I'm testing Fedora Core 4 on my laptop. Basically installing it, playing around with GNOME and KDE, and the different applications that it has. I have already burnt a DVD+R (another copy of FC4 for a friend) without a problem with K3b (K3b rules! ). Eclipse comes on the installation DVD, and I installed it, only to find out that it's a natively-compiled version of Eclipse. What this really means, I'm not sure, but so far I've had problems getting the subclipse plug-in to work (It complains about not finding javahl libraries).

One of the first things I usually do with a new Linux installation is try to make a custom kernel, enabling all the hardware features relevant to the machine I'm using, and disabling the rest (or making them modules). It got me thinking, though, with many major computer maker companies offering Linux solutions or at least interested in supporting the Linux movement, why can't they at least offer custom kernels for their different products? Who better than them to know what hardware a desktop or laptop has, and how to better tweak the kernel for performance and stability? And if compiling a kernel package is too much (because of the many different distributions and package formats), why can't they at least offer custom .config files?

Also, Why isn't there a .config repository? TuxMobil offers articles from many different sources discussing Linux installations on different laptops, but the information is usually very specific to the laptop user requirements, usually with incomplete hardware support, does not follow a standard, and many times the links are no longer available. It would be nice to have a repository where you could, for example, search for a specific kernel configuration file (say, 2.6.12) for a specific desktop/laptop model (say, HP zt3000).

How 'portable' is a kernel configuration file? Is this a feasible thing?

I'm using Ajaxtags to implement an ajax-enabled form with dynamic dropdown fields. In order to access my DAO object (which is a Spring managed bean)  to get the dropdown options, I had to have access to the Application context from a regular Servlet.

The solution is very simple, but since I had some troubles finding it, I'm adding it here for future reference, and for anyone who's looking for the same. Basically, you use the WebApplicationContextUtils object from the spring framework to get a reference to your bean. Inside the doGet() method I have:

ApplicationContext context = WebApplicationContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(getServletContext());
Object myDao = context.getBean("daoBeanName");

It's that easy... really.

I've been using Gentoo on my laptop for a while, and while I find the features of Gentoo to be very powerful (compile from source to target your specific machine, central source repository, repository synchronization, etc), the fact that updating any major application takes a couple of days has really hit me. I've been looking for a distribution that is more end-user friendly, but that also supports all of my hardware (or most of it). Also, since my main focus is java development, I want a distribution that has good support for java, including support for the latest Eclipse release, 3.1.
My current candidates at the moment are:

• Sun Java Desktop System 3. But it's Solaris, not Linux, and I'm not sure I want to move to Solaris at this point in time. Plus, it's mostly GNOME, while I prefer KDE.
• Fedora Core 4. It looks to be the best choice, as many companies that provide Linux drivers (open or closed source) are at least doing it for Fedora. Plus, It seems to support most of my laptop's hardware.
• Kubuntu 5.04. Debian with an attitude. But I haven't seen too much support for java from Ubuntu.
• Mandirva 10.1. I used to run Mandrake a while ago, but I haven't checked Mandriva. But, it seems that they carry KDE 3.2, while the others are already carrying 3.4 and 3.5 is even in beta now.

Are you using a linux distribution that you think is better than the ones mentioned aboce? why? Are you using one of the distributions mentioned above? what are your experiences?

The battery for my Sony Ericsson P800 died a couple of weeks ago as it started to lose charge fast and when I took a look at it, the battery was inflated, so I threw it away before it exploded or something. Since then, I've been using a Nokia 6230, which is considerably smaller, but it lacks PDA capabilities.

However, one of the things that strike me as odd is their Bluetooth support. I find Nokia's bluetooth support to be better than Sony Ericsson, even though Ericsson was one of the first companies involved in Bluetooth technology (if not the first).

For instance, I have a Scala 500 bluetooth headset, and whenever I used it with the P800, I would have lots of trouble to make the phone recognize my voice tags. I couldn't even use my headset to record the voice tags, I had to use the phone. On the 6230, on the other hand, whenever I connect the headset, all the sound is transfered to it, including the ring tones and the music (the 6230 comes with an MP3/AAC player). The only sound that doesn't go to the headset is the FM Radio, and that's because to use the radio you have to connect the included corded headset, which acts as an antenna.

I'm looking for a new battery for my P800, because I need the PDA capabilities, but I might keep the 6230 around to make phone calls, particularly on the road, when using the voice tag recognition is vital.

While reading the morning news, I found an entry on JavaLobby talking about a new Open Source Collaboration system written in Java. The Zimbra Collaboration Suite is a Java-based, AJAX-enabled web application that can do email, contacts, calendar, etc.

I used the demo and I'm very impressed. I see that they have borrowed many concepts from Gmail, like tags (labels in gmail), easy searching, etc., but I also find new things like saved searches, and smart linking, which creates links on various types of content, like dates, phone numbers, even package tracking codes. The conversation view lets you see all the related emails on all the different folders, which is also a nice thing.

Zimbra is released under the Zimbra Public License (ZPL), which is a derivative of the Mozilla Public License (MPL). They also offer a commercial license, for companies who don't agree with Open Source (what's not to agree?).

Anyway, this is a very cool application, and hopefully will become a very succesful one.  

I was checking my email today on Gmail, and I saw that I had 1 spam mail. This isn't uncommon, since gmail has so far recognized every unsolicited mail. Sometimes, depending on the mood I am, I open these spam emails, just to see what they're supposed to be selling, etc. and have a good laugh, or wonder if there are still anyone that really falls for it.

However, today I received my first phishing mail on gmail, and when I opened it to check how they were trying to accomplish the scam, I realized that gmail not only reports the phishing attempt in red, but also disables the links for the mail:



So, if you're worried that any friend of yours or member of your family might not be internet-saavy enough to recognize phishing mails, give them a gmail account. They'll thank you for that.