Your username is loudsight.

Friends can view your profile using the link:

http://www.facebook.com/loudsights

Yes, I know that, but I’d like to change it if you do not mind. Nope there is nowhere to change it. What is this obsession with control that these companies have? I’m sure that changing a username does not pose insurmountable technological challenges. We are after all talking about companies that are pioneers in their respective markets. So this leads me to believe it has to do with a desire for control. These guys are basically Geeks who probably were not very popular in high school or college – social outcasts but their inventions have given them unprecedented power over people’s lives. Yes, power over the same people who probably rejected them in their high school, and college days and guess what? It is now pay back time. And pay for not liking them those days we will. Just look at the list below of how these two companies try to wield control over what we do.

Google:

· You can not change Gmail username but you can set up an new account and have the old one forward emails to the new account. How ridiculous is that?

· You can not assign a YouTube channel to another Google account.

· You can not assign ownership of a Google Analytics account to another Google account (surely they realise people buy and sell websites all the time)

· We will track you using a cookie which expires the year the world ends. If you do manage to delete the cookie but at some point made the mistake of logging into your Google account and you make that mistake again after deleting the cookie we will regenerated the cookie and associate you with it and any historic information we previously saved about you.

· We will secretly compile a list of the searches you made and make it very difficult for you to delete them

Facebook:

· You can not change your Facebook username

· You must use your real name. Why? Why do they care how you choose to connect with my “friends”?

· You can not dislike something you can only “like” things.

· You must make your information public – we will roll out changes that continually reduce your privacy because the only way we can make money is if your information is public.

· We will sneakily allow your friends to leak information about you via the Facebook platform by default even if think you’ve locked down that information.

· We will booby-trap the web with Facebook widgets that report back to us what you’re doing when you’re not on Facebook.

And this is just from the top of my head – if any of it is not accurate do let me know. I’m sure there are other examples. I leave those to readers of this blog to suggest.

PS: And do not get me started on Apple!

What is Java?

The Java website states that

“Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. It is the underlying technology that powers state-of-the-art programs including utilities, games, and business applications. Java runs on more than 850 million personal computers worldwide, and on billions of devices worldwide, including mobile and TV devices.“

A (desktop) Java end-user will most likely only require the following components of Java

Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

Java desktop applications are typically executed in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

“The JRE consists of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), Java platform core classes, and supporting Java platform libraries. The JRE is the runtime portion of Java software, which is all you need to run it in your Web browser. When you download Java software, you only get what you need – no spyware, and no viruses.”

Java Plug-in software

“The Java Plug-in software is a component of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). The JRE allows applets written in the Java programming language to run inside various browsers. The Java Plug-in software is not a standalone program and cannot be installed separately.“

Java Virtual Machine (JVM)

“The Java Virtual Machine is only one aspect of Java software that is involved in web interaction. The Java Virtual Machine is built right into your Java software download, and helps run Java applications.“

For developers of Java applications, however, the picture is a little more complex. In order to develop Java software you need to download the Java Development Kit (JDK). Wikipedia has an excellent article describing the JDK here.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1943695/how-can-i-search-a-large-sorted-file-in-perl

http://serverfault.com/questions/15931/best-way-to-use-large-ip-blacklist-to-deny-access-to-a-web-server

http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/perl-modperl/200608.mbox/%3C44CF2BFF.4010200@vst.donetsk.ua%3E

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/85487/reverse-dns-lookup-in-perl

http://perl.apache.org/docs/1.0/guide/databases.html

The not so easy way:

Step-1: Buy a web address

Step 2: Set up a Google Apps or Windows Live Custom Domain account

Step 3: Configure your domain.s MX (email) records to point your web address at Google or Windows Live

We realise that most people out there are very busy and/or may not have the technical know how required to set up a unique personalised email address so here is an alternative method:

The easy way:

Step 1: Subscribe to our personalised email service for (CHF 15 a year, approximately US$15 a year)

Step 2: Receive confirmation from us that you email has been set up

Step 3: Start sending emails to your contacts from yourself@your-surname.me

The error is due to the relevant jaxws jar not being in the class path see the <pathelement> node below. Adding the jar to the classpath will resolve.

<property name=”BUILD_LIBS” location=”C:/Projects/Build/Libs/” />

<taskdef name=”wsimport” classname=”com.sun.tools.ws.ant.WsImport”>
    <classpath>
        <pathelement location=”${BUILD_LIBS}/jaxws-ri/lib/jaxws-tools.jar”/>
    </classpath>
</taskdef>