People here seem to think that you are looking for another email client. Instead, it appears to me that what you really need is a way to archive and search your local machine. In light of that, take a look at http://beagle-project.org/ Beagle can search your IMAP stuff and local file system stuff too. I run Ubuntu so the UX for installing, configuring, indexing, and searching with Beagle is pretty easy. Beagle is available in the Ubuntu Software Center. You can search from either the command line or from the firefox search bar once you have configured that.

J2EE folks should definitely check out JDO as a better way to develop for the cloud. With JDO, you can stay relational or move to EC2 or GAE without making a big code commitment.

Infinite scalability isn't the only snake oil in the cloud. Other cloud computing myths include "all you need is a credit card" and "cloud is cheaper."

It's no longer language constructs, data structures, or algorithms that are cutting edge. Innovation has moved on to more fertile pastures. Yes, those who build software tools, libraries, IDEs, and compilers will continue to innovate. They have and will continue to come up with some brilliant stuff. But cutting edge developers don't pick a shop because they write in groovy or whatever the language-de-jeur is. Cutting edge developers go where they believe the next killer app is going to be born.

The best developers are multi-lingual. They don't identify with a single programming language. They're not VB developers or Java developers or even Rails developers. They can pick up any language/library/environment quickly. They don't really get off on curly braces versus colons. What feeds the best developers is the challenge of world domination through innovation.

Change the world, right?

IANAL but my guess here is if the attack is coming from the IP of the server(s) where your app is running, then you could listed as a defendant. If you are sharing a server or have a VPS account, then you are still not patching the OS of that machine so it is vulnerable to getting infected and caught up in a bot-net. Even with dedicated machines, an incorrectly patched firewall or security appliance could leave your machines vulnerable.

Why should corporations care? Two words "litigation exposure." A bot-net living in your network takes down an e-commerce site for day. They will see you in court. Good luck with that "don't blame me, blame my ISP" defense.

I think that kind of "not my problem" thinking is what is driving the current cloud computing craze. Corporations seem to think that they can side step the accountability hassle if they outsource IT to the cloud. Good luck with that too.

Database, web, frameworks, IDE are all important if you want to get into J2EE. I recently gave a presentation at the local JUG about GWT which is Google's toolkit for writing RIA in J2EE. About half of the talk was an introduction to GWT and the other half covered GWT specific issues with regards to Eclipse, Maven, Spring, JDO, Hibernate, GAE, EC2, Acegi, Lucene, FreeMarker, etc. The point is that there are a lot of OSS Java libraries out there that rapidly accelerate your productivity in Java development and it is important to learn how to consume some of these APIs if you want to be competitive.