Textile vs. Markdown

Anyone use either of these schemes? Anyone an advocate for one or the other?

Update: I noticed this Wikipedia article on lightweight markup languages. I'd like one that's easy to use, but the ease of use also needs to be that it can be easily converted by another means. I've experimented with lxtrf and Markdown.

Is Customization Worth It?

Some weeks ago, we had a computer monitor go out at work. In order to compensate, we shifted seats around.

I ended up at another desk. I didn't have access to my files (since I'm allergic to putting my stuff on the network - I always leave it on my hard drive), my bookmarks, and WordPerfect, which has several hours worth of customization on the keyboards, appearance, etc. My productivity was, shall we say, less than adequate, because I wasn't at my own desk and didn't have ready access to the tools I rely on daily.

This got me thinking back to the times when I was in a corporate environment. This was an environment where customization was frowned upon, if not downright discouraged, and in many cases it was not even possible since the computers were basically locked down. As I was thinking about this, it made me wonder - is customization worth it? If you tally up all the time it takes to do a decent customization job, tack on the additional time for situations where customization turns out to be a hindrance (like the one I described earlier), does the time saved compensate for it? Or is it even about time.

Fix for "Several Java virtual machines running in the same process" error

Awhile back, I developed a Java error after I updated Firefox awhile back on my home computer. The error said "Several Java virtual machines running in the same process." I went looking for a solution, and came across this page, which suggests a bunch of stuff, none of which seemed to work (and the page itself didn't even mention Firefox, just IE).

Well, I finally got sick of no Java at home, so earlier this week I kept looking until I found a suggestion in the Sun forums (why they didn't have this on the aforementioned help page, I don't know). It suggests downloading a beta of the Java Runtime Environment. I'm usually cautious with beta downloads, but I don't really get Java that well anyway, and I figured I wouldn't be any worse off, so I followed the link provided to the Java SE Early Access page. I installed "JRE 6 update 10 beta (build 25)," whatever that is, and it fixed the home computer.

I wouldn't have mentioned it except I developed the same problem at work today (don't ask me why it just now started). Downloaded the same beta, and I'm back in business.

Hopefully this will save someone else the hassle.

Again, it's a beta. And I'm no computer expert, so I offer zero warranty. But if you absolutely have to have Java, this may be a fix.