Why do Java apps have to suck?

I've never been a big fan of Java.  Slow, cumbsersome, and unweildy, in my opinion.

But it definitely in some cases has it's place.

Take cross platform compatibly with single source (or near single source).  When that works, it works really well.

Take ROES for example.  From a company called Softwork Systems , it is a Remote Online Ordering system for photo labs.

It works really well, for the most part.  But it is incredibly slow and somewhat kludgy.

It is cross platform, however, which is something you couldn't do if you rewrote the application for Windows only or Macintosh only. 

But it would be really nice if there was an alternative that was speedy and Windows specific that worked WITH ROES labs that wasn't slow and kludgy.

Oh well. I use it because it is the best alternative out there.  Before some of you say 'Well, get a faster machine', I have a dual core 2.66 ghz Dual Core machine with 2 gig of RAM running on XP.  That isn't the issue, trust me.  :)

Technorati Tags: ROES,Java

GMail needs folders...

Come on Google. We need folders in GMail.

I believe you have already implemented folders, as you've got 'Trash' and 'Spam' and 'Sent Mail', which APPEAR to be folders.

Couldn't you pretty please implement folders in this same way?
This would make a transition to using GMail on a full time basis so much easier.

Pretty please?

Thank you.

Technorati Tags: GMail,Folders

Accident on Pit Row

Danica Patrick was in an unfortunate incident yesterday on pit row at Indy.  She clipped a crew member when she was coming into the pits.

In the spirit of the Joe Theisman leg breaking incident, ESPN has it up for review from two different angles (at least).

Check it out here

 

From what I've read, Danica is pretty shaken up about it, but the crew member will be OK, which is a good thing.

Technorati Tags: Indianapolis,Racing,Danica Patrick

New Machine timings

One of the things I wanted to do with my new machine was to do some speed tests on various things that I do now to see if there was an improvement.  If there was an improvement, how big or small?

On my old machine, I took a folder of 107 RAW Canon images and converted them from RAW to JPG.  No exposure changes, just straight RAW->JPG using BreezeBrowser Pro.  It took 40 minutes on my laptop.  I then ran them through Noiseware to reduce the ISO noise, which took 30 minutes.  Finally, I generated an HTML gallery from the noise reduced images.  It took five minutes.  For a total of 75 minutes.

On the new machine, I ran the same process.  To convert from RAW to JPG took 13.5 minutes.  To run Noiseware on the images took 12 minutes. To generate an HTML gallery took 2 minutes.  For a total of 27 minutes approximately.

So on the new machine, to perform the same tasks took less than half the time.

Pretty decent speed improvement, wouldn't you say?

Technorati Tags: RAW processing,Speed Tests,New Machine,BreezeBrowser Pro