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Malcolm Davis

Malcolm G. Davis has been developing commercial software
since 1992. He participates in the local software community
as a regular speaker at JUG and IEEE computing. When he is
not preaching the virtues of Java, he spends his time
playing with his kids.

 

Articles

Flexible Swing Reporting Using JIDE Aggregate and Pivot Tables
Learn about a Swing report alternative that provides 90% of the solution with 10% of the effort.

Weblogs

Java wakeup call from support. Urgent deployJava.js issue

I awoke to my mobile ringing.  Our support staff was having issues. (The beauty of the web is everybody around the world can use your application, the ugly part of the web is everybody is...

Microsoft’s Gates to Testify in Novell Case

www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Microsofts-Gates-to-Testify-in-Novell-Case-...

What is your expectation of Java 7 release?

Neil McAllister makes it seems to like Java 7 is a death trap.

Sexappeal, the space shuttle, and end of an era

Java Applet background issue

Have you upgraded your Java 1.6_21 to Java 1.6_21?




...

What version of Java are you running?

There can be issues promoting Java applications over the Internet. There are various versions of Windows and Windows Server that run pre-6 Java, or even Microsoft Java Virtual Machine.

...

Response to Bruce Eckel’s Google Chrome Changes the Game

Bruce's blog:
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=266136

How many bad things can I read in a day?

1. Microsoft Claims Victory In Open XML Standardization Battle.

Is...

Visual Studio Shell: Microsoft’s version of NetBeans & Eclipse


Microsoft Plans Visual Studio Shell

Microsoft is finally releasing their version of a NetBeans...

Ditching the Blackberry?

Ditching the Blackberry?

Among other technology use directions, Allan E. Alter recommends ditching the...

Learning programming: Alice

I skipped the last day of JavaOne to make it back for the first ever Alice Film Festival.

Critical Flaws Found in Java Development Kit

Users running Java Development Kit are encouraged to upgrade systems to protect from two remotely exploitable flaws.

One flaw is an integer overflow error in the image parser occurs when...

JavaOne Blog 7: Is code review old school?

There are numerous sessions on automatic bug detection that stretches to all types of development practices.

The concept of increasing quality to lower cost has been around for decades...

JavaOne Blog 6: Being Productive in Swing

Being Productive in Swing is a continuation of last year's presentation from
(I applied some of the concepts from his last year's session with good results.)

Ben Galbraith has put...

JavaOne Blog 5: Good, Bad and Ugly of UI design?

Fascinating, entertaining, and humorous, but the session missed the point.

There is no question that developers don't understand GUI design. Alan Cooper has made this point over and over...

JavaOne Blog 4: JSR 296 Swing Application Framework, nice but lacking.

The JSR claims to be a canonical form a Swing application, but I don't think the JSR team has used many applications.

Let's start with the basics, where has this JSR been hiding out?...

JavaOne Blog 3: Not just free tools, but free services.

Many years, (back in software stone age), it took a great deal of resources for developers to create, sell, license and promote software.

Now, developers can get the tools to develop and...

JavaOne Blog 2: Where are the Sun machines?

During the general session, the attendee sitting next to me commented
"He presenting on a Mac?".

On the stage, in plan view, were 2 MacBookPro's.

I have not seen the typical...

JavaOne Blog 1: JavaOne, Again

It never fails, from the San Francisco flight to hotel shuttle, I meet people attending the conference. Many have attended before, many are new.

When I first attended JavaOne 5 years...

Visual Studio, duh.

Several years ago, I spent a summer doing contract work with Microsoft Visual Studio 2003. I was amazed at the low quality of Visual Studio. A major pain to install and configure, no refactoring...

Is Java 6 ready?

As soon as Java 6 was available, I downloaded, installed, and took it for a spin. I was happy, and ready to blog about all the cool new features in Swing, or so I thought.

When I went to...

Yahoo! Hack days

Yahoo! conducts internal 'Hack' days, where anyone can throw together
a demo/product, then present it. Occasionally an idea even ends up in
production.

Now is your chance to...

Redmond's One Big Vista Mistake?

Several years ago, Apple's Tiger team was under pressure to ship an operating system that would kill Longhorn. Many of the promised features for Longhorn shipped on the Mac's new Tiger OS.

...
The Java DB, or better yet, the JRE DB, is just a RFP item.

Sales and marketing:

Companies routinely add functionality to a product that will never be used by a client. The reason for the un-used features is to meet an entry on a Request...

Scale Up vs. Scale Out

For years I've had the discussion with developers, database administrators, and system admins on big-box vs. the multi-box solutions. The question is "How is scalability achieved"?

Emails 'pose threat to IQ'.

Messaging barrage

My first job out of college was with Boeing Aerospace. Engineers occupying rows of desk in a large open room, and the constant distraction of telephones and...

Should corporation rethink blogging?

Boundary conditions were set when I first started blogging for Java.net. Play fair and play nice, no advertisings, and stay on subject matters of interest to developers.

The economics of quality

The economics of defects:

There is a cost to software that goes beyond the purchase price. There is the price of installation, configuration, training, and defects. Determining...

Why are you uninstalling NetBeans IDE?

NetBeans starts with the expected product experience:

  • Easy to download and install.
  • The product loaded quickly.
  • Typical start screen with progress bar.

After 3...