Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Danny Coward's Sun Weblog

Danny Coward's Sun Weblog: "I'm going to give you all a crash course in the management and troubleshooting tools lurking in the /bin directory of your JDK."

Really should make the effort.... I'll start on the next project .. honest guv.

JBoss.com - JBoss Seam

JBoss.com - JBoss Seam: "JBoss Seam is a powerful new application framework for building next generation Web 2.0 applications by unifying and integrating technologies such as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), Java Server Faces (JSF), Enterprise Java Beans (EJB3), Java Portlets and Business Process Management (BPM)."

One framework I keep forgetting about while the talk of Spring, Grails, and Rife etc.. goes on... and on.

InfoQ: Case Study: Zero Calories J2EE

InfoQ: Case Study: Zero Calories J2EE: "A lightweight approach with a rich domain model used directly in web-tier can increase both quality and speed of development. This case study, recorded at Javapolis, looks at a Tapestry+Spring+Hibernate project by Nordija, how it was architected, how testability was introduced, and the level of simplicity achieved using the lightweight approach. "

This is an extremely open, honest talk by a developer about the technology he used in a project with a fantastic critique of many frameworks used. The areas that are problematic, difficult to understand and theorised solutions to some of the problems after his conversations with some of the peeps at Javapolis.

InfoQ: Google GWT Toolkit and Development Process Become Fully Open Source

InfoQ: Google GWT Toolkit and Development Process Become Fully Open Source: "Today Google fully open sourced their GWT toolkit under the Apache 2.0 license. GWT 1.3 RC is the same codebase as GWT 1.2 with the only intentional change being with the license. "

Java Platform, Standard Edition 6 Release

Java Platform, Standard Edition 6 Release: "Java SE 6 is the current major release of the Java SE platform, with full support from NetBeans IDE 5.5. Sun endeavors to foster the highest level of transparency and collaboration on the platform with the Java community through Project JDK 6, resulting in the following key features. Sun's Java Multi-Platform Support, Training, and Certification can provide you the peace of mind to develop and deploy Java solutions with confidence."

Raible Designs | [TSE] Keynote: The Bigger Picture with Adrian Colyer

Raible Designs | [TSE] Keynote: The Bigger Picture with Adrian Colyer: "We've seen a lot of things over the last few days, but what about the big picture? It's not just about the Spring Framework anymore, but there's also a lot of sub-projects: SFW, SWF, SWS, S-OSGi. Then there's Enterprise services: clustering, persistence, messaging and scheduling. Industry trends: SAO, Web 2.0/RIA, RAD stacks. "

Lots of information about all sorts of Spring related stuff.

Dean Edwards: The window.onload Problem - Solved!

Dean Edwards: The window.onload Problem - Solved!: "The window.onload event is used by programmers to kick-start their web applications. The problem is that the onload event fires after all page content has loaded (including images and other binary content). If your page includes lots of images then you may see a noticeable lag before the page becomes active. What we want is a way to determine when the DOM has fully loaded without waiting for all those pesky images to load.

Mozilla provides an (undocumented) event tailor-made for this: DOMContentLoaded.

IE supports a very handy
(but non-standard)attribute for the <script> tag: defer. The presence of this attribute will instruct IE to defer the loading of a script until after the DOM has loaded. This only works for external scripts however. Another important thing to note is that this attribute cannot be set using script.

Raible Designs | [TSE] Building Modern Web Applications with Mike Stenhouse

Raible Designs | [TSE] Building Modern Web Applications with Mike Stenhouse: "Building Modern Web Applications with Mike Stenhouse Mike Stenhouse is the creator of the CSS Framework we use in AppFuse1. Mike is going to talk about the tools he uses to develop web applications. Mike works solely on the front-end, no backend work."

Excellent discussion on Semantic HTML, Microformats, CSS and Unobtrusive javascript providing progressive enhancement. Microformats are something I'm definitely going to have to take a better look at.

Raible Designs | [TSE] Hop into Real Object Oriented (ROO) with Ben Alex

Raible Designs | [TSE] Hop into Real Object Oriented (ROO) with Ben Alex: "Real Object Oriented (ROO) is both an architectural approach and a framework with code generation. ROO uses 4 (UI, middle-tier, domain model and persistence) layers instead of 3. Most of of the code is in the domain model. In the persistence layer, most DAOs only differ in finder methods. Rather than DAOs, 'Repositories' (from DDD) are used. "

Raible Designs | [TSE] Spring-OSGI with Adrian Colyer

Raible Designs | [TSE] Spring-OSGI with Adrian Colyer: "Most people don't even know what it is. OSGi stands for Open Services Gateway initiative. From the very beginning, it was designed to be lightweight and dynamic. This is the major difference between it and other containers. It's always been designed to have things added and removed. Now it's tagline is: 'The Dynamic Module System for Java'.

It's designed to allow you to partition a system into a number of modules (a.k.a. bundles). There's strict visibility rules (similar to protected and private). There's a resolution process (dependencies are satisfied) and it understands versioning. "

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Glassbox - Project

Glassbox - Project: "The Glassbox troubleshooter is an automated troubleshooting and monitoring agent for Java applications that diagnoses common problems with one-click. Drop it onto your existing Java Application Server (Tomcat, JBoss, WebSphere, WebLogic), either in production or testing. Because Glassbox's troubleshooting knowledge is built in, anyone can isolate a failing connection or a slow-running query instantly. It adapts to your application and pinpoints your errors or performance issue in plain English, and you no longer need to wade through log files and graphs."

Monday, July 10, 2006

What's New in Java SE 6 Beta 2 (Mustang)

Article:
What's New in Java SE 6 Beta 2 (Mustang)

Version 6 of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE), code-named Mustang, is currently in its second beta release – which is right on track for moving along to its Fall general release. So here are the top 10 things you need to know about Mustang, if you're still hovering hesitantly over that Beta 2 Download Page link. Subsequent articles will provide more in-depth information.

What's New in Java SE 6 Beta 2 (Mustang)


technorati tags: , ,

Visual Paradigm for UML 5.3 is released

Visual Paradigm for UML 5.3 is releasedURL: Visual ParadigmAt 2:19 AM on Jul 10, 2006, Stella Au DeveloperZone Top 100 wrote:Visual Paradigm team is pleased to announce the release of Visual Paradigm for UML (VP-UML) 5.3, an full-featured UML CASE Tool. VP-UML is designed for a wide range of users, including Software Engineers, System Analysts, Business Analysts, System Architects alike, who are interested in building large scale software systems reliably through the use of the Object-Oriented approach.

Visual Paradigm for UML 5.3 is released ...


technorati tags:

MyEclipse 5.0 M2 Available for Download

MyEclipse 5.0 M2 Available for DownloadURL: MyEclipse DownloadsAt 9:03 AM on Jul 10, 2006, Jens Eckels wrote:The second milestone release (M2) of MyEclipse 5.0 is now available for immediate installation through the "Development Releases" section of the downloads area of the MyEclipse website. Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX support is available.

MyEclipse 5.0 M2 Available for Download ...


technorati tags: ,

ONJava.com -- What's New in Eclipse 3.2 Java Development Tools

What's New in Eclipse 3.2 Java Development Tools

by Ed Burnette
06/28/2006

Garibaldi: Have you ever tried one of these?
Miss Cramer: What is it?
Garibaldi: I'm not sure. According to the translator, it's either an aphrodisiac or a floor wax. I can't decide if it's worth the risk or not.
--Babylon 5, "Infection"

Eclipse is a popular Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Java programming. It can also be used as an environment for other languages like C++ and Ruby, as a framework for consolidating tools of any kind, and as a Rich Client Platform for creating desktop or server applications. The Eclipse open source community is responsible for dozens of projects, ranging from business intelligence to social networking. Eclipse is the name of the non-profit foundation that manages those projects, as well. (And, while I'm pretty sure it's not a floor wax, there is also an Eclipse automobile, a soccer team, and a brand of chewing gum.)

Eclipse version 3.2 forms the cornerstone of the Eclipse Callisto release train: a simultaneous release of ten Eclipse projects on June 30, 2006. This article will focus on the Eclipse IDE, in particular its Java Development Tools (JDT).

ONJava.com -- What's New in Eclipse 3.2 Java Development Tools

Free Seminars

Free Seminar: Agile Dynamic Programming with Groovy Grails - July 13th[Groovy and Grails: Dierk Koenig and Graeme Rocher present at Skills Matter, London]Dierk Koenig, author of the forthcoming Groovy in Action book and committer to both the Groovy and the Grails project will explain and demo agile and dynamic programming with Groovy at this free seminar on Groovy and Grails at Skills Matter in London on July 13th.

News Events : News Events, Training Partnerships, Techno


technorati tags:

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Apache News Online: 26 May 2006 - Apache Lucene 2.0.0 released

26 May 2006 - Apache Lucene 2.0.0 released
The Apache Lucene Project has released the version 2.0 of Apache Lucene. Apache Lucene is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform.

Apache News Online: 26 May 2006 - Apache Lucene 2.0.0 released


technorati tags: ,

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Manageability - Open Source Workflow Engines Written in Java

Open Source Workflow Engines Written in JavaPosted by: ceperez Last Updated: 2006-05-24 05:16:56A review of active open source workflow projects that are written in Java.

Manageability - Open Source Workflow Engines Written in Java

Also contains links to many other types of frameworks and software in general

technorati tags: ,

How workflow is going to change your life

How workflow is going to change your life.

Technology in plain English » How workflow is going to change your life.

Article on Workflow - in JBoss -with links to several other articles

technorati tags: ,

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

ONJava.com -- Wire Hibernate Transactions in Spring

Wire Hibernate Transactions in Spring
by Binildas Christudas
05/18/2005

This article is intended to show how Spring can be used to assemble components, including their transaction contexts. Connecting to a single data store from within a J2EE application is not a big hurdle. But when it comes to assembly and integration of enterprise-class components, the scenario gets complicated.

ONJava.com -- Wire Hibernate Transactions in Spring


technorati tags: , ,

Implementing Transaction Suspension in Spring

Implementing Transaction Suspension in Spring
by Juergen Hoeller
07/04/2005

The Spring Framework, a popular Java/J2EE application framework built on a lightweight Inversion-of-Control container, is particularly well-known for its data access and transaction management capabilities. Spring's declarative transaction demarcation can be applied to any POJO target object, with the full sophistication of declarative transactions as found in EJB Container-Managed Transactions (CMT). The choices for a back-end transaction manager range from simple JDBC-based transactions to full-fledged J2EE transactions via JTA.

Implementing Transaction Suspension in Spring


technorati tags: ,

Saturday, May 20, 2006

TechCrunch » Blog Archive » Europe Shows Its Stuff: Innovate 2006

May 19 2006

Europe Shows Its Stuff: Innovate 2006
Michael Arrington

Dozens of (mostly) European companies showcased their new consumer web applications at Innovate 2006 in Zaragoza, Spain this week. As usual with conferences like these, the companies were young, rough and hungry. And I see a lot of potential with at least a few of them. I’ve summarized my favorites below and look forward to profiling these individually.

TechCrunch » Blog Archive » Europe Shows Its Stuff: Innovate 2006


TechCrunch » Blog Archive » Motionbox - Best Online Video Sharing So Far

There have been big changes in the online video space since I wrote a comparison post of the companies in the space (Flickrs of Video) last November.

Some things haven’t changed: Flickr still hasn’t released a video product, and YouTube (TechCrunch posts here) is still the reigning champ of online video with just massive traffic growth and mindshare.

But new tools are coming out to make sharing videos online even easier.

TechCrunch » Blog Archive » Motionbox - Best Online Video Sharing So Far


technorati tags:

Gliffy.com - Diagram and draw in your web browser

Draw share diagrams on the web

Gliffy.com - Diagram and draw in your web browser


technorati tags:

Google Operating System: How To Break Web Software

Friday, May 19, 2006

How To Break Web Software
Mike Andrews, a software security expert, was invited at Googleplex to talk about web applications security. The video [ 1 hr 26 min 38 sec] is a part of Google Techtalks.

Google Operating System: How To Break Web Software


technorati tags: , ,

BigBlueBall Forums - Skype Introduces Real-time Voice Translation

Skype Introduces Real-time Voice Translation
Posted by Jeff | 05-15-2006, 03:00 PM |

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch noted that Skype last week began offering real-time language translation services for Skype voice calls. The service is offered through a partnership with Voxeo and Language Line Services, and 150 languages are supported.

BigBlueBall Forums - Skype Introduces Real-time Voice Translation

That's a really interesting idea, it will be good to see if this takes off.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Max Kiesler - Round-up of 50 AJAX Toolkits and Frameworks

Round-up of 50 AJAX Toolkits and Frameworks

The following is a compilation of all of the AJAX toolkits and frameworks that I have either reviewed or have first hand experience with and would recommend. It seem like a new AJAX toolkit or framework has come out every week or so since the term AJAX was coined a little over a year ago. As a designer and developer I find these tools invaluable in the process of rapid web development.

Max Kiesler - Round-up of 50 AJAX Toolkits and Frameworks


technorati tags: ,

Max Kiesler - 60 More AJAX Tutorials

With the popularity of AJAX growing every day I've had the opportunity to collect and try out many more tutorials in the last several months. These examples and how-to's represent the best tutorials that I've personally used or otherwise had the opportunity to work with out of the overall group. This post is intended for individuals who learn best by example. Most of the listed tutorials come complete with instructions and source code. I've also categorized all of the tutorials for easy browsing. Enjoy!

Max Kiesler - 60 More AJAX Tutorials


technorati tags: ,

Google Web Toolkit - Build AJAX apps in the Java language

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language. Writing dynamic web applications today is a tedious and error-prone process; you spend 90% of your time working around subtle incompatabilities between web browsers and platforms, and JavaScript's lack of modularity makes sharing, testing, and reusing AJAX components difficult and fragile.

Google Web Toolkit - Build AJAX apps in the Java language

OK if this does what it says on the tin (aka: In production, your code is compiled to JavaScript, but at development time it runs in the Java virtual machine. That means when your code performs an action like handling a mouse event, you get full-featured Java debugging, with exceptions and the advanced debugging features of IDEs like Eclipse).

technorati tags: , ,

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

blueprints: JavaScript Recommendations AJAX Component Writers

JavaScript Recommendations for AJAX Component Writers

Author: Greg Murray

With AJAX there are many choices on how to use different aspects of JavaScript. This document proposes some recommendations for developers creating AJAX components with a focus on using JavaScript on the client and Java on the server. Many of these recommendations will carry over to other server-side technologies.

blueprints: JavaScript Recommendations AJAX Component Writers

Excellent Coding standards advice about Javascript

technorati tags: ,

The Java Persistence API - A Simpler Programming Model for Entity Persistence

The Java Persistence API

- A Simpler Programming Model for Entity Persistence

By Rahul Biswas and Ed Ort,
May 2006

The major theme of version 5 of the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE, formerly referred to as J2EE) is ease of development. Changes throughout the platform make the development of enterprise Java technology applications much easier, with far less coding. Significantly, these simplifications have not changed the platform's power: The Java EE 5 platform maintains all the functional richness of the previous version, J2EE 1.4.

The Java Persistence API - A Simpler Programming Model for Entity Persistence


technorati tags: ,

Monday, May 15, 2006

TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows XP/2000 and Linux

T r u e C r y p t

Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows XP/2000/2003 and Linux

TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows XP/2000 and Linux

Moving slightly away from the norm... I might give some sort of encryption system a go, even if just to encrypt passwords.

technorati tags: ,

Apple - Boot Camp

More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.

Apple - Boot Camp


technorati tags: , ,

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Spotlights

java.net Spotlights

Spotlight

Spotlights on Java Projects

technorati tags:

Typetester – Compare fonts for the screen

What is Typetester?

The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its’ primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated.

Typetester – Compare fonts for the screen

Useful little web tool.

technorati tags: ,

Friday, May 12, 2006

TheServerSide.com Java Symposium-Europe - Barcelona, Spain - June 21-23, 2006

Architecture:
  • Building a Reliable Open Source ESB with Mule
  • Creating Grid-Based Data Infrastructures for the Enterprise
  • Developing in a Service-oriented World
  • How JBoss jBPM Integrates into your Java Project
  • Introduction to Seam
  • Messaging: A Flexible, Powerful, and Extensible Communication Model
  • Service Oriented Architecture Meets Web 2.0
  • Using Java Business Integration to Enable Composite Applications with ServiceMix
Case Study:
  • Banking/Grid: Case Study
Client:
  • Advanced AJAX Applications with DWR
  • Next Generation Mobile Java “On The Edge”
Development:
  • AOP - Ready For Prime Time: Applications For AOP Techniques in Real World Enterprise Applications
  • Building Reliable and High Performance Messaging Applications with POJOs and Apache ActiveMQ
  • Component Based Web Application Development with Wicket
  • Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP)
  • Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0
  • Flow with Continuations
  • Java Specialists in Action
  • JBossCache
  • JGroups: Building a Replicated Hashtable in 20 Minutes
  • Performance Anti-Patterns
  • Productive Coder
  • Ruby
  • Software Visualization and Model Generation
Frameworks:
  • Compass
  • Dive into RIFE
  • Java Persistence
  • Spring Update: What's New and Cool in Spring 2.0
  • The Inner Workings of a "Clustered" JVM
Methodology:
  • Reconstructing XP: From Fragile to Agile
  • Turbocharging Development with MDA, Patterns, and MetaTooling
Testing QA:
  • Advanced Testing Techniques with TestNG
Trends:
  • Beyond Java: Technologies to Watch
Web Services:
  • Secure and Reliable Web Services
  • Web Services Security using Java
Workflow:
  • Embedding Workflow, BPM and Orchestration in Java
Birds of a Feather Sessions (BOFs):
  • "Bottom 10" Reasons Agile Teams Fail
  • The End of Tier-Based Architecture

TheServerSide.com Java Symposium-Europe - Barcelona, Spain - June 21-23, 2006


Top 10 Cool Stuff Destinations at the 2006 JavaOne Conference

ArticleTop 10 Cool Stuff
Destinations at the 2006 JavaOne Conference
By John O'Conner, May 2006

Sessions in the Cool Stuff track at the 2006 JavaOne conference show you some of the most original Java technology available. And they have one thing in common: They inspire, motivate, and encourage innovative use of the Java platform.With at least 39 different sessions in the Cool Stuff category, you'll need to plan ahead to make the most of your time and energy at the conference. Helping to guide you through all that's available, here's my list of the top 10 must-see Cool Stuff sessions.

Top 10 Cool Stuff Destinations at the 2006 JavaOne Conference

Article Covers:

  • The Sun Grid Compute Utility (TS-1109)
  • Building Highly Dynamic Battlefield Network Infrastructure for Boeing U.S. Army Future Combat Systems Using JXTA Technology (TS-3527)
  • Java Technology in an Intelligent Swarm of Heterogeneous Lego Robots (BOF-0503)
  • Corporate Cola: Visualizing Your Email (BOF-0639)
  • Groovy = Java Technology + Ruby + Python for the JVM* (TS-3273)
  • JRuby: Bringing Ruby to the JVM Software (TS-3059)
  • High Performance: Writing a Sony PlayStation Emulator in Java Technology (TS-5547)
  • Transparently Clustered Spring -- A Runtime Solution for Java Technology (TS-3217)
  • Compile Time Assertions: Enforcing Extralinguistic Constraints (BOF-0723)
  • Squawk: A Java VM for Wireless Sensor Networks (TS-1598)

JavaBlackBelt - Java skills evaluation platform

JavaBlackBelt is a community for Java open source skills assessment. Everybody is welcome to take existing and build new examns.This is the place where Java developers have their technology knowledge and development abilities recognized. It is dedicated to technical quizzes about Java related technologies.

JavaBlackBelt - Java skills evaluation platform


technorati tags:

Spring: Data Access using O/R Mappers

Chapter 12.
Data Access using O/R Mappers

12.1. Introduction

Spring provides integration with Hibernate, JDO, Oracle TopLink, Apache OJB and iBATIS SQL Maps: in terms of resource management, DAO implementation support, and transaction strategies. For example for Hibernate, there is first-class support with lots of IoC convenience features, addressing many typical Hibernate integration issues. All of these support packages for O/R mappers comply with Spring's generic transaction and DAO exception hierarchies. There are usually two integration styles: either using Spring's DAO 'templates' or coding DAOs against plain Hibernate/JDO/TopLink/etc APIs. In both cases, DAOs can be configured through Dependency Injection and participate in Spring's resource and transaction management.

Chapter Access using O/R Mappers


technorati tags: , , ,

Spring 2.0 vs. the Anemic Domain Model

Spring 2.0 vs. the Anemic Domain Model
Posted by: Joseph Ottinger on December 13, 2005 @ 08:53 AM

In "Spring 2.0 vs. the Anemic Domain Model," Craig Walls discusses how the upcoming Spring 2.0 release might be able to configure beans after instantiation to help avoid anemic domain models. Craig shows a very detailed explanation of how the domain model might look.

Spring 2.0 vs. the Anemic Domain Model


technorati tags:

The Aspects Blog: Typed Advice in Spring 2.0 (M2)

January 18, 2006Typed Advice in Spring 2.0 (M2)I spent a few days last week working on argument binding in advice for the new aop schema and @AspectJ support in Spring 2.0. In this article, I'll explain how the new support works and how you can use it.

The Aspects Blog: Typed Advice in Spring 2.0 (M2)


technorati tags:

The Aspects Blog: A Practical Guide to Using an Aspect Library (part I)

February 20, 2006A Practical Guide to Using an Aspect Library (part I)This entry represents part one of a two-part guide to using an aspect library (with AspectJ). I wrote it in December of last year, and have been waiting to finish part II before publishing it. But I finally realised with everything else I've got on at the moment it's probably best just to make this part available anyway!

The Aspects Blog: A Practical Guide to Using an Aspect Library (part I)


technorati tags: , ,

Otaku, Cedric's weblog: Learning to like early aborts

August 01, 2005
Learning to like early aborts

I am a big fan of single return point functions.

There are several advantages to this approach:

  • Clearer flow of execution. You know the final return result will be run, no matter what.
  • Easier to debug. I can set a breakpoint on the return and inspect the returned value.
However, I started questioning this habit in a particular case: when the failure in a condition should cause the method to abort right away.

Otaku, Cedric's weblog: Learning to like early aborts

I have to admit to sticking fairly religiously to Single return point functions, after reading the comments from so many people that favour early aborts - maybe I should reconsider my position.

technorati tags: , , , , , ,

The Aspects Blog: The New Holy Trinity

March 05, 2005
The New Holy Trinity

No, this isn't a religious post. It's about an approach to developing applications. I'm not the only one advocating this approach, and I'm not the first to write about some of the ideas here. What I want to do in this post though is put all the pieces together in one place and boil the approach down to its essence to give you a simple way of thinking about it.

The Aspects Blog: The New Holy Trinity


technorati tags: , , ,

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Clustering at the JVM Level to Maintain Business Logic Integrity

Clustering at the JVM Level to Maintain Business Logic Integrity

The typical three-tier architecture keeps the code Java developers need for clustering inside the business logic, making clustering a real chore.
Clustering at the JVM level makes Java applications easier to write and cheaper to run.
by Ari ZilkaApril 14, 2006

The way a typical three-tier architecture separates the concerns of data-management logic, business logic, and presentation logic makes clustering, the practice of deploying a single application on multiple machines, a laborious and expensive task for Java developers. (See Sidebar 1. The Typical Three-Tier Architecture.) With the separation structured the way it currently is, business logic currently includes the code required for clustering. Without a clustering plug-in at runtime, developers are left to cluster their own business logic, the frameworks they use, and in some cases, the container in which it all runs.

Clustering at the JVM Level to Maintain Business Logic Integrity


technorati tags:

Discover Seam and Sew Up Your Java Projects Faster than Ever

Discover Seam and Sew Up Your Java Projects Faster than Ever

In the tradition of Spring, JBoss offers Seam, which uses a declarative state model, extensive use of annotations, and two-way dependency injection to make automation of huge portions of your complex Java EE apps not just possible, but downright sensible.

by Mark Smith

April 24, 2006

Recently, a friend called to tell me about a huge turnout at an Atlanta JUG meeting to hear about a new product from JBoss called Seam. I went to my keyboard and after just 20 minutes of reading about Seam, I was very impressed. For starters, Seam is based on the lightweight standards in Java EE 5 (J2EE 3) like the new entity bean spec, JSF, annotations, interceptors, and session beans. Like Spring, Seam uses inversion of control but unlike Spring, Seam allows injection of stateful objects. Much of the data movement and framework/API manipulation work that enterprise Java developers have drudged through for 7 years disappears with Seam.

Discover Seam and Sew Up Your Java Projects Faster than Ever


technorati tags: ,

Monday, May 08, 2006

Spring, Hibernate, Ruby on Rails, iBatis, Eclipse, etc

This is just a collection of links I have come across tonight and enjoyed reading:

Rails 8 times slower than Java

Hibernate vs iBatis

AppFuse - Bringing together Struts, Spring, Hibernate etc...

Equinox - A light weight version of AppFuse

Info on Spring 2.0

Spring 2.0 treats

iBatis Feedback - with some interesting comments on Hibernate

What's on your bookshelf?

Tips on Using Eclipse

Massive Thread on Spring I've only read up to #193633... not even half way through - how can so many post so much in such a short space of time - and how did it take me so long to come across this article.

Note to self - go here more often

Enterprise Infrastructure > Operating Systems > ThinkFree Web app outshines Office

ThinkFree Web app outshines Office
By: Dennis O'ReillyPC World.com (US) (25 Apr 2006)

It sounds too good to be true: free word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation programs that are compatible with their Microsoft Office counterparts and that work in a browser.That's the promise of ThinkFree, a Web service that offers all this, and more. I looked at the beta of the new version, which debuts today, and despite a few features that aren't working quite right yet (such as downloading and sharing PowerPoint and Excel files), I'm sold on the service.

Enterprise Infrastructure Operating Systems ThinkFree Web app outshines Office


technorati tags: ,

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Exalead - For the media - FAQ Press

What does Exalead mean? The trademark Exalead is an association of the two terms "exa" and "lead"; these two notions are at the core of the exalead one:search platform.

Exalead - For the media - FAQ Press


technorati tags:

Sphere Blog Search » Solution Watch

Sphere Blog Search
Wednesday May 03rd 2006, 10:11 pm

Sphere, a new blog search engine has launched a couple days ago, along with $3.75 million in capital and has been quite the buzz the last few days. I have seen both good and bad commentary about Sphere so far and I too have mixed feelings about it so far. I’ve actually been beta testing Sphere for the last few months and immediately fell in love with it then, although felt it lacked some key features that Technorati has with statistics and related media. By time of the official launch of Sphere, I was happy to see that Sphere has definitely upped the functionality now including a great custom date range tool, related media searching, and a neat Featured Blog’s area for search results. TechCrunch has provided a detailed overview of features and feel that he’s covered the details for the most part. Because of this, I’m going to give a brief overview of its offerings as well as some details about my experience with relevance, speed, profiles, and statistics.

Sphere Blog Search » Solution Watch


technorati tags:

A Funny Java Flavoured Look at the World: Unit Testing Database code using Hibernate and HSQLDB

Monday, May 01, 2006Unit Testing Database code using Hibernate and HSQLDBI read this article today called Unit testing hibernate with HSQLDB I found this article really interesting because I have been writing some database code recently and I am always concerned about testing methods and code that uses database code.

A Funny Java Flavoured Look at the World: Unit Testing Database code using Hibernate and HSQLDB


technorati tags: , ,

hibernate.org - Common Problems

Hibernate Users FAQ

hibernate.org - Common Problems


technorati tags:

hibernate.org - Using GigaSpaces Grid based Distributed Cachings

Using GigaSpaces Grid based Distributed Caching

Overview
GigaSpaces Grid based distributed caching is a major component within the GigaSpaces Enterprise Application Grid-based (EAG) architecture.
It enables applications to reduce the access time to information that resides in the database by bringing the information to the local application memory.
The information is loaded to the cache from the database in an on-demand basis. The cache manages the local memory utilization and the consistency of that information.

hibernate.org - Using GigaSpaces Grid based Distributed Cachings


technorati tags:

hibernate.org - Sessions and transactions

Sessions and transactions

This page explains common techniques to deal with the Session and transactions in Hibernate applications. Refer to the Hibernate reference documentation and the "Transactions and Concurrency" chapter for more information. This page describes Hibernate 3.1.x and code shown here does not work in older versions.

hibernate.org - Sessions and transactions


technorati tags:

XFire: The easy and simple way to develop Web services

XFire: The easy and simple way to develop Web services

Expose your POJO methods as Web services

Summary
Ask .Net developers how tough it is to develop Web services. Amused by your question, they'll probably reply that the steps require less than a minute of your time. Ask a Java developer, and, chances are, you'll get a completely different answer. Five years have passed since Web services was introduced in Java. Yet it is still considered one of the newer technologies, a major reason being Web services are difficult to implement in Java. Now with the release of XFire, a new-generation Web services engine, that situation could change dramatically. Using XFire, you can expose your Java class methods as Web services without writing additional code. In this article, you'll see how XFire makes Web services development easy and simple.

(2,400 words; May 1, 2006)

XFire: The easy and simple way to develop Web services


technorati tags: , ,

Enterprise Java Community: Hibernate vs. Rails: The Persistence Showdown

March 2005
DiscussionAnd the wires were all a buzz about Rails...
Much like a few other java folks, such as Bruce Tate and David Geary, I have been taking a look at a new web framework Rails. Of particular interest to me is its ORM (Object Relational Mapping) tool, ActiveRecord. Since choosing a technology always involves opportunity costs of some kind, I have written this article to compare and contrast with another popular ORM tool, Hibernate. It summarizes what I've learned about Rails, mainly by stacking it up against Hibernate, a technology I'm very familiar with.

Enterprise Java Community: Hibernate vs. Rails: The Persistence Showdown


technorati tags: , , ,

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Configuration Management in Java EE Applications Using Subversion

Configuration Management in Java EE Applications Using Subversion
by Swaminathan Radhakrishnan
05/03/2006

The most critical asset of any enterprise application is the data that it stores. Today's enterprise applications are often required to not just store data, but also keep track of all the changes that are made. This expectation also permeates into an associated set of requirements, such as tracking the reason for each change, the time of the change etc. In many cases, the data tracking requirements apply to data that applications store in the form of documents. Using Subversion can help satisfy these complicated, albeit common, requirements.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Mashup Matrix

Matrix showing mashups of combinations Web2.0 sites / services.

New Web Framework: Echo2, with Ajax-based Rendering

New Web Framework: Echo2, with Ajax-based Rendering: "New Web Framework: Echo2, with Ajax-based Rendering
Posted by: Tod Liebeck on March 24, 2005 @ 08:28 AM

Echo2 is a reinvention of the Echo Web Framework built around an Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) rendering engine. Distributed under the Mozilla Public License, Echo2 aims at providing a component-oriented/event-driven toolkit for developing web applications that approach the capabilities of rich clients."


see also: NextApp

NextApp Demo

Monday, May 01, 2006

Javalobby Readers' Choice: Top Java Books

Javalobby Readers' Choice: Top Java Books: "Javalobby Readers' Choice: Top Java Books

There are evidently a lot of high-quality Java and programming books out there which your fellow Javalobby members would recommend. If you began right now reading the cumulative 72,079 pages of the titles they have recommended, and if you read fifty pages per day every day, then you would finish reading this collection sometime in the middle of January, 2013! Of course, there’s some question whether all of this material would still be relevant by then, and there’s also the small issue of whether you’d really want to fork over the $5,238.66 this library would cost if you paid full price for every title. Thank goodness for Amazon, that 38% savings would really matter here!"

Awesome!

Yet more puzzlers

Yet more puzzlers


The javapolis puzzlers - well worth watching this presentation, for little things in Java that can catch you out. My favourite tip from this was the @override annotation in Java5 which I will start using all the time from now on!

Sun Microsystems Announces Open Source Enterprise Development Tool Project

Sun Microsystems Announces Open Source Enterprise Development Tool Project: "Sun Microsystems Announces Open Source Enterprise Development Tool Project

NetBeans Enterprise Pack Enables Developers to Customize and Contribute to Enterprise-Class UML, XML, and SOA Features
SANTA CLARA, Calif. April 11, 2006 Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), the creator and leading advocate of Java technology, plans to open source major elements of the Sun Java Studio Enterprise -- an enterprise-class development tool -- as a project on NetBeans.org. This new project, which will be released as the NetBeans Enterprise Pack, continues Sun's mission of growth via sharing and participation."

Wired News: Ultimate Guide to Online Video

Wired News: Ultimate Guide to Online Video: "Ultimate Guide to Online Video

By 02:00 AM May, 01, 2006
What do you want to watch?

The answer used to depend on limits -- what day it was, what time it was, what channels you got. A handy little thing called TV Guide laid it all out. Television was a one-way medium - big broadcasters pushing content into our living rooms at a specific time and place."

Video on-line is definitely here now - and legitimately. YouTube lets you watch, lovefilm lets you download and even channel4 have an on demand service for LOST (first 2 episodes of Season 1 are free, the rest cost 99p).

Sunday, April 30, 2006

SketchUp - Home

SketchUp - Home: "SketchUp is a simple but powerful tool for quickly and easily creating, viewing and modifying your 3D ideas."

Can be used to create models for Google Earth

Java Technology and Web Services

Java Technology and Web Services: "Web services are Web-based enterprise applications that use open, XML-based standards and transport protocols to exchange data with calling clients. Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) provides the APIs and tools you need to create and deploy interoperable Web services and clients. "

THE place to start when looking at Web Services

The Java Community Process(SM) Program - JSRs: Java Specification Requests - detail JSR# 270

The Java Community Process(SM) Program - JSRs: Java Specification Requests - detail JSR# 270: "JSRs: Java Specification Requests
JSR 270: JavaTM SE 6 ('Mustang') Release Contents"

More on Mustang

Oracle XE: It's Not Your Typical Oracle

Oracle XE: It's Not Your Typical Oracle: "Oracle XE: It's Not Your Typical Oracle
By Dick Wall

Suit vs. Jeans

Try a visualization. Think about Oracle Database. If you are anything like me, you are probably envisioning large, mission-critical applications, darkened server rooms with loud fans and lots of heat, and DBAs sweatily laboring to keep the enterprise running. You might, if you have had the experience, also get a sinking feeling from the installation, configuration, and administration of the beast (in other words, oh no, not all those steps to run through again)."

JINSPIRED Home Page

JINSPIRED Home Page: "JXInsight 4.2 Early Access Program
JInspired is pleased to announce the JXInsight 4.2 Early Access Program. The first build is now available from the Downloads section. JXInsight 4.2 contains many new innovative features"

Not read this yet - just there on the todo list.

Core Java Technology Features in Mustang

Core Java Technology Features in Mustang: "Article
Core Java Technology Features in Mustang

By the JDK Core Engineering Team, June 16, 2005
A few weeks ago, the desktop Java client group published an article detailing the important desktop Java technology features planned for the next release of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE, formerly known as J2SE), code named Mustang.

This article will detail the important core features that are coming in Mustang. We list here all the items that are currently planned. Many are already integrated, and you can try them out yourself by downloading the most recent build from the Mustang snapshot release site. We try to estimate when you can expect to see in a snapshot release those items that are still in development. When a status line reads, for example, 'Delivered in b39,' it means that the feature was integrated in build 39. A new build is posted to the Mustang snapshot release site weekly. We increment the build number each week."

Despite the fact that I have yet to try all the featuresintroduced in Java 5, it is probably about time to look ahead to what is happening in Mustang. This old article seems like a good place to start.

HTTP Streaming - Ajax Patterns

HTTP Streaming - Ajax Patterns: "Stream server data in the response of a long-lived HTTP connection. Most web services do some processing, send back a response, and immediately exit. But in this pattern, they keep the connection open by running a long loop. The server script uses event registration or some other technique to detect any state changes. As soon as a state change occurs, it pushes new data to the outgoing stream and flushes it, but doesn't actually close it. Meanwhile, the browser must ensure the user-interface reflects the new data."

More information on XML-PUSH technology.

Other links:
Pushlets
HTTPLR
Stream 2.0
IRCG
Realtime on Rails
lightstreamer

I remember the first time I heard about this technology was on the Netscape DevEdge site - which used to be an excellent resource - the good news is a mirror is being restored I believe that this was the article.

The Four "Quantum States" of AJAX @ AJAXWORLD MAGAZINE

The Four "Quantum States" of AJAX @ AJAXWORLD MAGAZINE: "The Four 'Quantum States' of AJAX
An Effort to Tease Apart and Classify the Plethora of AJAX Technologies Available Today

By: Kevin Hakman
Apr. 11, 2006 09:15 AM

Uh oh! Here comes yet another technology buzzword. This time it’s “AJAX”. In addition to being a household cleaner, a character from Greek mythology, and the name of a European soccer club, AJAX is Asynchronous communication, JavaScript, and XML. These technologies, which are already present in your browser, make it possible to retrieve information without refreshing a Web page."

Introductory article, explaining different types of AJAX - but omits Comet.

Reporting Made Easy with JasperReports and Hibernate @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Reporting Made Easy with JasperReports and Hibernate @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "Reporting Made Easy with JasperReports and Hibernate
JasperReports and Hibernate in Web applications

By: Peter Sellars
Jan. 25, 2006 08:30 PM

JasperReports is a valuable and viable reporting solution for Java Web applications. It simplifies report generation through the use of XML report templates that are then compiled using the JasperReports engine for use in reporting modules. These compiled report templates can be filled by data received from a variety of sources including relational databases. JasperReports can be integrated into Web applications and create reports in several file formats including PDF and XLS."

The section on using Hibernate with JasperReports should come in useful.

Five Earth-Shattering Things You Should Know About AJAX and You Don't @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Five Earth-Shattering Things You Should Know About AJAX and You Don't @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "Five Earth-Shattering Things You Should Know About AJAX and You Don't
Of course, you already know everything about AJAX, don't you?

By: Dion Hinchcliffe
Apr. 20, 2006 06:45 PM

5 Earth-Shattering Things You Should Know About Ajax And Probably Don't"

Nice distinction between AJAX and Web 2.0.

Java Feature — Concurrent Programming and Locking in J2SE 5.0 @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Java Feature — Concurrent Programming and Locking in J2SE 5.0 @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "Java Feature — Concurrent Programming and Locking in J2SE 5.0
The mechanics of using the Lock interface implementations

By: Craig Caulfield
Apr. 21, 2006 02:00 PM

In concurrent programming, exclusion refers to any technique that dynamically locks certain blocks of code so multiple threads can't corrupt their shared resources in ways that can cause integrity problems. In Java, exclusion has meant using the synchronized keyword against a method or block of code to control access to an object's lock."

SYS-CON Announces Readers' Choice Awards for SOA, Java, Linux, .NET, MX, ColdFusion, and XML Technologies @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

SYS-CON Announces Readers' Choice Awards for SOA, Java, Linux, .NET, MX, ColdFusion, and XML Technologies @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "SYS-CON Announces Readers' Choice Awards for SOA, Java, Linux, .NET, MX, ColdFusion, and XML Technologies
Also known as the 'Oscars of the Software Industry' the winners were chosen by more than 17,000 SYS-CON readers

By: Java News Desk
Feb. 6, 2006 01:30 PM

SYS-CON Media (www.sys-con.com) announced today the results of its 10th annual “Readers’ Choice Awards” for best products and tools for the SOA, Web Services, Java and XML technologies. Winners and three finalists were announced today in 21 categories by SOA Web Services Journal. Java Developer’s Journal also announced winners and finalists in 26 distinct product and tool categories."

Old news but thought I'd blog this for reference.

Comprehensive AJAX Platform Released As Open Source @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Comprehensive AJAX Platform Released As Open Source @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "Comprehensive AJAX Platform Released As Open Source
The First Visual Dev Environment for Building Internet Apps With AJAX Now Includes Open Source Runtime

By: Java News Desk
Jan. 10, 2006 11:15 PM

Page 1 of 2

Developers now have a fast, efficient and cost-effective way to create AJAX-enabled rich Internet applications with the release of ClearNova's, ThinkCAP JX -- the first rapid application development (RAD) platform to be offered as open source, and the first visual development environment for building rich Internet applications. ThinkCAP JX combines the power of AJAX, J2EE and open source to enable organizations and their developers to build the web-based applications that run their businesses. "

Java Feature — Business Intelligence and Reporting with BIRT @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Java Feature — Business Intelligence and Reporting with BIRT @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "Java Feature — Business Intelligence and Reporting with BIRT
A first experience account

By: Chris Beels
Apr. 17, 2006 11:00 AM

Open Source Business Intelligence software is finally coming into its own, with three major players coming to the fore: JasperReports, Pentaho, and BIRT (Business Intelligence and reporting tools)."

Struts Validations Framework Using AJAX @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Struts Validations Framework Using AJAX @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "Struts Validations Framework Using AJAX
Real-time data validation is one of the advantages of AJAX technology

By: Sonny Hastomo
Jan. 27, 2006 01:00 PM


Real-time data validation is one of the advantages of AJAX technology. By applying this technology, the struts validation framework will enrich the struts MVC and move the Web application closer to the desktop application."

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Ruby, Rails, and the mainstream | mentalized

Ruby, Rails, and the mainstream | mentalized: " Ruby, Rails, and the mainstream
Journal entry
April 7, 2006

It seems I have stirred quite a pot around the office with my recent ravings about Rails. Today the tech-head on the board sent me this article about why Rails won’t make it into the mainstream and asked for my comments. The following is basically a translation of my reply to him (Gee, this is the closest I’ve ever come to being paid for blogging)."

This links to an excellent article about why rails will not become mainstream. I'd like to add - it's because a Java based framework will be created that does the same - but with a syntax more familiar to Java programmers - so little need to switch.

Domain Logic and SQL

Domain Logic and SQL: "Over the last couple of decades we've seen a growing gap between database-oriented software developers and in-memory application software developers. This leads to many disputes about how to use database features such as SQL and stored procedures. In this article I look at the question of whether to place business logic in SQL queries or in-memory code, considering primarily performance and maintainability based on an example of a simple, but rich SQL query."

An old article (Feb 2003), that is still highly significant today... but then it was written by Martin Fowler.

Java Cover Story — Debugging JDBC with a Logging Driver @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Java Cover Story — Debugging JDBC with a Logging Driver @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "Java Cover Story — Debugging JDBC with a Logging Driver
A new way to debug and solve DB problems

By: Ryan Bloom
Apr. 28, 2006 12:30 PM

A couple of years ago I began developing in Java, and my first Java project required that I also learn SQL. Our project team was using mostly EJBs for database access, although for some performance-critical sections of the application we wrote the JDBC logic directly. A problem that we faced regularly was tracking the bind parameters to our PreparedStatements. Over the course of the project, all of the team members tried different techniques to determine what our JDBC statements were actually doing."

Includes logging of Hibernate HQL, via logging in the JDBC driver. I do not necessarily agree with this approach as the author points out - this is an aspect that cuts across the system so I'd prefer a solution using AOP to log the statements.

In fact the more I think about it the more I like AOP used for logging. Although log4j is very efficient, and adding if(debug) conditionals can improve the performance further - it seems to me that either including or not inclduing an aspect to log would be the preferred approach as it does not pollute the code and can be switched on and off - when off there is absolutely no impact on performance. It is a clean and elegent approach.

Read the comments in this article and you will see it has been debunked, and there are existing resources out there that do the same thing already - see Tuning JDBC: Measuring JDBC performance by Jack Shirazi, author of Java Performance Tuning
12/05/2001
and this tool

Connecting the Java World to Grid-Enabled Databases @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Connecting the Java World to Grid-Enabled Databases @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL: "Connecting the Java World to Grid-Enabled Databases
Consolidate IT resources and optimize usage

By: Kuassi Mensah

Grid computing is not necessarily a new concept; however, its adoption within the enterprise has given birth to a new concept called enterprise grid computing, which is being embraced by the entire IT industry. Enterprise grid computing aims to consolidate IT resources - including both infrastructure software and applications - and optimize their usage, cutting costs substantially along the way. Since Java and J2EE are widely used as enterprise software platforms, how do they align with this vision?"

Virtualize Your Oracle Database with Web Services

Virtualize Your Oracle Database with Web Services: "Developer: J2EE

Virtualize Your Oracle Database with Web Services
by Kuassi Mensah

Explore the Database Web Services capabilities of Oracle Database 10g, as well as their role in a service-oriented architecture."

JBoss drools over Java business rules | The Register

JBoss drools over Java business rules | The Register: "JBoss drools over Java business rules
Updates to get ahead
By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco
Published Monday 3rd April 2006 04:21 GMT

JBoss is today expected to unveil middleware that continues its strategy of challenging closed-source vendors in business processes and distributed systems."

Including First implementation of Drools as JBoss Business Rules 3.0.

WS-* vs the REST | The Register

WS-* vs the REST | The Register: "WS-* vs the REST
O’Reilly, Amazon talk web service standards
By Tim Anderson
Published Saturday 29th April 2006 05:02 GMT

At Microsoft's Mix06 conference last month, we took the opportunity to speak (separately) to Web 2.0 guru Tim O'Reilly and Amazon's web services evangelist Jeff Barr on how they see the REST vs WS debate."

Friday, April 28, 2006

BrainBlog

BrainBlog: "7 Dayz left...
April 24, 2006 |
marko
0 comments

Only 7 Dayz left until 14Dayz launches!"

Encytemedia: It's OK To Break Standards

Encytemedia: It's OK To Break Standards: "It's OK To Break Standards

April 02, 2006

I tend to be more of a Realist than Purist when it comes to debating semantics, web standards, progressive enhancement, and all the other topics web developers are talking about in order to educate and inform their audience. I’m an advocate for all of these things, but that doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t bend them or break them if the situation calls for it."

A few more opinions on innerHTML.

Open Workbench - Open Source Project Management and Project Scheduling for Windows - What is Open Workbench?

Open Workbench - Open Source Project Management and Project Scheduling for Windows - What is Open Workbench?: "Open Workbench is an open source Windows-based desktop application that provides robust project scheduling and management functionality and is free to distribute throughout the enterprise. When users need to move beyond desktop scheduling to a workgroup, division or enterprise-wide solution, they can upgrade to CA's Clarity™ system, a project and portfolio management system that offers bidirectional integration with Open Workbench."

aka Microsoft Project (but it works slightly diffferently)

Open Source Freeware : 400+ free applications and utilities : eConsultant

Open Source Freeware : 400+ free applications and utilities : eConsultant: "Open Source Freeware : 400+ free applications and utilities
Extremely useful open source applications and utilities available free under various licenses."

I want a Freeware Utility to ... 450+ common problems solved : eConsultant

I want a Freeware Utility to ... 450+ common problems solved : eConsultant: "I want a Freeware Utility to ... 450+ common problems solved.
Extremely useful free utilities that do specific jobs really well and save time and money."

Thursday, April 27, 2006

MoonEdit

MoonEdit: "MoonEdit
Tom Dobrowolski's multi-platform collaborative text editor."

This looks very interesting!

JSEclipse :: Edit JavaScript with ease.

JSEclipse :: Edit JavaScript with ease.: "JSEclipse is the the best and most popular Javascript plugin for the Eclipse environment. Its benefits are visible from the simplest tasks like editing small sections of code for your site to the more complex ones like working with the next big AJAX library or developing plugins for a product that embeds JavaScript like Dreamweaver or Photoshop."

I really need to try an IDE with proper javascript support.

Ajaxian » Comet: A New Approach to Ajax Applications

Ajaxian » Comet: A New Approach to Ajax Applications: "Saturday, March 4th, 2006
Comet: A New Approach to Ajax Applications

Category: DojoView the technorati tag: Dojo, ProgrammingView the technorati tag: Programming, RemotingView the technorati tag: Remoting, CometView the technorati tag: Comet

Alex Russell has coined a term for a flavour of Ajax that’s been getting more attention of late. Comet describes applications where the server keeps pushing - or streaming - data to the client, instead of having the browser keep polling the server for fresh content."


This has possibly been one of the best kept secrets out there. Like 'normal' AJAX - this has been around for years - but has lacked momentum to push it forward.

The only disadvantage is keeping the http connections open - and the fact that the number of simultaneously open connections is limited.

This technique is perfect for the broadcasting of sports related event information - like scores. These can be puse out to the listening client as they happen - without the need for polling to the server when thee are no events. Instead the data is pushed out - much like the blackberry emailing system.

Ajaxian » Adobe Announces a Flex / Ajax Bridge

Ajaxian » Adobe Announces a Flex / Ajax Bridge: "We talked before about Adobe’s Flash / JavaScript bridge. They’ve taken it to the next level with a new Flex / JavaScript bridge. Whereas the original integration kit allowed for invocation of ActionScript functions and passing simple primitive values, this new bridge enables seamless integration of Flex applications with the browser’s JavaScript environment. The Flex DOM and ActionScript environment can be completely manipulated from the JavaScript environment and vice versa, and complex types can be marshalled across seamlessly."

Andre’s Blog » Blog Archive » Some AJAX Pattern Screencasts

Andre’s Blog » Blog Archive » Some AJAX Pattern Screencasts: "Some AJAX Pattern Screencasts

These are a couple AJAX patterns that Alexei and I put together for a an AJAX business case webinar we did with Jupiter Media a couple weeks ago."

An excellent look at some really cool features .. that should be useful in real-world apps.

Ajaxian » OpenLaszlo and Dojo Partnership

Ajaxian » OpenLaszlo and Dojo Partnership: "Thursday, April 27th, 2006
OpenLaszlo and Dojo Partnership

The OpenLaszlo and Dojo teams have announced a partnership. The end result is a win-win for both groups, and thus for us. application developers. Dojo is going to get improvements and widgets from OpenLaszlo for us all to use."

9rules Featured » Blog Archive » Prototype.js dissected

9rules Featured » Blog Archive » Prototype.js dissected: "9ruler Jonathan Snook has done a great job at totally dissecting Prototype.js, the javascript class library us Web 2.0 buffs can’t live without anymore."

Excellent charts of all the functions

9rules Featured » Blog Archive » Justin Palmer’s CSS event:Selectors

9rules Featured » Blog Archive » Justin Palmer’s CSS event:Selectors: "Justin Palmer over at Encytemedia posted a great mashup of Prototype and Behaviour called CSS event:Selectors that allow you apply Javascript event handlers Behaviour-style, while benefiting from the beauty of Prototype’s syntax."

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact: "October 2005
Killer Maps

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are racing to transform online maps into full-blown browsers, organizing information -- and, of course, ads -- according to geography. The likely winner? You.

By Wade Roush"

A lengthy and a little wordy article but a good read.

The Impact of Emerging Technologies: Memos from Web 2.0 World

The Impact of Emerging Technologies: Memos from Web 2.0 World: "Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Memos from Web 2.0 World

Posted at 12:00 AM"

Interesting comments from Wade Roush regarding social annotation tool - diigo

Hauppauge WinTV Nova-t Stick USB TV Tuner - Gizmodo

Hauppauge WinTV Nova-t Stick USB TV Tuner - Gizmodo: "Hauppauge WinTV Nova-t Stick USB TV Tuner

If Americans are really as addicted to TV watching as the latest market statistics say we are, then this gadget sell like gangbusters. The WinTV Nova-t stick is small enough to fit in your pocket, but big enough to support SDTV, HDTV, and digital radio. "

Yahoo! Go PVR software

Yahoo! Go PVR software: "Yahoo!'s Go software transforms a PC into a TV-centric, connected appliance. Being completely free, it is a good place to start for the maiden experience of dealing with PVR software. Yahoo! Go is actually a rebranded version of the vaunted Meedio PVR software after the latter's acquisition by Yahoo!"

Well I've never been a big fan of Yahoo, but I might have to take a closer look at this. Yahoo maps was good - and it can be argued that technially it is superior to google maps, but the content is nowhere near as good, and in the land of mapping content is king.

PC Case

PC Case: "Forget the Laz-E-Boy. This is THE definitive home furniture that cannot be dispensed! Homer Simpson would gladly be the spokesman for free. We’re talking about a PC case that comes with a beer tap"

I guess the CD tray is no longer a coffee cup holder, but now a pint glass holder (glorified beer mat).

PSP System Update 2.70 Released Today - Gizmodo

PSP System Update 2.70 Released Today - Gizmodo: "PSP System Update 2.70 Released Today
READ MORE: Gadgets, Home Entertainment, LocationFree, PSP, Portable Media, Sony

Sony released the 2.70 System Update for the PSP today, so if you’re still using yours—all of our friends who own one put theirs away again after finishing Me & My Katamari—consider downloading it through the PSP Browser over WiFi or from yourpsp.com. "

Article may be slightly inaccurate as noted in the comments.

I have to say, my PSP does not get too much use (mainly because I am not commuting via train at the moment), but when I feel like a quick game of something, it sure does come in handy.

I'll be interested to see what happens with the LocationFree feature - though I doubt I'll be buying into it.

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact: "Thursday, April 27, 2006
Sun Microsystems' New Star Needs to Shine

CEO Jonathan Schwartz must give the long-faltering company a clear focus -- and an identity.

By Wade Roush

What does Sun Microsystems want to be when it grows up? That's the question the company's board of directors is probably asking newly appointed CEO Jonathan Schwartz, who this week replaced cofounder Scott McNealy. The former CEO's mantra of 'the network is the computer' fit nicely into the pages of business magazines -- but never quite gave an identity to the company.

While most tech-savvy businesspeople and consumers have heard of the Santa Clara, CA-based firm, few could say what it actually does. Schwartz -- who's held seven positions within Sun since joining the company in 1996, most recently as president and chief operating office -- hopes to rectify that."

What's wrong with innerHTML? - snook.ca

What's wrong with innerHTML? - snook.ca: "What's wrong with innerHTML?
April 13, 2006 | JavaScript

I know Jeremy Keith's position on this but I still don't understand why him and others are so against innerHTML. Sure it's not part of a standard (yet) but neither is the XMLHttpRequest object (yet)."

More on the innerHTML issue.

I had to assist somone with some javascript for the first time in a while today, and I had to use several DOM methods to get to the correct element on the page. (HTML source did not contain any id's and we could not edit it), after using DOM methods to get to the correct element - it made sense to use them to set the data too - it is particularly useful as they are more powerful - you can use them to get access to data that already exists and then append to it.

Robert’s talk » We all love innerHTML

Robert’s talk » We all love innerHTML: "We all love innerHTML
Published on Thursday, April 20th, 2006

This article is co-written with Anne van Kesteren, W3C Member and contributor to the WHATWG and Opera specifications, R&D and QA person.

When developing a web page, DOM methods are generally the way to go when dynamically altering elements’ attributes and performing other operations. But what about adding content to a web page in the most efficient manner, both code- and performance wise? We claim that innerHTML is unmatched by any DOM methods available and that it is in most, if not all, situations the best option."

I have to say that innerHTML is easy to use - just a quick little one-liner, but I usually use DOM methods, as I think nthey are cleaner. I just with the DOM methods were faster!

The fact that innerHTML is quicker becomes important the more frequently it is used, in AJAX applications that may become more important.

Robert’s talk » Get the rendered style of an element

Robert’s talk » Get the rendered style of an element: "Get the rendered style of an element
Published on Monday, April 24th, 2006

I guess most of you, one time or another, has had the need to find out what style was actually rendered on an element. The easiest way to do this is through the style property followed by the specific value you’re looking for"

Couple of useful functions in here, although the number of Firefox extensions (Such as Firebug) that let you look at source the fewer custom functions you need for debugging.

Ma.gnolia Social Bookmarking: Search and Find Web Sites & Build Community Online.

Ma.gnolia Social Bookmarking: Search and Find Web Sites & Build Community Online.: "Welcome to Ma.gnolia!

Find and save your favorite website bookmarks with Ma.gnolia.com so you can get them from any computer, any time. And that’s only the start.

In Ma.gnolia you’ll join a welcoming community of people and interest groups, all of them showing you what they’ve found on the web. If you’ve never tried social bookmarking before, you’re at the the right place to start."


Sadly the email address I regestered my Ma.gnolia account to expired prior to the Go Live date and I missed the launch. I very rarely read email from my spammable accounts now-a-days anyway - due to RSS feeds being such a far better medium. Anyway Ma.gnolia is up there and I might just be temped to become a user.

Web 2.0 Workgroup - A network of Web 2.0 resources

Web 2.0 Workgroup - A network of Web 2.0 resources: "The Web 2.0 Workgroup is a network of premium weblogs that write content about the new generation of the Web. Combined, these sites reach a large readership of influential technology and media professionals."

Some sites to keep an eye on - but the number of RSS feeds I'm now reading is getting out of control already. I think it's time to cut back on feeds - not add more.

Fifty Ways to Take Notes » Solution Watch

Fifty Ways to Take Notes » Solution Watch: "Fifty Ways to Take Notes

Monday April 17th 2006, 7:54 pm

I am constantly writing notes. Whether it be for my blog, work, meeting, new ideas, or just basic notes, I am always jotting something down. So I started thinking about all the services I’ve used for taking notes and thought it would be a good idea to share them with you and while I’m at it, to make a list of any others that I find. "

Google Cheat Sheets (Version 1.05)

Google Cheat Sheets (Version 1.05): "This two page Google Cheat Sheet lists all Google services and tools as well as background information. The Cheat Sheet offers a great reference to grasp of basic to advance Google query building concepts and ideas."

This will probably go out of date quite quickly, but still

Linux.com | How to configure a low-cost load-balanced LAMP cluster

Linux.com | How to configure a low-cost load-balanced LAMP cluster: "How to configure a low-cost load-balanced LAMP cluster

Monday April 24, 2006 (02:01 PM GMT)

By: Keith Winston

The ubiquitous Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python (LAMP) combination powers many interactive Web sites and projects. It's not at all unusual for demand to exceed the capacity of a single LAMP-powered server over time. You can take load off by moving your database to a second server, but when demand exceeds a two-server solution, it's time to think cluster.

A LAMP cluster is not the Beowulf kind of cluster that uses specialized message-passing software to tackle a computation-intensive task. It does not cover high availability features, such as automatic failover. Rather, it is a load-sharing cluster that distributes Web requests among multiple Web and database servers while appearing to be a single server"

AJAX Magazine: Howto integrate Google Calendar in your website using AJAX

AJAX Magazine: Howto integrate Google Calendar in your website using AJAX: "Howto integrate Google Calendar in your website using AJAX

One of the features I find it interesting in Google calendar is the possibility to create shared calendars, but also the availability of your calendar as XML or ICAL whatever it's a private or public one. As soon as we have XML of our calendar available I was wondering why not integrating Google calendar directly in website. For example a community that use the service to manage their events, or to display your future trips in your blog ?"

Sunday, April 23, 2006

More Google Products

More Google Products: "Calendar
Organize your schedule and share events with friends"

Guess I missed the release of the Google Calendar.

Speculation had been rife of an impending April 1st release (to coincide with Gmails birthday), but we got nothing more than the obligatory (April Fool).

It is out now along with an API, but has to compete with the already excellent 30boxes and the likes of kiko and the Microsoft Windows Live Calendar Gadget Solution, and possibly a forthcoming Windows Live service.