Most people believe that the better your equipment - the better the photos will be that you can take. I have heard many times before comments such as "Wow - your camera takes amazing pictures". I am a firm believer that your equipment enables you to have more control and achieve some effects otherwise difficult or impossible to achieve - but it does not define how good photographs you can take. That is up to you - and only you. To see why I say this, look here...

If you had ever written HTML pages sending back form data to a backend server, you must have come across the need to sometimes restrict the user from changing a value - therefore you used a read only form field. This can cause serious trouble...

As an example, consider a system that displays user profile information for editing. Lets say you have a combobox containing roles, and only if you have a higher privilege than the user's record you are trying to amend may you change the field's value. It is nice to display it this way since it takes care of three aspects - firstly, the user's role is displayed (which is nice), secondly if the user editing the record has lower privileges then it is as simple as making the field read only to disable any value changes, and thirdly if the user editing the record has higher privileges then just do not set the readonly flag.

Considering good programming practises, you would normally have one backing object representing the user's profile as an object. This includes the role value. For displaying the record, it is passed to the HTML page (more specifically - the scripting language such as JSP/ASP/PHP/etc) for display. Once the user made all the required changes, all the data is bound to the form backing object and written to the database.

I was looking for some years now for a Microsoft Project 2000 compatible project management application for Mac OS X, which can import MPX and MPP files and also export data in at least MPX format.

So I was delighted to discover this neat application. Try it out!

Do you have a delinquent child? Are you frustrated with life? Then you'll enjoy this.

Two of the several computers I own is the original PowerMac G5 1.8GHz, as well as an AMD 64 3200 home built PC. Both these machines uses two 7200 rpm SATA IDE hard disk drives. I am busy doing an FTP from the Windows machine connected to the G5, retrieving a 22GiB file.

Both CPU's are running at approximately 80%, and the network utilization is a constant 18MBps. The interesting thing is that after 3 minutes of copying the PC started making 1 second interval beeps on the internal speaker. This is the thermal warning function built in to the Gigabyte motherboard when the temperature exceeds 70C. The statement I want to make is that the G5's fans are all idling slowly, the system is completely cool and way within spec. I cannot really see any thermal difference to the normal state. Luke warm air is being expelled from the rear fans. However, the AMD is overheating. The hard disk drives are so hot you can boil eggs on them.

The reason? The G5 was designed with thermal considerations in mind from the very beginning. The PC however, received no such attention. You may argue that the G5 costs 5 times as much, but then again PC manufacturers had more than 20 years to get the thermal design of a simple mini tower correct. How difficult can it be to design a case that has good thermal properties? The basic principle is simple - you need to suck in fresh, cool air, let it pass over all hot components internally, and gently blow out the hot air on the other side of the case. This is exactly the same principle used in cooling towers of power plants.