(Computer) Things Are Getting Better
PostgreSQL 7.4 was released. I'm a big fan, because PostgreSQL is great for my purposes and in my experience:
- license is (BSD-style) free so I can use it in all my projects -- work, academic, and personal!
- easy to deploy (clean, portable code). Building 7.4 on Linux, AIX, and MacOS X was simplicity. At work, I deploy the database on an older Linux box and then access from clients on various versions of Linux, AIX, and MacOS X.
- easy administration
- full-function, bug-free (I haven't found any) JDBC jar distributed under that same BSD license. This has "just worked" for me and is the easiest method of client development and deployment: just copy my jar and the JDBC jar anywhere that has a suitable JVM.
- reliable. I've not yet had any project that demonstrated any compromise. There are lots of projects that stress it harder than I'm likely too as well in the near future and they keep improving it, so I'm hoping that this will continue for a long time.
- full featured. And many of those features are standard and portable.
Apple release a new iMac with a 20" LCD screen! It's great to see big LCD screens entering the consumer environment. It's still not inexpensive, but its the value proposition in which I'm most interested.
Speaking of good news for the Mac, the first super-computer made from Macs for an astounding low price of $5.2 million by Virginia Tech secured #3 on the Top500 list of the world's fastest computers.