Web server logs hold a lot of data: IP addresses, request times, pages viewed. Two-dimensional graphs obscure a lot of relationships among these pieces of information. Three-dimensional graphs can help you spot trends more easily--and they're very easy to produce. Raju Varghese shows how to put Gnuplot to work.

Hibernate is just about the defacto standard for Java database persistence. With Hibernate 3, it has become even easier to specify how your Java objects are stored in a database. In this article, John Smart shows how Java 5 annotations are used by Hibernate to simplify your code and make persisting your data even easier.

Virtualization saves you the headache of managing lots of separate machines. Unfortunately, lots of virtualization can give you the headache of managing lots and lots of images. The openQRM project intends to change that. Kris Buytaert demonstrates how to simplify the administration of virtual machines in a production environment.

Web 2.0 Summit program chair John Battelle moderated a public policy discussion with Art Brodsky, the communications director of Public Knowledge, Ebay's Tod Cohen and Amazon.com's Paul Misener. This podcast is sponsored by the Intel Software Network.

User Account Control (UAC) is one of the most misunderstood features of Windows Vista. In this excerpt from "Windows Vista: The Definitive Guide," Jeff Stanek and Paul Marquardt tell you everything you need to know about UAC--including how to turn it off.

Cedric Savarese offers an interesting guide to using XUL to enhance web apps on Mozilla-compatible browsers. He very helpfully includes performance numbers, including comparisons to equivalent JavaScript widgets.

Round-tripping is when you take a picture that's in your Aperture library and adjust it in an external image editor, then return the changed version to your library. Most people assume that Photoshop will be the editor of choice, but Ben Long has been working with Nikon's Capture NX, and he has some interesting ideas about round-tripping with it instead. In this latest edition of Inside Aperture, we also talk about highlight recovery and lots of other tidbits.

In this third and final installment of Matthew Russell's series on building a game engine with Cocoa, we learn how to implement a game tree search called negamax--a variant of minimax that uses alpha-beta pruning to reduce the search space.

HTML::Template is a templating module for HTML made powerful by its simplicity. Its minimal set of operations enforces a strict separation between presentation and logic. However, sometimes that minimalism makes templates unwieldy. Philipp Janert demonstrates how to reuse templates smaller than an entire page--and how this simplifies your applications.

Apache httpd's standard text logfiles are well understood and useful, but they don't always give you enough information to troubleshoot problems. Apache 2.x provides several new modules that produce more logfile information--the number of bytes transferred, the rewrite rule matching, which requests complete and why, and the complete output of all headers. Rich Bowen explores these options.

Mark Nelson completes his tests of today's three hottest audio recorders with this in-depth review. The Zoom H4 offers more features than the M-Audio MicroTrack and Edirol R-09 for $100 less. But is it right for you?

Brian McConnell introduces the latest development project in his ongoing attempts to make websites accessible in many languages. The Worldwide Lexicon is an open source RSS and wiki translation service built using Ruby on Rails.

Derby is a popular choice for an all-Java open-source database, but like all databases, it requires thought and care to run at ideal efficiency. Dejan Bosanac shows techniques--many of them applicable to all JDBC databases--that will keep your Derby-backed application running at top speed.

GoDaddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons delivered a simple but powerful lesson at the Web 2.0 Summit 2006. He says that people love using computers for search and entertainment but when it comes to resolving problems or learning features people much prefer to deal with other people. This podcast is sponsored by the Intel Software Partner Program.

Lightroom is designed to streamline the process of importing, processing, and sharing your digital images. Although much can be discovered by simply experimenting on your own, there is a lot to the application that doesn't immediately meet the eye. In this first in a series of downloadable PDF excerpts from his book "Photoshop Lightroom Adventure - Mastering Adobe's next-generation tool for digital photographers," Mikkel Aaland gives you a quick overview of each of the modules available in Lightroom 1.0 (Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web).

Windows Vista is finally here--time to get hacking! Preston Gralla, author of Windows Vista in a Nutshell, shares six of his favorite hacks for bending the new operating system to your will.

For many photojournalists, traveling the world and owning a desktop computer back at the home base just isn't practical. But the laptop-only alternative -- making sure images are safely backed up, archived, organized, delivered to clients, and easily findable down the road once had its challenges too... before Aperture. In this article, Micah Walter provides Aperture tips for the photographer on the go.

iXsystems' recent acquisition of PC-BSD hasn't slowed the development of the desktop-capable FreeBSD distribution. Version 1.3 is out and available. Dru Lavigne talks with PC-BSD developers about the new release and their plans to continue to make an effective, efficient, and usable free desktop operating systems.

America's biggest musical instrument trade show just wrapped up, and we brought back sounds, photos, movie clips, and more. Check out our gallery of new music technology and see what you'll be playing tomorrow.

Convention-over-configuration is the battle cry of popular web frameworks like Ruby on Rails, and Stripes brings the same kind of thinking to Java. In this article, Mark Eagle shows how to put together a basic Stripes framework and discusses the framework's integration with Ajax and Spring.

Ross Levinsohn is president of News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media. He talked with Web 2.0 Summit program chair John Battelle talks to Levinsohn about everything from the year since his company bought MySpace to his recent concern that he didn't have a chance to bid on YouTube. This episode is sponsored by the Intel Software Network.

Scott Raymond, author of Ajax on Rails, gives us a comprehensive look at what's new in one of the fundamental Javascript libraries, Prototype.

Erica Sadun dives into Apple's sample code archive and shows how to modify MovieVideoChart to create a comic-book-like video layout tool. Learn a structured approach to taking advantage of the wealth of sample code that Apple provides for developers.

Perhaps the best way to secure your wireless Windows network is to use RADIUS authentication. Chris Sanders walks you step by step through the RADIUS setup so you'll be able to lock down your network in no time.

Tony Stubblebine concludes his introduction to the Salesforce.com AppExchange by going through the process of packaging and uploading his sample blog-to-lead application to AppExchange.