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O’Reilly has an article on installing software with Ant (found at paradox1x). All I have to say is that if you’re developing web apps in Java aren’t using Ant not only to compile your classes, but also bundle your apps into WAR files and deploy them on your Web server, you’re missing the boat. I have Tomcat set up to automatically refresh WAR files when they change, so when I update some code, I just type ant redeploy and start testing. Ant is the best tool ever. ...

Ever wonder where those nasty Clintonite vandals learned their dirty tricks? Check out the Reuters story: It noted that there had been damage observed during previous presidential transitions. Two people told the GAO that the damage Clinton's team found in 1993, when Bush's father had just moved out, was even worse than in 2001. That certainly doesn’t excuse vandalism and sophomoric pranks, but it illustrates that this was an issue because the Republicans wanted to get in another parting shot on Bill Clinton, and not because this was some sort of unprecedented act. I still think that removing the ‘W’ keys from all of the computer keyboards was absolutely hilarious. All the other stuff that happened is just stupid. ...

OK, here’s an rc3.org first … I’m linking to a Peggy Noonan column. Do yourself a favor and just skip to the bottom, where she talks about the word “homeland.” Or better yet, just read this excerpt: The second thing Mr. Bush should do is change the name. The name Homeland Security grates on a lot of people, understandably. Homeland isn't really an American word, it's not something we used to say or say now. It has a vaguely Teutonic ring--Ve must help ze Fuehrer protect ze Homeland!--and Republicans must always be on guard against sounding Teutonic. As a brilliant friend who is also actually an intellectual says, "I think it's creepy, in a Nazi-resonating way, any time this sort of home-and-hearth language is used by people who are essentially police. When police honestly call themselves police, or 'domestic security,' I salute and say 'Yes officer.' When they call themselves 'Protectors of the Hearth' I get the creeps." He adds, "I'd argue we want to feel we're pursuing our old values in a new more dangerous world" and suggests "trusty, familiar-sounding words as our touchstones." She goes on to suggest that "Heartland Security" would be a better name, so you can't take her too seriously, but it does show that even some right wingers think the use of the word "homeland" to refer to the US is just a really bad idea.

Dave Coursey has installed Linux on a desktop computer and is taking it out for a test drive. Does anyone really care? What must we do to be spared any more columnists milking a series of columns out of their misadventures with Linux? I’m serious here. Ideas all used up? Just install Linux on some trashy PC laying around in the office and tell everyone how hard it is to get X to work. To be honest, I don’t care if he, or anyone else, loves Linux or hates it. Next week we’ll probably be regaled with the news that the web browsers for Linux aren’t as good as the ones on the PC. I can hardly wait. ...

Tara Calishain has some criticism for Yahoo’s new home page (still in beta). One thing I notice is that the advertising that’s really driving this redesign is not in place on the beta version of the page. How much worse is it going to be when there are giant ads all over the place?

I’m starting my series of reviews of news aggregators with FeedReader. FeedReader was the first tool that I used that really got me into news aggregation. After using FeedReader for the first time, I realized that I had to set up an RSS feed for this site because it was just so darn simple and effective. Sadly, I’ve since moved on past the application, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. First, let me say that it’s the best application written by an Estonian that I’ve ever used. It also has a nice, clean, simple GUI and a rather nifty icon. It uses Windows bubble-style tooltips very well to inform you of updates to the feeds that you subscribe to, and it has a nice way of letting you know which feeds have been updated and which items in each feed are unread. All very cool. The biggest problem with it is that the pre-release of FeedReader version 2.0 is buggy. Let me put this in perspective: I used the Milestone releases of Mozilla as my primary browser for months, and I think FeedReader 2.0 is still too buggy to use, although it’s fine to experiment with. The other problem I have with FeedReader is that there’s no preference that enables you to tell the program to open external links in a new window or in the application’s mini-browser. I never want to view links in the mini-browser because I use a bookmarklet in my browser for blogging, and I need access to it at all times. It’s a small problem, but nonetheless an important one. Ultimately, I think that a stable version of FeedReader could be the most popular news aggregator out there, at least until RSS feed monitoring is built into Mozilla. It’s pretty, it’s easy to install, and it’s easy to use. It already does the neat “minimize to system tray” trick. If FeedReader were reasonably reliable, it would be the application I’d install on my mother’s computer (assuming she were interested in monitoring RSS feeds). Alas, this power user had to go another direction. Still, FeedReader is a damn fine application, and will be even better as the 2.0 release cycle progresses. ...

As sucky as things can sometimes be here in the US, we can still be thankful that we’re not Tunisian. The Tunisian government arrested a “dissident” who published a Web site that did the basic things that journalists are supposed to do. His site, TUNeZINE, is here. More information on Tunisia’s appalling human rights record, courtesy of HRW, is here.

Speaking of Afghanistan, this month’s issue of National Geographic (which featured an excellent article on D-Day that I mentioned previously) has an excellent first person report from a photographer from the Washington Post who spent the fall in Afghanistan documenting the Northern Alliance rout of the Taliban. The article focuses on her friendship with her interpreter, who started out as an America-hating Islamic fundamentalist, and wound up as an America-tolerating Islamic fundamentalist with a bit more understanding. Anyway, the article is a powerful bit of writing, unfortunately it’s not available online. You ought to subscribe to the magazine anyway. ...

Afghanistan has elected its next leader – Hamid Karzai. Hardly a surprise that he won, but he seems to have done an OK job, and maybe he’ll get more respect now that he’s been chosen by a pretty wide swath of the country and not just some delegates at a meeting in Germany. The upside here for the Afghans is that Karzai has a good relationship with the US and thus will be more likely to garner aid than some of the alternatives. ...

One of my goals is to change my mindset from thinking “wouldn’t it be cool if …” to thinking “I’ll just add this feature to package X.” I use a lot of open source Java development packages, and I oftentimes think of features that would be nice to have in them. Rather than just musing about it, I should be adding these features, especially if they’d help me get my job done at work. The thing working against this is lack of time and lack of initiative. I think I can mitigate both of those factors, though. I’ve already started taking other steps toward this by actually figuring things out by reading the source code of open source applications that I use, who needs documentation when you have the code itself? Adding code and submitting patches seems like a small step forward from that. ...