Leonid Shirmanov

Developer's T-Shirts

Don't try to learn by heart your favourite IDE shortcuts, just order the appropriate t-shirt. Very nice...

News from Borland

Borland plans separate company for IDE and database products and acquires software quality company Seque Software. Read David Intersimone's blog post and Borland's press release.

What the popularity means

As far as remember the one-million dollar british student said the smart thing "the more people talked about it, the more money I made". Let's compare what things people talk about more often in IT world.

RUP and Agile
Oracle database and SQL Server database
.NET and Java

Try the others using Google Fight.

What way does Google want ''living'' on the desktop?

Google has released the first beta version of Google Pack, a free collection of essential software. This pack included Google Earth, Picasa, Google Screensaver, Google Desktop, Google Toolbar for IE, Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar, Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition, Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Pro, Adobe Reader 7, Google Talk, RealPlayer, Trillian and GalleryPlayer. They promise that one of the next versions will include OpenOffice.org product.

Is it just a curious software package or the first vision of an unified and customizable download/update center?

Sun and Oracle try to make future

Sys-Con's Java Developer's Journal has published an article about meeting of two CEOs, McNealy and Ellison. Oracle isn't trying to buy Sun, they're going to collaborate, interoperate and integrate. "We're basically going to give Oracle database for free in an attempt to make Sun the number one platform for Oracle" Larry Ellison said. Seems like Oracle is going to make all possible profits from Oracle Express project.

Sys-Con Media announces 2005 Year Reader's Choice Awards

There is nothing special, many categories in each direction, winners and runners-up. But could you realize that Microsoft Visual Source Safe is a winner in the Best .NET Source Control and Team Facilitation category? There are bit fanny lists of nominees.

2005 SOA Web Services Journal Reader's Choice Awards
2005 Java Developer's Journal Reader's Choice Awards
2005 Linux World Magazine Journal Reader's Choice Awards
2005 .NET Developer's Journal Reader's Choice Awards
2005 MX Developer's Journal Reader's Choice Awards
2005 ColdFusion Developer's Journal Reader's Choice Awards

Nominations for AJAX Technology Reader's Choice Awards are still open till February 28, 2006. You have the chance to vote for the best in your opinion AJAX toolset and site.

Eclipse Callisto project announced

Recently Eclipse community has announced new project called Callisto. Its goal is to release ten Eclipse projects in one bundle. It will consist of Eclipse Java IDE, C++ IDE (CDT), Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT), Data Tools Platform (DTP), EMF Project, Graphical Editor Framework, Graphical Modeling Framework, Test and Performance Tools Platform (TPTP),Web Tools Platform (WTP) and VE Visual Editor. In my opinion Eclipse is growing, step by step, but with confidence, into a very powerful platform. Perhaps in the near future we will be able to see only Visual Studio or Eclipse on the screens of all IT persons - developers, managers, analysts, architects etc.

Great company and product names are the power force

Great company and product names are the power force which can help you in the future and thus must been choosen rightly. If you ever thought of them this guide from the naming and branding agency Igor can be helpful. It regularly updated and contains several good examples.

The power of advertising

How to become the one-million dollar student? The student from UK made his first million dollar in five months. Can you guess how? His name is Alex Tew, he's from Cricklade, Wiltshire and, by his words, he has thought about how to get such money twenty minutes. The main idea was "As I made money, more people talked about it and the more people talked about it, the more money I made". He just sold small units of one web page as advertising space for one dollar per pixel. Read more on BBC UK and Alex's blog.

What all of them had paid for - http://milliondollarhomepage.com/

Creator of Python now works for Google

Have you heard that Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python, now works for Google? I havn't. I think that it is a good and long time deal. In his acticle on Artima.com he said that Python is widely used in Google and it is at 3rd place there after C++ and Java.Why Google still get rid of .NET?

Top 100 Global Brands of 2005 Year Scoreboard

The Business Week magazine has published the list of the top 100 global brands of 2005 year. Notice that Google is a newcomer to this list at 38th position. The top 5 are the same since 2001 year, Coca-Cola heads this list, Microsoft lost 2% of its value since 2004 year but still is at 2nd position. It was the best year for eBay Inc, its value has increased to 21%. Now Microsoft has got 59,941 $Mil in value by comparing with Google's 8,461.

To be honest I've never knew that KFC and Pizza Hut are two brands of one company...

New Bob Walsh's book Micro-ISV: from Vision to Reality

Joel Spolsky wrote a foreword to the new book by Bob Walsh - "Micro-ISV: from Vision to Reality". He made some interesting notes to this book. Let's check them out.

''Make hiring a top priority'' is the golden rule of Steve Ballmer

Do you know that "Make hiring is a top priority" is the golden rule of Steve Balmer? Andy Grove in this way said that "Only the paranoid survive". Black Ross, co-creator of FireFox considered that "The next big thing is whatever makes the last big thing usable". If you want to know the golden rules of 49 business' leaders including Scott McNealy, D.Parsons and others, read this article in Business 2.0 magazine.

Google's advertising

Google grows and is still looking for new people. Nice advertising.

A cost of the pure value type

Very nice thing I have recently figured out. If you don't already know this you will laugh. What value of i variable will equal if you compile this code in C#?

int i = 1;
i += i++ + ++i;

But what will change if you compile that in Java and C++?