Archive for January, 2008

embedding windows messenger

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Windows Live Messenger can be embedded into a web page. This feature seems to have arrived in November 2007 based on the flurry of blog activity.

Embedding a messaging window is rather simple. To do so, you just need to change your Web Settings for your Windows Live account. Once you agree to expose your Messenger status, you can then select one of three embedding choices: full messaging client, a button or just an icon. The details are available from Microsoft but it pretty much just a matter of copying the generated code and pasting it into your web page.

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learning java

Monday, January 21st, 2008
Cover - Learning Java
copyright O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Learning Java, 3e
by Patrick Niemeyer and Jonathan Knudsen
2005 O’Reilly Media

While looking for a different text to use in IST 240, I found the text Learning Java by Niemeyer and Knudsen. This book has done nothing but impress me. While in the end it might make for a difficult text to begin programming in Java for the lesser experienced, as many O’Reilly texts can be, it is going to be a solid addition to the bookshelf of an aspiring information technologist. Hopefully this title will continue to evolve.

For a few semesters, I had been using Java in 60 Minutes a Day by Rich Raposa. That text was well received by the students and the content spanned the core material I needed for the class as well as advanced topics (Swing, network programming, JavaBeans, database programming) that interested students could engage if they so desired. Unfortunately, the book has become significantly dated. It is based on Java 1.4 and so is missing topics introduced in Java 1.5, generics being one of more important topics.

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