JavaFX

JavaFX launched officially today. Visit www.javafx.com

JavaFX is an expressive rich client platform for creating and delivering rich Internet experiences across all the screens of your life.

JavaFX offers users unparalleled freedom and flexibility to create rich Internet applications and content quickly and easily across multiple screens, including mobile phones, desktops, televisions, and other consumer devices. JavaFX combines the best capabilities of the Java platform with comprehensive, immersive media functionality into an intuitive and comprehensive, one-stop development environment.

JavaFX release for mobile is coming up on 2009 February.

Cool links on JavaFX:

• About JavaFX
• Samples
• Learn JavaFX
• JavaFX SDK
• JavaFX Videos from Sun

The Big Picture...

Passed SCMAD 1.0

I passed Sun SCMAD 1.0 exam (CX-310-110) today with good marks..

For this I would like to thank my teacher
Mr. Ransika De Silva from IJTS for his utmost
guidance through the whole subject area and
specially practically coding mobile applications
in the class room.

Preparation: I studied only 3 full days for
the exam as I didn't have much time. First 2 days
were studying(cramming) all the 11 specifications and going
through Sathya Srinivasan's SCMAD short notes.
3rd days I did all the mock exams in Whizlabs Simulator.

Exam: Exam was bit hard than in the Whizlabs and
most of the questions were really logical and tricky. But
by going through around 3 times per question, it was
easier to understand and answer.

Result: I passed.

Some helpful links on SCMAD

• http://faq.javaranch.com/java/ScmadLinks
• http://www.ucertify.com/certifications/SUN/scmad.html
• http://www.ucertify.com/article/scmad.html

Google Chrome - New Web Browser

Latest web browser by Google named "Chrome" released today. It's an Open Source project and currently in Beta version.

Features of Chrome..

• Web apps can be launched in their own browser window without address bar and toolbar.
• The browser will include a JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8.
• Google Chrome will use special tabs - similer to firefox but have a separate address bar for each tab.
• Address bar has auto-completion features.
• Default homepage has a kind of “speed dial” feature, similar to the one of Opera or Firefox-FastDial.
• To fight malware and phishing attempts, Chrome is constantly downloading lists of harmful sites.

Screenshot -Browsing a Webpage

• 
  

Screenshot - Speed Dial









Additional Reading...

• http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome
• http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html
• http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-01-n47.html

Google: Lively

What if you want to express yourself in a more funny way, with 3D graphics and real-time avatar interactions?

Google: Lively is the new virtual world created by the world's largest search engine. It's like Second Life by Linden Research, Inc.

Google Lively is promoted as a "3D chat experience" using avatars because it mainly allows users to chat, using a 3D personalized avatar in a room that they created. It also supports for playing YouTube videos in virtual TVs and showing photos in virtual picture frames inside our rooms.

There is a nice video on Lively in youtube.
To learn more about Lively, please visit www.lively.com.

See you soon @ my Lively room....

Reference:

• Google Lively: Comprehensive Guide to Getting Started
• Google Official Blog

PPSP Presentations

Info Coming Soon........

Java SE 7 - Coming on mid 2009

In JavaOne 2008, Danny Coward the Chief Architect (Client Software) demonstrated new developments in Java SE 7 release.

JDK 7 Development Page: https://jdk7.dev.java.net

Some highlighted features.....

+New default UI named Nimbus (It will be available from JDK 6 update 10)..
https://nimbus.dev.java.net/spec/index.html
https://nimbus.dev.java.net

+Performance Increase - Upto 280% Increase comparing to Java SE 5

+More Language support on JVM

+New Java Plugin Architecture for Applets

More features from http://tech.puredanger.com/java7

Modularity

• JSR 294 Superpackages
• JSR 277 Java Module System

Libraries

• JSR 203 NIO2
• JSR 275 Units and Quantities
• JSR 310 Date and Time API
• JSR 107 Cache API
• JSR 166 Concurrency Utilities
• JSR 225 XQuery API for Java
• JSR 284 Resource Consumption Management
• Miscellaneous Library Changes

Swing

• JSR 296 Swing Application Framework
• JSR 295 Beans Binding
• JSR 303 Beans Validation
• Java Media Components

JMX

• JSR 255 JMX 2.0
• JSR 262 Web Services Connector for JMX

Tools

• JSR 260 Javadoc Technology Update

Types and Generics

• Reified Generics
• Type Literals
• JSR 308 Annotations on Java Types
• Type Inference

Reference...

http://blogs.sun.com/dannycoward/resource/PS_TS-6271_SETrackTalk_Final.pdf
http://puredanger.com/techfiles/Java7WhatsNext.ppt

My Netbeans Review Highlighted on Sun - Student Reviews Page

The previous review on Netbeans 6.1 RC1 was highlighted in the main sun.com studen reviews page.
Its a great achievement for me because ultimately its the main sun site and my photo is on it.
:D :D :D

Link : http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/reviews/studentzone/index.jsp

Below is a screen capture of it (incase if its removed from the site)













PS: Thanks alot sun for highlighting my work!

NetBeans IDE 6.1 Release Candidate 1 Now Availabl

NetBeans.org has announced the availability of the NetBeans IDE 6.1 Release Candidate. Learn more about the 6.1 release or Download it now. The final NetBeans IDE 6.1 release is scheduled for end of April.

So what’s new in 6.1?

Spring Framework support, new MySQL support in NetBeans Database Explorer, huge performance enhancements (its has around 40% faster startup), JSF CRUD generator, enhanced JavaBeans support, new JavaScript features, RESTful Web Service Support, enhanced Ruby/JRuby support and much more. For more info.

My views

First the 40% faster startup is really great because in 6.0 it took a lot of time to startup in my notebook. It was a major issue in NetBeans 6.0 but now it’s fixed thanks to the great NetBeans developers. The memory consumption is also a bit low. That’s also a performance hit.

It also has bundled Spring Framework 2.5 library which makes my work easier. JSF CRUD Generator is also another good addition to the new version.

Code completion has also improved a lot in the newer version.

Tutorials on NetBeans 6.1

• NetBeans Platform 6.1, Quick Start Tutorial
• Creating a Rails 2.0 Weblog in 10 Minutes
• Sharable Libraries feature in NetBeans 6.1
• NetBeans 6.1 New and NoteWorthy

At last I have to say is that it’s the best Java IDE I’ve ever used and it rocks now.

So my friends don’t wait, Download and try it now.

SDM Prsentation

After 3 months of hard work we had the presentations for SDM(Software Development Methods). We built a standalone and a mobile application for a cricket club to manage its financial and HR aspects.

• Photos of the Presentation
  

RMS in Sri Lanka

It’s one of the biggest free software event that has been held in Sri Lanka. Richard M. Stallman aka RMS - The founder of the FSF (free software foundation), GNU project & the GPL license and Emacs is now in Sri Lanka.

Today we had a great speech on "Free Software in Ethics and in Practice" by him in SLIIT Auditorium, Malabe. Visiting him is an unforgettable experience in my life.

In that event i also got a chance to have a look at on the XO Laptop which is a light weight laptop and run LINUX on it.

• Pictures of the event