on it. A real computer with two big monitors, good speakers, a huge hard drive, and a fast wired network connection.

Using Chumby as a digital photo frame makes the most sense to me. The price is fair and they don’t charge a monthly service fee. This might make a nice gift for someone to better keep up with extended family pictures.

I dunno…I guess I’m not really sold. If accessing the Internet from a non-PC-equipped room is your goal, perhaps an iPod Touch makes more sense? At $299, the iPod is more expensive, but offers vastly better mobility. I can definitely see myself sitting on the back patio this summer with an iPod. But dragging a Chumby outside and plugging it in? That’s not nearly as convenient.

Maybe he should shave with this thing?