i.justrealized

Well nobody really explained to me why my name is chosen for me. At the later age, I have made the assumption that it probably is a good name and I just have to trust whoever gave me the name, that would be my grandfather. My Chinese name would mean something like ‘good’ and ‘great’, maybe my grandfather can’t decide between the two.

I got particularly interested how my Chinese name would be read in Japanese as a Kanji.

嘉偉

• 嘉 means “applaud”, “esteem” or “praise”. When used in context, it typically means good and is pronounced as ‘ka’.
• 偉 means “admirable”, “conceited” or “excellent”. When used in context, it typically means greatness and is pronounced as ‘i’ or ‘erai’.

(Source: Jisho.org)

Did you know that the scientific name of Western Lowland Gorilla is “Gorilla gorilla gorilla”?

Bet you don’t; I don’t too.

If you’re interested in Gorilla gorilla gorilla, head to Wikipedia.

Here’s the news:

SourceForge, Inc. Changes its Name to Geeknet, Inc.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, Nov. 4, 2009 – SourceForge, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNUX) today announced that it has changed its name to Geeknet, Inc. to more accurately reflect the company’s business and the growing market it serves. The name change also supports the company’s intention to expand the reach of its online advertising services into new categories.

“Renaming the company Geeknet is the latest step in our rapid transformation,” said Scott L. Kauffman, President & CEO of Geeknet. “Our new name is a more accurate articulation of our business. With Geeknet as our calling card on Madison Avenue, we are now able to clearly define the audience we serve and more effectively capture the business opportunity that we are addressing.”

The Geeknet network, which includes SourceForge, Slashdot, ThinkGeek and Ohloh, among others, serves a global community of nearly 40 million geeks each month. These tech-savvy professionals and enthusiasts are affluent, well-educated and command significant spending power. (Source: Geeknet)

SourceForge is a more widely known name as compared to Geeknet. I don’t really see how it would be better to change the company name to Geeknet.

Back in the days of the army – actually that was just 2 years old but I like to make it sound real long ago – we always had different courses to attend, different software systems to use. And they always have these crazy contrived acronyms that would sound nice (some failed). I always imagine a bunch of people brainstorming a name for the product, then subsequently spend 5 times longer to figure how to have the long form fit the acronym. And one would go, “how about COURAGE?” Then a bunch of people start writing down what can COURAGE possibly stand for only to get rejected one by one and move on to try PRIDEST or something. The whole procedure is iterative.

So much time spent on a contrived acronym. And everyone chipped in. I give the silliest acronym as much of my interest lies in finishing my program, my book, my whatever, just anything but the acronym. I can’t be bothered. I think Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Edition Service Pack 1 is fine. And I think calling (EDIT: I fell asleep here.)

Oh I digressed too much. Anyway, CAPTCHA actually stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.

And so… Windows 7 is the name for the new version of Windows, the successor of Windows Vista. The thing is… It actually is Windows 6.1 if you check system properties and this has been confirmed by the Windows Team Blog. I don’t think it’s that great an idea honestly. I prefer the marketing version number to coincide with the development version number.

we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1

Windows 2000 code was 5.0 and then we shipped Windows XP as 5.1, even though it was a major release we didn’t’ want to change code version numbers to maximize application compatibility.

That brings us to Windows Vista, which is 6.0. So we see Windows 7 as our next logical significant release and 7th in the family of Windows releases.

We learned a lot about using 5.1 for XP and how that helped developers with version checking for API compatibility. We also had the lesson reinforced when we applied the version number in the Windows Vista code as Windows 6.0– that changing basic version numbers can cause application compatibility issues.

So we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1 – which is what you will see in the actual version of the product in cmd.exe or computer properties.

There’s been some fodder about whether using 6.1 in the code is an indicator of the relevance of Windows 7. It is not. (Source: Windows Team Blog)

In the case, I think it would be better to just call Windows 6.1 Windows 7. I think it’s clearer for developers who are going to start using the Windows platform.

RFC 1178 is Choosing a Name for Your Computer. RFC stands for Request For Comment.

If you so believe a computer name ought to be perfect (or maybe even standardized within your organization), consider reading the document:

Read RFC 1178.

Status of this Memo

This FYI RFC is a republication of a Communications of the ACM article on guidelines on what to do and what not to do when naming your computer. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify any standard.

Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

In order to easily distinguish between multiple computers, we give them names. Experience has taught us that it is as easy to choose bad names as it is to choose good ones. This essay presents guidelines for deciding what makes a name good or bad.

Keywords: domain name system, naming conventions, computer administration, computer network management

Choosing names of computers are quite important. My netbook used to be called AspireOne and every time I use the school network, there’s someone with the same name. Then there’ll be this annoying pop up box informing me someone is already using that name.

Today, my netbook’s name is “IMTHE1ANDONLY”. Don’t copy cat.

Okay, main news is that Java SE 6 Update 10 is out. I’ve been using Update 10 beta since a month ago. I got it simply to see the Java Swing menu fonts using ClearType and that’s all.

Let’s side track a little to look at how sucky a state Java download page is in.

Sun Microsystem probably has the worst marketing team. Java SE 6 Update 10 is now. Before update 10 was probably update 7. The numbers doesn’t seem to be incremental.

But that’s okay, that’s just Sun’s way of doing thing. The version after Java 1.4.2 is Java 5. Java can’t compute elementary math. Java Standard Edition 6 is also known as Java 1.6.

You go to their Java SE download page and you see:

• Java SE Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 Update 10
• Java SE Development Kit (JDK) 6 Update 10
• JDK 6 Update 10 with Java EE
• JDK 6 Update 10 with NetBeans 6.1
• JRE 6 Update 7 for Intel Itanium®
• JDK 6 Update 7 for Intel Itanium®
• JDK DST Timezone Update Tool – 1.3.9
• Java SE 6 Documentation
• Java SE 6 JDK Source Code
• and other friends like Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy

Usually you just need whatever’s that’s need at the top. New Java developers would no doubt get intimidated by the choices available. They should have separated the developer page from the rest of the Java site. And on the developer page, there really should just be 3 options:

• Java Standard Edition 6
• Java Enterprise Edition 6
• others…

(more…)