Deep Thoughts with Richard Schoen

Well, we started testing Windows Vista this summer to see how well our software would run on the new upcoming Windows platform. Short of a few tighter security items, Windows Vista seems to look and feel a lot like Windows XP. I just read an item that said Windows Vista would be released in January.  I’m thinking it just might start showing up in stores in time for Christmas.  Either way I can report that RJS plans to support the Vista operating system from day one. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be issues we run in to, but it does mean that your investment in RJS products will be safe for at least the next 7 years, since that’s probably when the next Windows Desktop OS version will be released if history is any indicator. But what do I know, I can’t see the future

One of my favorite system utility companies was gobbled up by Microsoft this year. Sysinternals has been my favorites spot to go when I need a free tool to allow me to forcefully end windows processes, look at remote PC processes, restart computers and tell me why a program won’t run because of file permissions.
After Microsoft acquired Sysinternals, I thought the freebie utilities might go away, but to my delight these utilities are still FREE. They are just now part of the Microsoft site. The FREE utilities are available from the Sysinternals link. The commercial cousins of these products are available at Winternals.

Well, since it’s been roughly seven years since Microsoft has released a new browser I found myself compelled to install the latest interation: IE7. IE7 brings us some of the features that have been available in Firefox for a few years now such as tabbed browsing. This was the main reason I updated to IE7 right away. I like Firefox, but it doesn’t work with ActiveX controls. To me, IE7 is simply an iterative release that brings the MS browser to current look and feel along with adding several security bells and whistles which have been sorely needed.   Before you update to IE7 make sure all of your web applications work with it. I’ve run into a few vendors who say they don’t support IE7 yet.

For the most part, this was a sorely needed browser update, although I have to admit there’s something about browser version stability. Any of you web developers remember supporting Netscape, IE3, IE4, IE5 and IE 5.5 at the same time ? Get it at Microsoft. It’s a small download and definitely worth updating to within the next few months.

I recently discovered a very interesting open source tool called IKVM. I was out on the web looking for ways to utilize existing Java JAR files from within a .Net application. Most specifically I wanted to use the iSeries JTOpen Toolbox for Java to access an AS/400 - iSeries back end system from .Net and didn’t want to have to rely on the iSeries ODBC or .Net providers. I downloaded IKVM and then ran the jt400.jar file through the IKVM ikvmc Java bytecode to .NET IL translator and suddenly I had a usable version of the JTOpen library in DLL format for use with .Net. So far from my testing it seems to work quite well and we plan to be using this technique in several of our commercial .Net based product offerings. Have fun with IKVM and share your stories with me.

For those of you interested in developing and scaling your Visual Studio VB.Net and C# applications to run Cross Platform, you may want to check out the open source Mono product. The following paragraph is a description of Mono from the Mono Project web site:

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix. Sponsored by Novell (http://www.novell.com), the Mono open source project has an active and enthusiastic contributing community and is positioned to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

Mono also includes its own web server that runs .Net code and web services. The web server is called: XSP. Apparently there is also an Apache Web Server Add-in called mod-mono-server which allows .Net applications to run under the standard Apache Web Server.

Check it out and have fun developing cross platform code.

OK all you Windows Web Developers, I have found a utility that you will find indispensible. IIS Admin allows you to create new IIS Web Sites on a Windows XP PC with a few mouse clicks. The FREE utility’s system tray icon also allows you to quickly switch between your IIS web configurations without the need to use the IIS Administrator or stop and start each site. If you’re working on a production web site for customer A and you suddenly have the need to test your new web invention stored on another web site on your PC, simply click on the site in the system tray program and your new site is ready for action. This is a utility that any web developer cannot do without. Test it out and have some fun.

Here’s a cool product that I found on the web that can be used to allow a single XP PC to host multiple users at the same time via the Windows Terminal Services RDP client software. The product is called XP Unlimited. The benefit of software like the XP Unlimited product is the fact that a single low-end Windows XP workstation can be easily turned into a multi-user Windows Terminal Server without the expense of purchasing a large server. For users who are sending a lot of email, surfing the web, word processing, using iSeries 5250 emulation or other similar tasks, the XP Unlimited software can be a great way to save money and bring your PC budgets back in line. By allowing user’s older existing PC’s to be used as a simple Windows Terminal that accesses a more powerful Windows XP PC where all the software is loaded, IT departments can extend the life of existing PC investments and minimize the purchase of new hardware every 1-2 years. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Once again it’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog site. It’s been a busy year so far, but that’s no excuse to neglect sharing my life observations.

Just the other day I read an article on blogging and it said blog or die. Basically it said if you have something to say, then say it, otherwise don’t bother having a blog site.

My pledge to you the few that have actually read my blog site is to start updating the blog site at least weekly with a tip or bit of information that I have found to be useful from the web.

If you have any topics you would like me to speak to or comment about online, shoot me an email at: richard@rjssoftware.com

Pete Helgren has a few interesting iSeries open source links and also some nice presentations on SOA and Open Source Tools and Applications for the iSeries on his open source web site: Opensource4iSeries Check out these links and presentations and thank Pete for gratiously sharing them with all of us if you visit his site.

Apparently even this new medium of communication is not free of its share of issues. I have been seeing comments lately being posted on the site that are not relevent to anything other than advertising. It looks like the Spammers have invaded Blogspot. To be sure, if this site is to remain open to free, anonymous posting then there will be some spamming on the site. I just thought until recently that spam was limited to email and adware popups that were getting installed on our computers because of the Internet Explorer special features It looks like open blogs are now a target as well. I would consider closing the site to anonymous posting, but I don’t think that’s the right answer. I just wanted to comment on the sad and irritating methods some people will go to when they want traffic to their web sites. On the up side of that comment, we’ve been getting a lot of visitors t the site. Let me know your thoughts.