JSReflection is a simple pure Javascript reflection utility.  I wrote it a couple of years ago, but I finally had the time to remove some dependencies that had license requirements I wasn't happy with.  The only dependency now is jQuery.  The current version depends on jQuery 1.4.2, which is included in the JSReflection archive.

See it in action

Download JSReflection

JSReflection on Github

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I've been using AirDB lately for one of my projects.  It's a nice, lightweight  Active Record implementation in ActionScript for use in Adobe Air applications.  I wanted to create a LogTarget for logging with the standard Flex logging framework (mx.logging) that was backed by a database.  Read more

I've been using Linux for six years, and I've seen the Linux desktop mature in amazing leaps and bounds.  It's maturing so fast, that in any given month, I often see maturation for core parts of the overall product. 

For some perspective, when I first started using Linux, you had to manually run a command to mount your CD.  You had to run another command to unmount the CD when you were finished with it, and a third to eject it.  In that order, exactly, or it would fail.  Often you had to reboot just to get the disk out of the tray. Read more

JavaScript provides no good way to check if a variable exists.  If you try to use one that doesn't, you get a big fat error.  I've seen some people use:

if (myVar == undefined)

But this only works if the variable has been declared, but wasn't set to a value.  Sometimes, you don't know if the variable was even declared.

Here's some code that solves that: 

try {
      if (myVar) {}
} catch (err) {
      var myVar = "";
}

Update: I'm getting reports that this has been fixed in Java 1.6 (aka Java 6).  So, I tested this with the latest Java 1.6 32-bit in Ubuntu Edgy, and apps seem to be working fine under Beryl.  So, you may not need to go to all the trouble below.  The latest Java 1.6 for AMD64 on Ubuntu Edgy, however, still doesn't work for me under Beryl.

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I recently built an AMD 64-bit dual core machine, and installed Ubuntu Edgy for x86-64 on it.  One thing I found (and had read elsewhere) is that 64-bit Eclipse is buggy.  It hangs and dies usually within 30 minutes, and sometimes on a few minutes.  And I found the performance improvements to be hardly noticable, so not worth the hassle of frequent crashes.

My solution was to switch back to the 32 bit Eclipse.  Not hard, but not dirt simple.  First install the 32-bit JVM ia32-sun-java5-bin.Read more

Anyone who runs in computer-technology circles has seen the "my favorite app" zealots.  They preach of how you must use their favorite application.  They claim that you must be stupid if you use the competing application.  There are Gnome/KDE/*box/Enlightenment/etc. zealots, Linux/BSD/Mac OS zealots, XMMS/BMP/Amarok/etc. zealots, Java/.NET/PHP/Python zealots, and perhaps the oldest of them all, vi and emacs zealots. Read more

I just read a post on Debashish Chakrabarty's blog titled "Primer: Difference between javac and JIT". It contains a very good explanation of what Just In Time (JIT) compilation is and how it relates to HotSpot JVMs. HotSpot JVMs identify sections of code that are worth taking the time to compile from bytecode to machine code. These sections of code are referred to as hotspots.Read more

I've noticed many web authors puting their Cascading Style Sheets straight into the header of a page. Folks, that's bad! There are many benefits to moving style data out of the body of your html and into CSS, and one of them gets lost when the CSS is placed in the header.Read more