Java to Scala...

Interesting, and cool... :-)

    boolean nameHasUpperCase = false; // This is Java
    for (int i = 0; i < name.length(); ++i) { 
         if (Character.isUpperCase(name.charAt(i))) { 
             nameHasUpperCase = true; 
             break; 
         } 
    }

in Java to

    boolean nameHasUpperCase = !name.toLowerCase().equals(name);

in Java to

    val nameHasUpperCase = name.exists(_.isUpperCase) 

in Scala.

From the article "How Scala Changed My Programming Style" by Bill Venners.

Stock market...

Stock market experts are one too many, on TV, here in blogosphere, in print media... I also have doled out unsolicited advice on the market conditions to people who are generally too gullible to take me seriously.

If the BSE index is up, and Dow Jones is down, the economies are not linked, if both head south or go up, markets are linked. Interesting. It is linked, then it is not linked, linked not linked, not linked linked, linked not linked. Repeat fast enough.

The current theme is whether the market has bottomed out or not... One day it has, the next oh, it ain't... it has, it ain't, it has, it ain't...

Bloody irritating... even blogging about it.

Intel powered... Harpic...

Intel powered Harpic, Intel powered MDH Masala... WTF!!

Of late, the "Intel powered" tag line in television ads about laptops with an Intel processor inside comes before the ads themselves. So if an ad for the Harpic or MDH Masala which does not have a tag line is followed by a Compaq or HP laptop ad you will get to see this nice blending effect.

Intel powered Harpic... Cool... I guess it will ensure that Harpic, and MDH have WiMAX capability out of the box pretty soon.

Interesting!

Question of type and character...

I have a soft corner for cursive fonts. But of the non-cursive types, I am not too sure what I like more, serifs or sans-serifs. :-(

In short, I like most types of types. :-)

But, type rendering on Linux still pisses me off. When will it become at least tolerably good? Being an armchair critic is much easier than trying to implement a good font interpreter all by myself, anyway. :-)

Small is beautiful...

May be.

But I do prefer my laptop to be at least 14.1". Watching videos on PDAs and mobile phones is not my cup of tea.

I wonder where all these convergence and miniaturization is taking us. Some people are buying into it (literally), and some people are making a bunch of money.

More Norton WTF...

Uninstalled and re-installed Norton Internet Security. Now SystemWorks keeps flashing that no anti-virus is installed. If it can't even detect an installation of a product from the same vendor correctly, how on earth would it protect me from virus, and other more exotic stuff... I mean, WTF.

Selective un-installation does noes even work.

Money gone down the drain... :-(

A sense of security...

Often wonder how effective the anti-virus, anti-phishing, anti-malware tools really are. It is nothing short of blind faith that I have in the particular (Norton) products that I have.

Might as well switch completely to a Linux only environment. Too reluctant to get out, as things mostly "just works" on Windows XP, and more importantly about one tenth of the cost of the laptop was for the OEM version of Windows XP.

Have both Norton Internet Security 2009, and Norton Systemworks installed. I was able to register one of the products, while the other just refused to do so citing lack of connection to the internet.

Another quirk. If the Windows firewall is disabled, following the advice from one of the products, the other complains rather loudly about it, and will flash till both the firewalls are enabled, and slowing down my rather old laptop. A (false) sense of security, twice over. Wonderful integration, indeed.

The online account needed for the product registration allows only letters and numerals in the password. That really is something to be appreciated, coming from a company peddling computer security tools.