Java Land 2018

I'm not that much into conferences, but the Java Land 2018 in Phantasialand near Brühl tempted me after all. Since my employer, diconium digital solutions, gave me the opportunity to participate for one day, I packed my backpack last Monday and took the train to Cologne. The actual program started on Tuesday - but already at 8:30 in the morning. Therefore it was obvious to stay overnight from Monday to Tuesday in the hotel, in order to attend the first lecture about TDD with Java EE. Unfortunately the plan didn't work out because I couldn't find the shuttle bus from Cologne-Bonn-Airport to Phantasialand. In addition, the bus journey from the airport took a good hour. So I didn't arrive at Java Land before about 10 o'clock. So to see it is a good idea to book a hotel in the vicinity of Phantasialand.

Of course there were many other interesting presentations, for example about "Continuous Documentation", the "Java 9 Module System beyond the basics" or a discussion about Java on the client (regarding the future of AWT, Swing and JavaFX). In between I could have a look at the "Java Pinball Machines" of JUG Goldstadt.

The overall supply of food and beverages was good. Since there were several food stands one didn't have to wait in line for too long anywhere.

In the evening, visitors of the conference can also enjoy a variety of rides in the park. But I was already on my way back to Stuttgart. I hope that next year I'll be able to participate in both days of the conference.

Java Land 2018
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Useful tasks

I often receive requests on how certain things can be achieved with Task Till Dawn, for example how to automatically start programs. Unfortunately it is not always obvious which actions one needs in order to get things done.

So today I've added a new category "Useful tasks" here on the blog. There I will introduce various useful tasks in the future which you can create with Task Till Dawn.

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Pro Pinball: Timeshock

A few years ago, in 1997, Empire Interactive released a pinball simulation called "Pro Pinball: Timeshock" to the market – in my opinion probably the best pinball simulation ever. The game was available for MS-DOS, Mac OS and the Playstation. Unfortunately, it stopped working on my Mac when Apple dropped Classic support in OS X.

In 2013, Barnstorm Games launched a Kickstarter campaign with the aim of providing a new edition for PC, Mac, iOS and Android. Of course, I had to immediately pledge it. The campaign was a success, and with minimal delay (planned was a release in 2013) the first official version of the remake made it to the App Store this year. And it was definitely worth the wait!

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Open Arena rcon via shell

If you have a dedicated server set up for Open Arena, you can control it either using the command console and rcon on the client side – or by typing in the commands directly into the server process (oa_ded).
But how is it possible to access the server from within a different script or application, or if the server process is not bound to a shell?

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OS X Yosemite

The newest major release of OS X has been out now for three months. Although it contains many new features and general improvements one needs a high frustration tolerance…

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New layout

After more than four years it now was time for a new layout on this page. It is build with Twitter Bootstrap and thus responsive, which is an improvement especially for viewers with mobile devices. There are still some glitches, which will be fixed in the upcoming days.

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Domain Parking

During the last two days my domain was parked on sedo. I was unable to receive emails and even the domain owner had changed. But now it is back and everything seems to be working again. Don't know how this happened though.

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