Microsoft Silverlight is anti-competitive?

It seems that seven U.S. states consider Microsoft has been dragging its feet in providing information about its server protocols as required to do so when it lost an anti-trust case a few years ago. Fearing that technologies like Silverlight "substantially depend upon the browser" and that Internet Explorer is still bundled with Windows the states are asking for an extension to the anti-trust judgment.

Reading DOCX and other Office 2007 formats using older versions of Office

If you're like me and haven't had a need to upgrade from Office 2000 but get sent a file in one of the new Office 2007 formats then you might be able to open up these files in your old version of Office using the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, a free download.

There also seem to be a couple of free conversion services on the web if you're willing to upload your docs: docx2doc.com and docx-converter.com

I'll have to give OpenOffice a try some time :)

BEA Event Server based on open source Esper project

While reading Catching up with Esper: Event Stream Processing Framework I couldn't help but notice this little gem: BEA's recently launched WebLogic Event Server is based on a modified version of the open source Esper event stream processing (ESP) and complex event processing (CEP) project.

This is a departure from the normal behavior of BEA, which is buy a product/vendor if the other vendor is small enough or license it if the other vendor is big. I can only assume that there are not that many vendors in the CEP space and that Esper is reasonably mature.

So what value add does the BEA version contain? Not much info on this, but appears to offer an entire server architecture - including deployment, admin, security, etc - for those that don't want to build their own. Interestingly this product is not based on WebLogic, but is a more light-weight stack based around an OSGi model.

The Esper API looks suspiciously like the Apama API :)

The 4-Hour Workweek: Tips on managing your time in the era of email, IM, etc

Intro video on the Tim Ferriss book The 4-Hour Workweek.



Tim manages a medium-sized company with domestic and international customers. Like many of us in the digital age he has struggled to manage his time in an era with constant round-the-clock email/IM/cell phone/etc interruptions. Some of his tips:

• Batch email. Tim looks at his email only twice a day, 11am and 4pm. So that staff and customers won't get angry at not getting an immediate response Tim has an auto-responder that replied back telling people when he looks at his email, and if anything requires an urgent response then they should call him on his cell phone.
• 80/20 rule. If a customer takes up a lot of time but does not contribute much revenue then be minimally responsive to them. (I think it might also help to let the customer why they are not getting much of a response.)
• Outsource your life. Always have a plan for your day before getting out of bed. If something takes lots of time but can easily and cheaply be performed by others (e.g. research) then outsource it to them. Tim says that people in India and Canada are available for such work at $5 per hour. Check out websites like getfriday.com and workaholicsforhire.com
  

Banner Ad Blindness

This article presents research on how regular web surfers are used to ignoring ads, or even content that looks like ads or content that is in places where they expect ads to be. (Some nice heat maps of where people's eyes wandered on test web pages.)


How does the author propose to get more eyeballs on ads? Make the ads look like content :)

Sick Of Waiting For An Install, 75-Year-Old Woman Smashes Up Comcast Office With Hammer

After being on the receiving end of poor service from Time Warner I can really sympathize with this woman...

"Have I got your attention now?" asked Mona Shaw of the Comcast payment center employees as she smashed their keyboard, monitor and telephone...

"It's totally not like me to do stuff like this," said Shaw. "But it is so irresponsible and so disrespectful. I can't think of any company reacting that way. It's like they got you in their clutches and they'll do what they damn well please."

Something that might come in handy if you get the cable company runaround: contact info for cable company executives.

World's longest stack trace?

I really love all of the useful libraries that have grown out of the open source movement in the last couple of decades. It really makes assembling powerful applications out of freely available components very easy (as long as you use robust components!), but when the stack gets big and things go wrong it's kind of worrying when you see stack trace this long:

ERROR [org.jboss.ejb.plugins.LogInterceptor] EJBException in method: public abstract org.hyperic.util.pager.PageList org.hyperic.hq.bizapp.shared.MeasurementBoss.findMeasurementData(int,org.hyperic.hq.appdef.shared.AppdefEntityID,org.hyperic.hq.measurement.shared.MeasurementTemplateValue,long,long,long,boolean,org.hyperic.util.pager.PageControl) throws org.hyperic.hq.auth.shared.SessionNotFoundException,org.hyperic.hq.auth.shared.SessionTimeoutException,org.hyperic.hq.measurement.data.DataNotAvailableException,org.hyperic.hq.appdef.shared.AppdefEntityNotFoundException,org.hyperic.hq.authz.shared.PermissionException,org.hyperic.hq.measurement.MeasurementNotFoundException,java.rmi.RemoteException, causedBy:
java.lang.ArithmeticException: / by zero
 at org.hyperic.hq.measurement.server.session.DataManagerEJBImpl.getHistoricalData(DataManagerEJBImpl.java:800)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at org.jboss.invocation.Invocation.performCall(Invocation.java:345)
 at org.jboss.ejb.StatelessSessionContainer$ContainerInterceptor.invoke(StatelessSessionContainer.java:214)
 at org.jboss.resource.connectionmanager.CachedConnectionInterceptor.invoke(CachedConnectionInterceptor.java:149)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.StatelessSessionInstanceInterceptor.invoke(StatelessSessionInstanceInterceptor.java:154)
 at org.jboss.webservice.server.ServiceEndpointInterceptor.invoke(ServiceEndpointInterceptor.java:54)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.CallValidationInterceptor.invoke(CallValidationInterceptor.java:48)
 at org.hyperic.hq.application.HQApp$Snatcher.invokeNextBoth(HQApp.java:118)
 at org.hyperic.hq.application.HQApp$Snatcher.invokeNext(HQApp.java:141)
 at org.hyperic.txsnatch.TxSnatch.invoke(TxSnatch.java:71)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.AbstractTxInterceptor.invokeNext(AbstractTxInterceptor.java:106)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.TxInterceptorCMT.runWithTransactions(TxInterceptorCMT.java:300)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.TxInterceptorCMT.invoke(TxInterceptorCMT.java:166)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.SecurityInterceptor.invoke(SecurityInterceptor.java:153)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.LogInterceptor.invoke(LogInterceptor.java:192)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.ProxyFactoryFinderInterceptor.invoke(ProxyFactoryFinderInterceptor.java:122)
 at org.jboss.ejb.SessionContainer.internalInvoke(SessionContainer.java:624)
 at org.jboss.ejb.Container.invoke(Container.java:873)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.local.BaseLocalProxyFactory.invoke(BaseLocalProxyFactory.java:415)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.local.StatelessSessionProxy.invoke(StatelessSessionProxy.java:88)
 at $Proxy259.getHistoricalData(Unknown Source)
 at org.hyperic.hq.bizapp.server.session.MeasurementBossEJBImpl.findMeasurementData(MeasurementBossEJBImpl.java:1586)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at org.jboss.invocation.Invocation.performCall(Invocation.java:345)
 at org.jboss.ejb.StatelessSessionContainer$ContainerInterceptor.invoke(StatelessSessionContainer.java:214)
 at org.jboss.resource.connectionmanager.CachedConnectionInterceptor.invoke(CachedConnectionInterceptor.java:149)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.StatelessSessionInstanceInterceptor.invoke(StatelessSessionInstanceInterceptor.java:154)
 at org.jboss.webservice.server.ServiceEndpointInterceptor.invoke(ServiceEndpointInterceptor.java:54)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.CallValidationInterceptor.invoke(CallValidationInterceptor.java:48)
 at org.hyperic.hq.application.HQApp$Snatcher.invokeNextBoth(HQApp.java:118)
 at org.hyperic.hq.application.HQApp$Snatcher.invokeNext(HQApp.java:141)
 at org.hyperic.txsnatch.TxSnatch.invoke(TxSnatch.java:71)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.AbstractTxInterceptor.invokeNext(AbstractTxInterceptor.java:106)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.TxInterceptorCMT.runWithTransactions(TxInterceptorCMT.java:335)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.TxInterceptorCMT.invoke(TxInterceptorCMT.java:166)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.SecurityInterceptor.invoke(SecurityInterceptor.java:153)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.LogInterceptor.invoke(LogInterceptor.java:192)
 at org.jboss.ejb.plugins.ProxyFactoryFinderInterceptor.invoke(ProxyFactoryFinderInterceptor.java:122)
 at org.jboss.ejb.SessionContainer.internalInvoke(SessionContainer.java:624)
 at org.jboss.ejb.Container.invoke(Container.java:873)
 at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor458.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ReflectedDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedDispatcher.java:141)
 at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.dispatch(Invocation.java:80)
 at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:72)
 at org.jboss.mx.server.AbstractMBeanInvoker.invoke(AbstractMBeanInvoker.java:245)
 at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:644)
 at org.jboss.invocation.local.LocalInvoker$MBeanServerAction.invoke(LocalInvoker.java:155)
 at org.jboss.invocation.local.LocalInvoker.invoke(LocalInvoker.java:104)
 at org.jboss.invocation.InvokerInterceptor.invokeLocal(InvokerInterceptor.java:179)
 at org.jboss.invocation.InvokerInterceptor.invoke(InvokerInterceptor.java:165)
 at org.hyperic.hq.application.HQApp$Snatcher.invokeProxyNext(HQApp.java:135)
 at org.hyperic.txsnatch.ProxySnatch.invoke(ProxySnatch.java:37)
 at org.jboss.proxy.TransactionInterceptor.invoke(TransactionInterceptor.java:46)
 at org.jboss.proxy.SecurityInterceptor.invoke(SecurityInterceptor.java:55)
 at org.jboss.proxy.ejb.StatelessSessionInterceptor.invoke(StatelessSessionInterceptor.java:97)
 at org.jboss.proxy.ClientContainer.invoke(ClientContainer.java:86)
 at $Proxy231.findMeasurementData(Unknown Source)
 at org.hyperic.hq.ui.action.resource.common.monitor.visibility.CurrentHealthAction.execute(CurrentHealthAction.java:123)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.actions.TilesAction.execute(TilesAction.java:73)
 at org.hyperic.hq.ui.action.BaseRequestProcessor.processActionPerform(BaseRequestProcessor.java:63)
 at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:236)
 at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1196)
 at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doGet(ActionServlet.java:414)
 at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:697)
 at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:810)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:672)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInclude(ApplicationDispatcher.java:574)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.include(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.UrlController.execute(UrlController.java:89)
 at org.apache.struts.taglib.tiles.InsertTag$InsertHandler.doEndTag(InsertTag.java:875)
 at org.apache.struts.taglib.tiles.InsertTag.doEndTag(InsertTag.java:462)
 at org.apache.jsp.portal.ColumnsLayout_jsp._jspx_meth_tiles_insert_0(Unknown Source)
 at org.apache.jsp.portal.ColumnsLayout_jsp._jspx_meth_c_forEach_1(Unknown Source)
 at org.apache.jsp.portal.ColumnsLayout_jsp._jspx_meth_c_forEach_0(Unknown Source)
 at org.apache.jsp.portal.ColumnsLayout_jsp._jspService(Unknown Source)
 at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:97)
 at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:810)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:672)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doInclude(ApplicationDispatcher.java:574)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.include(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499)
 at org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspRuntimeLibrary.include(JspRuntimeLibrary.java:966)
 at org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.include(PageContextImpl.java:604)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesUtilImpl.doInclude(TilesUtilImpl.java:99)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesUtil.doInclude(TilesUtil.java:135)
 at org.apache.struts.taglib.tiles.InsertTag.doInclude(InsertTag.java:760)
 at org.apache.struts.taglib.tiles.InsertTag$InsertHandler.doEndTag(InsertTag.java:892)
 at org.apache.struts.taglib.tiles.InsertTag.doEndTag(InsertTag.java:462)
 at org.apache.jsp.portal.MainLayout_jsp._jspx_meth_tiles_insert_3(Unknown Source)
 at org.apache.jsp.portal.MainLayout_jsp._jspx_meth_html_html_0(Unknown Source)
 at org.apache.jsp.portal.MainLayout_jsp._jspService(Unknown Source)
 at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:97)
 at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:810)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:672)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:463)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doForward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:398)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:301)
 at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.doForward(RequestProcessor.java:1085)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.doForward(TilesRequestProcessor.java:263)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.processTilesDefinition(TilesRequestProcessor.java:239)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.internalModuleRelativeForward(TilesRequestProcessor.java:341)
 at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processForward(RequestProcessor.java:572)
 at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:221)
 at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1196)
 at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doGet(ActionServlet.java:414)
 at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:697)
 at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:810)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:672)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:463)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doForward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:398)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:301)
 at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.doForward(RequestProcessor.java:1085)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.doForward(TilesRequestProcessor.java:263)
 at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processForwardConfig(RequestProcessor.java:398)
 at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.processForwardConfig(TilesRequestProcessor.java:318)
 at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:241)
 at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1196)
 at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doGet(ActionServlet.java:414)
 at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:697)
 at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:810)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.hyperic.hq.ui.AuthenticationFilter.doFilter(AuthenticationFilter.java:110)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.hyperic.hibernate.filter.SessionFilter$1.run(SessionFilter.java:59)
 at org.hyperic.hq.hibernate.SessionManager.runInSessionInternal(SessionManager.java:78)
 at org.hyperic.hq.hibernate.SessionManager.runInSession(SessionManager.java:68)
 at org.hyperic.hibernate.filter.SessionFilter.doFilter(SessionFilter.java:57)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:81)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.hyperic.hq.product.servlet.filter.JMXFilter.doFilter(JMXFilter.java:324)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:213)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:178)
 at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.CustomPrincipalValve.invoke(CustomPrincipalValve.java:39)
 at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityAssociationValve.invoke(SecurityAssociationValve.java:159)
 at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JaccContextValve.invoke(JaccContextValve.java:59)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:126)
 at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:105)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:107)
 at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:148)
 at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:856)
 at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11Protocol.java:744)
 at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.PoolTcpEndpoint.processSocket(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:527)
 at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.MasterSlaveWorkerThread.run(MasterSlaveWorkerThread.java:112)
 at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

(Stack trace from the pretty good Hyperic HQ monitoring tool)

The 8-bit tie available now!

Nostalgic for the video games of old on the Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, etc? Order your 8-bit tie now!

Browser detection using known HTML parser bugs

If you've developed webapps then it is likely you've had to detect what browser is accessing the site and then use javascript or CSS to do something special for that browser. This dude has found a way to use known HTML parser rendering bugs to identify Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, Lynx and other browsers using just plain HTML. Here is some sample code (I must get round to converting this to Java):

#!/usr/bin/perl
print qq{
<img /src\x00="ie.gif"
  /''src\x00="firefox1_5.gif"
 /''src="firefox2_0.gif"
 /""src="gecko_others.gif"
 "s\x00rc="safari2.gif"
 "src="safari3.gif"
 ""src="konqueror.gif"
 src\x00="w3m.gif"
 src\x0c="opera.gif"
 src="others.gif"
 src="lynx.gif"
/> };

This technique is reported to work with many HTML tags, not just IMG. Clever hack!