A Socket-based Java Mail Client

February 1, 2008
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A while back I found myself with a need to send email through Java. I can’t remember the reason why I didn’t use JavaMail (this was 2002-2003 so it may have been before it was released/stable) but I ended up implementing my own version of RFC-2045. After a long time of coding and testing I emerged with a working mailer, which I am going to share with the world now.

I don’t see any reason why you would choose to use this over the JavaMail package or something similar – I am not endorsing it for use but simply for nostalgia and learning purposes.

If you are interested in downloading the entire source, you can do so here: mcdonaldland-mailer.zip


Design Patterns Quick Reference II – The Poster Chronicles

January 31, 2008
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So it took a bit of time but I have the poster version available for the design pattern reference. The only one right now is a large poster, however there will be various sizes as well as all kinds of other merchandise to come.

Get yours today at:

http://www.cafepress.com/codergear

Get yours early – if we find an error tomorrow the current version becomes a collector item! 😉


The Mentality of Nothingness

January 29, 2008
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Let’s do an exercise. Think of nothing.

Now, describe to yourself what you just imagined. Most of us will say something along the lines of “big black empty space”, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. The very essence of nothing is that it is utterly lacking in all attributes. The attributes of big, black, empty, and space are all things that true nothingness is devoid of. In fact, the very word nothing is an oxymoron in that it describes something which, by definition, nothing is not.

As humans we have to step back from the brink of incomprehensible states and apply our paradigm wrapper to the complex in order to bring it to a level were we can understand it. Simply put, we are a label happy bunch that likes to have everything classified just so. While this works well for many things, the concept of nothingness is likely to never (a cousin of nothing) be one of them.