TheServerSide.com - Redirect After Get

TheServerSide.com - Redirect After Get: "All interactive programs provide two basic functions: obtaining user input and displaying the results. Web applications implement this behavior using two HTTP methods: POST and GET respectively. This simple protocol gets broken when application returns web page in response to POST request. Peculiarities of POST method combined with idiosyncrasies of different browsers often lead to unpleasant user experience and may produce incorrect state of server application. This article shows how to design a well-behaved web application using redirection."

Using Hibernate3 as JDBC Framework

Using Hibernate3 as JDBC Framework by Gavin King.

The Top Ten Subversion Tips for CVS Users

The Top Ten Subversion Tips for CVS Users by Brian W. Fitzpatrick -- If you've been contemplating a switch from CVS to Subversion, there's more to it than simply learning Subversion's new features. You'll need to unlearn some bad habits CVS has instilled in you as well. Brian Fitzpatrick, coauthor of Version Control with Subversion, offers ten Subversion tips that will help users break bad CVS habits and form good Subversion ones.

JDocs.com

JDocs.com: "JDocs is a comprehensive online resource for Java API documentation. All the javadocs for a variety of popular packages are loaded into our db-driven system, and users can contribute their own notes to virtually any class, field, method. In short, JDocs provides a knowledge base defined around the major Java api's themselves, so you can find the information you're looking for right where it should be... in the documentation!"

Java Technology Concept Map

Java Technology Concept Map: "The Java Technology Concept Map 1.0 is an interactive diagram, a web of linked terms, to show the relationships among and uses of the Java technologies. You can use the Map to get an overview of the Java landscape as well as learn more about the details of its components. Launch the Map using the button below."

C-JDBC 1.0 released

C-JDBC: "C-JDBC provides a flexible architecture that allows you to achieve scalability, high availability and failover with your database tiers. C-JDBC instantiates the concept of RAIDb : Redundant Array of Inexpensive Databases. The database is distributed and replicated among several nodes and C-JDBC load balance the queries between these nodes."

Spring 1.1rc1 - java/j2ee Application Framework

Spring - java/j2ee Application Framework: "Spring is a layered Java/J2EE application framework, based on code published in Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development by Rod Johnson (Wrox, 2002)."

Version 1.1rc1 has just been released.

G-System - The Evolving Universe

G-System: "Ever dreamed of a nice piece of software that actually tries to simulate the evolution of an universe? Ever thought it would be possible?
The G System tries to do exactly this. It is both a free framework for simulation as well as a virtual reality itself which is growing to an universe in which life's evolution takes place."

JaxMe 2 Apache Projects

Welcome to JaxMe 2: "JaxMe 2 is an open source implementation of JAXB, the specification for Java/XML binding."

There are the first official releases since incubation from Apache available:
* JaxMeXS 0.3 (JaxME XML Schema Parser)
* JaxMeJS 0.3 (JaxME JavaSource generation framework)
* JaxMe 0.3 (Java/XML binding framework)

Articles, Resources on Software Architecture, Software Development Process Consulting Service

Articles, Resources on Software Architecture, Software Development Process Consulting Service

the Degree Confluence Project

the Degree Confluence Project: "The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories will then be posted here."

IPv6 added to root server

Internet News Article | Reuters.com: "Vinton Cerf of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said the next-generation protocol, IPv6, had been added to its root server systems, making it possible for every person or device to have an Internet protocol address."

Twister - Open Source Business Process Management

Homepage - Twister: "Twister's aim is to provide a new generation, easily integrable, B2B oriented workflow solution in Java, based on the latest specification efforts in this field. The process engine is based on the BPEL business process specifications and Web Services standards."

Maven 1.0 released!

Maven: "Maven is a Java project management and project comprehension tool. Maven is based on the concept of a project object model (POM) in that all the artifacts produced by Maven are a result of consulting a well defined model for your project. Builds, documentation, source metrics, and source cross-references are all controlled by your POM. Look here to see the full list of Maven's features."

Jakarta Lucene 1.4 released

Jakarta Lucene: "Jakarta Lucene is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform."

PHP 5 Released

PHP 5 has just been released.

Some of the key features of PHP 5 include:
* The Zend Engine II with a new object model and dozens of new features.
* XML support has been completely redone in PHP 5, all extensions are now focused around the excellent libxml2 library
* A new SimpleXML extension for easily accessing and manipulating XML as PHP objects. It can also interface with the DOM extension and vice-versa.
* A brand new built-in SOAP extension for interoperability with Web Services.
* A new MySQL extension named MySQLi for developers using MySQL 4.1 and later. This new extension includes an object-oriented interface in addition to a traditional interface; as well as support for many of MySQL's new features, such as prepared statements.
* SQLite has been bundled with PHP.
* Streams have been greatly improved, including the ability to access low-level socket operations on streams.
* And lots more...

phpLDAPadmin: LDAP browser to manager your LDAP server

phpLDAPadmin: LDAP browser to manager your LDAP server: "phpLDAPadmin is a web-based LDAP client. It provides easy, anywhere-accessible, multi-language administration for your LDAP server. Its hierarchical tree-viewer and advanced search functionality make it intuitive to browse and administer your LDAP directory. Since it is a web application, this LDAP browser works on many platforms, making your LDAP server easily manageable from any location. phpLDAPadmin is the perfect LDAP browser for the LDAP professional and novice alike. Its user base consists mostly of LDAP administration professionals."

ReadySET - Ready-to-use Software Engineering Templates

"ReadySET is an open source project to produce and maintain a library of reusable software engineering document templates. These templates provide a ready starting point for the documents used in software development projects. Using good templates can help developers work more quickly, but they also help to prompt discussion and avoid oversights."

Butterfly XML 1.1 - Elegant XML Editor

Butterfly XML - Elegant XML Editor: "The Butterfly XML IDE is built on top of a new real-time incremental XML parsing algorithm. The DOM is updated in real-time as the user types and not in a separate thread. The editor features syntax and error highlighting, incremental validation, intelligent code completion (based on XML Schema, DTD, or document analysis), XSLT pipelines, DTD and Schema Generation, and side by side DOM and source viewing. Built-in support for XHTML, XSL, XForms, XMLSchemas, XSP, and Cocoon sitemaps is included. Support for other XML types can also easily be added. The editor is capable of parsing XML documents that are not well-formed and showing the source of the errors. Errors in documents are highlighted in the source as well as marked inthe DOM view. This allows for easy conversion of HTML to well-formed XML. The side by side DOM and source viewing allows for the tree view ofthe XML to be instantly updated as the user types. The source can also be navigated and updated from the DOM tree. XSLT pipelines make building up and visualizing complex transformations easy."

Version 1.1 has just been released.

OpenChange Project

OpenChange Project: "Openchange intends to provide an Open-Source implementation of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 under Unix Platforms. The Openchange Project is developed in C language under the BSD license, and will primary work on NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Linux platforms. The project time line has been defined to approximatively one year, and we believe the project will be in a complete stable state at this time. Openchange wishes to integrate the enterprise working environment and to substitute to an Exchange Server in a transparent way, so final users may continue to use Outlook, or any other mail client."

XMLStarlet Command Line XML Toolkit

XMLStarlet Command Line XML Toolkit: Overview: "XMLStarlet is a set of command line utilities (tools) which can be used to transform, query, validate, and edit XML documents and files using simple set of shell commands in similar way it is done for plain text files using UNIX grep, sed, awk, diff, patch, join, etc commands."

ActiveBPEL Engine - Open Source BPEL Server

ActiveBPEL Engine - Open Source BPEL Server: "ActiveBPEL, LLC is an open source software organization that licenses and distributes the ActiveBPEL? engine technology. The ActiveBPEL engine is a robust runtime environment that is capable of executing process definitions created to the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS, or just BPEL) 1.1 specifications."

Rx4RDF

Rx4RDF: "Rx4RDF is a set of technologies designed to make W3C's RDF more accessible and easier to use."

monotone: distributed version control

monotone: distributed version control: "monotone is a free distributed version control system. it provides a simple, single-file transactional version store, with fully disconnected operation and an efficient peer-to-peer synchronization protocol. it understands history-sensitive merging, lightweight branches, integrated code review and 3rd party testing. it uses cryptographic version naming and client-side RSA certificates. it has good internationalization support, has no external dependencies, runs on linux, solaris, OSX, and windows, and is licensed under the GNU GPL."

Problems of logging-wrappers

Ceki Gülcü wrote an excellent article (Think again before adopting the commons-logging API) about what's wrong about logging wrappers. It's not very new (November 2002 with updates in April 2003) but gives some very interesting points.
Although he's a bit biased towards log4j he gives some valid points though.
(Found through Ugo's post on the Cocoon Developer's Mailinglist)

Eclipse 3.0 M9 is out

Eclipse.org: "Like a bouquet of late spring flowers, a host of new and interesting things round out milestone build M9 (May 21, 2004) which is now available for download. See the M9 build notes for details about bugs fixed and other changes. M9 is the final milestone build of the Eclipse 3.0 development cycle, and marks the official start of the 3.0 endgame."

Greatest highlights from my perspective:
* Now code-folding is part of eclipse
* Search/replace with regular expressions
* Semantic highlighting (e.g. static fields, local variables, static method invocations)
* Java editor shows overridden methods
* Proposals for templates
* Highlight method exit points
* Quick menus for source and refactoring actions
* Early preview of J2SE 1.5 support
* One editor for plugin description (gets written to multiple files)
* CVS commit set layout
* CVS date tags
* Last synchronization in Progress view
* Launch shortcuts in all applicable views
* Refactorings update breakpoints
* Debugging in current perspective
* Better code assistance for custom Ant tasks
* Full template support for Ant

More details of the changes from M8 to M9 can be found here:
* New and noteworthy
* Printer friendly version (all on one page)

TheServerSide.com - The State of Workflow

TheServerSide.com - The State of Workflow: "If database systems are like a respected, wise man telling a clear story, then workflow must be a buch of spoiled brats shouting their own truth at each other. With this statement I would like to point out that workflow management systems are at the very initial phase of the technology hype curve. We are heading for some exciting times in this area."

Flow4J - Process flow modelling plugin for Eclipse

Flow4J - Overview: "Flow4J is an Eclipse Plug-in for modeling process flows in a drag and drop manner. A process flow can contain process steps (I call them flowlets), which can be linked together to a complex flow. All flows can contain the following types of flowlets:

* Control Flowlets like Start-, Decision- and Jump-Flowlets which are configurable in Eclipse, and tell 'how' the process should flow.
* Task Flowlets accomplish a specific task that is wrapped in a java class. The wrapped functionality can be everything like an EJB call or even JNI call."

Rasqal RDF Query Library

Rasqal RDF Query Library: "Rasqal is a free software/Open Source C library that handles RDF query syntaxes, query construction and query execution returning result bindings."

DoubleType - Graphical Typeface Designer

FrontPage - DoubleType: "DoubleType is an open source graphical typeface designer that builds TrueType font file.

Written in Java, DoubleType runs on platforms supported by Java, including Windows, Linux, and Macintosh.

Glyphs are stored in XML based file to aid collaboration using existing tools such as CVS.

DoubleType allows efficient glyph design by combining existing glyphs and modules."

XStream - Java to XML serialization, and back again

XStream - Java to XML serialization, and back again: "XStream is a simple library to serialize objects to XML and back again."

Hammurapi - Java code review system

Hammurapi is a tool for automated Java code reviews which can be integrated in an ant build script.
If you want to know what the generated code review documentation looks like you kann have a look at the self review of Hammurapi.

Comments enabled ...

Blogger.com just did a relaunch of their blogger software which now allows you to post comments on my weblog.
Additionally it's now possible to have real permalink URLs for individual posts.
Here are the details:
http://www.blogger.com/knowledge/2004/05/great-blogger-relaunch.pyra

Enjoy,
Andreas.

Creating custom 404 error pages

What should you take into account when you create custom 404 (Not Found) error pages?
That's the question I just asked myself and did some "Google Research".
I got lots of results how you have to configure Apache or IIS, but that's not what I'm interested in.

Here are some results which cover what I want to know:
* Useful "Page not found" error pages
* Implementing Sensible 404 Pages With Apache

Java-based Argument Parsers

I just was in the need of an java-based argument parser.

That's what I found:
* JSAP (pretty active; seems to be the most advanced incl. usage generation, support for datatypes and Unix-style cascaded configuration files with default values)
* jcmdline (not as active as JSAP; aims for standardized commandline options, allows more sophisticated validations, displays usage and error messages)
* JArgs (not much active, very simplistic and easy to use)

It's hard to say which one is the best, since all suite different needs.
If you wonder, for my task I chose JSAP, but I'll keep an eye on all of them.

Update 2004-04-23:
Phil Wilson pointed me to one more:
* Apache Jakarta Commons CLI (seems to be similar in functionality and usage like JSAP)

OutlookContacts2AdobePSA v0.5 released

The new version v0.5 of the macro which exports Outlook contacts to Adobe Photoshop Album 2 contacts can be found here:
http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e9625392/psa/OutlookContacts2AdobePSA-0.5.zip

Changes:
* Use ALLUSERSPROFILE and APPDATA for parts of the initial contacts.xml location (thanks to DPX)
* Print error message, if folder for contacts.xml does not exist

Feedback is very appreciated!
Please go to the Adobe Photoshop Album forum at www.adobeforums.com and look for a thread with the subject "Tool: Import Outlook Contacts into PSA2" for this task.

OutlookContacts2AdobePSA v0.3 released

Here's the version v0.3 of the macro which exports Outlook contacts to Adobe Photoshop Album 2 contacts:
http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e9625392/psa/OutlookContacts2AdobePSA-0.3.zip

Changes:
* Fixed handling of empty names (thanks to Alexander)
* Fixed bug when backup is chosen and original file does not exist

Feedback (especially from other PSA language versions than german) is very appreciated!
Please go to the Adobe Photoshop Album forum at www.adobeforums.com and look for a thread with the subject "Tool: Import Outlook Contacts into PSA2" for this task.

OutlookContacts2AdobePSA v0.2 released

Here's the new version (v0.2) of my little software which exports Outlook contacts to Adobe Photoshop Album 2 contacts:
http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e9625392/psa/OutlookContacts2AdobePSA-0.2.zip

Changes:
* A GUI which allows you to set some options
* Optionally ignore entries without email address
* Optionally ignore entries without name
* Change location of contact file (unfortunately a file dialog is not supported from within Outlook - help is very appreciated!)
* Change encoding format of XML file (for other languages)
* Optionally make a backup of the existing contacts.xml file
* Fixed bug in generated XML format

Feedback (especially from other PSA language versions than german) is very appreciated!
Please go to the Adobe Photoshop Album forum at www.adobeforums.com and look for a thread with the subject "Tool: Import Outlook Contacts into PSA2" for this task.

Update of my FOAF profile

I just did an update of my FOAF profile.

Groovy : a powerful dynamic for the Java Platform

Groovy really seems to be a promising new agile dynamic language for the JVM.
You don't know how simple programming can be if you don't have a look at the syntax of Groovy.

TheServerSide.com - Cocoon as a Web Framework

TheServerSide.com - Cocoon as a Web Framework

Birth of "Jonas"

Today my son Jonas was born.
My energy now has to be directed to Jonas and my wife and therefore the frequency of blog entries will be lower.
If you want to see pictures of Jonas and want to know what's happening in his young life, you can read the dedicated blog Spring 04 (in german).

Cluster Installation and Infrastructures

I read a very interesting article about FAI in the german computer magazine iX. This software allows you to plan and manage installations for large clusters just the way I always wanted to do it. It is primary written (but not limited) for Debain Linux systems.
Until now I've written something by myself, but I think I'll blast it for FAI!

Here are all interesting links mentioned in the article:
* FAI
* Infrastructures.org
* Cfengine
* Cross Install HOWTO for Debian
* FAI BootCD for Debian GNU/Linux
* Compiling kernels The Debian Way

Atom Feeds

I just found out, that Blogger supports Atom feeds and promplty changed my blog to make use of them (my Atom-feed).

If you don't know what Atom is, here's a list of references:
* The Atom Wiki
* AtomEnabled

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Working Draft

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

JSR 241: The Groovy Programming Language

The Groovy Programming Language has been submitted as JSR 241 to the Java Community Process.

Here are some more infos:
* http://radio.weblogs.com/0112098/2004/03/16.html
* http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/1125
* http://jroller.com/page/cv/20040316

The Open For Business 3.0.0 Released

This release of Open For Business includes hundreds of new features and now has nearly all functionality required for a retail fulfillment based business and many other types of businesses to operate. It is an excellent foundation for custom in-house projects and commercial derivative works, or as a basis for applications provided as a service. It includes:
* advanced e-commerce
* catalog management
* promotion & pricing management
* order management (sales & purchase)
* customer management (part of general party management)
* warehouse management
* fulfillment (auto stock moves, batched pick, pack & ship)
* accounting (invoice, payment & billing accounts)
* manufacturing management
* general work effort management (events, tasks, projects, requests, etc)
* content management (for product content, web sites, general content, blogging, forums, etc)
* and much more all in an open source package!

ECCMA.org

ECCMA.org: "The eOTD is an Open standard descriptive language that contains over 60,000 Standard Item Names and over 30,000 Standard Attribute Names, with definitions, multilingual translations and classification tables to the UNSPSC, CPV, eClass, FSC and HTS classifications. The eOTD is used to create standardized language independent descriptions of individuals, organizations, locations, goods and services using simple attribute-value pairs."

RuleML - Rule Markup Language

"The Rule Markup Initiative has taken initial steps towards defining a shared Rule Markup Language (RuleML), permitting both forward (bottom-up) and backward (top-down) rules in XML for deduction, rewriting, and further inferential-transformational tasks."

The Non-Expert: Lift

Vadim Gritsenko posted an URL to a really funny page: The Morning News - The Non-Expert: Lift. I'm sure you already met that guy from the story ;-)

OpenWFE - Open WorkFlow Engine

OpenWFE is an OpenSource workflow engine with web-based graphical workflow designer written in Java. License is BSD-style.

RDQLPlus

RDQLPlus is a tool for querying RDF graphs, featuring graphical results in a zoomable user interface (ZUI). It can work with existing RDF files, Jena2 RDF databases, and a native-Java database called Mckoi (included).

IBM Challenges Sun to Team on Open-Source Java

The eWeek article "IBM Challenges Sun to Team on Open-Source Java" has some interesting news about a possible Open Source Java implementation.

This would be a very gentle step form Sun, if they really would do it and would give Java an even better chance to compete against the MS .NET framework.

One Year Blogging

It's been exactly a year since my first blog entry.

I'm happy, that I still find some time to write some lines for it, though much has changed in my life: I married my love, Maria, in July 19th (her birthday) after living together with her for over 6 years and now we're awaiting our first child in the following weeks. If you want to know what happens around this great event take a look at "Spring 04" (in german), where our son tells the story with his own words ;-).

Enjoy,

Andreas Hochsteger

MySQL Administrator

MySQL Administrator: "MySQL Administrator is a powerful visual administration console that enables you to easily administer your MySQL environment and gain significantly better visibility into how your databases are operating. MySQL Administrator now integrates database management and maintenance into a single, seamless environment, with a clear and intuitive graphical user interface."

Live Linux CDs

Live Linux CDs

Momento

Momento is an XML document object model. It is designed to permit large XSLT transforms and XUpdate queries, larger than in memory document object models will allow. In addition, it stores transaction based modifications to XML documents that are recoverable in the event of a system failure.
It was designed with Cocoon in mind and fits nicely in Cocoon pipelines.

Eclipse 3.0 M7 released

Eclipse 3.0 M7 has just been released with yet again many new features.

ESR: Let Java Go

Eric S. Raymond has written an Open Letter to Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun, responding to remarks at Sun's February 2004 analyst meeting.
The essence of the letter is: Let Java Go

formsPlayer has just been released. It's a 100% XForms compatible XForms processor plugin for Internet Explorer.

htmlArea

htmlArea is a WYSIWYG editor replacement for textarea formfields. It supports IE 5.5+ and Mozilla 1.3+. It is written in Javascript and works with any server-side software.
It is now also available from within Cocoon as a special widget for the Cocoon Forms framework.

JFig - Java Configuration Solution

JFig gives developers a simple yet powerful tool to manage their applications’ configuration. It allows them to:
* Store application configuration in one common repository of XML files
* Access configuration data using one common, convenient interface
* Easily define multiple configurations, dynamically modifying those variables that need to change in different situations
* Eliminate the error prone practice of defining the same configuration variables in multiple locations
* Ease the management, deployment, and control of configuration files

XMLStarlet Command Line XML Toolkit: Overview

XMLStarlet is a set of command line utilities (tools) which can be used to transform, query, validate, and edit XML documents and files using simple set of shell commands in similar way it is done for plain text files using UNIX grep, sed, awk, diff, patch, join, etc commands.

phpFormGenerator

phpFormGenerator is an easy-to-use tool to create reliable and efficient web forms in a snap. No programming of any sort is required. Just follow along the phpFormGenerator wizard and at the end, you will have a fully functional web form!

KDE 3.2 Final Released

The final version of KDE 3.2 has been recently released. Here's the announcement.
It has many new features and integrates even more into the enterprise environment.
I've already installed it on my Linux machine at work and can recommend it to everybody else.

Eclipse Plugin Central

There's a new Website about Eclipse Plugins:
* The Eclipse Plugin Central
Until now I only used this eclipse plugin site.
Let's see how they will compare.

Update: The number of plugins currently compares 57 (for Plugin Central) to 471 (for Eclipse Plugins).

Mars Rover Blog

There's a Mars Rover Blog with many pictures about the activities of Opportunity and Spirit.

Jakarta POI 2.0 Released

The Jakarta POI team announced the availability of the version 2.0.
The POI project consists of APIs for manipulating various file formats based upon Microsoft's OLE 2 Compound Document format using pure Java. Support for reading and writing Microsoft Excel files and property information is mature and work continues on reading and writing the MS Word format.

KOffice 1.3 Released

KOffice 1.3 has just been released.
It is a free set of office applications that integrate with the KDE desktop. KOffice is a light-weight yet feature rich office solution and provides a variety of filters to interoperate with other popular office suites such as OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office.

The "Worse is Better'" approach

The article The Rise of "Worse is Better'' explains the principles of this design style by comparing it with the MIT/Stanford style.
A very interesting view!

Cooperative Linux

With Cooperative Linux (coLinux) you can run Linux within Windows.
There are also some screenshots of coLinux.

KOrganizer - What's new in 3.2

If you're also curious about what's new in the awaited KOrganizer 3.2 release the linked article will be right for you.

KOrganizer Workshops

The KOrganizer Workshops which are available for download cover the follwing themes:
* How to do group scheduling
* Outlook2VCal - importing Outlook calendar files
* Exchange Plugin - how to configure and use the KOrganizer Exchange Plugin in order to connect to a Microsoft Exchange 2000® server
Very interesting stuff which I've always waited for to replace Outlook with Linux software at work.

Persistent Login Cookie Best Practice

Charles Miller has written up some best practices for persistent login cookies.

P800 and Linux

* P800 and Linux
* SyncML tools

Maestro - Software of NASA Mars Mission

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released Maestro, a public version of the primary software tool used by NASA scientists to design goals for the Mars Exploration Rovers and analyze the images received from Mars. Anyone can download Maestro for free from http://mars.telascience.org/ and use it to follow along with the rovers? progress during the mission. You can use Maestro to view pictures from Mars in 2D and 3D and create simplified rover activity plans. During the mission, updates will be released for Maestro containing the latest images from Mars.

GeoServer 1.1.0 Released

GeoServer 1.1.0 has just been released.
The GeoServer project is a full transactional Java (J2EE) implementation of the OpenGIS Consortium's Web Feature Server specification. It is free software, available under the GPL 2.0 license.

cms-forum: Content Management Systems Forum

Content Management Systems Forum is a structured home for the information that circulates on the industry's main mailing list server, cms-list.org.

Jakarta Lucene 1.3 released

Jakarta Lucene 1.3 has just been released on December 26th.
It is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform.

Greg Wilkins: Servlets must DIE! Slowly!!

Greg Wilkins has has written an interesting article named Servlets must DIE! Slowly!! concerning servlets and "contentlets".

I don't agree in all terms but I think he has some valid points.

TimeCore - Freeware Timetracking Software

TimeCore is an award winning time tracking tool combining an elegant and intuitive interface with an industrial strength recording engine.
For people who need to track their time but find existing solutions overly complex or too lightweight, TimeCore Solo is free, delivering full round-trip functionality without any restrictions.

This is really one of the most usable time tracking software which allows great flexibility, is open (plain text and Excel export) and is easy to use - and this all for free!

Linux 2.6.0

Some hours ago Linus Torvalds released the long awaited Linux 2.6.0.
As always with an unspectacular mail.
Download Linux 2.6.0 from your nearest mirror.

JAMon - Java Application Monitor

The Java Application Monitor (JAMon) is a free, simple, high performance, thread safe, Java API that allows developers to easily monitor production applications. JAMon can be used to determine application performance bottlenecks, user/application interactions, and application scalability. JAMon gathers summary statistics such as hits, execution times (total, average, minimum, maximum, standard deviation), and simultaneous application requests. JAMon statistics are displayed in the clickable JAMon Report.

To use JAMon you simply plugin the jar file and:

import com.jamonapi.*;
...
Monitor mon=MonitorFactory.start("myFirstMonitor");
...Code Being Timed...
mon.stop();


XQuark - open source information integration components based on XML and XQuery

The XQuark project consists of open source information integration components based on XML and XQuery.
Found through Sylvain Wallez on the Cocoon Developers Mailinglist.

Almost Free Text

Almost Free Text is a document preparation system. It is mostly free form meaning that there is little intrusive markup. AFT source documents look a lot like plain old ASCII text.
AFT has a few rules for structuring your document and these rules have more to do with formatting your text rather than embedding commands.
Right now, AFT produces pretty good (weblint-able) HTML, XHTML, LaTeX, lout and RTF. It can, in fact, be coerced into producing all types of output (e.g. roll-your-own XML). All that needs to be done is to edit a rule file. You can even customize your own HTML rule files for specialized output.

Bossa - Lightweight Java Workflow Engine

Bossa is a workflow engine written in Java. The engine is very fast and lightweight, uses a very expressive Petri net notation to define workflows, does not require a RDBMS and is very simple to use and to integrate with java applications.

Web Design and Usability Guidelines

* Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines
* 3-click-rule
* The Myth of the 7 +/- 2 Rule
* The Magical Number Seven
* Articles about User Interface Engineering

Skype - P2P telephony

My brother, Matthias, just told me about Skype which is an excellent (and free!) software, which allows you to do free phone calls through the internet - all over the world.
I tried it out and was really surprised about the good quality and easy handling.
What can I say more, the slogan "P2P telephony that just works" is definitely right.
Here are some features of Skype:
* Free unlimited worldwide phone calls to other Skype users
* Superior sound quality - better than your regular phone
* Works with all firewall, NAT and routers ? nothing to configure!
* Friends list shows you when your Skype friends are online and ready to talk or chat
* Super-simple and easy to use
* Your calls are encrypted "end-to-end" for superior privacy
* Based on cutting edge peer-to-peer technology developed by the creators of Kazaa and Joltid

JAG - Java Application Generator

JAG (Java Application Generator) is an application that creates complete, working J2EE applications. It is intended to alleviate much of the repetitive work involved in creating such applications, while providing a means of quality assurance that the applications created will be of consistent quality.
There are also some screenshots of JAG available.

Eclipse 3.0M5 released

Eclipse 3.0M3 has been released with a big number of new and noteworthy features.

J2EE 1.4 Final Released

J2EE 1.4 Final has been released recently. There is also a J2EE 1.4 Developer Release SDK available for download.

JSCalendar - DHTML Calendar Widget

JSCalendar is a really cool DHTML calendar widget with many features and works on a big number of browsers.

AskIgor - Automated Debugging Service

AskIgor - Automated Debugging Service allows you to find bugs in Linux executables by uploading it and specify the arguments by which the program fails and when it doesn't fail.
Igor tells you where the problem is ...

Ballmer/Gates in The Matrix

I've seldom seen something funny like that from Microsoft:
* Comdex 2003 Bill Gates Keynote - The Matrix
I didn't know that Microsoft has so much sense of humor!

Cocoon Day 2003

I just return from the Cocoon Day 2003 here in Vienna.
It was the first bigger official Cocoon-centric one-day workshop of this kind. It was organized - and very well to be mentioned - mainly by Reinhard Pötz and Alexander Schatten. The event gave a really great overview of the Cocoon basics, some advanced infos and best practices and not to forget many practical use cases.

Perhaps many don't even know, that many (if not all) of the speakers - which were coming from Austria, Swiss and Germany - were not paid for this.
So many thanks to them!

I'm looking forward for more such great events in Austria!

Interesting W3C News

The latest Weekly Newsletter from W3C I got today has many interesting news for you:

W3C Recommendations:
* Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification (Second Edition)

Last Calls Working Drafts:
* XQuery 1.0
* XSLT 2.0
* XPath 2.0
* XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model
* XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators
* XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics
* XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization
* XML Query (XQuery) Requirements
* XML Query Use Cases
* XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0

Working Drafts:
* Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 1: Core Language
* Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 2: Message Patterns
* SOAP Optimized Serialization Use Cases and Requirements
* Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.2

Notes:
* Units in MathML
* Structured Types in MathML 2.0
* Bound Variables in MathML

Software:
* Amaya 8.2 Editor/Browser Released

NOVA | The Elegant Universe | PBS

I just found this slashdot article about The Elegant Universe of the NOVA program.
There are many resources including the whole 3 hour video viewable online.
I definitely have to take some time to view it.

Internet Mapping Projects

* Internet Mapping Project
* The OPTE Project
The last one seems to be really promising since the resulting code will be distributed freely and it claims to scan the whole internet within only one day.

Liberty Alliance: Phase 2 Finalized

Liberty Alliance has finalized the Phase 2 Specifications and Privacy Guidelines for Federated Identity.

CVSreport

CVSreport produces text or enhanced HTML activity reports from a local or remote CVS repository. It can be used to extract activity information from any time span, or to automatically generate reports and store/send them on commit events.