This week I am working with JFreeChart to generate some dynamic charts from within a Tapestry web application I am working on. This is a nice, open source charting tool. It seems to be quite flexible. While it probably isn’t nearly as feature rich a charting package as something like Excel, for instance it has no facility that I could find to put error bars on a bar chart, it is pretty easy to modify and extend so I was able to add error bars to my bar charts. I am still learning it and have barely scraped its surface, but, I like it.
On the lighter note, Gas Powered Games released the demo for Dungeon Siege 2 last night. I was a big Dungeon Siege fan so I downloaded it… At 1.4GB this is one monster demo. I found a torrent of it and was able to fetch it in about 55 minutes. I installed it and played it for about 30 minutes. I discovered no problems or glitches. It looks great and plays great, the game should be a blast. The only kicker is that I am really used to the interface from the first game and they have changed some of it. I haven’t determined yet if the changes are good, bad, or just different, but, I am impressed and will play more. Changes were inevitable or people would have complained it was just an expansion pack. At least most (or all) of the hot keys are the same. I’ll almost definitely buy the game.