Monday, April 12, 2010

Apple's new iPhone terms...

As someone who has had to live with Adobe's poor support of OS2 way back when, and subsequently on Linux & Macs, I am somewhat sympathetic to the point of view that Adobe made a tactical error way back when.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Yes, James has left the building. So what?

So James Gosling has left Oracle. Go Figure.

I am not sure that this move has actually got any real meaning for Java. For over a year now the language just seems to have been drifting.

The move to rich HTML clients tells me that the underlying premise of write once, run anywhere, is still sound, but that Java, the language, and even the JVM platform, has been stagnating. Sort of neglected by both politics and poverty.


Yes, that's me on the left. Eyes wide shut, at dinner with James and other Australian Java developers about two years ago. It was a good evening. :-)

It struck me then, in the conversation, that he seemed pretty detached from the world of Java. More a very intelligent bystander pottering around periphery, playing with the bits that he found interesting. There was no sense of a driving force, trying to move the language and the platform forward. Rather, he seemed to be a retired researcher, coming in to the office to dabble. Of course this was just my impression, made at a rather festive meal.

The other people from Sun at the table were more interested in JavaFX than simple Java. Something I still don't quite understand.

So me, I don't think that the departure will have any effect on the future of Java. It only means that Oracle doesn't offer the collegial environment that Sun did. That might actually be a good thing for the future of Java.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Bye bye Stora...

As promised, I took the Netgear Stora back - and the folks at Officeworks were wonderful. A full refund and an apology for my wasted time.  Plus an invitation to consider some of their other fine NAS devices :-).

Monday, April 05, 2010

#Netgear, #Stora & me - #Fail

I have been needing to set up some centralised storage for my family for a while now. But we run a mix of computers, mostly Linux, with one Mac laptop, so I have held off doing anything about it.

I confess - I have always liked Netgear equipment - their visual design looks clean, and their stuff I have bought has just worked - reliably. So when I saw a Netgear Stora on the shop shelves, and read on the label : "System Requirements" ... "OS X, linux" & "Give friends and family access to your files, or even give them their own disk space" I just reached for my credit card and walked out the door with one tucked under my arm.

When it came time to set it up I found no linux drivers on the enclosed disk: a quick search of their forums revealed that "Unfortunately Linux is not an officially supported OS".

So with a sinking feeling I move to the Mac, put the disk in and and installed the software. After a complex install the cable modem hung - and I found the next importan point out about the stora - "the internet is not *only* required for setup. We recommend an internet connection at all times".

In fact, "many of the Stora's features and administration require the internet. This includes creating local user accounts..." Something not mentioned on the box.

So if I understand this correctly, the Stora will only function through the continued good grace of Netgear. If they remove their web service, the Stora turns into a brick. If they decide to charge for their web service in future, I have to pay or lose the use of a piece of hardware that is on my premises? This was also not mentioned on the box.

And speaking of payment: It turns out that I can only create accounts for three of my family or friends - any more than that and I do, in fact, have to pay Netgear an annual fee. As we are a family of four who gets the short straw? And who loses out if we do infact take up the once in a lifetime offer to give Netgear our money  and then fall on hard times?

So tomorrow  I am going to take the Stora back and politely ask for a refund. And I am never going to buy another piece of Netgear equipment again. My trust in the company is now totally destroyed.