GMail MIDLet
Google allow you to install a Java MIDLet (a small Java application for mobile platforms), which gives you access to your GMail account. Current version is
1.1.1
. The advantage of the MIDLet over web is mainly speed and more mail-oriented interface. And compared to the Mobile Outlook it has the advantage of not destroying e-mail when you download it.
However I am unable to use it productively, since the MIDLet manager, installed on my T-Mobile Vario I has very tight security settings. So every time the application tries to access the Internet, it pops up a warning Yes/No dialog. And, if you think about it, almost any operation requires network access - checking for new e-mail, sending messages, moving them and so on.
London to have its own domain
An article claims, that there is a proposition to create either
ldn.uk
or
.london
domain. Great idea, but what about other cities? The idea is actually not that new. There is an unofficial domain for St. Petersburg -
spb.ru
.
Hedge funds no longer effective
Heiko Ebens, a Merrill Lynch director, claimed , that hedge fund industry has ceased to deliver higher than average returns and can be mostly replaced by index trackers. Merrill Lynch’s trackers, for instance.
Windows Server (Longhorn) beta 3 review
There is an interesting review of the upcoming Windows Server. The OS seems to be full of goodies to simplify daily administration tasks and to improve security. It is nice to see, that PowerShell is finally making it into the OS - Microsoft keep on learning fron Unix experience.
Google documents
As some of you probably know, Google provides an “on-line office” - AJAX-based web application, which allows you to edit formatted text and spreadsheets on-line, storing them on Google’s servers. There are some extra features, including change tracking, sharing of the same document with other Google users etc.
I tried to edit a very simple spreadsheet today. Although the interface is quite slick and not dissimilar from, say, Excel, it is far from perfect. Some quite straightforward operations are missing (Copy sheet, for instance). It is also very slow for many operations - adding rows/columns, changing format of cells and so on.
Berkeley DB .NET wrapper
There is an open source .NET wrapper for (former) SleepyCat Berkeley DB file database system - you can find it on SourceForge .
Bank of England - 5.5 rate possible
The chances for another interest rate rise this month are not very high, but still possible, according to Reuters . The house prices are growing, and even if we are spared this month, before the end of the summer the interest will almost definitely go up. It is hard to say whether this will actually cause the prices to go down - the rate has already been increased a few times, but it seems to have very little effect on the market.
Even lap dancers have to pay their own VAT
An article on Reuters, lap dancers have to pay their own VAT, similar to other self-employed.
Mozilla and ebay - partnership for better shopping
Mozilla and eBay are working on a way to improve shopping experience of Firefox users, accessing eBay’s auction sites in some of the countries, according to this press release .
It is really nice to hear, but I personally think that the best tool for eBay is the JBidWatcher - the open source auction sniper.
"Const-ness" in C++
In C++ you can declare class methods as
const
. The idea is that a
const
method does not change the value of instance’ member variables (and doesn’t call non-const methods on them). The idea is nice, since it allows the compiler to detect a probably undesired changes to data. But as with almost every nice feature of C++, there are times when you need a way to circumvent it, because otherwise it prevents you from doing what you need.