Kev's Development Toolbox

Sun have started to release early builds of J2SE Mustang (1.6) on their java.net community site.

This will allow developers to get uptospeed with new features before the official GA version is released, and even before the Beta releases.

Currently the site has a “Build 12” release – the release notes look like they cover a lot of bug fixes but no new major features yet.

Although J2SE SDK development is still not Open Source (which some people would like), the site also releases the source code along with the binary builds so you can take a look at the source.

This week Intel quietly released the last in the current line of Pentium IV processors, a 3.8GHz model.

Intel has previously stated that this will be the last Pentium IV of the current line. Instead they intend to start developing other speed enhancing architecture changes, rather than raw CPU cycle speed. The new CPUs will also follow a new naming standard which will de-emphasise the actual CPU speed, following AMD’s current marketing strategy.

Microsoft are making a late entry into the market of handheld media players, and are hoping to take some market share from Apple’s iPod.

Microsoft are pushing a version of their Windows Media Player software to be used on mobile MP3 players, and are appealing to manufacturers like Dell, Samsung and Rio to start making devies running the software. Microsoft has also started it’s own online music store similar to iTunes, which is also competing directly with Apple.

Has Microsoft entered this market too late, or can the marketing machine of Microsoft drum upenough business to steal customers from the already well established market leader in this area, Apple?

Mozilla shipped 1.0 of their Firefox version yesterday.

Since downloading one of the preview versions I haven’t missed or wanted to go back to IE at all… Firefox is a leap ahead of IE, and the tabbed browsing is awesome.

I wonder how Microsoft is going to respond to this new challenger in the browser space, since MS has already announced that it will not be continuing development of IE as a standalone downloadable software component, but will instead be an integrated feature into new Windows versions (ie Longhorn)