Ya know, with Objects

I think the old Borland Turbo literature was the best in the industry and that's why Borland compilers took off. That and the price. And the features. Take this product box from Turbo Pascal 5.5 as an example:

You take one sports car and with objects you can have a convertible or a hard top with a fin. inheritance makes perfect sense!

Too bad abstract concepts like interfaces and anonymous methods are more difficult to explain.

Free Amazon Prime for Parents

If you buy any kid related things on Amazon you can qualify for a free Amazon Prime account. Head on over to www.amazon.com/mom. The gist is you get free 2 day shipping. Every product you buy your free Amazon Prime account is extended for another chunk of time to get you free 2 day shipping. It's a pretty sweet deal.

Facebook's Cookies

Am I overly paranoid that I close the tab that had Facebook open and remove all the cookies associated with Facebook? I don't think so. But some might.

iPad2 the Computer for Everyone

Truth be told, I have envisioned devices like this for years. Back when I was working on the Touch and Gesturing features for Delphi, I had hopes/visions/predictions that Windows 7 would get a makeover and run on devices like this. But nothing ever happened. Backup about 10 years, I wanted to make a "kitchen computer" or "house computer" that could be used by my grandma. At the time though the pressure sensitive touch displays were terrible and huge. That project didn't go very far. Gotta hand it to Apple for going out on a limb and using the capacitive touch display. Not many companies are willing to go out on a limb and build cool stuff. I know it's in Apple's DNA because I have a lot of friends that work there. Calling this an intersection of technology and liberal arts is probably a really good way of putting it. The term "post PC" keeps coming from Apple to describe the iPad 2 which is an aggressive term, but I can't fault them, they've got some good cards and they've played them well. I just got an iPhone now that it's on Verizon. It's a nice device. When it the iPhone 4 was release some equated it to a Leica camera. I have to admit, it does have a Leica like feeling. Pretty crappy antenna though, even on Verizon.

Text Placement in a Java JList

This is just for future reference so I don't have to dig around for the answer.

private static final int LIST_LEFT_MARGIN = 5;

jList1.setCellRenderer(new DefaultListCellRenderer() {
  public Component getListCellRendererComponent(JList list, Object value,
    int index, boolean isSelected, boolean cellHasFocus) {
      super.getListCellRendererComponent(list, value,
                                         index, isSelected, cellHasFocus);
      this.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(0, LIST_LEFT_MARGIN, 0, 0));
      return this;
    }
  }
}