It’s official NetBeans 6.1 is now in full release and available for download from NetBeans.org. I have not been keeping up so well with this version and so I’m a little out of the loop on all the changes but I understand that they have been working hard on improving the JavaScript capabilities, from what I can tell this is mostly in the intellisense. Looks like the same guy’s that worked on the awesome Ruby editor functionality have been working on improving the JavaScript editor this time around.

This release did remind me that I was going to take a look and see if I could get NetBeans to play nice with some of the JavaScript libraries out there and I never did, apologies to those who were waiting for me to pull my finger out.

Since 6.1 is supposed to improve JavaScript in NetBeans I shall have to take a look. The detailed feature list can be found here.

The official announcement from the NetBeans announcement email is:

NetBeans™ IDE 6.1 supports a wide range of open source scripting technologies and offers improved performance. This release extends language support beyond Java™ technology by providing a rich set of features for C/C++, JavaScript™ and the Ruby language, including Ruby on Rails.

NetBeans IDE 6.1 also contains all of the improvements made in 6.0 including: the new smarter editor, next generation of the ground-breaking GUI builder (formerly known as Project Matisse), visual mobile designer, integrated profiler, and Java™ EE 5 support.

One of the downloads available is an Early Access preview of support for PHP. Advance versions of new modules, such as a JavaScript debugger, support of ClearCase, AXIS, and Hibernate are available as separate plugins.

I was flicking round the web this morning when I came across a site that will generate a favicon from any image and will give you the instructions to get it working along with an alternative animated version if you want it too.

I gave it a quick blast and it’s pretty cool. Simply upload your image (be sure it will look good 16 x 16 or you’ll just get a blob, check the animate box if you want an animated version, add text too if you want (for the animated version), hit the generate button and you’ll get a preview and a download button where you can download all the files in a zip archive.

A great way to have your logo appear in peoples favourite list so your site can be quickly identified.

Get your icon at html-kit

The latest version of Ubuntu is now available for download. Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron is said to be a cutting edge release incorporating a lot of updated applications and using the latest version of Firefox 3 Beta 5 is set to allow pretty good performance if you are browsing the web.

I’ve had the beta on my laptop for a couple of weeks and I think this is a good release. FF3 is nice and fast, opening almost instantly and as usual this release includes Ubuntu’s easy to use Package manager, updated to include many of the latest versions of the apps we all know and love.

After a clean install it was a breeze to get compiz fusion running. Simply open the appearance applet via System > Preferences > Appearance. Select the visual Effects tab and then select the Extra radio button. Ubuntu will then download and install the drivers you need. You’ll need to reboot and then go into the Appearance applet again and select the same radio button once more to enable. A bit tedious that last bit but a damn site easier than fiddling around with hardware managers and installing a load of apps.

You’ll want to install the compiz fusion settings manager using the Synaptic package manager (System > Administration > synaptic package manager) then you can use advanced desktop effects settings from the preferences menu to fine tune your desktop.

Codec installation is a breeze too. As soon as a media app tries to play something you don’t have a codec for, you get a prompt asking if you want to go find the right codec. A couple of clicks later (having read the relevant dialogs) you’ll be up and running able to watch anything you like.

No matter which distro I play with I always like coming back to Ubuntu, it just seems to work and it’s so easy to install new apps and keep up to date, if you mostly browse the web, IM your friends and send email, save yourself a ton of cash and ditch windows for Ubuntu (other Linux distro’s are available).

I’ve been reading more and more articles like this one in the BBC website detailing the horror stories of amateur photographers being treated like criminals just because they take photo’s in a public place. I think it is ridiculous that authorities are able to pick on easy targets like photographers, but I suppose we should all be thankful that we have these ‘laws’ in place to protect us from the evil man with a camera!

I’m a keen photographer as regular readers will know and I’m reasonably well aware of my rights to photograph in public areas. One thing I learned from the BBC article though was:

Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, police officers may
randomly stop someone without reasonable suspicion, providing the area
has been designated a likely target for an attack.

Interesting, if you are challenged in a public place perhaps the first thing to ask the officer in question is whether the particular area you are in is a designated terrorist target.

Time to join the campaign for clearer laws I think.

Technorati Tags: Photographer, Photography, Terrorism Laws

If you have not been paying attention to the row regarding Phorm and you are a broadband subscriber in the UK then you should. Phorm is a technology that allows an ISP to snoop on your traffic and then target advertising based on the sort of sites you visit.
Several ISP’s in the UK have already been trialling this technology without informing their clients and there has been growing unrest over the planned roll-out.

It finally looks like we are taking a step in the right direction though and ISP’s are going to be forced to stay the right side of the law and if they do roll-out Phorm on their network it would have to be an opt-in only system so it would not be turned on automatically.

I still think there is room for abuse here but we’ll keep an eye on it and we’ll see what happens.

Technorati Tags: Phorm, ISP’s

I stumbled upon a great website that has some of the best hi-res wallpapers I’ve seen. There’s a handy little filter block at the top of the page that allows you to filter for the size you want as well as the sort order.

There are quite a few images on the site and they are all great quality.

click on over to interfacelift.com and give your desktop a treat.

Technorati Tags: hi-res wallpaper, desktop wallpaper

I had to check the date when I read this story and I’m certain it’s not April fools day. There is a row under way involving the BBC and ISP’s. Broadband Providers are not happy because they have to upgrade their networks to cope with the demand and they want the BBC to share the cost.

If ever we needed proof of the rip off culture prevelant in the companies supplying broadband services, this is it. They are happy to sign people up as long as they don’t actually use the service they are paying for. Value for money is the last thing on their mind, they are only concerned with taking the money.

My row with Virgin media was all the proof I needed it’s taken 6 months to get my service to stabilise so it does not go below 10MB/s at peak times. Now we have even more proof of the poor level of investment in the networks and the ridiculous attitude of the companies involved, can they be serious? have we entered the age where you can provide content as long as it’s not very popular and you can have ‘unlimited’ broadband as long as you pay up every month and don’t use the service!

Grow up will ya!

Other countries manage to provide a decent broadband service at faster more reliable speeds than anything we have in the UK. ISP’s in this country should be ashamed of themselves the thieving scumbag bastards!

Technorati Tags: Broadband, iPlayer, ISP’s, BBC

I have now managed to set up RSS feeds for my photo’s direct from my Gallery site. There are currently 6 feeds to choose from as I have decided to push the feeds from each gallery giving you the flexibility to choose which galleries you want to monitor. As I add new galleries new feeds will become available but for now you can get the following feeds nicely toasted via Feedburner.

• Landscapes
• Photo Journalism
• Manipulated Images
• Nature
• Abstract
• Monochrome

I’m working on a master feed but there’s a couple of teething problems with that at the moment. Enjoy the feeds and please remember if you like what you see tell others, if you don’t then tell me.

All my images are original, © Shaun Newman and may not be copied, edited or transmitted in any form without prior written permission. If you do wish to use any of the images you see or would like a hi-res print please contact me I don’t bite and I won’t charge a fortune. There is a link on the gallery site to email me or you can leave a comment on this blog and I’ll get back to you.

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: SDN-photography, landscape, monochrome, journalism, nature, abstract

I couldn’t quite believe it when I found this little gem. There’s a way to get some of the nice Firebug debugging when you are using a browser other than Firefox. Firebug lite is a script that you include in the pages you want to debug. You then get the ability to hit the F12 key and fire up the debugging, until then it lies dormant on your page. Of course this can get tiring so adding debug=”true” to the HTML element of your page will turn it on permanently.

There are other ways of debugging IE etc… but Firebug rocks so you might want to give it a go and see if it helps you especially if you are already used to it from Firefox :0)

Technorati Tags: Firebug Lite

I’ve always been one of those people that likes to tinker and squeeze as much performance from my computer as possible. Often I’ve rendered my PC completely useless, though not beyond recovery, and I have learned a lot along the way.

This weekend as I was tinkering with my BIOS settings I noticed a few settings I was not sure of and it never ceases to annoy me that there’s very little help inside the BIOS interface to guide you. Of course there is always Google to lend a hand and I found a great site that explains quite a few BIOS settings.

TechARP has quite a lot of useful articles and information and well worth a bookmark. Another old favourite of mine that I have been using since it’s inception 4 years ago is Tweakguides. Chock full of excellent information and lots of detail this site will help you get the best performance from major games as well as your System. Starting with a benchmark optimisation of your system it allows you to seriously squeeze every bit of performance possible from your kit. This is a windows-centric site I’m affraid so don’t expect any Linux or Mac tweaks. If I find a good linux tweaking site I’ll post it as an edit.

Technorati Tags: Tweakguide, Games, Windows