It's been a hectic few days. I plan to backdate Saturday and Sunday entries when I get time.

I'm going to be up at least another hour as the Christmas cake wasn't put into bake until 9pm and it takes at least four hours to cook. Smells nice right now though!

Update: 2am - time for bed. Took the cake out 20 minutes ago. Looks and smells great.

XML Spy - the first true Integrated Development Environment for XML

XML Spy is the first true Integrated Development Environment for the eXtensible Markup Language that includes all major aspects of XML in one powerful and easy-to-use product:

Their words not mine but looks impressive nevertheless. Interestingly, the XML Spy website is created from XML files:

All the pages you see here are created from XML files conforming to our own DTD, which gives us intelligent editing capabilities and validation while creating the site content. These XML files are then transformed into XHTML by XML Spy using the XSL Transformation batch processing command in the project view.

Shame it's Windows-only.

Perhaps someone can explain to me how in the XML SPY - features - lite: Premium/Lite Comparison a comparison is being made when:

This page details all the differences between the two versions of XML Spy. All the features listed on this page are only available in the Premium version of our product.

The Departmental Christmas party starts at 3:30pm GMT today. Apparently, DJ Steve Neely will be setting the mood with his range of mp3's piped using our new wireless LAN [so that's the real reason it was set up then ;-)]. Also available from 2pm will be our very own "Christmas-cam". Hedonistic party pictures updated by the minute.

Click on http://www.cs.strath.ac.uk/~steve/party2000 from 2pm to check up on the goings-on.

Marc Roper has planned a magic show with the sole remaining microwave!

Compiling Java

While most software developers have been praising the advantages of Java programming, embedded developers have been sitting idly by, waiting for a Java implementation that would complement their non-standard environments. The wait may soon be over.Java batch compilers and toolsets are starting to emerge, and may make using Java in your next project a more realistic option.

Mike's Message 01/12/00

Dear friends,

Please take a few moments and read this excellent piece on the Supreme Court's decision that made Bush "president." Pass it around to all your friends. It's the best thing I've seen.

Yours,

Michael Moore

I tried out an Orinoco PC Card on my PowerBook today. The card provides high-speed wireless networking at 11 Mbit/s. It worked like a charm. I'd downloaded and installed the Mac driver last night and after a couple of minutes configuring a new TCP/IP connection to use the new card this morning, I was up and running untethered. Cool!

Why they'd want to name a wireless LAN card after one of the Wombles is a mystery to me ;-)