Looks like I spoke too soon on that last post. The contents of install.log in my installation for the Sun J2EE SDK include:

INFO - Start core server configuration.
ERROR - default domain creation returned following exception: abnormal subproces
s termination: Detailed Message:/usr/local/SUNWappserver/bin/asadmin: line 11: /
usr/local/SUNWappserver/jdk/bin/java: cannot execute binary file

INFO - End core server configuration.

Shucks. I have to be out of town this weekend and will not have Internet access, so this won’t get touched. If anyone has any ideas, post a comment and I will email you back.

I was going over my mailing list boxes and stumbled across an entry by Christopher Elkins on the Apple Java Mailing List that points to a tip for installing the Sun J2EE 1.4 SDK on Mac OS X. The tip is from the Enterprise Java Technologies Tips for December 22, 2003 published by Sun. While Mac OS X is not officially supported, the install seems to go quite well. It was especially funny to me, because I have had a horrible time getting the J2EE 1.4 SDK installed on my Windows 2000 workstation at the office.

Christopher, thanks for the heads up!

A friend at work sent me a link to a review of the leaked Microsoft source code titled We Are Morons: a quick look at the Win2K source. Even if you are not a developer it is an enjoyable read. Despite the embarrassments in some of the comments, word has it that the code is quite good. One would hope so, when you are the most resource-rich IT shop in the world.

I am redoing one of my tower PCs with FreeBSD 5.2.1 Release Candidate 2. That is such an impressive operating system. The debug window in the second virtual console during installation is so convenient. It’s probably been around for awhile, but this install was the first one I have done where I was prompted to look there for more information about an installation issue with one package. The debug info is so thorough.

Open Source installations are much less hectic now that I journal the installation. I use either a notepad or a second computer to record my steps, and it is quite helpful, particularly when things hit a snag or you have to remember a setting chosen earlier.

My wife and I went to her high school 10-year reunion last night, and I ended up meeting a classmate of hers that is a FreeBSD committer (developer, more or less). That was an interesting twist to the experience. I rarely meet anyone who knows what FreeBSD is, much less develops for the project.

William Gibson popped up on Slashdot today. There’s an interview from when he was in Philadelphia on the current book tour I had written about recently. The article, titled “Squinting at the present”, was written for the Philadelphia Inquirer. If you missed the Atlanta visit by Gibson, that’s a good piece to read.

A friend also recommended that I read “Disneyland with the Death Penalty”, an article Gibson did for Wired Magazine some time ago. I haven’t checked it out yet, but getting Gibson’s take on something is always a treat. Wired apparently sent him to Singapore “to see whether that clean dystopia represents our techno future”.