28 Oct 2008

Stay up-to-date with Filehippo

With new releases of applications coming out almost everyday, filehippo helps you keep your applications up-to-date.

Start by downloading and installing the Filehippo update checker tool. It scans through your installed softwares and comes up with a list of updates. Here's a screen shot of the tool scanning


and here's the final result.


All you need to do is download and install the latest version.

See also: Using Filehippo to keep portable applications up-to-date

16 Oct 2008

Article: High performance Ajax using NIO

Here's a niche Java article on the subject of utilizing NIO (Java's recent Non-Blocking IO) to improve the performance of your Ajax request-response cycle over Apache Tomcat 6.

In case you dont have a background on NIO, here are a few articles I would recommend going through before reading the one above, all from IBM developerworks. Needless to say, all of these assume some understanding of the Java Programming Language:
  1. Level Intro: Getting started with the new IO (N/IO)
  2. Level Intermediate: Merlin brings Non-blocking IO to the Java Platform
  3. Level Intermediate: The Servlet API and NIO: Together at last
  4. Level Intermediate: High Performance Ajax with Tomcat Advanced IO
Tip: Some of the above articles require a free registration with IBM. If you'd rather just get down straight to reading the article, try bugmenot.

See also
  1. Advanced IO and Apache Tomcat 6.0
  2. My other Java-related posts

8 Oct 2008

Speaking UNIX

This one is a back-to-the-basics for UNIX/Linux/*nix lovers. The command-line is probably one of UNIX's most popular user-facing feature. So much so that this love has grown over to the windows and Mac OS users as well. Even todays most sophisticated browsers like Firefox have command-line support in the form of extensions like Ubiquity and Vimperator.

Anyway, here's a nice article about the various characters used in the UNIX command line, for example, |$#@ and so on. It covers each character with a nice example.

See also: UNIX Interview Questions and my other UNIX/Linux related articles.