Java & Co.

Best HTML 5 browser for OS X Lion

2011-07-26T22:19:00.003+02:00

With recent release of OS X Lion, Apple also updated its Safari browser, which is now getting back on its competitors: Chrome and Firefox.

I decided to test latest version of these browsers against http://www.html5test.com/ to compare Safari 5.1, Chrome 14.0.825.0.dev and latest release of upcoming Firefox 6 (still in beta at the time of writing).

Results have been a bit of a surprise to me as I was expecting Safari to rank 3rd and, actually, it wasn't the case.

With no surprise, Chrome is ranked #1, followed by Safari #2 and Firefox #3.

Chrome scored 329 points and 13 bonus points

Safari scored 307 points and 11 bonus points

Firefox scored 302 points and 9 bonus points

* on a 450 point scale.

Stay tuned as this ranking is fast evolving.

HTML 5

2011-06-11T00:37:00.001+02:00

Working on a new project I found out a web site of interest http://www.html5test.com/ to test your favorite browser and see how it performs in terms of HTML 5 compliance.

Have a look and use it as much as you want.

IE6 and the fate of HTML5

2011-04-27T13:58:00.003+02:00

IE6 was released on August the 27th, 2001. At the time of writing this means almost 10 years ago... and it still represents in march 2011 about 11% even though some major web sites like Facebook, Youtube and Google Apps have dropped support for this version of Internet Explorer in 2010.

This example just illustrates how difficult it can be to operate world wide changes in the IT world, making difficult the emergence of new standards such as HTML5 and CSS3 and dramatically increasing web design complexity.

IE6 lack of security has been a long term concern, but, it doesn't support CSS properly too... And, given its current market share it is sometime difficult to keep of potential customers away from a web site forcing web designer to trick CSS to support all current browsers and IE6...

Let's hope HTML5 roll out will not be affected by the remanence of non compatible browsers so that we can ease web design.

Netbeans, Java and Ruby

2011-02-19T21:53:00.002+01:00

Were Oracle is driving ?

Cutting Java FX was a good idea, but it seems that today there is no pilot in the plane regarding Java.

Used in entreprise for large projects Java never encountered the expected glory. Write once, run everywhere is more and more becoming write once and hope that you're client has the right Java VM.

And more and more security researchers are asking to system admins to remove the platform since it appears to be used for "cross platform" viruses (yes, those hackers seem to be the only ones who can write once and use everywhere... ;-) (see this article for more information).

In addition to Java, Netbeans is now removing Rails (next step PHP ?) while it was the best IDE to support it on many platform.

Developing under OS X I noticed that many good IDE (including Aptana) where not properly supporting Rails in RVM environment, while Netbeans 6.9.1 is just running this configuration soomthly.

After killing JavaFX, being kicked out of OS X, opening a war with Apache and Google, it's pretty hard to understand what's the future of Java (being kicked out of the market ?)

Java, Apple, Oracle and pals

2010-11-22T18:02:00.003+01:00

This is confirmed by Oracle: Apple will help Open JDK to be ported to its OS X (particularly the future Lion release).

Oracle made a statement on Novembre the 12 (available here) so the Apple's JDK will be deprecated but Open JDK will come aboard and replace it and this is the result of on going discussion between Oracle and Apple.

"You're deprecated !"

If Apple had deprecated Java without any replacement plan, then many application, mostly used by developers, would have been dumped or kicked out of OS X. Some of them are Eclipse, Netbeans, Aptana Studio, Vuze and more.

The fact that Open JDK is now fully backed by Apple insure a native JDK for OS X and a more stable release. Many of us have complain in the past that Apple's JDK were not release in synch with JDK core. Now, things should be different and all platform, including OS X, will follow the same pace.

Disabling Adobe Application Manager automatic updates

2010-11-14T20:26:00.006+01:00

Well more than a year ago I moved to Adobe CS5 and discovered a very annoying process: automatic update.

In previous version it was easy not to enable this feature and thus spare bandwidth and CPU when you need them for something else.

With CS5 things are different and the Suite install with automatic update on, which some times is pretty annoying (particularly when you are not home with 20Mbps or more of bandwidth).

So, here is how to disable this and how to go back to "manual" update after having installed CS5 on your system (there is an option to disable these connections at the time of deployment using features in the Creative Suite 5 Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition):

Machine Wide Disablement:

First: create an admin preference file by opening your favorite text editor and name it AdobeUpdaterAdminPrefs.dat

Second: copy the following lines in your text editor:

1

Third: save the file in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/AAMUpdaterInventory/1.0/AdobeUpdaterAdminPrefs.dat and you're done.

Important notice:

This will also prevent administrators from checking for updates and installing updates through that update check. Either rename the file and perform check and then put it back in place or just download updates at http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates

So, in order to be able to perform on demand update through update check the User account disablement is preferred.

First: open your favorite text editor and create a plain text file and name it AdobeUpdaterPrefs.dat

Second: past the following lines in

3

3

Important notice: the above lines are for post-installation, post usage. For any other case please refer to Adobe knowledge base.

Third: save it in /Users//Library/Application Support/Adobe/AAMUpdater/1.0/AdobeUpdaterPrefs.dat overwriting the existing file.

Source: Adobe knowledge base

New TextMate !

2010-11-14T20:24:00.002+01:00

Mac favorite developer text editor has been updated.

No, it's not the expected 2.0 version it just an update to 1.5.10.

This update mostly corrects bugs and add some improvement to the editor.

Liferay 6 is now out!

2010-11-14T18:56:00.002+01:00

As many of you have noticed I was too busy to publish some review and tricks on Liferay 6, but I have to mention that the new version is now out and running.

It's easier to install and manage and brings a lot of new social features very promising for small to large Intranet (and event portal sites).

Just a quick reminder on a Packt book "Liferay 6 Entreprise Intranets" which is for sale here and for those who need to make up their mind before buying sample chapters are available here.

Apple, OS X and the future of Java

2010-11-14T18:27:00.005+01:00

Last October announced that OS X 10.7 (aka Lion) will not include Apple's JDK and that this language will be banned from iTune Apps for Mac, which is 100% Objective C oriented.

This raised a wave of questions and protests among many developer using Java for web, desktop and mobile applications even-though Java never kept its promises and its mid-term future looks gloomy (Oracle is canceling some Java related project (Java FX for example) and never really explained its strategy regarding this language which is now competing with other multi-platform programming tools such as Adobe AIR).

After questions and uncertainty, Apple made things clear by announcing in a press release that the company is now backing Open JDK and will offer all support and information to have Open JDK 7 running on OS X.

Java was the sole non Apple language directly supported by Apple in addition to Objective C which is THE Apple language.

PHP, Rails, Adobe AIR and their pals are all directly supported by their respective editors in charge of portability across systems and operating systems.

As many of you have noticed, Java on OS X was always lagging behind Sun's (now Oracle) core releases and improvement cycles were not regular at all.

Apple never fully embraced this language which not running on iPhone and iPad without jailbreaking those devices.

So, from a developer point of view Apple's politics regarding Java should keep OS X in JDK main stream in stead of putting it on the side.

OS X for mobile development

2010-07-04T03:23:00.004+02:00

One year ago I made a post regarding a move toward mobile development from OS X.

At this time, Java ME was not available for OS X. At this time Sun (now Oracle) showed a non public beta of Java ME for OS X.

I was too busy working on other projects that I forgot to mention that there is now a official OS X Java ME platform and that this article is now part of history.

In January 2010, Sun released a full version of their SDK for mobile running on OS X. This mobile SDK is available here and works seamlessly with Netbeans 6.8 and 6.9

It features many tools and tutorial to easily develop mobile applications while installing nicely on OS X.

AptanaStudio 3

2010-07-04T03:05:00.002+02:00

Aptana 3 is a full revamp of previous leading open-source product: AptanaStudio 2 and RadRails.

Both IDE were great but it was a real mess to have tools split. Those dealing with HTML and PHP on AptanaStudio and all the rails part on RadRails.

Developers heard this and started developing a great and promising IDE: AptanaStudio 3 (now in beta and available to download here).

AptanaStudio 3 is offering tools for web developers ranging from HTML, PHP, Java, Rails (2.x and 3.x) and much more.

For those who don't know it, AptanaStudio is Eclipse based and previous version could be added to Eclipse IDE as plugin(s). The upcoming version, AptanaStudio 3, remains Eclipse based and offer a full support of web technologies such as HTML 5, CSS3, Rails 3, etc.

Studio 3 (RadRails 3) Preview 3 from Aptana, Inc. on Vimeo.

Liferay 5.2.3 & WebForm portlet

2010-06-28T17:34:00.002+02:00

Have you ever tried to have the webform portlet in Liferay running on Glassfish ?

Well, in many cases it just crashed. And this is due to a missing jar... Motzilla Rhino, which is needed by this portlet and not installed by Liferay and, of course, not present in default Glassfish libs.

So here is what to do to have this portlet running:

1. Download Rhino here

2. Unzip the bins and make upload js.jar and js-14.jar to your Glassfish server

3. Put these jars in /domain/domain1/lib

4. Restart glassfish (if running Glassfish v3: ./asadmin restart-domain)

And now you should be able to deploy and use webform within Liferay.

Liferay 6 - Entreprise Intranet

2010-06-05T23:10:00.003+02:00

As mentioned earlier Packt Publishing has release a new version of their administrative book for Liferay.

The new version covers the new Liferay, version 6.

The previous version of their book was perfect for administrator. I consider this one as more than just an upgrade to cover Liferay 6. This book is offering a new vision on Liferay existing and new features with better explanation of portlet life cycle, Service Oriented Application and much more.

As in previous version of their book the following chapters highlight the use of Liferay in real life. You will learn how to define welcome page, customize them, connect to LDAP (Microsoft Active Directory), use blogs, wikis to share information across departments and much more.

I keep it clear, as the last time, this book is not for developer but administrators. It contains concrete examples to be used to setup an Intranet whatever the size of your company is.

A good investment for your iPad ;-)

You can buy it online here or see a sample chapter here to make up your mind.

My mac and I

2010-06-01T19:38:00.001+02:00

I just started a new blog called "My mac and I" focusing on Mac tools and tips.

Update from Pack

2010-05-24T14:03:00.002+02:00

Liferay has greatly evolved these last years and now a new version is on the road.

Pack Publising has updated its publishing and released a new book covering all administrative aspects of Liferay Portal v6.

A sample can be downloaded here

I will post more information on these new book later next month.

Bad, bad, bad

2010-02-06T13:09:00.004+01:00

I made a strange discovery today: Chrome can not read HTML files !

And, it'not a joke. I got te message from Chrome...

I'm running Chrom 4.0.249.29 for OS X Snow Leopard, and I was developing an HTML page, which I wanted to test in different browsers, includ

ing Chrome.

Click on the file and selected Chrome as my application to read it and here is the magical part of it:

So, as far as I know, Chrome is the first web browser to not support HTML files ;-)

Hope the next release will...

Something I've been looking for for a while

2010-01-29T18:38:00.003+01:00

For a long time I've been looking for a trick to send a running process in the background and have it working when disconnected from terminal.

I've been using nohup process & for a long time, but some times you are launching a process straight away and change your mind few hours after...

I've been using the CTRL + Z followed by bg to send a process in the background after it has been launched from terminal, but I was missing the next step: disconnect it from terminal.

And, thanks to this guy, I now have the solution.

So here it is:

Start / Launch your process the usual way from within terminal

Issue CTRL + Z and enter bg 1 (1 seems to be optional); bg 1 has to be issued from within the terminal where you started your process

Issue disown -a to disconnect the process from terminal while in background

At this point it is possible to close your terminal and keep the process running.

This is very interesting when performing long tasks on remote systems, on which you can not stay connected during the whole process.

Glassfish and Ubuntu

2009-09-09T13:21:00.003+02:00

Developing on a Mac is great, but from time to time I have to work on other OSes. One of them is Ubuntu Linux.

And I noticed one thing about Glassfish under Ubuntu: you have to change the AS_JAVA variable in asenv.conf file located on glassfish/config directory.

The default value is often linked to a specific release of the JDK or JRE, so when performing an upgrade (apt-get dist-upgrade or apt-get upgrade) you end up with a non working Glassfish since the old Java path is no more...

One solution I've found is to make this AS_JAVA variable points to a dynamic link updated by Ubuntu upgrade process; so whatever the java release you are using it is always the good one and Glassfish starts.

Here is the value I entered: AS_JAVA="/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/.."

This takes advantage of the fact that the java-6-sun directory is a link to the right release.

OS X, Ruby, Rails and MySQL

2009-08-10T13:55:00.002+02:00

Well, Leopard is a great OS, but from time to time it might appeared complex.

For instance, where is the config file used by MySQL and needed by gem install process in order to link Rails to MySQL ?

When you had to install MySQL gem for Rails you noticed that "sudo gem install mysql" does not really worked, now, what to do from here ?

You need something more. But what and where to find it ?

Actually you need to tell gem installer where is you mysql_config file. It is located in your MySQL bin dir, and if you downloaded MySQL as an OS X package on MySQL web site, then what you have to do is very simple:

"sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config"

After what you can use "sudo gem update mysql" to update from time to time gems used to connect to your local MySQL engine.

Enjoy ;-)

JavaME on OS X

2009-08-09T23:23:00.002+02:00

It seems that there are moves toward a release of JavaMe for OS X.

Well, this looks pretty good and very nice since it has been expected for a long time.

Here is a link to the article with screenshots.

Enjoy ;-)

Ruby on Rails on OS X

2009-07-15T20:14:00.001+02:00

There are many articles on Ruby on Rails on OS X on the net. A quick search on Google let you see thousands.

But, there is one, from Apple, which is really worth looking at. I noticed that many article dealing with Ruby and OS X are using "old" method to install and configure Ruby on Rails for OS X.

This is particularly true for OS 10.5 which includes Ruby and Rails. All you have to do is to update them to the latest version using Ruby tools.

Process are describes here

Netbeans book

2009-07-13T23:16:00.004+02:00

I just found out that Apress released a new book covering Netbeans up to version 6.5

"The Definitive Guide to Netbeans Platform".

This updated release covers many aspects of the netbeans rich client platform.

One regret, it does not cover Netbeans 6.7

This is always the same thing, books are often lagging behind versions.

Building ext environment for Liferay

2009-05-29T22:21:00.009+02:00

Some of you asked me how to create an EXT directory for Liferay.

Well, this is not that difficult but you need to pay attention to few things.

For those who do not know why an ext dir is interesting: ext directory is used to develop extension to Liferay. You can use them to develop specific configuration, plugins, configuration to your current Liferay platform.

I use it to develop extension such as portlets, but also templates and themes which are used for my projects.

It is good practice to use the ext directory and to built from it a Liferay instance in order to have all specific parameters, pictures, flash, portlets, etc. stored in a place that will not change. If you are building Liferay from SVN, you can not do so otherwise your specific parts will be deleted next time you sync with the repository.

Here is the way I proceed:

First: Liferay

I go for the SVN branche. Now I'm using 5.2.x branch which is the current stable version of Liferay. 5.3.x is pointing out, but still under heavy development and not stable enough to use it as a production or development platform.

Second: Glassfish

I'm using Glassfish 2.1. Just download it from Glassfish web site (download the right bin according to you Operating System).

Then, remember path to it, you will need it later.

Third: Configuring the whole things to get the ext dir

So, now that we have Liferay and Glassfish let's do some configuration.

First, place the right jar libraries at the right place (see here for some explanation on how to do under os x)

Second, go to your Liferay directory and find the following configuration files: app.server.properties and release.properties.

In app.server.properties make sure that Glassfish is selected as your Application Server and that all other application servers are commented out by a #

Then, hard code (or if you are smarter used env variable to do it) path to your Glassfish server. You should have it there: app.server.parent.dir=PATH/TO/YOUR/GLASSFISH/SERVER

example:

let's say your glassfish is under Jhon Doe accoung (jdoe) on OS X:

/Users/jdoe/Documents/JavaProjets/glassfish then you should have the following line in your app.server.properties file:

app.server.parent.dir=/Users/jdoe/Documents/JavaProjets

Make sure that there is no trailing / and that the last directory it the one containing your Glassfish directory as seen in the example just above.

End by saving this file as app.server.username.properties where username is your username as used to log into your computer.

According to the example just above the file should be saved under app.server.jdoe.properties

Now that Liferay is properly configured I suggest a test run before going further and building the ext directory.

So just go to your Liferay directory and enter the following command:

ant start

ant compile

ant deploy

then go to you Glassfish bin dir and make it rock and roll: asadmin start-domain

If nothing come to your display, check your Glassfish logs for error.

If you have a running Liferay, you are free to proceed to the next step and start building your ext directory.

Go to your release.properties file in Liferay and check that you have the following lines:

##
## Extension Environment
##

lp.ext.dir=${project.dir}/../ext

According to your operating system you will have to change / in to \ (\ is for Windows, while OS X, Linux, Solaris will use / as path separator)

Should you have to save changes to this file, remember to name it release.username.properties (according to example you it will be release.jdoe.properties)

Then launch a ant build-ext command and you will have just above your Liferay dir the ext dir you are expecting.

Just go to that directory and make sure app.server.properties is poiting to the right Application Server (here Glassfish) as mentioned above.

For the same reason it is good to save changes in app.server.username.properties

Fourth: this is your time. Just play with it

From here you a free to go alone and play with your freshly build ext directory.

Remember that in order to get it work you'll have to run ant deploy from the ext dir. This will deploy your Liferay instance with all its specific parts.

Java VisualVM now available in Java SE 6 (OS X 10.5)

2009-05-23T18:36:00.003+02:00

Well, for those lucky guys running OS X 10.5.6 or later, it is possible to get access to Java VisualVM.

All you need is an Apple developer account (free) to get access to the download area. There, just download "Java for Mac OS X v10.5 Update 4 Developer Preview".

Once downloaded and installed, open a terminal (I'm using iTerm, which I found more interesting than provided Terminal, but both are ok) and type: jvisualvm to get access to this new and interesting tool to monitor and gather java application and VM data.

I'll let you discover this tool here

VisualJVM screenshot

WARNING: keep in mind this is a Developer Preview, and as quoted by Apple it may lack of testing and stability (and eventually crash you system).

Liferay 5.2.3 on Glassfish on OS X

2009-05-18T14:22:00.004+02:00

Well, this has been a long time without a post about Liferay and Glassfish, but here we are.

I went back to some project on this point and started looking at an old "bug" when attempting to deploy Liferay 5.2.3 on Glassfish v2.1 on OS X.

My configuration is OS X 10.5 with both Java 1.5 and 1.6 JDK.

As usual I picked up an SVN version of Liferay and built it up.

The point was after launching Glassfish: Nothing! Or I should say, many error messages at all levels in Glassfish.

I pointed out that many of them were related to XML parsing and that some libraries (jar files) might be missing or not at the right place.

After googling few minutes I found out that the following library have to be moved.

serializer.jar
xalan.jar
xml-apis.jar
xercesImpl.jar

These jar file have to be moved from glassfish/domains/domain1/applications/j2ee-modules/liferay-portal/WEB-INF/lib/ to glassfish/domains/domain1/lib/

If not, then you will see error like this

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.apache.xml.utils.DefaultErrorHandler.(Z)V at org.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl.(TransformerFactoryImpl.java:

In your Glassfish log.

In addition to moving files to glassfish/domains/domain1/lib/, I also shifted my default JDK to 1.6 instead of standard 1.5

Source : Liferay Wiki