Parthian Shot - Notes and Various Java Tidbits

Computer Professionals Update(CPU) Act (S1747)

2011-12-02T12:02:00.001-05:00

US developers (especially contractors) should read the new law working its way through the Senate. It relates to the how the Department of Labor classifies developers, DBAs, and other computer professionals.

S1747 Computer Professionals Update Act

SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938.

Section 13(a)(17) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 213(a)(17)) is amended to read as follows:

‘(17) any employee working in a computer or information technology occupation (including, but not limited to, work related to computers, information systems, components, networks, software, hardware, databases, security, internet, intranet, or websites) as an analyst, programmer, engineer, designer, developer, administrator, or other similarly skilled worker, whose primary duty is--

‘(A) the application of systems, network or database analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine or modify hardware, software, network, database, or system functional specifications;

‘(B) the design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, securing, configuration, integration, debugging, modification of computer or information technology, or enabling continuity of systems and applications;

‘(C) directing the work of individuals performing duties described in subparagraph (A) or (B), including training such individuals or leading teams performing such duties; or

‘(D) a combination of duties described in subparagraphs (A), (B), and (C), the performance of which requires the same level of skill;

who is compensated at an hourly rate of not less than $27.63 an hour or who is paid on a salary basis at a salary level as set forth by the Department of Labor in part 541 of title 29, Code of Federal Regulations. An employee described in this paragraph shall be considered an employee in a professional capacity pursuant to paragraph (1).’.

As a contractor, I have been affected by the existing rules multiple times, and it is an entirely frustrating interference between the government and the client/contractor relationship.

Consider this... time and material contractor Joe goes to work at the big regional utility. He joins as a contractor for X$/hour. Joe does a great job and is on a large project which after 2 years at the job, regional utility gets nervous about facing fines from the DOL because Joe may be "misclassified" and is being treated as a full time employee without benefits. Joe was happy and the utility was happy. There was no reason for Joe or the utility to stop the existing relationship except for the threat of a lawsuit. The utility tells Joe he has to leave but can return at some point in the future (usually months later). Joe is out of a job, and utility loses a trained worker. These existing rules are convoluted to say the least.

Here's a great article about the law written for the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Open Source XWin Solutions For Displaying Remote Clients

2011-10-11T16:14:00.001-04:00

Recently we built a nice desktop interface using Groovy's Griffon to manage several back-end tasks. The idea was that data center and other support folks don't want to figure out our scripts/code and that we would provide a nice friendly interface to manage the complex tasks. So far so good, until we had users who wanted to keep the application on a remote Linux server and still have pretty GUIs locally. Nonchalantly, I recommended X11 (ahh its like 1995 all over again only this time better tools!). Umm yeah... well it took me over an hour to figure out how to make it work and how to make it work for free, so that's enough time for me to want to write down the steps so that I don't need to repeat researching this in the future.

Steps:

Download Cygwin via the Cygwin.exe installer!
Select the xinit app under the X11 libraries. The dependencies should be downloaded after being prompted to do so.
Select openssh from the Cygwin libraries
Open a Cygwin console. Type startxwin. More details on Cygwin/X can be found here.
Install xauth on the remote server. I am using RedHat so all it required was 'yum install xauth'. You may also need to tweek the X11Forwarding setting in /etc/ssh/sshd_config file to allow X11 forwarding.
type 'DISPLAY=:0.0' on you local machine
type 'export DISPLAY' on your local machine
ssh -Y username@remotehost (use -v option if errors occur)
Start remote app.

The GUI should start up locally. Good luck!

Getting Started on HTML5

2011-10-04T09:34:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice article on tools and methods used to design in HTML5.

Gradle Overview Presentation

2011-09-19T21:58:00.000-04:00

Here is a copy of the Gradle presentation that will be given on Wednesday's Charleston Java User's Group (CJUG). This is a 1 hour presentation, so the topics in no way get into the details of what is available in Gradle. I highly encourage anyone interested in Gradle to visit www.gradle.org. The documentation on gradle.org is well written. In addition, there are plenty of examples in the absolute flexibility that Gradle provides as not only a Java build tool, but a wide variety of plugins and other incredible features.

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AbPfjtUUq51FZGhmcmo3cXdfMzdmaHJyNjJjMw&hl=en_US

Evidence of the Danger of Too Many PowerPoint Presentations

2011-09-19T15:43:00.000-04:00

Source : Random Sampling of 100 PowerPoint presentations.

Introduction to Gradle Part 3

2011-09-11T22:07:00.000-04:00

In part 1 and 2, we built a simple Gradle build file for a Java project, war project, Groovy project , and finally a Gradle multi-build project. We saw how these Gradle plugins worked and how to setup complex multi-project dependencies. There is so much that groovy Gradle can do including OSGi, Scala, reports, and much more. The documentation for Gradle builds can be found here.

Gradle customizations

Last, let's design some custom tasks. Since, we are writing build scripts in Groovy, Gradle build custom tasks are simple and straight-forward.

(Project D/build.gradle)





import org.gradle.api.DefaultTask

import org.gradle.api.tasks.TaskAction





class LumberghTask extends DefaultTask {

    def person = "Peter"

    def request = "Um... yah, I'm going to
have to ask you to work this weekend."

    

    @TaskAction

    def greetEmployee() {

        println
"Hello ${person} ... How's it going?"

        println
request

    }

}



task hello(type: LumberghTask)



task requestWork(type: LumberghTask) {

    person = 'Samir'

    request = "Yah, if you could get those
TPS reports to me, yah that would be great"

}

The script above is a custom task called the LumberghTask. This task asks a variety of employees pointless and useless queries, but demonstrates how custom tasks work in Gradle.

The first step to run this task will be to call the hello target. Execute the following task first:
gradle -q hello

Output:

Hello Peter ... How's it going?
Um... yah, I'm going to have to ask you to work this weekend.

Next, execute the following:

gradle -q requestWork

Output:

Hello Samir ... How's it going?
Yah, if you could get those TPS reports to me, yah that would be great

The requestWork overrides the person and request variables based on the task being called. The taskHello is calling the LumberghTask directly. There are so many combinations available in Gradle, that reading the documentation provided here is highly recommended. Gradle and Groovy provides maximum felxibility for any build environment.

Introduction to Gradle Part 2

2011-09-11T22:06:00.000-04:00

In part 1, we built project A, a simple Gradle build file that compiled Java class files and built a jar file. Next, we will build a war project dependent on the jar file generated from project A. This uses Maven dependency managment. It is possible to setup your project completely using Maven or Ivy. Gradle also has a framework to manage it's own dependencies and will be described shortly using subprojects. One interesting extension of the war plugin is the Jetty plugin. Gradle provides a library that will wrap a war in a self-contained web container. This is nice if you have a small web app and want to get it up and running quickly.

Build Project B (simple Java war build)

(Project B/build.gradle)



// We can add
comments to the build script using typical Java/Groovy notation

// We need to specify the java plugin which by
default
looks for src/main/java

usePlugin 'java'

usePlugin 'war' // Use the war plugin to build a war file

usePlugin 'maven'



version = 1.0

artifactId='projectB'



repositories { // reference all of the required Maven repositories.

      mavenRepo(urls :
"file://localhost/tmp/repos/")

      mavenCentral() //
Setup the Maven repository



}





dependencies { // Add external dependencies here

      compile group: 'commons-cli',
name: 'commons-cli', version: '1.0'

      compile group:
'projectA', name: 'projectA', version:'1.0'



 }



uploadArchives { // Again upload our final product into the local Maven
repository

    repositories.mavenDeployer {

       
repository(url: "file://localhost/tmp/repos/")

       
pom.groupId = 'projectB'

       
pom.version = '1.0'

       
pom.artifactId = 'projectB'

    }

} 



assemble.dependsOn ':uploadArchives'



sourceSets { // Defines which source files to include in the build

      main {

           
java {

           
}

           
resources {

           
}

      }

}

ProjectB/.classpath
ProjectB/.settings/org.eclipse.jdt.core.prefs
ProjectB/bin/com/pac/domain/Manager.class
ProjectB/.project
ProjectB/build.gradle
ProjectB/build/libs/ProjectB-3.1.war
ProjectB/build/classes/main/com/pac/domain/Manager.class
ProjectB/build/classes/main/Manager.class
ProjectB/build/ivy.xml
ProjectB/build/poms/pom-default.xml
ProjectB/src/main/java/com/pac/domain/Manager.java

Build Project C (Groovy Class build)

In project C, we will build a Groovy based project that uses Java libraries and is also dependent on our project A. This Gradle maven project will again use the Maven repository to dowload dependencies and upload the final artifiact after the build.

(Project C/build.gradle)



// We can add comments to the build script using typical Java/Groovy
notation


// We need to specify the java plugin which by
default looks for src/main/java



usePlugin 'groovy' 

usePlugin 'maven'

usePlugin 'java'



version = 1.0



repositories {

      mavenRepo(urls :
"file://localhost/tmp/repos/")

      mavenCentral() //
Setup the Maven repository

}





dependencies { // Add external dependencies here

      groovy
module('org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:1.7.0') {

     
    dependency('commons-cli:commons-cli:1.0')

      
   dependency('projectA:projectA:1.0')

       }

 }





uploadArchives {

    repositories.mavenDeployer {

       
repository(url: "file://localhost/tmp/repos/")

       
pom.groupId = 'projectC'

       
pom.version = '1.0'

       
pom.artifactId = 'projectC'

    }

} 



assemble.dependsOn ':uploadArchives'



sourceSets { // Defines which source files to include in the build

      main {

           
groovy {

           
}

           
resources {

           
}

      }

}

Files in project C...



ProjectC/.classpath

ProjectC/.settings/org.eclipse.jdt.core.prefs

ProjectC/bin/com/pac/domain/Company.class

ProjectC/.project

ProjectC/build.gradle

ProjectC/build/libs/ProjectC-1.0.jar

ProjectC/build/classes/main/com/pac/domain/Company.class

ProjectC/build/ivy.xml

ProjectC/build/poms/pom-default.xml

ProjectC/src/main/groovy/com/pac/domain/Company.groovy

Configuring Gradle Multi-Project Builds

Next, let's setup a Gradle multi-project build called UberProject which will contain projectA, project B, and project C. This mult-project build will contain the following structure:

UberProject/

        settings.gradle
        /ProjectA
        /ProjectA/build.gradle
        /ProjectB
        /ProjectB/build.gradle
        /ProjectC
        /ProjectC/build.gradle

settings.gradle will contain the following line:
include 'ProjectA', 'ProjectB', 'ProjectC'

What is nice about the Gradle multi-project build is that the main settings.gradle and build.gradle (if existing) will be inherited and can be re-used in all of the subprojects. This is similar in concept to the Maven pom, but much easier to read and appears on the surface more straight-forward.

Next, in each project we need to use the 'dependsOn' call to manage inter-project dependencies. Remove any reference to projectA, projectB, or projectC in the dependencies section. Leave all of the third party libraries, so that we can still download these dependencies as needed.

Add the following line to project C:
dependsOn(':ProjectA')

Add the following line to project B:
dependsOn(':ProjectA')

Run gradle assemble on project C. You should see the following output.

:ProjectA:compileJava
:ProjectA:processResources
:ProjectA:classes
:ProjectA:jar
:ProjectA:assemble
:ProjectC:compileJava
:ProjectC:compileGroovy
:ProjectC:processResources
:ProjectC:classes
:ProjectC:jar
:ProjectC:assemble

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

Total time: 16.298 secs

Notice how building project C now, automatically builds the dependency of project A. Nice right?

Now, let's have some fun with our projects and flex the depedency management features in Gradle by adding a circular dependency to project A. One of the best ways to understand how Gradle works is to break the build.

Add the following line to project A:
dependsOn(':ProjectC')

You should see the following output:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* Where:
Build file '/home/robert/workspace/UberProject/ProjectC/build.gradle' line: 12

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred evaluating project ':ProjectC'.
Cause: Circular referencing during evaluation for project ':ProjectA'.

* Try:
Run with -s or -d option to get more details. Run with -S option to get the full (very verbose) stacktrace.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 8.698 secs

By adding a reference to projectC to projectA, we have added a circular dependency. Gradle finds circular dependencies in multi-project builds and does not allow a build to continue once the circular dependency is found.

Introduction to Gradle Part 1

2011-09-11T22:04:00.003-04:00

Many build tools have been created for building and packaging software. Make, Ant, Maven, etc., all seem to have their own frameworks of completing tasks that are driven by the structure of each build tool. The industry while successfully using existing tools constantly requires more features in a build tool to adapt to newer technologies that are emerging (OSGi, Grails, Scala, Jetty, numerous advances in IDEs, etc.).

This article focuses on using Gradle, because of the wide usage of Java and J2EE as an enterprise platform along with Groovy as a Java meta-language. Gradle is also poised to become the next widely adopted build tool in the world of software build tools and configuration management because Gradle bridges the feature gap between Ant and Maven.

Gradle is a build tool based on the popular language Groovy. Groovy is an extension of Java and has many built-in features and frameworks for completing complex tasks. Gradle has many features which will be described briefly.

Gradle fills in the build tool feature gaps that the two most commonly used build tools, Maven and Ant. Either tool may have one or less of the following features, but neither tool has all of the following features:

Both Ant and Maven build scripts are based in xml. A build tool that allows the flexibility of a true language allows the developer to include libraries into the build file. The semantics of a language based build tool also allow flexible development and lower learning curves if the Domain Specific Language (DSL) used in the build tool are already known.

Software configuration managers are often the keepers of all build knowledge. A build tool that does not require special knowledge either due to complexity of a project or intimate knowledge about a build tool configuration keeps both developers and software configuration managers involved in the process at all times.

The choice of being able to create builds by convention ala Maven or in a more free manner such as Ant is an either/or choice of build tools.

Good dependency management. While Ant has dependency management in Ivy and Maven has its own dependency management. A tool that is simple and excels in dependency management is needed.

Partial builds. In Maven when building a multi-project module it is difficult to build only specific projects without building all projects.

A potpourri of plugins and other 3^rd party modules that are easy to integrate into a build. Also, a build tool should allow users to easily build their own customizations with minimum hassle.

The history of software build tools has always had challenges. Builds in Make for instance used tabs in the semantics of a build file, Ant without ant-contrib or other 3^rd party libraries was never meant to run a for loop, Maven pom files are difficult to manage for the average developer trying to include a custom task not in the standard lifecycle. Each build tool had its own idiosyncrasies.

Gradle Features

Gradle provides the following features:

Robust dependency management. Gradle uses Ivy to resolve dependencies on third party libraries or even inter-project dependencies. Circular dependencies will also cause build failures. Gradle also builds on Ivy with its own distinct features not found in the standard Ivy distribution.

Gradle allows you to build by convention, IF you choose to build by convention. The alternative of building by non-convention or a unique non-standard convention is just as easy to select.

Ant tasks can be called directly from Gradle. If a project already is written in ANT, it is possible to convert all, some, or none of the build scripts to Gradle.

Gradle being a meta-language of Java allows many of the same object types to be introduced into the build scripts. The richness of Java/Groovy objects introduce a higher level of flexibility when writing build scripts.

Gradle executes builds by phases. Maven has a similar architecture, but Gradle makes configuring special hooks by execution phase simple.

Support for existing Maven and Ivy repositories exists through client modules.

Multiproject builds are made simple in Gradle with features such as configuration injection across projects, partial builds, and robust transitive dependency management.

Since Gradle is based on Groovy, it is possible to include third party libraries and customize build scripts based on the Groovy and Java languages.

Numerous plugins for Jetty, wars, Scala, Maven, code quality (metrics), OSGi, Eclipse, and Reporting.

A Gradle wrapper, that will setup Gradle-free machines with a fresh new copy of Gradle from your repository.

A Simple Build Script

Let us start by creating a simple Gradle build script for Java code. The installation and setup of Gradle can be found here. Project A is a simple java project that follows Java naming conventions and uses a Maven central repository and a local maven repository located in the local file system at /tmp/repos/.

Build Project A (simple Java jar build)

(Project A/build.gradle)



// We can add comments to the build script using
typical
Java/Groovy notation

//We need to specify the java plugin which by
default
looks for src/main/java



usePlugin 'java'

usePlugin 'maven'



version = 1.0



configure(install.repositories.mavenInstaller) {

    pom.version = '1.0'

    pom.artifactId = 'project-A'

}





repositories {

      mavenCentral() //
Setup the Maven repository

      mavenRepo(urls :
"file://localhost/tmp/repos/")

}



// call uploadArchives to deploy to repository

uploadArchives {

    repositories.mavenDeployer {

       
repository(url: "file://localhost/tmp/repos/")

       
pom.groupId = 'projectA'

       
pom.version = '1.0'

       
pom.artifactId = 'projectA'

    }

}



install.dependsOn ':uploadArchives'



dependencies { // Add external dependencies here



      compile group:
'commons-cli', name: 'commons-cli', version: '1.0'

      compile group:
'commons-logging', name: 'commons-logging', version: '1.0.4'

      compile group:
'commons-net', name: 'commons-net', version: '1.4.1'

      compile group:
'junit', name: 'junit', version: '4.7'

      compile group:
'org.codehaus.groovy', name: 'groovy-all', version: '1.6.2'

      compile group:
'quartz', name: 'quartz', version: '1.5.1'

      compile group:
'xstream', name: 'xstream', version: '1.2.1'

      compile group:
'commons-net', name: 'commons-net', version: '2.0'

}





sourceSets { // Defines which source files to include in the build



      main {

           
java {

           
}

           
resources {

           
}

      }

}

Run 'gradle assemble'

Output:

:compileJava

downloading (2 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/commons-cli/commons-cli/1.0/commons-cli-1.0.pom

..

downloading (2 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/commons-lang/commons-lang/1.0/commons-lang-1.0.pom

...

downloading (5 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/commons-logging/commons-logging/1.0.4/commons-logging-1.0.4.pom

.....

downloading (1 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/junit/junit/4.7/junit-4.7.pom

..

downloading (24 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/codehaus/groovy/groovy-all/1.6.2/groovy-all-1.6.2.pom

...................

downloading (9 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/ant/ant/1.7.1/ant-1.7.1.pom

........

downloading (4 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/ant/ant-parent/1.7.1/ant-parent-1.7.1.pom

.....

downloading (2 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/ant/ant-launcher/1.7.1/ant-launcher-1.7.1.pom

...

downloading (6 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/jline/jline/0.9.94/jline-0.9.94.pom

.....

downloading (146 B)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/quartz/quartz/1.5.1/quartz-1.5.1.pom

..

downloading (371 B)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/xstream/xstream/1.2.1/xstream-1.2.1.pom

..

downloading (6 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream/1.2.1/xstream-1.2.1.pom

......

downloading (7 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream-parent/1.2.1/xstream-parent-1.2.1.pom

.......

downloading (638 B)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/xpp3/xpp3_min/1.1.3.4.O/xpp3_min-1.1.3.4.O.pom

..

downloading (7 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/commons-net/commons-net/2.0/commons-net-2.0.pom

.......

downloading (24 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/commons/commons-parent/11/commons-parent-11.pom

...................

downloading (4 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/apache/4/apache-4.pom

.....

downloading (30 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/commons-cli/commons-cli/1.0/commons-cli-1.0.jar

.......................

downloading (38 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/commons-logging/commons-logging/1.0.4/commons-logging-1.0.4.jar

............................

downloading (232 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/junit/junit/4.7/junit-4.7.jar

..................................................................................

downloading (4.45 MB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/codehaus/groovy/groovy-all/1.6.2/groovy-all-1.6.2.jar

.........................................................................

downloading (353 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/quartz/quartz/1.5.1/quartz-1.5.1.jar

........................................................................

downloading (63 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/commons-lang/commons-lang/1.0/commons-lang-1.0.jar

..............................................

downloading (1.32 MB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/ant/ant/1.7.1/ant-1.7.1.jar

...............................................................................

downloading (87 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/jline/jline/0.9.94/jline-0.9.94.jar

..............................................................

downloading (12 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/ant/ant-launcher/1.7.1/ant-launcher-1.7.1.jar

..........

downloading (349 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream/1.2.1/xstream-1.2.1.jar

..................................................................................

downloading (24 KB)
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/xpp3/xpp3_min/1.1.3.4.O/xpp3_min-1.1.3.4.O.jar

...................
:processResources
:classes
:jar
:assemble



BUILD SUCCESSFUL



Total time: 1 mins 13.323 secs

The build will generate classes and a final jar file in the following directories:

ProjectA/.classpath
ProjectA/.classpath.old
ProjectA/.settings/org.eclipse.jdt.core.prefs
ProjectA/bin/com/pac/domain/Employee.class
ProjectA/.project
ProjectA/build.gradle
ProjectA/build/libs/ProjectA-1.0.jar
ProjectA/build/classes/main/com/pac/domain/Employee.class
ProjectA/build/ivy.xml
ProjectA/build/poms/pom-default.xml
ProjectA/src/main/java/com/pac/domain/Employee.java

One thing to note. If all of the dependencies have not been added to the gradle an error will occur. The list of dependencies includes transitive dependencies or libraries that are required by libraries listed in your dependency list. One way to automate the compilation of transitive dependencies is to add the following line to the build script...

configurations.compile.transitive = true

Any library that is required, but is not explicitly defined in the build script will be managed automatically with this entry. Also, it is possible to manage transitive dependencies at a more granular level (disabling for specific libraries). One example of this is as follows:

            dependency("commons-cli:commons-cli:1.0") {
              transitive = false
            }

Useful Firefox Plugins For Web Development

2011-09-11T13:30:00.004-04:00

I found this article useful in my AJAX development. Thought I would share. Enjoy!

Here's another personal favorite plugin that reads/modifies HTTP headers.

Google Web Tool Kit on 64 bit Ubuntu OS

2010-08-07T20:54:00.000-04:00

I see many posts abut trying to run Google Web Toolkit in a 64 bit Linux environment, the toolkit seems to be trying

to use 32 bit libraries when automatically starting Mozilla for testing.

The error looks something like this...

** Unable to load Mozilla for hosted mode **
java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /opt/app/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.platform_3.5.0_155965261/
plugins/com.google.gwt.eclipse.sdkbundle.linux_1.7.1.v200909221731/gwt-linux-1.7.1/
mozilla-1.7.12/libxpcom.so:
libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

My solution to this was to force install a 32bit library (libstdc++5.so) into my 32 bit Ubuntu OS.

sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture ./libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_i386.deb

GWT should now be able to start up using the Mozilla libraries.  Good luck!

JMeter for Load Testing

2010-08-07T12:20:00.004-04:00

JMeter released a 2.4 version a couple of weeks ago, and I decided to download the tool. So far, I love it! Here is why:

Apache JMeter is simple and there is very little barrier to starting up a simple load test from your desktop. Perfect for my development load tests.
It is free and licensed under Apache.
JMeter runs on the JVM, so the tool is multi-platform.
JMeter allows testing of the following server types...

Web - HTTP, HTTPS
SOAP
Database via JDBC
LDAP
JMS
Mail - POP3(S) and IMAP(S)
In JMeter, you can configure the number of thread groups for both sending requests and sampling initiated during tests.
The results can be dumped into CSV format for graphing via Excel or some other spreadsheet. JMeter also contains plugins, several of which will generate jpg graphs that can be copied into documentation.
You can record manual web click interactions to create HTTP tests. These interactions can be saved as a test case and run later during load testing.
Supports JUnit testing too!
JMeter can be distributed in a cluster for simulating requests from multisite locations.

There are many comprehensive suites of test tools available: JRunner, Selenium, etc. However, for quick turnaround in a development environment JMeter cannot be beat. It is easy and it is simple to show others how to run the tool with very little training.

Java Lambda Expressions - Groovy Closure's Evil Twin?

2010-07-07T22:36:00.005-04:00

Java lambda expressions appear to be an uglier version of Groovy closures. InfoQ provides some good information about the latest Oracle implementation.

http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/06/lambda-syntax-debate

The surprising truth about motivation...

2010-06-20T14:10:00.003-04:00

An interesting video about what motivates us technical folks.

SmartFrog distributed system management

2010-06-19T08:55:00.004-04:00

I'm impressed with the depth of distributed environment management knowledge in the SmartFrog. SmartFrog is a Java based framework that manages, configures, and deploys distributed software.

Many companies I have worked with have created some form of home grown solution to manage their environments, but the SmartFrog guys seem to have taken this need for environment management to the next level. SmartFrog has plugins for Amazon EC2, ssh, Hadoop, jetty, RPM, more.. and more... This tool is open source too, so there is no limit to the growth of plugins for managing different systems.

The SmartFrog group has addressed the different types of deployments. Continuous integration deployment, MSI deployments, and many more.

I'm setting up SmartFrog for my personal projects and more details about the Smart Frog system will follow.

Gradle Introduction

2010-05-24T22:33:00.002-04:00

I love Gradle (http://www.gradle.org)! Gradle introduces so many needed concepts to the world of build scripts and allows developers enough flexibility to either customize to the Nth degree or simply use cookie cutter build scripts.

I have added notes about my adventures with Gradle and some real world examples for Java, Groovy, War, multi-project builds, and even some Gradle customizations.

Groovy on Google App Engine Part II

2009-12-11T00:33:00.002-05:00

In the previous post, I linked to the demo of the Atlanta Groovy on Grails User Group presentation from August given by Pratik Patel. In this, post we will review the steps required to create a Groovy app in the demo, and in addtion create some nice little Groovy features to the application.

Recap

Using Eclipse 3.5 Galileo the following plugins were installed for this demo..
- Groovy Eclipse Plugin
- Google AppEngine Eclipse Plugin
- Aptana Studio Plugin

Before starting you will need a Google AppEngine Account. Google AppEngine now supports Python and Java. We will be running Groovy over Java using the Groovy Gaelyk library that allows Groovy libraries to run on the Google App Engine. The data service is also on Google's servers and is using DataStore.

Next, create a Google AppEngine project in Eclipse. The Google AppEngine plugin should add this feature into your Eclipse IDE. We should treat the project as if we were creating a Google AppEngine java project, and then we will include the Gaelyk libraries to allow Groovlets to run on the server.

Update the appengine-web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<appengine-web-app xmlns="http://appengine.google.com/ns/1.0">
<application>pac-gcloud</application>
<version>1</version>


<system-properties>
<property name="java.util.logging.config.file"
value="WEB-INF/logging.properties"/>
</system-properties>
<static-files>
<exclude path="/WEB-INF/**.groovy" />
<exclude path="**.gtpl" />
</static-files>
</appengine-web-app>

Update web.xml to handle Gaelyk servlets

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" version="2.5">

<servlet>
<servlet-name>GroovletServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>groovyx.gaelyk.GaelykServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>


<servlet>
<servlet-name>TemplateServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>groovyx.gaelyk.GaelykTemplateServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>


<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>GroovletServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.groovy</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>


<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>TemplateServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.gtpl</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>


<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>index.gtpl</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
</web-app>

Copy Gaelyk and Groovy jar file into your webapp/lib directory.

Next, we need an index.gtpl that will be the landing page for this application. The index.gtpl used in this demo can be found here. In this index page we provide links to all the source code for this project. The application starts at the edititems.gtpl page.

The edititems.gtpl will load the data from Google DataStore with the following lines...

<% def query = new Query("Item")
def entityList = datastoreService.prepare(query).asList(FetchOptions.Builder.withLimit(100))
%>

The Items.groovy entity seen above is used to handle the different types of requests as well.

All of the code can be found here. There is a good bit of code for each function of the Items.groovy file, so the exercise of reviewing those functions can be completed outside of this article.

Also, one unique item is a screen scraper which is executed when selecting the "import" button in the edititems.gtpl file. This function uses the XMLSlurper and TagSoup to screen scrape an html file in a wikipedia table. The function then generates a list of buildings in Jacksonville, FL sorted by height and imports the list into the Google DataStore database. The list will be displayed next time the edititems.gtpl is viewed.

public class Building {

def findTallestInJacksonville = {
def xmlReader = new XmlSlurper(new org.ccil.cowan.tagsoup.Parser())
def url = new URL("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Jacksonville")
url.withReader { reader ->
def html = xmlReader.parse(reader)
def listTable = html.body.div.div[0].div.div[1].table[0].tr
return listTable.list()
}
}

The code can be deployed from Eclipse to Google by selecting the project and right click > Google > Deploy to App Engine. The entire code base and functoning application that was deployed can be found here...

http://pac-gcloud.appspot.com/

Also, I recommend Google AppEngine, since it also has some nice management features and is free up to certain limits. This is a great way to start up an application for free until it is successful. Good luck.

Groovy on Google App Engine Using Gaelyk

2009-10-04T08:40:00.007-04:00

There is an interesting post by Pratik Patel from last month's Atlanta Groovy and Grails (ATL2G) meeting. This video demonstrates using Groovy on Google AppEngine using the Groovy Gaelyk libraries. If you are interested in taking advantage of Google's cloud computing resources using Groovy, this is a good presentation.

More posts will follow with a brief written "How-to" and some twists on Pratik's demo.

Java TimeZones

2009-07-26T21:27:00.004-04:00

There seems to be a lack of documented TimeZone ids for Java 6. For anyone searching for their timezone, the list is below. Yah, I know not terribly exciting. More interesting Java posts will follow.

Code snippet:

import java.util.TimeZone
for (String id:TimeZone.getAvailableIDs()){println id + ", "}

TimeZones:
Etc/GMT+12, Etc/GMT+11, MIT, Pacific/Apia, Pacific/Midway, Pacific/Niue, Pacific/Pago_Pago, Pacific/Samoa, US/Samoa, America/Adak, America/Atka, Etc/GMT+10, HST, Pacific/Fakaofo, Pacific/Honolulu, Pacific/Johnston, Pacific/Rarotonga, Pacific/Tahiti, SystemV/HST10, US/Aleutian, US/Hawaii, Pacific/Marquesas, AST, America/Anchorage, America/Juneau, America/Nome, America/Yakutat, Etc/GMT+9, Pacific/Gambier, SystemV/YST9, SystemV/YST9YDT, US/Alaska, America/Dawson, America/Ensenada, America/Los_Angeles, America/Tijuana, America/Vancouver, America/Whitehorse, Canada/Pacific, Canada/Yukon, Etc/GMT+8, Mexico/BajaNorte, PST, PST8PDT, Pacific/Pitcairn, SystemV/PST8, SystemV/PST8PDT, US/Pacific, US/Pacific-New, America/Boise, America/Cambridge_Bay, America/Chihuahua, America/Dawson_Creek, America/Denver, America/Edmonton, America/Hermosillo, America/Inuvik, America/Mazatlan, America/Phoenix, America/Shiprock, America/Yellowknife, Canada/Mountain, Etc/GMT+7, MST, MST7MDT, Mexico/BajaSur, Navajo, PNT, SystemV/MST7, SystemV/MST7MDT, US/Arizona, US/Mountain, America/Belize, America/Cancun, America/Chicago, America/Costa_Rica, America/El_Salvador, America/Guatemala, America/Indiana/Knox, America/Indiana/Tell_City, America/Knox_IN, America/Managua, America/Menominee, America/Merida, America/Mexico_City, America/Monterrey, America/North_Dakota/Center, America/North_Dakota/New_Salem, America/Rainy_River, America/Rankin_Inlet, America/Regina, America/Swift_Current, America/Tegucigalpa, America/Winnipeg, CST, CST6CDT, Canada/Central, Canada/East-Saskatchewan, Canada/Saskatchewan, Chile/EasterIsland, Etc/GMT+6, Mexico/General, Pacific/Easter, Pacific/Galapagos, SystemV/CST6, SystemV/CST6CDT, US/Central, US/Indiana-Starke, America/Atikokan, America/Bogota, America/Cayman, America/Coral_Harbour, America/Detroit, America/Eirunepe, America/Fort_Wayne, America/Grand_Turk, America/Guayaquil, America/Havana, America/Indiana/Indianapolis, America/Indiana/Marengo, America/Indiana/Petersburg, America/Indiana/Vevay, America/Indiana/Vincennes, America/Indiana/Winamac, America/Indianapolis, America/Iqaluit, America/Jamaica, America/Kentucky/Louisville, America/Kentucky/Monticello, America/Lima, America/Louisville, America/Montreal, America/Nassau, America/New_York, America/Nipigon, America/Panama, America/Pangnirtung, America/Port-au-Prince, America/Porto_Acre, America/Resolute, America/Rio_Branco, America/Thunder_Bay, America/Toronto, Brazil/Acre, Canada/Eastern, Cuba, EST, EST5EDT, Etc/GMT+5, IET, Jamaica, SystemV/EST5, SystemV/EST5EDT, US/East-Indiana, US/Eastern, US/Michigan, America/Caracas, America/Anguilla, America/Antigua, America/Aruba, America/Asuncion, America/Barbados, America/Blanc-Sablon, America/Boa_Vista, America/Campo_Grande, America/Cuiaba, America/Curacao, America/Dominica, America/Glace_Bay, America/Goose_Bay, America/Grenada, America/Guadeloupe, America/Guyana, America/Halifax, America/La_Paz, America/Manaus, America/Marigot, America/Martinique, America/Moncton, America/Montserrat, America/Port_of_Spain, America/Porto_Velho, America/Puerto_Rico, America/Santiago, America/Santo_Domingo, America/St_Barthelemy, America/St_Kitts, America/St_Lucia, America/St_Thomas, America/St_Vincent, America/Thule, America/Tortola, America/Virgin, Antarctica/Palmer, Atlantic/Bermuda, Atlantic/Stanley, Brazil/West, Canada/Atlantic, Chile/Continental, Etc/GMT+4, PRT, SystemV/AST4, SystemV/AST4ADT, America/St_Johns, CNT, Canada/Newfoundland, AGT, America/Araguaina, America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires, America/Argentina/Catamarca, America/Argentina/ComodRivadavia, America/Argentina/Cordoba, America/Argentina/Jujuy, America/Argentina/La_Rioja, America/Argentina/Mendoza, America/Argentina/Rio_Gallegos, America/Argentina/San_Juan, America/Argentina/San_Luis, America/Argentina/Tucuman, America/Argentina/Ushuaia, America/Bahia, America/Belem, America/Buenos_Aires, America/Catamarca, America/Cayenne, America/Cordoba, America/Fortaleza, America/Godthab, America/Jujuy, America/Maceio, America/Mendoza, America/Miquelon, America/Montevideo, America/Paramaribo, America/Recife, America/Rosario, America/Sao_Paulo, Antarctica/Rothera, BET, Brazil/East, Etc/GMT+3, America/Noronha, Atlantic/South_Georgia, Brazil/DeNoronha, Etc/GMT+2, America/Scoresbysund, Atlantic/Azores, Atlantic/Cape_Verde, Etc/GMT+1, Africa/Abidjan, Africa/Accra, Africa/Bamako, Africa/Banjul, Africa/Bissau, Africa/Casablanca, Africa/Conakry, Africa/Dakar, Africa/El_Aaiun, Africa/Freetown, Africa/Lome, Africa/Monrovia, Africa/Nouakchott, Africa/Ouagadougou, Africa/Sao_Tome, Africa/Timbuktu, America/Danmarkshavn, Atlantic/Canary, Atlantic/Faeroe, Atlantic/Faroe, Atlantic/Madeira, Atlantic/Reykjavik, Atlantic/St_Helena, Eire, Etc/GMT, Etc/GMT+0, Etc/GMT-0, Etc/GMT0, Etc/Greenwich, Etc/UCT, Etc/UTC, Etc/Universal, Etc/Zulu, Europe/Belfast, Europe/Dublin, Europe/Guernsey, Europe/Isle_of_Man, Europe/Jersey, Europe/Lisbon, Europe/London, GB, GB-Eire, GMT, GMT0, Greenwich, Iceland, Portugal, UCT, UTC, Universal, WET, Zulu, Africa/Algiers, Africa/Bangui, Africa/Brazzaville, Africa/Ceuta, Africa/Douala, Africa/Kinshasa, Africa/Lagos, Africa/Libreville, Africa/Luanda, Africa/Malabo, Africa/Ndjamena, Africa/Niamey, Africa/Porto-Novo, Africa/Tunis, Africa/Windhoek, Arctic/Longyearbyen, Atlantic/Jan_Mayen, CET, ECT, Etc/GMT-1, Europe/Amsterdam, Europe/Andorra, Europe/Belgrade, Europe/Berlin, Europe/Bratislava, Europe/Brussels, Europe/Budapest, Europe/Copenhagen, Europe/Gibraltar, Europe/Ljubljana, Europe/Luxembourg, Europe/Madrid, Europe/Malta, Europe/Monaco, Europe/Oslo, Europe/Paris, Europe/Podgorica, Europe/Prague, Europe/Rome, Europe/San_Marino, Europe/Sarajevo, Europe/Skopje, Europe/Stockholm, Europe/Tirane, Europe/Vaduz, Europe/Vatican, Europe/Vienna, Europe/Warsaw, Europe/Zagreb, Europe/Zurich, MET, Poland, ART, Africa/Blantyre, Africa/Bujumbura, Africa/Cairo, Africa/Gaborone, Africa/Harare, Africa/Johannesburg, Africa/Kigali, Africa/Lubumbashi, Africa/Lusaka, Africa/Maputo, Africa/Maseru, Africa/Mbabane, Africa/Tripoli, Asia/Amman, Asia/Beirut, Asia/Damascus, Asia/Gaza, Asia/Istanbul, Asia/Jerusalem, Asia/Nicosia, Asia/Tel_Aviv, CAT, EET, Egypt, Etc/GMT-2, Europe/Athens, Europe/Bucharest, Europe/Chisinau, Europe/Helsinki, Europe/Istanbul, Europe/Kaliningrad, Europe/Kiev, Europe/Mariehamn, Europe/Minsk, Europe/Nicosia, Europe/Riga, Europe/Simferopol, Europe/Sofia, Europe/Tallinn, Europe/Tiraspol, Europe/Uzhgorod, Europe/Vilnius, Europe/Zaporozhye, Israel, Libya, Turkey, Africa/Addis_Ababa, Africa/Asmara, Africa/Asmera, Africa/Dar_es_Salaam, Africa/Djibouti, Africa/Kampala, Africa/Khartoum, Africa/Mogadishu, Africa/Nairobi, Antarctica/Syowa, Asia/Aden, Asia/Baghdad, Asia/Bahrain, Asia/Kuwait, Asia/Qatar, Asia/Riyadh, EAT, Etc/GMT-3, Europe/Moscow, Europe/Volgograd, Indian/Antananarivo, Indian/Comoro, Indian/Mayotte, W-SU, Asia/Riyadh87, Asia/Riyadh88, Asia/Riyadh89, Mideast/Riyadh87, Mideast/Riyadh88, Mideast/Riyadh89, Asia/Tehran, Iran, Asia/Baku, Asia/Dubai, Asia/Muscat, Asia/Tbilisi, Asia/Yerevan, Etc/GMT-4, Europe/Samara, Indian/Mahe, Indian/Mauritius, Indian/Reunion, NET, Asia/Kabul, Asia/Aqtau, Asia/Aqtobe, Asia/Ashgabat, Asia/Ashkhabad, Asia/Dushanbe, Asia/Karachi, Asia/Oral, Asia/Samarkand, Asia/Tashkent, Asia/Yekaterinburg, Etc/GMT-5, Indian/Kerguelen, Indian/Maldives, PLT, Asia/Calcutta, Asia/Colombo, Asia/Kolkata, IST, Asia/Katmandu, Antarctica/Mawson, Antarctica/Vostok, Asia/Almaty, Asia/Bishkek, Asia/Dacca, Asia/Dhaka, Asia/Novosibirsk, Asia/Omsk, Asia/Qyzylorda, Asia/Thimbu, Asia/Thimphu, BST, Etc/GMT-6, Indian/Chagos, Asia/Rangoon, Indian/Cocos, Antarctica/Davis, Asia/Bangkok, Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh, Asia/Hovd, Asia/Jakarta, Asia/Krasnoyarsk, Asia/Phnom_Penh, Asia/Pontianak, Asia/Saigon, Asia/Vientiane, Etc/GMT-7, Indian/Christmas, VST, Antarctica/Casey, Asia/Brunei, Asia/Chongqing, Asia/Chungking, Asia/Harbin, Asia/Hong_Kong, Asia/Irkutsk, Asia/Kashgar, Asia/Kuala_Lumpur, Asia/Kuching, Asia/Macao, Asia/Macau, Asia/Makassar, Asia/Manila, Asia/Shanghai, Asia/Singapore, Asia/Taipei, Asia/Ujung_Pandang, Asia/Ulaanbaatar, Asia/Ulan_Bator, Asia/Urumqi, Australia/Perth, Australia/West, CTT, Etc/GMT-8, Hongkong, PRC, Singapore, Australia/Eucla, Asia/Choibalsan, Asia/Dili, Asia/Jayapura, Asia/Pyongyang, Asia/Seoul, Asia/Tokyo, Asia/Yakutsk, Etc/GMT-9, JST, Japan, Pacific/Palau, ROK, ACT, Australia/Adelaide, Australia/Broken_Hill, Australia/Darwin, Australia/North, Australia/South, Australia/Yancowinna, AET, Antarctica/DumontDUrville, Asia/Sakhalin, Asia/Vladivostok, Australia/ACT, Australia/Brisbane, Australia/Canberra, Australia/Currie, Australia/Hobart, Australia/Lindeman, Australia/Melbourne, Australia/NSW, Australia/Queensland, Australia/Sydney, Australia/Tasmania, Australia/Victoria, Etc/GMT-10, Pacific/Guam, Pacific/Port_Moresby, Pacific/Saipan, Pacific/Truk, Pacific/Yap, Australia/LHI, Australia/Lord_Howe, Asia/Magadan, Etc/GMT-11, Pacific/Efate, Pacific/Guadalcanal, Pacific/Kosrae, Pacific/Noumea, Pacific/Ponape, SST, Pacific/Norfolk, Antarctica/McMurdo, Antarctica/South_Pole, Asia/Anadyr, Asia/Kamchatka, Etc/GMT-12, Kwajalein, NST, NZ, Pacific/Auckland, Pacific/Fiji, Pacific/Funafuti, Pacific/Kwajalein, Pacific/Majuro, Pacific/Nauru, Pacific/Tarawa, Pacific/Wake, Pacific/Wallis, NZ-CHAT, Pacific/Chatham, Etc/GMT-13, Pacific/Enderbury, Pacific/Tongatapu, Etc/GMT-14, Pacific/Kiritimati

JavaOne Notes on EBAY Architecture

2009-07-11T11:27:00.003-04:00

Ever wonder how to architect a system with 2 billion pages views and 48 billion sql executes daily? Chief architect of EBay, Randy Shoup, gives his insights at JavaOne 2009.

Homegrown Ubuntu Backups

2009-06-22T22:30:00.005-04:00

sbackup on Ubuntu is a nice backup utility, but I needed to copy my backup files across network to a Windows server with a 1TB external drive formatted in FAT32. What sbackup needed was a way to samba mount my external drive, a way to break up files larger than 4GB, and to breakup the backups into nice size chunks that can be copied nicely over my network.

Here's my quick script to backup my /home dir.

#!/bin/sh

BACKUP_DIR=/home/robert

DATESTAMP=`date '+%Y%m%d'`
echo "Backing up Copernicus laptop..."

ls -1 $BACKUP_DIR | while read dir
do
echo "Backing up $dir"
TARFILENAME="${dir}_${DATESTAMP}"
tar cvpjf /var/backup/local_backups/backup_${TARFILENAME}.tar.bz2 --exclude=*.log --exclude=lost+found $BACKUP_DIR/$dir
split -b4GB /var/backup/local_backups/backup_${TARFILENAME}.tar.bz2
done

sudo smbmount //192.168.0.122/copernicus/backup /mnt/backup -o username=YYY,password=XXX

mkdir -p /mnt/backup/backup_${DATESTAMP}

mv /var/backup/local_backups/backup_*_${DATESTAMP}.tar.bz2* /mnt/backup/backup_${DATESTAMP}
echo "Finished backing up Copernicus laptop..."
exit 0

SMF Review

2009-06-15T21:12:00.001-04:00

SMF or simple machines forum is a php-based forum software with many features and an active developer community. After searching for several forum software packages, and checking ratings, maturity of the code base, frequency of updates, helpful forums, SMF appeared to be one of the top packages available. Also, my hosting company (GoDaddy) provided free install and setup (another plus!). Pretty much what I wanted, because this wasn't to be a main focus of one of my sites, but I also wanted a forum that was low maintenance, so that I could do other work that was more interesting. SMF also appeared to also have many useful features.

So everything looks good right? Well almost. As a java developer, I learned several things good and bad about php. I also waged a small battle with security. My hats off to the guys that manage LAMP apps full time.

Lessons learned...

Remote file inclusion - PHP without the correct barriers set can allow hackers to send a url that references a remote file. These remote scripts serve different purposes, but in my case a script was used to customize php files and drop in redirects for certain URLs that boost different websites rankings in Google.
There is a great description about remote file inclusion here. The article also provides a great description and some remedies for this issue.

Here's the first fix to keep remote file inclusion from being used on my site...

Set allow_url_fopen to OFF
Set allow_url_include to OFF
Set register_globals to OFF

2. Do not allow users to register themselves - As much as I don't want to keep up with users, I soon found that this is the best way to see whats happening on your site after setup especially since I am by no means an SMF expert. After setting up my final SMF 1.1.9 forum, I had 16 spam bots attempt to register users between 1AM and 7AM. The first setup, was to add admin approval for all users. SMF sent me a nice little email that Viagara28 and other creative users were interested in joining. Yeah right!

Allowing users to register themselves will open the doors for spambots, and you will soon have hordes of nefarious advertisements posted on your forum.

One really nice feature about SMF is that with a click you can view and lookup the IP of the requesting member. This helps give you an idea of with whom you are dealing. The 16 member requests were all from spamlands Ukraine and Russia. SMF also allows you to block certain IP ranges if you wish to block out an entire country. Sorry Ukraine!

3. Set the captcha to the highest level of difficulty - This one step filtered out numerous emails from spambots. This article here explains that Captcha can be hacked and should be made as difficult as possible to filter out the bots.

These 3 suggestions kept my SMF forum from being decimated into a heaping pile of ash. Overall, though I believe that SMF/php is a little bit rough around the edges on security, it is by no means a reason to stay away from SMF or php in general. I must note that I did start with SMF 1.1.5 which is the default SMF install from godaddy.com. After reading newsgroups about security enhancements, I decided to go out on my own and install 1.1.9. A good move and all remote file inclusions seemed to be wiped clean by making this move.

So here's my analysis on SMF experiences.

1.) Install - (B+) Overall pretty good install. There seems to be a low barrier to setup SMF which is nice. I didn't quite understand upgrade paths.. can i go from 1.1.5 -> 1.1.9 with a simple upgrade package? but in my situation everything appeared to work. Also, the learning curve on setup was pretty small. I had a few issues installing themes and understanding if a theme would fit 1.1.9 but this issue was soon resolved. Also, you have to go back and remove the php pages for install.php and upgrade.php. It would be nice not to need to do that.

2.) Security - (C) Spambots are ready for SMF, but I think following the suggestions above and upgrading to the latest version of SMF will keep you a few steps ahead of the spammers and hackers. Default settings are prone to hacking, and I believe spambots prey on this fact.

3.) User Community (A-) There is large SMF community out there which in my book is worth more than the app itself sometimes. There was a lot of good information and the developers seem to be actively posting. Good job on this!

Another note on this... SMF allows homegrown pre-packaged themes to be installed which I really liked. You can visit a site and browse many different types of themes, pick one, download it and install it.

4.) Features - (A) Lots of features have been added to SMF. Almost too much really for what I needed, but I was able to navigate through the menus and using IP tracking, style sheet editing, and many more.

5.) Usability - (B) Well this is good and bad. The good is that there are a lot of features. The bad is that there are a lot of features. Overall, I was able to navigate, setup, and configure a site pretty quickly. However, there were times where it took me some time to figure out the right way to do something. One example is setting the current theme. After installing the theme I liked, do I simply change the paths on the current theme? I tried changing the path, but for some reason my site turned into garbled mush and couldn't find URLs etc. I soon found the install theme button, and everything cleared up. There were other small things like that, which kept SMF from becoming stupidly simple to use. Some level of technical knowledge is useful for SMF without a doubt.

PHP and script.aculo.us Web 2.0 Application Interfaces

2009-06-01T21:41:00.003-04:00

I just recently finished reviewing PHP and script.aculo.us Web 2.0 Application Interfaces by Sridhar Rao. Sridhar provides many hands-on examples of the Script.aculo.us library and explains in detail many of the effects used in many of our favorite web 2.0 applications i.e. tadalist, digg, delicious, and 43things.com. If you have ever struggled to get JavaScript to play nicely this is a must read.

Sridhar explains the concepts of Script.aculo.us, Prototype, and AJAX in PHP. The chapters are well-written and follow up with many useful examples. The author weaves those concepts into reality and explains how many of the effects that we enjoy on the web are done. My favorite was creating a Delicio.us / Digg -like bookmark application along with many effects such as search with real-time autocompletion, realtime updates, and tag clouds. Another useful chapter describes an AJAX enabled shopping cart that provides awesome features like drag and drop, and applies some of the interesting Script.aculo.us effects to the online store. Very cool.

The author also writes in a fun tone, and gives the reader a lot of interesting tidbits to chew on. A good read overall.

Designing Java Mock Objects with Commons-VFS

2009-03-22T22:24:00.031-04:00

Unit tests and mock objects can get messy when dealing with file objects, but recently I have had the chance to throw in another tool into the old Java toolbox. Commons-VFS allows developers to create a virtual file system, where the files spanning multiple drives/formats/protocols can be made to appear as a single drive accessible through the VFSManager.

Common-VFS allows the developers to span the following file systems and formats...

Commons-VFS is a very useful library with many possible applications. In the following case, I would like to demonstrate using a commons-VFS FileObject in a mock object to simulate a basic runtime file manipulation. This is a bit more realistic than creating a mock object or fakes with no true file changes and is simple and easy to use while only making a virtual file updates in memory.

First, I will create an interface named PACFileHandler. The interface will define the contract for any implementation of the PACFileHandler.

/**
 * 
 */
package com.pac.ps.file;
/**
 * @author robert
 *
 */

public interface PACFileHandler {

  public void open(String fileName);

  public StringBuffer read();

  public boolean write(StringBuffer sbf) ;

  public boolean append(StringBuffer sbf);

  public void close(String fileName);


}

Next, you can create an implementation of this class for runtime. The implementation is not important at this point since we are reviewing commons-VFS with mock objects.

The mock class of the implementation will implement PACFileHandler and will look like this...

 /**
 * 
 */
package com.pac.ps.file;

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.io.PrintWriter;

import org.apache.commons.vfs.FileContent;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.FileObject;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.FileSystemException;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.FileSystemManager;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.FileUtil;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.VFS;

/**
 * @author robert
 *
 */
public class PACFileHandlerMock implements PACFileHandler {

  FileObject jarFile ;

  /* (non-Javadoc)
   * @see com.pac.ps.file.PACFileHandler#append(java.lang.StringBuffer)
   */
  public boolean append(StringBuffer sbf) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    return false;
  }

  /* (non-Javadoc)
   * @see com.pac.ps.file.PACFileHandler#open(java.lang.String)
   */
  public void open(String fileName) {
    try {
      FileSystemManager fsManager = VFS.getManager();
      String fileString = "ram://" + fileName;
      jarFile = fsManager.resolveFile(fileString);
    } catch (FileSystemException fse) {
      System.out.println("ERROR: " + fse.toString());
    }
  }

  /* (non-Javadoc)
   * @see com.pac.ps.file.PACFileHandler#read()
   */
  public StringBuffer read() {
    StringBuffer fileContents = new StringBuffer() ;
    
    try {
      ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
      FileUtil.writeContent(jarFile, outputStream);
      fileContents.append(outputStream);
    } catch (IOException fse) {
      System.out.println("ERROR: " + fse);
    }
    
    return fileContents ;
  }

  /* (non-Javadoc)
   * @see com.pac.ps.file.PACFileHandler#write(java.lang.StringBuffer)
   */
  public boolean write(StringBuffer sbf) {
    try {
      jarFile.createFile() ;
      FileContent fc = jarFile.getContent() ;
      OutputStream outputStream = fc.getOutputStream() ;
      PrintWriter bw = new PrintWriter(outputStream);
      bw.write(sbf.toString());
      bw.close();
      outputStream.close();
    } catch (IOException fse) {
      System.out.println("ERROR: " + fse);
    }

    return true;
  }

  public void close(String fileName) {
    try {
      jarFile.close() ;
    } catch (FileSystemException fse){
      System.out.println("ERROR: " + fse);
    }
    
  }

}

The following code from the mock open() method will initialize the commons-VFS File System Manager. Notice, how the file name is referenced. The path to our virtual file will start with "ram://". Other tests could easily be created using the formats discussed earlier, but in this case we will be creating the virtual file in the ram:// path in memory.

FileSystemManager fsManager = VFS.getManager();
      String fileString = "ram://" + fileName;
      jarFile = fsManager.resolveFile(fileString);

The above mock class will be passed into a PACFile object which will read and write the contents of the file using the PACFileHandlerMock class. In runtime the PACFile object will reference the PACFileHandlerImpl, and our mock object should imitate a true File object without many differences.

 /**
 * 
 */
package com.pac.ps.file;

/**
 * @author robert
 *
 */
public class PACFile {
  
  PACFileHandler pfh ;

  public PACFile(PACFileHandler pfHandler){
    this.pfh = pfHandler ;
  }
  
  public boolean write(String fileName,String contents){
    
    pfh.open(fileName);
    StringBuffer line = new StringBuffer(contents);
    pfh.write(line);
    pfh.close(fileName);

    return true ;
  }
  
  public StringBuffer read(String fileName){
    
    StringBuffer line = pfh.read() ;
    
    return line;
  }
}

Last, let's create a JUnit 4 test case called PACFileTest...

 /**
 * 
 */
package com.pac.ps.file;

import org.junit.Test;
import junit.framework.TestCase;

/**
 * @author robert
 *
 */
public class PACFileTest extends TestCase {

  /**
   * Test method for {@link com.pac.ps.file.PACFile#PACFile(com.pac.ps.file.PACFileHandler)}.
   */
  @Test
  public void testPACFile() {
    PACFileHandlerMock pfhm = new PACFileHandlerMock() ;
    PACFile pacFile = new PACFile(pfhm) ;
    
    String fileName = "testFile";
    pacFile.write(fileName,"Four score and seven years ago");
    StringBuffer sb = pacFile.read(fileName);
    
    assertEquals("Four score and seven years ago",sb.toString());
    
  }


}

Next run the previous unit test...

Output:
Mar 25, 2009 11:45:58 PM org.apache.commons.vfs.VfsLog info
INFO: Using "/tmp/vfs_cache" as temporary files store.

The previous code will create the mock PACFileHandler, and after create and write a virtual file to memory with the contents "Four score and seven years ago".

The file will then be read back and regurgitated back into the unit test assertion for a final check. Many permutations of this example can be made for test cases. Many of the commons-VFS library formats outside of ram:// can be used instead (ftp, http, smb, etc.)

IBM in talks to buy Sun

2009-03-18T21:48:00.004-04:00

Say it aint so.. IBM is in talks to buy Sun. Southeastern Asset Management, an activist investment group and largest shareholder of Sun is looking for ways to turn a quick profit on its shares of Sun.

Well what better way to make a profit than to carve up their holdings and auction them off to the highest bidder! IBM is apparently the first bidder. HP has also been rumored to have been approached to bid on Sun.

Self Assembling Robotics

2009-02-07T21:25:00.004-05:00

I was reading some information on the Player/Stage project which is a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and simulator for robotics, and ran into this... enjoy