Archive for May, 2007
SWT versus Swing
21 May 2007 <Many Java developers fear to adopt a solution based on SWT, because of the possibility of losing the portability of Java applications and because of the necessity of generating different installations for each client platform.
Swing is only available in platforms that support J2SE, Windows systems (except CE), Unix (including Linux) and Mac OS. SWT is available in the same platforms, which is facilitated by its nature of free software. But SWT goes further, supporting Windows CE / Pocket PC with J2ME systems. In fact, it’s even easier to get an updated version of SWT than an updated Swing version, because in many platforms J2SE was not updated since version 1.3.0.
Another advantage of SWT is that Swing manages allocation and releasing of native resources in a transparent but inefficient way. SWT waits the application to do this management. The greater control and efficiency of manual releasing makes SWT lighter than Swing, especially in applications that run for a long period of time.
Obsessed about Your Weight? Easy Steps to Fight Pounds with the Fitness Ally
21 May 2007 <Which woman can raise her hand and solemnly swear that she has never worried about her weight or that she has never considered taking up fitness classes? The lucky ones who can do this are very few, surely enough. For the rest, fitness is by far the best ally possible. Endless low-calorie diets, jogging or starving to death are well-known nightmares women usually go through on the way towards beauty. But if you are truly willing to lose the unwanted weight and get into shape, you will know that fitness is the most appropriate solution for you.
You don’t have to panic about muscular pains to follow invariably after physic exercising. No worry about this! Fitness has come a long way! Nowadays fitness techniques don’t ask you to spend half your mornings on the bicycle or stretching ‘till the bones hurt, on the contrary, they are short, very effective sessions which make your body work with every inch. And what is more, after such a session you will feel freshened up and not dieing to take a shower and go to bed.
Weight lifting, moving in slow motion or music aerobics, you name it, are all available and ready to take up new members. Just think of the many benefits of fitness: fat-burning, faster-working metabolism, loss of cholesterol, decrease of heart stress and lots and lots of relaxation! What stops you from joining a class right away? Surely enough, the fitness program works tight with a soft regime, as it would be practically pointless to swallow up a whole cheese pizza and then work out for twenty minutes.
Fitness is all about determination and wanting to keep your body healthy and gorgeous. And, it is common sense, once you have that great body you were dreaming about, your spirit is very likely to improve and be invaded by a feeling of happiness. So, what are you waiting for?
Does the Future Society Belong to Robots?
21 May 2007 <The image that most of us have on robots comes, in the first place, from movies such as ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Star Trek’, but also from the images of the boring assembling lines of the Japanese automobiles. The contrast between these two points of view, between these two images has produced a certain disappointment among the people as concerning robotics. This view is completely justified, right? After all these years of technological progress, we still don’t have any robots to which we can talk to and which could help us with the house work. This way, we totally exclude from the equation the robots that can fight in the wars or robots that can fly spaceships or do other things that the robots do in the science-fiction movies.
But reality contradicts both images. It is true that we do not have robots to which we could talk, but we have nonetheless robots that have successfully participated to extremely complicated surgical interventions. It is also true that we don’t have robots as soldiers, but the American army is one of the greatest investors in robotics. There have been created robots that can efficiently contribute to human life savings. Take for instance the example of the famous robot that was sent to inspect Chernobyl.
It would be a bit naïve of us to expect robotics to start from zero and reach in a relatively short time (about five decades since the first functional prototypes) to performances comparable to the human ones. Although still far from the dreams of the pioneers in the field, robotics brings us each day a bit closer to these dreams, and this progress is accelerating every day. At least many specialists in robotics have ambitious and optimist plans.
How Industrial Can A Design Be?
21 May 2007 <Think of what draws your attention when we talk about a product. Is it its shape? Its color? Its suppleness? Its simplicity? Now also think of the fact that what looks good must also be functional and have a special, particular type of comfort. There are some things that maybe come into your mind when you’re looking at a product, at machinery. How accessible are the buttons and the accessories during the practice? Why do the handles have that particular shape? Is that machine suitable for all the body shapes and weights of the users?
Industrial design gathers a team that is part of a careful and inventive world where form and functionality are combined in order to create the best machines. Take for example the fitness items. You can see that they are specially designed to fit and to satisfy any type of user, and what matters the most is their shape and degree of comfort.
The industrial design is a major, essential component in all the stages of the development process of a certain product. The industrial design accompanies this process from the very beginning when the initial idea is born. The industrial designers are meant to work close to the engineers, to all the persons implicated in the process of creation and of development of a product. What you see is the finite product that hides beneath its surface the collaboration of hundreds of people, it encompasses the talent and the hard-work of a handful of professionals.
An important trait of the creative industrial design is that it finds inspiration in everything, in the line of a piece of furniture, in the supple shapes of a bottle, or even in the body shape of the celebrities. These market trends and pop cultural elements help the industrial designers to establish a unique, functional view on the manner in which the products look like.
Biology Facts: 5 Reasons Why You Should not Keep Some Plants inside Your Apartment
21 May 2007 <Who doesn’t like plants in their apartments or houses? They are a tranquility oasis, make your rooms livelier and improve your feeling good. But what do you do when plants have a taste for meat? No need to worry! If you are larger than a common insect (and you probably are) carnivorous plants can do you no harm, as they only consume ants, beetles, mosquitoes or spiders. Apparently biology also shares a weird part, making the beautiful elements a bit dangerous.
If you wonder if these biology children – the carnivorous plants- need any special treatment you will be surprised to learn that they act just as the other plants (though they may require more attention than a cactus does). You will need to place them in sunlit places, care for them with water and soil, talk to them and make sure their leaves don’t rot in the flower pot. The good news about carnivorous plants is that they can even help you get rid of some of the annoying mosquito guests of house flies. While feeding, these biology miracles are actually doing you a favor and this is definitely a pro.
There are more than six hundred species of carnivorous plants in the world and this means the choice is vast. If biology show us that plants feel bet when in a natural habitat, that doesn’t necessarily mean they cannot grow inside an apartment. As long as you provide them with the proper utilities, you could easily exhibit your exotic biology collection to any guest. The most beautiful apartment carnivorous plants are considered to be: the Venus flytrap, Sundews and North American Pitcher.
Biology counts thousands of plant species and it would be virtually impossible to manage to care for all of them. But since most of them are within reach why not try and give nature a helping hand and “adopt” at least one? Not only will this make the plant live longer, but it would probably make you feel better about yourself! So get started!
Introduction to J2ME
21 May 2007 <J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) is the environment of development for mobile or portable devices, as cell phones and palmtops. As Java language is very popular, the adaptation to J2ME is not complicated. So, many kinds of applications have been created for those devices, as games and schedules. Companies have won with that because, since their devices have a JVM (Java Virtual Machine), it’s possible to implement applications in every device, being hardware capacity the only limit.
J2ME platform contains configurations and libraries made especially to work in portable devices. Thus, developer has a better facility to handle with the limitations of processing and memory, for example. An example of this is the configuration called CLDC (Connected Limited Device Configuration), destined to devices with very limited hardware resources, as 16 bits processors and 512 KB memories. This configuration contains a JVM and a basic set of libraries that allows Java application to work in devices with those characteristics.