KDE 4.2 released

January 27, 2009.
The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of “The Answer”, (a.k.a KDE 4.2.0), readying the Free Desktop for end users. KDE 4.2 builds on the technology introduced with KDE 4.0 in January 2008. After the release of KDE 4.1, which was aimed at casual users, the KDE Community is now confident we have a compelling offering for the majority of end users.

There is a great detailed and lengthy introduction of the new features of the new release of KDE 4. It also contains a lot of beautiful screenshots.

KDE 4.2 screenshot

Windows 7 Review

Windows 7 Review

Quelle: xkcd.com

Howto convert HTML into plaintext

JEditorPane pane = new JEditorPane("text/html", html);
String plainText = pane.getDocument().getText(0, pane.getDocument().getLength());

Yes, you can use the Swing JEditorPane to convert HTML into plaintext. Weird but true.

Source: DerKoe

Sonar – open source project management tool

If you are managing a big java project and you use maven changes are high that you are running test coverage and code quality reports.
Analyzing this multitude of reports can be quite exhausting. At work we use Sonar, which uses data from a lot of maven reports (code coverage, pmd, …) and creates an overview on your project. AND it can be setup in about 20 minutes.

SONAR is a code quality management platform, dedicated to continuously analyze and measure technical quality, from the projects portfolio to the class method.

You can read here about the features of it. It even has a time machine to let you investigate the changes of your project over time.

This is what a feminist looks like

Source: Maedchenmannschaft.net

What would Jesus buy?

The Church of Stop Shopping is an activist performance group based in New York City, led by Reverend Billy, the stage name of Bill Talen. Using the form of a revival meeting, on sidewalks and in chain stores, Reverend Billy and his gospel choir exhort consumers to abandon the products of large corporations and mass media; the group also preaches a broader message of economic justice, environmental protection, and anti-militarism, protesting sweatshops and the Iraq War. Though it continues its street theatre activities, the Church has also appeared on stage and has toured internationally. [wikipedia]

You can find an interview with Reverend Billy on the current epsiode of It’s the End of the World as we know it – and i feel fine.

A year of edit

An animation showing edits to the OpenStreetMap.org project during 2008. OpenStreetMap is a wiki-style map of the world and this animation displays a white flash each time a way is entered or updated. Some edits are a result of a physical local survey by a contributor with a GPS unit and taking notes, other edits are done remotely using aerial photography or out-of-copyright maps, and some are bulk imports of official data.

Gay Scientists Isolate Christian Gene

Short video about the history of the internet

“History of the internet” is an animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to file-sharing, from arpanet to internet.
The history is told with help of the PICOL icons, which are also a part of my diploma. The icons are soon available for free on picol.org

Source: Netzpolitik.org