Book author, Ajaxian-at-Large, and Consultant
Ben Galbraith is a frequent technical speaker, occasional consultant, and author of several Java-related books. He is a co-founder of Ajaxian.com, an experienced CTO and Java Architect, and is presently a consultant specializing in Java Swing and Ajax development. Ben wrote his first computer program when he was six years old, started his first business at ten, and entered the IT workforce just after turning twelve. For the past few years, he’s been professionally coding in Java. Ben has delivered hundreds of technical presentations world-wide at venues including JavaOne, The Ajax Experience, JavaPolis, and the No Fluff Just Stuff Java Symposium series; he was the top-rated speaker at JavaOne 2006.Presentations by Ben Galbraith
Creating Polished Swing Applications
Too often, Swing applications are slow, ugly, and hard-to-maintain. It turns out that it doesn't have to be this way. Swing can be used to create highly-responsive, beautiful applications that are very maintainable. If this isn't consistent with your own experience, don't feel bad; its not very obvious how to make Swing sing.Ajaxian JavaScript Frameworks
In the "Introduction to Ajax" session, we discuss what Ajax is, how it works, and how others are using it.This session goes deeper into Ajax by reviewing the existing JavaScript frameworks that aim to make it easier.
Advanced Swing: Architecture and Frameworks
Are you spending more time plumbing your Swing applications than solving business problems? Has your Swing application grown out of control? This session is for you.Introduction to Ajax
Ajax -- called DHTML just a few months ago -- has revolutionized (or "radically iterated", if you like) web application development in the short few months since the term was coined.What is it all about? Why are we excited about a set of capabilites that have been sitting in our browser for years? What can you do with it? And, how can you do it?
Making the Most of XML
For many of us, XML has become a ubiquitous presence in application development, whether parsing, validating, or manipulating it. For many of us, allthat XML is coupled with pain, in the form of tedious APIs (like, say, the W3C DOM API) and confusing technologies (oh, I don't know, W3C XML
Schema?).
Eight Tips for Swing Development
Java's Swing GUI toolkit is one of the most powerful and flexible frameworks available for creating professional, high-quality desktop applications. Along with its considerable abilities, however, comes considerable complexity. Swing does not have a reputation for ease of use (despite being much easier than many of its competitors--but that's another story). If you could combine the Swings power with the productivity of easier, more restrictive tools, such as Microsoft's Visual Basic - you'd have an incredible tool for application development.Married... with children
Ben Galbraith's personal and technical blog
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
As I promised earlier, I’m back to review the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.
The 4000 is the latest in Microsoft’s line of ergonomic keyboards targeted at computer professionals which includes the formerly quite popular Microsoft Natural Elite and Microsoft Natural Pro keyboards, the latter having been my favorite keyboard for a very long time.
Since the Natural Pro has been discontinued for many years, I’ve been searching for worthy successor from Microsoft (as I’m getting tired of buying them on eBay whenever I need a new one). Did I find it in the 4000? Nope.
The 4000 is generally well-designed, sporting essentially the same width as the Natural Pro and correcting a few of its flaws (such as having a wider spacing between the left- and right-hand key groups and replacing the Natural Pro’s “ridged” keys with flat versions, as shown in the image below).
However, the 4000 fails in three key aspects:
- Key resistance. Like the Wireless Laser Desktop 6000 I reviewed last time, the 4000 has a very unsatisfying “mushy” response to a key press. This results in occasional lost keystrokes and generally requires more effort to type than the pro. Bleah.
- No “Next / Previous Track” buttons. I use these all the time on the Natural Pro.
- No USB ports. The Natural Pro has a built-in two port USB 1.1 hub, and I really miss not having this in other keyboards. A built-in two port USB 2.0 hub would have been fantastic.
If not for the key resistance problem, I could probably live with this keyboard and just re-assign one of its five user-programmable keys (in fact, all the keys are user-programmable). But, with all its flaws together, I’ll have to stick with the Natural Pro for another year.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Just in time for the holidays, our old JVC miniDV camcorder broke. We used it just a handful of times in the years since we purchased it, but we’re convinced that now we’re finally ready to start recording all those home movies that friends and relatives love to watch.
As we pondered a replacement, I noticed that Amazon is selling Sony’s new HDR-UX1 HD camcorder for an amazing 44% off: $850, a steep discount off the $1,500 retail price.
Wow. I did some research and found that this camera uses the brand-new AVCHD file format, currently unsupported by nearly every application on every platform. Only a couple of Windows programs — Sony’s viewer and PowerDVD 7 — can even play it back. However, the camera doubles as an SD camcorder — but recording in an MPEG2 format that’s also not compatible with iMovie. And, iMovie and other Mac programs can’t use the camcorder for video input like they can with miniDV. Hmm…
We took the leap and bought it. The quality of the HD video recorded by this device is astounding. I’m not a videophile, but it seems to rival equipment in the $3,000 range. However, using the HD video footage on the Mac is painful. You currently have to down-size it to SD sizes through a multi-step process (down-convert to MPEG2 on the PC using Sony’s tools, convert to DV format using the free MPEG Streamclip on the Mac, import into iMovie manually), but we’ve found that the quality of the final product in iMovie is just as good as any other DV / SD device (some find Sony’s downsizing algorithm too crude for their tastes). Of course, you can skip HD entirely and just record in SD with the device, but you still have to convert the output files using MPEG Streamclip for iMovie to use them (and Final Cut, too).
Since AVCHD is just H.264 in a different format than Quicktime’s H.264 movies, and given its use by both Sony and Panasonic, I’m hoping support for AVCHD by Apple is just around the corner. Regardless, I’m sure as AVCHD devices gain more traction in the marketplace, an easy workflow that converts this stuff to HDV footage for use with iMovie (as opposed to down-converting it to SD res) is around the corner. In fact, some folks report already doing it by a combination of custom C code and command-line video file format converters.
So the pain of the current editing process notwithstanding, we’re very happy with the HDR-UX1 and have given it quite a workout over the holiday season. It’s twin, the SD1, has a built-in hard-drive, but it goes for something like $1,400 on Amazon.
Thursday, December 7, 2006
The machine on which I installed Vista has an SATA RAID 1 array managed by my Intel motherboard’s on-board SATA controller. Unfortunately, the motherboard (a D865PERL) is based on the 865PE chipset, which uses the 82801ER (ICH5R) I/O controller hub for the RAID array, and the ICH5R’s RAID drivers don’t officially support Vista (the next-gen ICH6R does have RAID drivers for Vista).
Fortunately, the last ICH5R-compatible version of Intel’s RAID driver (Intel Matrix Storage Manager 5.5) does work with Vista. Or at least, it works for me. I grabbed the “Floppy Configuration Utility - Intel Matrix Storage Manager” download from Intel’s site, imaged a 3.5″ disk, inserted it during the Vista install, and it’s worked like a champ.
I’m blogging this for posterity as I didn’t find a lot of information when I Googled about this stuff.
Thursday, December 7, 2006
I recently installed Vista Enterprise RTM on a system I built a few years back. Vista failed to recognize my Linksys PCI Wireless card and my motherboard’s AC-97 audio chipset, but when I ran Windows Update it automatically downloaded the drivers, installed them, and rebooted.
Oh wait. It didn’t reboot. The hardware… just started working. Sixteen years of rebooting after every single update, trivial or otherwise, have finally come to an end. Yay!
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
When I first started speaking to audiences on the NFJS tour a few years back, I presented on RELAX NG — the world’s only comprehensive and sane XML schema language. At the time, I spoke to audiences that nearly universally had never heard of it and some subset of whom either quietly or rather vocally considered me stupid, crazed, or simply naive for considering it a viable option.
I admit, back at the height of XML Schema’s popularity, I was perhaps tilting a bit at the windmills. Don Box told me in a group setting essentially, “If I could wave a magic wand and make us all use RELAX NG, I would, but XML Schema won. Get over it.”
And now, it appears the tide is turning. I couldn’t be happier. Though I want back all the wasted time and effort XML Schema foisted upon us.
(My old RELAX NG slidedeck is here; I think this dates back to 2004).
