Live Mesh – A quick test drive
I recently decided to take myself on a tour of Microsoft websites, checking what they’re up to. Since I’ve mostly been using anything Google has released and not been paying any attention to Microsoft I suspected that I could be missing out on something, and boy was I missing out.
I stumbled upon the Live Mesh when surfing around their sites (quite difficult to find stuff there I might add) and decided to give it a try, but first a little introduction on what it is.
Live Mesh is a way to keep your files synchronized across multiple devices. You can create a folder and add it to the Live Mesh and subscribe to it on other devices (another pc, mac or cell phone) and changes made to the folder will automatically be reflected on the other devices. Also, there is a Live Desktop where you can access your files from some other computer via the web browser. Neat. The software can do other things as well, as allowing access to another computers desktop for example, but I’ve only used the file sharing feature.
I have to say, that after using the Live Mesh for my files now for a few weeks, I am really getting addicted to having it. I have my private documents (like CV) in it and lots of programming libraries and links. Also, I have my source code in there so I can modify any of my applications on all my computers (without being on the same network) and I haven’t experienced any real problems yet despite quite heavy use.
Note however that the Live Mesh is still in beta and might be rough around the edges (even though I haven’t noticed any problems). Also note that there is no encryption (except for when transferring the files over the network). Your files will be stored as-is on Microsoft servers somewhere, so if that bothers you, you will have to encrypt the files yourself before they go into the Mesh. Oh, and it’s a tad bit slow on my trusty little Acer Aspire One 751 Netbook, but that goes for most things….
Anyway, I’m a very satisfied user of the Live Mesh so I just wanted to share it. More information can be found at the Live Mesh Blog.
Enjoy 
Swing vs SWT, an opinion
Having tried both SWT and Swing in small Java applications (Swing in devDB and SWT in Photo Sort) I just have to write down some simple thoughts on the two.
Firstly, when it comes to designing GUI:s, using NetBeans for the GUI design was just like working with any other of the classic GUI designers (Delphi, InterfaceBuilder and Visual Studio for example). I really like using anchors (and generally dislike using layout managers) and that way of designing GUI:s is available in NetBeans/Swing. For SWT, there are only layout managers and no anchors. SWT is therefore in my opinion a bit more tedious when it comes to designing the GUI (yes, I used Visual editor for Eclipse), but by no means difficult.. Just a little bit different.
When it comes to look and feel, there is no competition. SWT always is native looking whereas Swing almost never is. Swing is close to looking native (in most cases close enough so most users won’t notice the difference) but SWT is the real deal.
Looks and design interfaces aside, what is most important with all these user interface libraries is the API and how they are to use (from the programmers perspective). There I’ve tried my fair share of these GUI-libraries and my absolute favorite is VCL (Delphi/Lazarus). When comparing both Swing and SWT to VCL, Swing appears do be quite over-done. Swing is so flexible that it becomes difficult to use. I guess that if your application is designed using MVC pattern, Swing is nice, but at least I don’t design my application like that. My applications tend to grow from a simple hack to finished applications, and there SWT shines. It is very straight forward to use, and similar to VCL (and Windows Forms for that matter), never forcing you to write classes that implement some interface or another just to update a widget. You can just update the widget by calling it’s methods! Simple enough
So, after having tried these two I have no problem deciding on what Java GUI library to use in the future. SWT is so much simpler to use, so I’ll stick to that (and live with the minor issues of having to use different jar:s on different platforms).
Nilemada Photo Sort Released
A simple application to sort photos into directories based on exif date.
For more info, go to the Photo Sort page
Vista. A positive surprise!
The title says it all. I have been very reluctant to even try out Vista in the past, based on both general anti-microsoft thinking and the media bashing the OS as completely useless. So imagine my surprise when I was finally forced to use it at work. It just worked! I have had no real problems with it at all, and I would consider myself to be quite a demanding user.
Maybe SP1 fixed all the problems that apparently were there? Anyway, I like it and am seriously thinking about going for Windows 7 when it becomes available..
Filmtagger 1.7 ready
Filmtagger 1.7 is ready and available for Windows and Mac.Some bugs have been removed, unicode support added and backing up the images is now optional.Get it at the Filmtagger page.
Note that the Mac version has undergone minimal testing (don’t have a mac) and that there is no Linux version of 1.7 since there seems to be quite low interrest that version.
Enjoy!
Filmtagger 1.6 for Mac and Linux released
Get it at the Filmtagger page.
Filmtagger 1.6 for windows released
Filmtagger 1.6 is ready and available. A simple editor has been added to allow changing the configuration without entering a text editor and some minor bugs have been squashed as well.
Mac and Linux versions may become available later if there is any demand for them (the linux and mac versions of the software have had very few downloads compared to the effort needed to make them).
Get it at the Filmtagger page.
Filmtagger 1.5 released
Get it mac or windows at the Filmtagger page.
Filmtagger 1.5 close to release
This is just a teaser. Filmtagger 1.5 is done and being tested/documented right now.
Expected release date is sometimes around xmas.
Here are the changes compared to 1.4
* Separate date fields for Original date and Scanned date
* ModifyDate Exif tag is now left untouched when date is changed
* Lens information is also added to the Lens Exif tag
* Artist field added
* Developer field added
* Additional keywords allowed after the ‘=’ in settings.ini for Film and
Developer
* Feedback exiftool warnings/errors
* Optionally add camera in keywords
* Optionally add lens in keywords
* Focal lenght field added
* Show exiftool args no longer displays the filenames (could get to big for
the screen)
* settings.ini now has comments for easier editing
Filmtagger 1.4 for mac now also for PowerPC macs
The 1.4 version for mac is now an universal binary and should work on both intel and ppc macs.
Check out the Filmtagger page for more information
