Jeff Heaton

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 of... (more)

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 thi... (more)

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 ... (more)

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 ... (more)