JamesBranam's Blog
NB Community Docs: Important Announcement Next Week
Hi all,
The NetBeans Community Docs program has been in existence since March of 2007. In two years and five months, 325 documentation item have been contributed. We've seen three Contribution Coordinators: Amit Saha, Varun Nischal, and currently Kristian Rink. It has been quite the ride.
Next week I'll be making an important announcement on this blog, so be sure to keep an eye out. No need to worry. I'm certain that this announcement will have no impact on the success of the program.
Tune in next week.
Cheers!
-James
Posted at 09:00AM Jul 31, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans |
Cool News
Hi all,
Some cool news for me this week. A couple days ago, my younger daughter informed me that she had been accepted at a writers camp. She was selected among many applicants. My daughter has been very active in writing and has even had things published. Wow.
Last night, my older daughter informed me that she is engaged to be married. She'll be marrying her long-time boyfriend next year. Boy, do I feel old now.
Just wanted to share the news.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 06:32PM Jul 30, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Facebook Politics
Hi all,
It's time once again to sound off. A friend of mine has been using his Facebook status reports to spread his political views, which sometimes border on the insane. He's a republican, obviously, and he has really been going off about Obama's attempt to create a health care system in which everyone is covered. My friend obviously has insurance (otherwise he'd be singing a different tune), and people who are adequately insured don't want to make coverage available to everyone. They prefer the status quo, in which insurance companies decide types of medication and length of hospital stays. He's against "universal health care" or "socialized medicine" or whatever you want to call it, citing incorrect portrayals of other countries' health care follies. This is all nonsense, of course. People (including me) who live in these countries know that the health care is fine, financially manageable, and truly universal. I've lived which such coverage for more than twenty years, and I am more than satisfied. Doctors decide how long a patient stays in a hospital. The result: fewer deaths and complications. Infants are covered automatically after birth, not after a a couple of days as in most cases in the U.S. Why a couple of days you ask? So that any defects may be discovered and coverage denied. (This happened to a friend of mine.) There are no health care related bankruptcies in Europe; no people's financial well-being destroyed by an illness or accident.
Chew on that, my friend.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 06:04PM Jul 29, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
NetBeans IDE 6.7.1 with JavaFX
Hi all,
It's official: NetBeans IDE 6.7.1 is out and available for download. Here is the official press release:
The NetBeans Team is pleased to announce the release of NetBeans IDE 6.7.1, which supports the latest JavaFX SDK.
(A JavaFX-only download bundle is also available.)
NetBeans IDE 6.7.1 is an update to NetBeans IDE 6.7 and includes the following changes:
- Support for JavaFX 1.2
- Upgrade of GlassFish v3 Prelude to include fixes from build #28f
- Integration of important bug fixes based on user feedback, especially in the Java Editor and project scanning areas
NetBeans IDE 6.7.1 is available in English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Brazilian Portuguese. In addition, the NetBeans Platform has been fully localized into the following languages: Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and Galician. Translations for Java SE modules and other community languages are still ongoing. Get the current status of localizations here, and also consider volunteering to help translate!
Tell us about your experience using the NetBeans IDE. Share your thoughts on our mailing lists and forums. If you blog about NetBeans add your blog to Planet NetBeans. Follow NetBeans on Twitter for updates about NetBeans news and development.
NetBeans IDE Connects Developers!
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 01:35PM Jul 28, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans |
Sun and Facebook
Hi all,
Every once in a while, while I'm Facebook, I see a notification from Sun Microsystems pop up on my wall. In these uncertain times, it's good to see this, and i can't help but wonder how long I'll be seeing it.
I suppose that this could still happen long after the "event" that is to come. Talk about haunting from one's past.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 06:49PM Jul 27, 2009 by branajam in Sun |
And Another
Hi all,
This is the other book to be published on August 8. It's the red version of WC English. Here is information from the previous blog entry:
On August 8, another of my new books will be published. It's called WC English. The book will be published on paper resembling toilet paper. The illustrations for the books were done by Petr Urban, a famous Czech illustrator. Actually two books will be published with this title, a red one and a green one.
You can see the red one above.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 09:00AM Jul 26, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
And Yet Another
Hi all,
On August 8, another of my new books will be published. It's called WC English. The book will be published on paper resembling toilet paper. The illustrations for the books were done by Petr Urban, a famous Czech illustrator. Actually two books will be published with this title, a red one and a green one. You can see the green one above.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 09:00AM Jul 25, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Another New Book
Hi all,
I have another book coming out on August 7. It's called Angličtina 5 minut denně (English 5 minutes per day). It's basically in a calendar format, providing the student with one quick lesson a day. It could be in the form of grammar exercises, translation, or even a joke or puzzle.
I hope it sells well.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 09:00AM Jul 24, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
My New Book
Hi all,
As you already know, I'm a writer. I write books for learning English and German, and so far I've manage to have more than twenty books published in seven countries. Although the royalties are that much, they do help pay the bills.
Angličtina nejen do auta (English not only for the car) came out a couple of weeks ago. IT' a bit different from other books I've written. The book itself is in the form of a booklet, accompanied by a CD with English vocabulary and phrases. The idea is that the student will look at the vocabulary in the morning, and then listen to the CD on the way to work or wherever.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 12:15PM Jul 23, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Helping Make NetBeans Better
Hi all,
The NetBeans IDE is a product that is community driver. The community plays a huge part in its development, improvement, success. Users file issue, submit plugins and docs, and perform other crucial tasks. The IDE benefits from all of your efforts.
There is another way that you can contribute to the success of NetBeans: you can register the IDE.
Registering gives us an idea of who uses the IDE, what it is being used for, and how many users are out there. Based on this information, we can make important changes to the IDE, tailoring it to users' needs.
Registering is easy and takes just a couple of minutes.
You have the power to make the IDE even better. So, use it!
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 03:29PM Jul 21, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans | Comments[1]
Rained Out
Hi all,
I've been spending the weekend at our country house in East Bohemia. On Friday, the temperature soared to 34 degrees Celsius, but today we've been stuck at around 15 degrees. That's quite a drop. Also, it has rained since about noon, with very violent thunderstorms moving thorough the area. We've been stuck in the house all day.
I hope that tomorrow is nicer.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 07:37PM Jul 18, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
The News
Hi all,
I'm not supposed to blog or talk about.
So read the official press release.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 03:24PM Jul 17, 2009 by branajam in Personal |
Exporting Blog
Hi all,
Due to uncertainty as to what the future holds, I've decided to back up my blog to another location. I'll still be blogging here, but I'll be copying each new blog entry to the new location.
You can find it at http://blog.jambra.net/bc/.
See you there!
--James
Posted at 02:33PM Jul 13, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans |
AWS Experience Part 11: AWS EC2 Toolkit
Hi all,
Although the AWS Management Console is an adequate tool for most tasks you may need to perform in the cloud, at some point you will need to use the commnd line to perform certain tasks. Also, for those users who are used to using the command line with other applications may find it easier and faster to use AWS EC2 AMI tools while working with their AMI.
The AWS EC2 Toolkit makes it easy to perform a number of tasks. Here are a few commonly used commands:
ec2-describe-region. Use this command to view available regions.export EC2_URL=https://<service_endpoint>. This command changes a region.
Note: Windows users:set EC2_URL=https://<service_endpoint>ec2-describe-images -o self -o amazon | grep machine. Use this command to find a suitable AMI.ec2-add-keypair gsg-keypair. Use this command to add a key pair.ec2-run-instances ami-235fba4a -k gsg-keypair. This command launches an AMI.ec2-describe-instances i-ae0bf0c7. Use this to display the launch status of an instance.ec2-authorize default -p 22. This commands authorizes access to an instance.ssh -i id_your-keypair root@ec1-23-456-789.compute-1.amazonaws.com. Use this to access an instance.# ec2-bundle-vol -d /mnt -k /mnt/pk-HKZ3YTJCMXYI9JHUAHSY5CLO.pem -c /mnt/cert-HKZ3YTJCMXYI9JHUAHSY5CLO.pem -u AIDADWWJSKSKSKD -r i386 -p sampleimage. This command bundles an instance. Note:This command must be executed from the AMI instance.ec2-upload-bundle -b <your-s3-bucket> -m /mnt/sampleimage.manifest.xml -a <aws-access-key-id> -s <aws-secret-access-key>Use this command to upload your custom AMI to your AWS S3 bucket.ec2-register <your-s3-bucket>/sampleimage.manifest.xml. This command registers the new AMI with AWS.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 12:45PM Jul 09, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans |
Happy Jan Hus Day
Hi all,
Oh, the joy of living in the Czech Republic: another public holiday. Today is Jan Hus (John Huss) Day. He was burned at the stake for heresy on July 6, 1415. Today is celebrated as one of the most famous Czechs. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Jan Hus (alternative spellings John Hus, Jan Huss, John Huss) (c. 1372 Husinec, Bohemia – 6 July 1415 Konstanz) was a Czech Catholic priest, philosopher, reformer, and master at Charles University in Prague. He is famous for being burned at the stake for what the Roman Catholic Church viewed as his heretical views on ecclesiology. Hus was a key contributor to the Protestant movement whose teachings had a strong influence on the states of Europe, most immediately in the approval for the existence of a reformist Bohemian Church, and, more than a century later, on Martin Luther himself.
Impressive, eh?
This holiday follows another holiday on July 5: Saints Cyril and Methodius Day. What this means is that normally we would have two days off, but since yesterday was a Sunday.... Oh well. It could have been worse. The holidays could have fallen on Saturday and Sunday.
Cheers! And happy Jan Hus Day!
--James
Posted at 11:03AM Jul 06, 2009 by branajam in Personal | Comments[1]
Blogging from the Country
Hi all,
Today I'm sitting in my wife's family's country house in Eastern Bohemia. I just had internet installed and it's good to remain connected over the weekend. Now I'll be able to come here more often.
Some random ramblings in this first blog entry for FY10:
- Yesterday was Independence Day in the U.S. I have often wondered why so few people call the day "Independence Day." I usually hear them call it "Fourth of July." I almost never hear "Happy Independence Day, but I hear "Happy Fourth of July" all the time. Weird, eh? A former teacher colleague of mine had an interesting theory: Americans tend to go for more technical vocabulary than the British, That's why you'll find the following differences between American and British English:
- ACCELERATOR instead of GAS
- BABY CARRIAGE instead of PRAM
- ELEVATOR instead of LIFT
- I have never experienced so many thunderstorms in Europe as this year. It seems that every afternoon, they pop up from nowhere. It reminds me of Indiana. Midwestern thunderstorms are the fiercest I've encountered.
- NetBeans 6.7 is out. 6.8 is in the works. Now we get to play the waiting game to see what happen.
- Lots of celebrities have passed this year. The latest is Steve McNair, an American football star. He was murdered in his condo in Nashvile.
Cheers!
--James
Posted at 11:34AM Jul 05, 2009 by branajam in Personal |