Microsoft Update as IE Homepage

I use Mozilla Firefox as my default web browser so I do not use Internet Explorer (IE) except when I am forced to by an IE-only webpage. I set my IE homepage to the Microsoft Update webpage so that I when I do use IE every now and then I am reminded to check for operating system updates and security patches. The Department of Homeland Security just issued an advisory recommending the installation of the latest security patches for Windows so you might want to head over to the Microsoft Update webpage now, especially if you do not have "Automatic Updates" running.

JOGL and COLLADA Books

I just got back from ACM SIGGRAPH 2006, a computer graphics conference in Boston. I was pleased to receive a book I had ordered a few weeks before just before I left, Foundations of 3D Graphics Programming: Using JOGL and Java3D by Chen and Wegman. I had feared it would be delivered to my home the day after I left for the trip.

When I got to the conference, I was also pleased to purchase COLLADA: Sailing the Gulf of 3D Digital Content Creation by Arnaud and Barnes. COLLADA is a new non-proprietary open standard for 3D content in XML that I am using. The authors were kind enough to sign my copy.

I was mainly at the conference to demonstrate the Whoola COLLADA Library, an Open Source Java library that I wrote to import and export 3D graphics in COLLADA. I am excited about these two book as I think they will help me improve my code considerably. I am going to add them to the CroftSoft Book List.