In February I took on the daunting task of starting a new venture. It was based on an idea I had while reading a book on the low cost airline, Ryanair. I never knew you could lease an aircraft; I thought an airline with billowing amounts of cash just bought the machines and got on with it. Wrong, wrong, and wrong with a capital W. My rationale was simple: there are a lot of aircraft on the ground, let's help get them back up in the air. How can I provide a system that makes sure that both parties benefit. B2B auctions!

In my mind, an ecosystem conjures up a green, lush rain forest. The Java ecosystem, like a rain forest, is excitingly complex and able to sustain a diversity life and growth. At the JCP we have successfully balanced a variety of participants, who both compete and cooperate for success within our ecosystem.

SLOOH.com is the world's first and only source of live deep-sky celestial images. Every night SLOOH's telescopes scan the skies and deliver stunning images to computer screens around the world in seconds. SLOOH offers a schedule of fascinating five- and 10-minute 'missions' that probe galaxies, nebulas and comets.

Let me begin with a philosophical rant. There is a motto from scientific computing that carries over to many areas of computer science: The gains made by better algorithms almost always outstrip the gains from better hardware.

It's no surprise that the common perception is that Web applications are unreliable and problematic. Users often experience '404,' 'resource unavailable,' and 'network unavailable' errors or even a mysterious application error telling them to 'retry the application later.' The truth is, a fundamental source of all these problems is the HTTP communication layer of the Web.

Is the Java certification program offered by Sun really the route to a higher salary and better quality of code for businesses? William Knight has his doubts. In his fifth year of Java programming, after being involved in several distributed developments for large companies, a prospective employer tested his ability, saying 'Don't worry, you'll have no trouble; this is for beginners.' How did he do? Read on.

The network effect is the impetus behind today's software platforms, but a balance must be struck between homogeneous vulnerability and fractured inefficiency. Comparing J2EE to .NET shows clear advantages for J2EE through vendor diversity, portability, standardization community, educational opportunity, language commonality, and security. .NET's attempt to replicate J2EE is shallow, providing technological similarity in a disconnected and proprietary package.

Java open source graphics visualizing software, JGraph, has introduced some improvements in the functionality of its drop-down menus. Version

One thing that's always struck me throughout my career as a professional in computing has been how little regard or study we give to the history of our profession. I suppose this situation has been engendered to an extent by the rapid growth in the technologies we work with.

Those of you kind enough to read my editorials for JDJ would have noticed that I started a new job. A fresh start, a new year, a colossal waste of my time it turned out. Startup companies can be odd to work for sometimes and you have to read between the lines when it comes to statements from directors and shareholders.

When you mention the word 'robot,' most people think of either large industrial bots that do heavy work on factory floors, suicidal bots doing battle on TV, fanciful R&D bots gracing the labs of universities, or simple hobby bots of the LEGO Mindstorms ilk. Don't get me wrong, all such creations are deeply fascinating to me and embody tremendous ingenuity and engineering craftsmanship.

Ineffectual corporate management has given a great gift to programmers, system administrators, and CIOs - endless corporate accounting scandals. Our federal government has not missed this scandalous behavior as they have passed an extraordinarily strong, far-reaching law to contend with financial fraud.

In the world of IT, outsourcing - also known as 'offshoring' - is either the dirtiest word you can utter or a brilliant one; it's all about who says it to whom and where it is said. No matter who uses it, it is a word most often said in private.

All change on the JDJ front, eh? What's going on? It's all gone topsy-turvy! 'Alan at the back, a whole host of new faces, and a new front cover.' Don't panic; it's all under control. JDJ has undergone a major renewal process, taking us into version 3. We do this every so often so we don't get complacent and to ensure that we are always providing you with information that best serves you.

Many of the problems related to software development are at the individual level, with those who create bad code rather than with any specific technology issue. Therefore the goal of anyone staffing a project is to attract employees most likely to ensure success.

At JavaOne, Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of Sun's Software Group, outlined his mission to increase the number of Java developers from 3 million to 10 million. The hope is to attract these extra seven million from the legions of Visual Basic (VB) developers.

Software is created by programmers who write code, testers who try and break the code before users do, and analysts who are incapable of either task. Analysts know this and like a congressman's PR agent on their lunch break, they must constantly adapt to find new ways to remain on the payroll. The answer in IT is no different than any similar dilemma in which a person finds himself: bluff, fraud, and deceit.

Lately, a lot of energy has been focused on the SCO Group/Linux IP fiasco, ignoring a potentially more damaging trend in the computer industry. Every day, it seems, we see a new lawsuit in which some obscure company (or in some cases, corporate megalith) sues a successful Internet venture over infringement of some broad patent. In many cases, the defendant quickly settles rather than fight a long and expensive court battle. But is this what patents were intended for? When patents mainly applied to physical devices, they made some kind of sense. I build a new and novel mousetrap, and patent it. You make improvements to the design, and patent the improvements. Someone who wants to build a mousetrap based on your design has to pay both of us a license fee. Or they can come up with an entirely different design, and avoid paying any fee. But no one was allowed to patent the basic idea of a mousetrap.

(July 25, 2003) - It's a truism to say that software development is a communal activity. Unfortunately, a lot of newer Java developers don't get it, which works to their own detriment and, potentially, to the detriment of the wider Java community. There's a stereotype of the hacker as a loner bent over his keyboard in a room dark but for the pallid glow of the monitor. This is only partly true. Yes, there does come a point where the rubber meets the road and you have to sit down, by yourself, and pound out a killer algorithm. But if you think that's all there is to it, if your style is to go it alone, you will never live up to your potential in this industry. Never.

When Govindavajhala Sudhakar, a Princeton college student from Bangalore, presented a paper on JVM security at an IEEE symposium on computer security, the press naturally took notice.

I remember well the first time I worked at a company that used corporate e-mail. Instead of the usual development process that involved weekly meetings with users, between which we wrote specs and coded deliverables, this new messaging technology was going to streamline everything for us.

Sun has asked for feedback in a 'J2SE Client developer survey,' Scott Violet himself went onto javalobby.org asking for input and my initial thoughts were, 'Fantastic - finally Sun is taking Java seriously on the client.' I got myself a fresh latte coffee and sat down to complete the survey.

One of the recent stirrings to occur inside the Java industry is what has become known as 'memogate.' A Sun engineer wrote an internal memo to his colleagues that listed a number of problems with Java on Solaris, ranging from large VM footprints and issues with serialization to the usual salvo of complaints about Swing.

Okay, I'll risk my career and admit it: I not only know how to draw a flowchart, I still find myself using them from time to time. I have one of those little green plastic flowcharting templates to help draw the symbols and arrowheads, but I don't use it much anymore. (I don't like to take it out of its climate-controlled vault; the chill might warp my precious slipstick.)

There have been lots of reasons bandied about lately about why Java is good or bad or indifferent. I'm afraid I've been too busy to follow the discussions closely, but that rarely stops me from chiming in. Others find my ignorance entertaining; perhaps you will, too.

Back in high school, I worked as a roadie for my friends' rock and roll band. It was a great job, since I didn't need to make much money. Good thing, that. My take from our fabulous two-week, Christmas '74, 'Wyoming Tour' was $9.

Since I'll be presenting sessions throughout the week, I should really be reviewing them to make sure I have my message straight or at least make sure I don't goof up too badly. I'm still trying to live down that episode when I credited Sir Francis Bacon, of all people, with the invention of Java.

I'm sorry, dear reader, but I'm afraid I'm in a bit of a 'blue funk' this month. There's an awful lot going on, it seems, and I don't understand most of it. I'm confused, angry, irritable, way behind in my work, and quite probably suffering from the after-effects of an alien abduction or some such.... What a drag.

I've been weaving these threads of cubist pseudo-consciousness for over a year now, and the consequences of such promiscuous international celebrity are really starting to get out of hand.

I almost missed this month's deadline for this column, but I have a good excuse: I've been out searching for beauty again, and must report that my family and I found some largish, mountain-shaped accumulations of it in Glacier National Park, in northwestern Montana.

This is the thirteenth installment of Cubist Threads, but ironically I'm feeling pretty darned lucky to be writing it. Who would have thought this blatantly self-aggrandizing auto-theoretica would survive a whole year?

Sometimes I think the world is getting fundamentally goofier, at an ever-increasing pace. On the other hand, I've only been here a brief while (in geologic terms, at least), and can't help believing that the world has always been pretty doggone goofy.

As I'm pathologically fond of pointing out - I'm a child of a bygone era. Oh, I'm not old enough to remember the time before Sputnik, light bulbs, or the coagulation of the planets from protostellar dust clouds, but I surely do remember GI Joe at 45 caliber, Ray Stevens at 45 RPM, and factory-rolled cigarettes at 45¢ a pack sold to anxious minors desperate to rebel (just like everyone else).

I've been thinking that, if I want to keep writing these monthly bits o' fluff, I'd better start making some sense pretty soon. If you've been reading Cubist Threads, you know I'm prone to launching into some banal diatribe about the prosaic minutiae of my midwestern upbringing.

This great Sonny Curtis tune has special meaning for me. You see, The Law and I have been at odds since I was very young. I fought The Law constantly – at home, on the playground, at summer camp – and after years of openly and repeatedly demonstrating my spiteful defiance, The Law knocked my two front teeth squarely down my throat.

For those of you who have been following 'Cubist Threads' from its inception, you know - both of you - that several of my little musings have centered around brushes I've had with 'greatness.' Presuming I understand my own thought processes well enough to comment, I'd have to guess that recounting these events has been little more than a failed attempt to mask my own mediocrity (or, perhaps, to emerge from it).

'How did I get here?' There's a question I've asked myself many, many times over the years. Decorum prevents me from recounting all the contexts to which 'here' has referred, but suffice it to say that my inflection has become less frenzied as I matured.

Lately I seem to be getting younger. Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining - it's just that puberty was bad enough in the forward direction; the prospect of going through it backwards leaves me a little unsettled. Fortunately, if the rate at which I'm getting younger matches the rate I had previously been aging, I've got many years to prepare.

Our world has been changed. We have been changed. Emblazoned in our collective consciousness are indelible, fresh images of unspeakable carnage. We will carry these images with us - shaped in psychic scar tissue - for the rest of our lives. For some of us, September 11 will mark the date we lost an acquaintance, a colleague, or a loved one. For many of us, especially our children, it will mark the date we lost a certain degree of innocence. For all of us, it will mark a dark milestone on the landscape of our memories. My 11-year-old son came home from school that Tuesday with an unsettling bloodlust in his eyes. He had seen the events unfold and was having a purely visceral reaction. Decorum prevents me from recounting all his suggestions for acts of retaliation, but suffice it to say that the U.S. position as a nuclear superpower figured prominently among them.

Life happens at a dizzying pace. It seems like yesterday that I was writing my first Cubist Thread, in which my abundance of personal failings was first publicly perused. One that didn't make the list at the time, but for which I should be roundly criticized, is vanity.