Joe Peichel

OTN -- Looks like Oracle's 9iAS app server uses Orion for its J2EE foundation: "For example, to map the Employee entity bean to an existing employee relational database table, the following information is supplied in the orion-ejb-jar.xml file. ..." (See also Orion Server ).

J2EE vs. .NET -- Great discussion on this subject...I found this comment particularly interesting: "One thing I feel positive about: J2EE is much more successful in promoting code re-use. When I say code re-use I'm not referring to (in Microsoft parlance) component aggregation and extension. I'm talking about old fashion OO fundamentals. Microsoft is always touting binary (component) re-use and this is obviously good practice. I have read a myriad of articles and books where Microsoftonians say that traditional OO code re-use just never worked out that well; they obviously haven't implemented to many projects or architectures using a quality OO language such as SmallTalk or Java! I have found that J2EE projects almost always have a healthy share of both component reuse AND general OO reuse. Not every piece of code you write is going to end up as a component/EJB. My current project has a wonderful framework of Java classes that is constantly being extended through n...

Apple to update iBook, PowerBook - Tech News - CNET.com -- Now if I could only try one out to see if I could make it work on my company's VPN...

Handspring: Treo 180 -- Handspring looks to have nailed the most-desired features in a "convergence" device -- great mobile phone capabilities (including a speakerphone), a keyboard styled on RIM's successful Blackberry, full support for Palm OS applications, always-on messaging. Based on other product rumors announcements, though, I see this product space getting crowded very soon.

First Take: StarOffice 6.0 Beta - Software Reviews - CNET.com -- While Sun may succeed in delivering a compelling alternative to MS Office, I'd guess the only companies to adopt it will be those operating on a shoestring budget. Medium and large corporations lack the courage to adopt a desktop product of such operational importance from a company they've traditionally purchased primarily server products.