Some five days ago Incors released the Alloy Look And Feel. It's based on the famous Kunststoff Look And Feel and adds a kind of theming support. They take $199 for a developer license. I doubt that they will get rich with this, though. It does not seem to have great enhancements above the Kunststoff Look And Feel. The Alloy Look And Feel comes with five themes, but a gifted Java developer could make this without great problems with the Kunststoff Look And Feel as the base.

As far as I know it's the first time someone tries to sell a Look And Feel lib. I wonder if there is a market for such a thing. There are some good Open Source Look And Feels around (See javootoo.com). I won't buy it. It's too expensive. They need to add something no other Look And Feel has, a killer feature. As long as they don't, I do not see a future for the Alloy Look And Feel

I finally did it and am now one of the thousands of bloggers.

My blog entries will be irregular. You cannot count on having a new one every day, week ...

So let's start. What's new? Oh well, the World Cup is going on and today the Germans won their match against Paraguay. I never understood -- and probably never will -- why so many people all over the world are so fascinated about this simple game. Twenty men are hunting for a ball. It's a normal ball made of leather. It is not even made of gold or platinum. So they are hunting for this ball. But when one of them gets hold of the ball, he does not take it away. He starts kicking it to one end of the playing field. Now on both ends there is something called goal and and someone called goalkeeper is guarding this goal. The guy who is kicking the ball tries to kick it into the goal. Hey, some minutes ago he tried hard to get the ball, and now he wants to get rid of it. What's going on here. Maybe he's sick. Maybe it's the schizophrenia. Poor guy. Or should I say "poor guys", because all of those 20 hunters would do the same in a similar situation.

That's football for you. Strange game, strange sport