GOV IT

Strategic IT for Government

January 7, 2004

Turn USB devices into networked devices. Keyspan is developing a USB-server, so that you can attach a USB device to a network and share it among Macs and PCs:

"Share a USB printer or scanner ..., turn a USB hard drive into a simple file server, make USB devices available via Wifi", etc. The router-sized server sports 4 12Mbps USB ports with full 500mA of power per, 10/100 RJ45 network port, and static, DHCP, and Rendezvous IP.

Link [Boing Boing Blog]
5:31:00 PM

Linux platform being developed for Asia. Japan's Miracle Linux Corp. and China's Red Flag Software Co. Ltd. are jointly developing a Linux server platform for corporate and government users in the Asian market. [InfoWorld: Top News]
5:13:17 PM

Dynamic languages and enterprise VMs.

We hoped 2003 would bring a rapprochement between the dominant enterprise VMs, Java and .Net, and the dynamic-language VMs that are still in many ways well-kept secrets. That mostly didn't happen. At the JavaOne 2003 technical keynote in June there was a nod in the direction of JSR (Java Specification Request) 223, which would enable languages such as PHP to be used in the Java Web tier. But the stewards of the enterprise VMs still aren't pushing to integrate them with the popular and productive dynamic-language VMs.

Jython, the Java/Python hybrid, has a growing cult following, but isn't on Sun's radar screen. Microsoft has yet to deliver on its early promises to make dynamic languages first-class citizens of the CLR. Here's hoping that the many VMs that flourished in 2003 will work better together in 2004. [Full story at InfoWorld.com (part of 2004 Technology of the Year)]

The ever-quotable Sean McGrath has said, of Jython:

Jython, lest you do not know of it, is the most compelling weapon the Java platform has for its survival into the 21st century. [Sean McGrath]

Hyperbole? Maybe not. This weekend, I was working with the Java API to Sleepycat's Berkeley DB XML, and it felt like one of those bad dreams in which you're slogging through molasses toward an ever-receding goal. I switched to Jython and quickly got the job done. And it was the same job (indexing and searching content) using the same engine (Berkeley DB XML). ... [Jon's Radio]
3:53:14 PM