Blue Sky Workshop

New Web Site Up

2015-07-12T11:01:00.002-06:00

Finally, I have the new site up. So if you go to https://blueskyworkshop.com you will start seeing new posts again. The main reason for the change is Google's requirement for sites to use HTTPS to remain highly ranked. Since there appears to be no easy way to add HTTPS to blogger, I decided to roll my own Markdown based blog. It is very raw still, but will get the job done as I continue to improve it. But is is nice to simplify things. Blogger is simple to use, but not much fun to design or customize.

This site will stay up as long as blogger stays up. I will try to migrate popular pages and links to the new site. Anything like that I will of course link to in the old posts.

Also, I would like to thank Google for building Blogger and letting me host this blog for so long on it. The devs must have done something right to make a tool that has lasted so long.

https://blueskyworkshop.com

Site Updates

2015-05-01T17:17:00.001-06:00

A couple of quick updates on the site. First, to make the site more responsive I have made it into a single column site. At the top of the page is a link blog featuring my favorite tech stories. The section is loaded using JavaScript so it may take a moment to load. But this is where most of my activity will be for the near future. Also I have updated to links so that the How-to part of my site is using HTTPS. Links to the main blog are still HTTP.

Main blog posts on Blogger, like this one, now appear under the link blog.

I am making progress on my blogging software. I have the page builder working, now I just need to get the page merger going. Will keep you updated when there is more progress.

Mike W.

Secure Coding with Java Native Interface (JNI) Tutorial

2015-05-01T17:10:00.004-06:00

My coworker Anjana Shenoy has finished a new secure coding tutorial for the Java Native Interface. The content is based on this hand on lab from JavaOne 2014: Java Native Interface: Harden Your Native Code [HOL6325].

Lots of cool stuff to work on. Here are the links to the content.

Simple Command Line File Encryption with 7zip

2015-03-25T19:34:00.000-06:00

This is a brief write up on how perform simple file encryption of a directory using the 7zip program. After TrueCrypt was abandoned by its developers, I have looked around a bit for a really simple, easy to use tool for lightweight ecryption. Simple and easy are my goals, not the most secure. You can use something like Gnu Privacy Guard if you want a really full featured suite of security tools.

7zip is a free, open source file compression tool for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Most folks use 7zip to zip and unzip .zip files. But 7zip has its own 7z file format which provides better compression and better encryption than standard .zip files. The 7zip program uses strong AES-256 encryption based on a password you provide when you compress files. Thusly, the goal of quick and easy is met. The password will keep nosy relatives out the file, but I am sure, given enough time, the NSA could get in if they really wanted to. :)

7zip Installation

You can get 7zip from the 7zip web site. That works best for Windows, but for other operating systems you can use a package manager.

Windows

For windows, just go to the main site to download and install the software. The files are:

7zip.exe (Windows 32-bit)
7zip.msi (Windows 64-bit)

OS X

For OS X, the easiest way to install is to use HomeBrew. If you do not have HomeBrew, get it. You can thank me later. It is a fantastic tool for OS X. To install, just use the following from a terminal:

brew install p7zip

Ubuntu Linux

For Debian Linux, just use apt. For example:

apt-get install p7zip-full

Encrypting your Stuff

The following steps outline how to encrypt your stuff from the command line. The command line options should be the same on any platform, but there could be minor differences. The note was written using OS X.

Compress a Directory

To compress a directory named temp, use the following command:

7z a temp.7z temp/ -pSECRET -mhe

or alternatively

7z a temp.7z temp/ -p -mhe

The second option prompts you for the password to type in. The longer the password, the harder it would be for someone to decrypt the file. But of course, that will also make it hard to remember.

Here is a quick breakdown of the command line options:

a – Append files to the archive. Will just update the archive if it exists, so best to make sure the file does not exist.
temp.7z – The name of the archive file.
temp/ – The directory to be zipped.
-p – Prompt for the password.
-mhe – Encrypt the archive headers.

On OS X or Linux, the password is case sensitive by default. On Windows, the password is case insensitive by default.

Decompress the Archive

To decompress the archive just use:

7z x temp.7z

You will be prompted to enter your password and the file is uncomressed. For more information on 7zip see this 7zip tutorial which was a big help in writing this post.

That is it. An easy way to encrypt a directory.

Glassfish 4 Admin Passwords with NetBeans

2015-03-11T18:13:00.005-06:00

Question: Where can I find the Admin Password for GlassFish 4?

Most of the time when working with NetBeans and Glassfish for development, you don’t need to know what the password is for the GlassFish server. Starting and stopping the server as well as open in the admin console is automatic. However, if like me, sometimes you work with multiple versions of NetBeans and you may be prompted for a password in the GlassFish admin console. So the username is "admin", but where is the darn password stored?

Usually in one of two the places.

Location 1

The first place to look is in the GlassFish configuration directory.

glassfish-4.0/glassfish/domains/domain1/config/local-password

Location 2

The second place to look is in NetBeans

Click on the Services Tab
Right click on the GlassFish Server
Select Properties
Too see the password, check the Show Password in this Form option

Caveats

Do not change these passwords! GlassFish has to be running to change admin passwords. If you “lose” the passwords for some reason, you will need to re-install.

If you want to change the password, look up the asadmin documentation for more details.

GlassFish 4 Reports a JNDI Lookup Exception for a NetBeans Project

2015-03-11T17:58:00.001-06:00

Here is a quick word around to a problem I ran into at work.

Problem: Calling a Java Servlet with JNDI code results in this error

Other Exception: Lookup failed for 'jdbc/yournamehere' in SerialContext[myEnv={java.naming.factory.initial=com.sun.enterprise.naming.impl.SerialInitContextFactory, java.naming.factory.state=com.sun.corba.ee.impl.presentation.rmi.JNDIStateFactoryImpl, java.naming.factory.url.pkgs=com.sun.enterprise.naming}

The initialization code is similar to the following:

    try {
        Context ctx = new InitialContext();
        DataSource ds = (DataSource) ctx.lookup("jdbc/yournamehere");
        Connection con = ds.getConnection();

You have setup a connection pool and JDBC resource for your NetBeans project. All the configuration data appears to be correct.

Solution

The problem occurs when GlassFish fails to create a JDBC Connection Pool and JDBC Resource on the server when your application deploys. To wordaround the problem, manually create the pool and resource on the Glassfish server using the admin console.

Creating the JDBC Resource is pretty easy, so no additional comments on that.

When you create the JDBC Connection Pool, only include the required properties for your database in the Additional Properties tab. In this case, JavaDB (Derby) was used so the only required properties are:

User: YourUsername
Password: YourPassword
DatabaseName: YourDBName
ServerName: localhost
PortNumber: 1527

Some of the automatically added properties may cause your connection pool to fail to connect. Use the Ping feature of GlassFish to ensure the server is connecting to the database.

Website/Blog Update in the Works

2015-02-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

Just a quick heads up. Google has mandated that all web sites must use SSL (HTTPS) or risk being down ranked sometime in the near future. I can find no evidence that Google has any interest in updating blogger.com to support their own mandate. So I am in the process of migrating this blog to my blueskyworkshop.com site. For me, this involves creating some very simple blogging software to run both my blog and my site. Consequently, I have not been posting as often as I would like.

I have looked at a number of static site blogging engines like Jekyll, but they all seem to be a bit complicated. So my goal is to create something really simple that supports Markdown with YAML front matter. My hope is to create Ruby and Java versions. So watch this space for updates.

In the meantime, I haved added a section for my favorite links a below the main posts. This is a feed of bookmarks of interest I am posting on https://pinboard.in. So the posts are sorta like a twitter feed except they are organized and indexed in a useful way by Pinboard.

Jupiter Ascending Quick Review (4/5)

2015-02-10T21:04:00.004-07:00

Jupiter Ascending is the story of Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a Russian immigrant who works for her mother in a family housekeeping business. Jupiter’s life seems pretty humdrum until one day some aliens show up and things start to get weird. The bulk of the movie proceeds from here and if you have seen any of the previews, you get the gist.

This is your classic SciFi/Action film with good guys, bad guys, explosions, and a bunch of cool toys. I actually liked the premise and thought the universe created was interesting. Most negative reviews seem to complain that since the film does not rise to the level of Hamlet, it sucks. Haters are gonna hate. Well people, if you like movies like Die Hard, you will probably like this movie.

The visuals in the movie are stunning and well worth a trip to the theater to see on the big screen. The plot moves quickly as Jupiter has to adapt to a new reality. The tech is interesting without being over explained.

My main criticisms would be that some of the action sequences go on too long. Also, one would think that the Jupiter character would be a bit more street smart. But both are minor complaints.

Overall, I liked the film quite a bit.

Good Git Resources

2015-01-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

I have finally started to use git for all my development. Hopefully, I will create a nice cheat sheet when I am done. But for now, here are some good resources.

The documentation is pretty good, but tends to include too much information at times.

Managing GMail with eMail Filters and Searches

2015-01-13T11:39:00.001-07:00

Over the Xmas break it became time to finally get my e-mail cleaned up. To do that, I needed to add filters to my accounts using two main resources.

GMail Advanced Search Options - This page documents all the things your can search your e-mail for. You can search by age, name, To, From, etc… This rules can be use with filters, in many cases, to create filters. In addition, they can be used alone to help automate administrative chores.
Filter Documentation - Documentation on using filters in GMail. This is pretty short but covers the basics.

So basically, you can write filters for any message that hits your Inbox. However, this is the only way a filter can be activated. You can’t, for example, clean up old messages in a folder automatically. However, you can create a search to find the old messages and then bookmark the search. This makes it easy to repeat the search and perform the task repeatedly. Although not completely automated, it still makes some of the message management pretty easy.

For example, to get a list of all messages older than 21 days in the webaffiliates folder I could write:

label:webaffiliates older_than:21d

The messages that match the search are returned. You can select the messages and perform any actions you wish.

Creating Thumbnails on OS X

2015-01-04T22:47:00.000-07:00

I needed to create some thumbnails for a project. Turns out it is really easy with Automator. Check out the explanation here.

http://alvinalexander.com/mac-os-x/batch-thumbnails-images-photos-free-mac-osx

Java EE 7: When to use EJB vs CDI?

2014-12-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

The question of when to use EJB over CDI came up today. This David Blevins blog post gives a very coherent explanation of when to use EJB. So I added this quick post to +1 that post.

David Blevins a developer who is part of the EJB spec team. He works for http://www.tomitribe.com/.

Another Bizarre Apple App Store Decision

2014-12-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

Panic software’s Transmit FTP app was forced to lose some functionality in its last update. (See story on 9 to 5 Mac). Apparently someone at the Apple app store thinks it a “bad” idea to transfer files from your iPhone or iPad to iCloud drive??? Pretty amazing.

If you don’t know, iCloud drive is Mac equivalent to Dropbox or Google Drive. As a user I can transfer or copy any file I want to iCloud drive. That is the whole point. To keep my data synced between devices. So why wouldn’t I want a convenient app to do the same thing on my phone? Makes no sense. Sounds like a decision made by someone who has never really used iCloud drive.

My guess is this will get reversed but not after Apple embarrasses itself again. It would seem like they could avoid the bad press if they just consulted a geek.

Setting Mouse or TouchPad Sensitivity in Ubuntu Linux

2014-12-07T21:45:00.004-07:00

Problem

On Ubuntu Linux (14.04) your mouse or touch pad move too fast even though you have set the sensitivity level to its lowest setting.

Solution

Here are the steps. See the link at the bottom of this post for more details.

1) Use the ‘xinput’ command to get a list of pointing devices.

xinput --list

Virtual core pointer                  id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
    Virtual core XTEST pointer        id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
    A4Tech USB Full Speed             id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
    A4Tech USB Full Speed             id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]

2) Use the same command to set the pointer speed. For example:

xinput --set-prop 10 "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 4

3) To set the mouse at startup, create a shell script.

#!/bin/bash
xinput --set-prop 10 "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 4

Your settings may vary. My trackpad and mouse required different values.

4) Use the gnome-session-properties to add the script to the list of startup scripts.

That should be it. Your pointing devices should work better now.

For more details see this link.

Ask Ubuntu: Reduce Mouse Sensitivity

An ARM PC for your Desk?

2014-12-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

SlashGear: Looks like the ARM PCs are here. Utilite will start offering these rather cool looking fanless PCs in December. When will a major manufacturer start offering ARM PCs? Sooner than you think I bet.

New Link for to Java EE 7 Tutorial

2014-12-02T16:46:00.003-07:00

Just noticed that the link in Google for the Java EE 7 Tutorial appears to be broken. This may not affect everyone as when we do a search, it gets directed to some random server. Anyway, here is the new link. Hopefully this will help fix the link.

Java EE 7 Tutorial

Working on BlueSky Workshop Redesign and SSL

2014-12-01T11:02:00.001-07:00

You will notice I have started on a web site redesign of Blue Sky Workshop and blog over the Thanksgiving break. The changes have been made to make the site more mobile friendly. If you do access the site with a phone, you will see the mobile template is now enabled for the blog.

The new design is a single column. Right now all navigation has been moved below the posts at the bottom of the page. However, I do plan to move some navigation back to the top after I give things a little more thought.

The How-To part of the site still needs quite a bit of a work. It looks ok on a phone, but really needs a complete update. This could take a while.

Finally, I have begun the process of converting the site to support SSL. The certificate is installed on the server and already works. However, I have a bunch of templates and such that need to be updated for support https URLs.

Load NBA Calendar on Your Phone

2014-12-01T10:46:00.001-07:00

Just figured out this morning you can load the schedule for your favorite NBA team into your phone. Go to the NBA Schedule page here. On the right side of the page you will see a download calendar link. Select the kind of calendar: iCal for iOS and Google for Android. That should create a subscription and add it.

Free Certs for HTTPS Coming to Sites Near You

2014-11-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

This is a big announcement from the EFF. They are working with the major browser manufacturers to offer free TLS (HTTPS) certs to the general public.

Moving forward on the Web to make things secure, every site needs to run using HTTPS. A few years ago, this would have cost you a couple hundred dollars per year for a cert. Now things are a lot cheaper but still not exactly free. With this move, now they are free.

Making barriers to creating a website on the net low, is a good thing. Read the announement for details.

iPhone 6 and Touch ID Login for Noobs

2014-10-27T11:01:00.001-06:00

So this weekend I actually had a chance to setup my new iPhone 6 Plus and iPads, etc.. Because, with Yosemite and iOS 8.1, it is sort of an all or nothing proposition. To use features like iCloud drive, you have to upgrade pretty much everything. But I am heading off topic.

So, after waiting a year, I finally have touch ID. Yays! However, this is really new territory for me because I have never used the passcode feature on the iPhone or iPad. I live alone and there is nothing on my iPad to “protect” so I have never bothered to put a passcode on it. So I just swipe to unlock or open the cover and my machine is ready to go.

To use touch ID, you must turn on the passcode feature. So you set a 4 digit code which is used to log in if the touch ID doesn’t work or if you need to change touch ID settings. So, after a little experimentation, there is a right way to log into your device and a wrong way.

The Wrong Way to Log Into your Device

Turn on the device.
Swipe right to clear the welcome screen.
Put your finger on home button to log in.

The Right Way to Log In

Turn on the device.
Put your finger on the home button and you are logged in.

The second step from above is completely unnecessary.

I would also recommend you train the device to recognize both of your thumbs so you can open the device with either hand.

Install OpenSSH Server on Windows using Cygwin

2014-10-21T22:45:00.001-06:00

SSH is the best utility ever. With it you can remotely and securely log into systems. Plus, it enables the easy transfer and synchronization of files. It works great on Linux and OS X, but what about Windows? It turns out, if you install Cygwin, it is not that tough to enable.

The first step is to, of course, install Cygwin. That is not covered in this post. But it is pretty straightforward. Just make sure that OpenSSH is selected when you do the installation.

Once Cygwin is installed, follow these steps.

Modify 2 environment variables. On Windows 7, select Start -> All Programs -> Computer. Click on System Properties in the menu. Select Advanced System Settings in the left panel. Then click the Environment Variables button. This should allow you to set two system wide variables.
1. CYGWIN=ntsec tty
2. Add the following directory to the PATH variable. `;c:\cygwin64\bin’
Open a Cygwin window as Administrator. You can do this from the main start menu or by holding Shift and Right-Clicking the Cygwin icon in the taskbar.
Assuming you have Administrator rights, at the prompt type: ssh-host-config -y.
This should configure the sshd daemon for you. If the script asks you to set CYGWIN= enter ntsec tty
To start the sshd service type: cygrunsrv --start sshd

Now ssh and its related utilities can be used to log into this Windows machine. Since sshd is installed as a service, Windows should automatically start the service on the next restart. Enjoy!

Where is the Screen Sharing app in OS X 10.10 Yosemite?

2014-10-19T22:51:00.002-06:00

After upgrading to OS X 10.10 Yosemite, the Screen Sharing icon in the dock is empty and replaced with a question mark. Screen Sharing is a free VNC client bundled with OS X. It is optimized for and works great with Macs. Your mileage may vary with other operating systems.

Anyway, with Mavericks, the Screen Sharing app used to be located in:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing

With Yosemite, it is located in:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/Screen Sharing

Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite - Issues and Observations

2014-10-19T22:15:00.001-06:00

This weekend was my first chance to upgrade one of my Macs to OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Here are the initial observations/issues.

The update went smoothly. No real issues during the install. The new fonts and the flatter design looks a LOT different!
VMWare Fusion 5 Does not appear to work with Yosemite. Not sure about Fusion 6. I suppose now I need to update all my machines to Fusion 7 (/sigh). Love the software. I just hate upgrading stuff.
Screen Sharing, the free built in VNC client for OS X has moved. So the icon I had for it in the Dock turned into a question mark. I will make a separate post for its new location. It is still in the OS just in a different location.
Apparently, iCloud Drive is an all or nothing proposition. You cannot enable it until you have updated all of your Macs to Yosemite and all of you devices to iOS 8. If it is installed on only one device, that device will no longer be able to sync iCloud data with the non iCloud Drive machines or devices. Good to know, but frustrating. I really want to try this out!!! But my main work machine is a Mac and I need to wait a week or two before upgrading to see if there are any serious issues. I so want to try out that new feature!

If you want to make a USB copy of Yosemite, follow these instructions. They are pretty straitforward and do not require that you install a third party utility or script.

That is it for now. If I encounter anything else exciting, I will post again.

Thunderbird, LDIF, VCard, and Old Habits Die Hard

2014-10-11T19:00:00.000-06:00

I don’t know if this post will help anyone else, but it may so what the heck.

Thunderbird has been my e-mail client since I worked at Netscape in the late 1990s. So for the most part, I have been managing my email address book using LDIF since then. (Why? I used to work on the Netscape Directory server back in the day.) So my master address book is built in Thunderbird. Then, an LDIF file is saved to dropbox and all my e-mail clients can be synced with it. Mac, Windows, and Linux are all happy.

So last week while in San Francisco, I needed to email coworkers from my iPad, but of course my iPad cannot import LDIF files. (At least not that I am aware of.) Also, the employee directory at work now uses a newer format of VCard which Thunderbird can’t read. So importing entries is painful at best. They must be loaded in OS X Contacts and then export them back to VCard 3. Then into Thunderbird.

Then came the DOH moment! I realized that Thunderbird on OS X can read your Mac OS X Contact list. In addition, if you select all your entries and export them to VCard. The entire list can be imported into Thunderbird as an address book. No need for LDIF. Doh!!!!

So if you are an antique like me stuck in 1998, switch to VCard! :) GMail also supports VCard so address book nirvana may have been reached. Finally!!! We will see. For a standard to win in this space is a long time coming.

JavaOne 2014 Session Highlights

2014-10-08T14:53:00.001-06:00

I meant to send this out Monday, but stuff has kept coming up and now it is Wednesday. Anyway, below are list of my favorite sessions from JavaOne 2014. Note you will find no Lambda or Streams sessions as those talks all filled up and I was unable to get in. That is not really a problem, as usually there are 3 or 4 really good talks going on at the same time at any JavaOne.

Monday Sept 29

Introducing Contexts and Dependency Injection

A nice overview of CDI from the spec lead.

Speakers

Antoine Sabot-Durand - Senior Software Engineer, Red Hat

ARM: Over 10 Billion Served—“Want 64-Bit Support with That?”

A really nice overview of ARM chips. Covers where they are now and where they are headed in the furture. Plans include 48 core 64 bit server chips, which should make things in the server world very interesting. Of course, Java Embedded and SE Embedded are covered giving some insite into their use in various chip families. Definitely work a look once the video gets posted.

Speakers

David Holmes - Consulting Member of Technical Staff, Oracle
Zach Shelby - Director of Technology, IoT, ARM

Tuesday Sept 30

Hybrid Mobile Development with Apache Cordova and Java EE 7

A really nice overview of building a mobile application from end to end. The first have shows the code and issues developing the Cordova client. The second have shows the Java EE backend. Well done and very informative.

Speakers

Michael Finocchiaro - Senior Director, 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, Dassault Systèmes
Ryan Cuprak - e-Formulation Analyst, Dassault Systemes

Creating Our Robot Overlords: Autonomous Drone Development with Java and the Internet of Things

This really should be titled, “Making an Autonomous Drone on the Cheap.” The team that gave this presentation started with a relatively inexpensive $300 Parrot drone. Then they added a Raspberry Pi for the brains then some Java code and you have your very own autonomous drone.

The talk discusses some of the issues with writing the code and with attaching a Raspberry Pi to the drone. Once you really start considering all the issues and problems you have to solve the issues become a very interesting.

Speakers

Mark Heckler - Principal Advanced Software Engineer, Oracle
James Weaver - Java Technology Ambassador, Oracle

Wednesday Oct 01

Groovy in 2014 and Beyond

A good talk on Groovy and plans for the future.

Speaker

Guillaume Laforge - Head of Groovy Development, Pivotal

Thursday Oct 2

HTML5/AngularJS/Groovy/Java and MongoDB Together: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

A great live demo on showing how to build an application using HTML5/Angular.js/Groovy/Java/MongoDB.

Speaker

Trisha Gee - Java Engineer, MongoDB