Latest News from Jeff Heaton

Add a Spider to the Web

Mon, 07 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Spiders are used for many purposes on the Internet. Search engines use spiders to locate Web pages for their databases. Companies use spiders to monitor their competitors' Web sites and track changes. Individual users use spiders to download the contents of Web pages for later offline viewing.

Interfacing to AIM with Java

Sat, 01 Jun 2002 00:00:00 EDT

Instant messaging has become very popular in recent years, earning it a deserved spot with the 'killer apps' - browsing and e-mail. Most of the Internet's killer apps have spawned a host of accessories to be used in conjunction with the app. Instant messaging is just starting this process. Many clients are appearing that can often send messages over various protocols. But do other models exist, besides simply sending instant messages between human users?

Programming Neural Networks in Java

Wed, 01 May 2002 00:00:00 EDT

Computers can perform many operations a lot faster than humans. However, there are many tasks in which the computer falls considerably short. One such task is the interpretation of graphic information. A preschool child can easily tell the difference between a cat and a dog, but this simple problem confounds today's computers.

A Class for Reading Binary Files

Sun, 01 Jul 2001 00:00:00 EDT

Java contains an extensive array of classes for file access. A series of readers, writers, and filters make up the interface to the physical file system of the computer. The advantage to this sort of system of classes is that the programmer is freed from the overhead of dealing with the physical layout of files. The main disadvantage to this architecture is that the programmer is isolated from the physical details of how a file is stored. Java programs have a distinct, well-defined way in which they store data to files. Unfortunately, this complicates matters when dealing with files created by other languages.