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Contact

Thu, 17 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Fill out my online form. Use Wufoo templates to make your own HTML forms. var wufooForm;(function(d, t) { var s = d.createElement(t), options = { 'userName':'samaxes', 'formHash':'rjzy9dp0e40eow', 'autoResize':true, 'height':'553', 'async':true, 'host':'wufoo.com', 'header':'show', 'ssl':true}; s.src = 'https://www.wufoo.com/scripts/embed/form.js'; s.onload = s.onreadystatechange = function() { var rs = this.readyState; if (rs) if (rs != 'complete') if (rs != 'loaded') return; try { wufooForm = new WufooForm();wufooForm.initialize(options);wufooForm.display(); } catch (e) {}}; var scr = d.

Moving to a Static Website, part 4: Benefits

Fri, 04 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is the last part of a four-part blog post covering my move from WordPress to Hugo, a static website generator. This post outlines some of the benefits from moving to a static website and to Amazon AWS.

If you haven’t read the first three parts, you may find them at Moving to a Static Website, part 1: From WordPress to Hugo, Moving to a Static Website, part 2: Hosting and Moving to a Static Website, part 3: Automated deployment with Wercker.

Moving to a Static Website, part 3: Automated deployment with Wercker

Mon, 29 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is the third part of a four-part blog post covering my move from WordPress to Hugo, a static website generator. This post outlines how you can use Wercker to streamline your Hugo deployment pipeline to Amazon S3.

If you haven’t read the first two parts, you may find them at Moving to a Static Website, part 1: From WordPress to Hugo and Moving to a Static Website, part 2: Hosting.

Moving to a Static Website, part 2: Hosting

Thu, 25 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is the second part of a four-part blog post covering my move from WordPress to Hugo, a static website generator. This blog post deals with hosting on Amazon AWS cloud infrastructure.

If you haven’t read the first part, you may find it at Moving to a Static Website, part 1: From WordPress to Hugo.

Moving to a Static Website, part 1: From WordPress to Hugo

Thu, 18 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I had been thinking about moving my blog from WordPress to a static site for a while. Today I give you the new Go backed blog.

This is a four-part blog post, the first covering why I moved to Hugo. Part two covers the hosting. Part three covers the Hugo deployment pipeline to Amazon S3. And the last part covers some of the benefits in terms of speed and security.

These posts are not intended as walkthrough on how to do it yourself, but simply sharing my experience hoping to impart some useful knowledge along the way.

Testing secured EJBs with Arquillian

Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:01:16 +0000

Testing secured EJBs has been historically hard to get right. Up until now, I have been using proprietary techniques like JBossLoginContextFactory described in the article Testing secured EJBs on WildFly 8.1.x with Arquillian to test secured EJBs.

During this year Devoxx, David Blevins, founder of the Apache TomEE project - a lightweight Java EE Application Server, brought to my knowledge a little trick we can use to deal with Java EE security in a standard way that works across all Java EE compliant servers.

Minify Maven Plugin with support for JavaScript Source Maps

Thu, 31 Jul 2014 22:49:43 +0000

The new version (1.7.3) of Minify Maven Plugin has just been released. The list of enhancements include: Support for JavaScript Source Maps Better docs Update to the last version of Google Closure Compiler Add support for Google Closure Compiler angular_pass option to support AngularJS @ngInject annotations Get it while it’s still hot!

Validating JAX-RS resource data with Bean Validation in Java EE 7 and WildFly

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 13:50:38 +0000

I have already approached this subject twice in the past. First, on my post Integrating Bean Validation with JAX-RS in Java EE 6, describing how to use Bean Validation with JAX-RS in JBoss AS 7, even before this was defined in the Java EE Platform Specification. And later, on an article written for JAX Magazine and posteriorly posted on JAXenter, using the new standard way defined in Java EE 7 with Glassfish 4 server (the first Java EE 7 certified server).

Now that WildFly 8, previously know as JBoss Application Server, has finally reached the final version and has joined the Java EE 7 certified servers club, it’s time for a new post highlighting the specificities and differences between these two application servers, GlassFish 4 and WildFly 8.

Migrating from a Subversion repository to GitHub

Thu, 07 Nov 2013 16:31:04 +0000

One of greatest attractions of GitHub is the community and the tooling that allows this community to share code. Each contributor can clone the repository, make their changes and then send you a pull request. As the project maintainer your job is now a whole lot easier and more manageable. No more patch files to worry about.

Follow the recipe bellow to move your SVN repo to Git. Best of all, you get to keep the entire commit history of your project.

PT.JUG at OSDOC 2013

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 00:11:29 +0000

Portugal Java User Group (PT.JUG) introduction at OSDOC 2013.

Minify Maven Plugin adds support for Google Closure Compiler

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:14:57 +0000

I’ve recently implemented some new improvements to Minify Maven Plugin. Version 1.6 added support for Google Closure Compiler and version 1.7 offers several performance improvements and more detailed logs (e.g. compression benefits from minification). A complete list of changes can be found in the changelog file. For next releases I’m planning to add Source Maps support and improve the documentation.

Integrating Bean Validation with JAX-RS in Java EE 6

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:07:40 +0000

This article was first published on Java Advent Calendar.

Introduction to Bean Validation

JavaBeans Validation (Bean Validation) is a new validation model available as part of Java EE 6 platform. The Bean Validation model is supported by constraints in the form of annotations placed on a field, method, or class of a JavaBeans component, such as a managed bean.

Several built-in constraints are available in the javax.validation.constraints package. The Java EE 6 Tutorial lists all the built-in constraints.

Constraints in Bean Validation are expressed via Java annotations:

public class Person {
    @NotNull
    @Size(min = 2, max = 50)
    private String name;
    // ...
}

Bean Validation and RESTful web services

JAX-RS 1.0 provides great support for extracting request values and binding them into Java fields, properties and parameters using annotations such as @HeaderParam, @QueryParam, etc. It also supports binding of request entity bodies into Java objects via non-annotated parameters (i.e., parameters that are not annotated with any of the JAX-RS annotations). Currently, any additional validation on these values in a resource class must be performed programmatically.

The next release, JAX-RS 2.0, includes a proposal to enable validation annotations to be combined with JAX-RS annotations. For example, given the validation annotation @Pattern, the following example shows how form parameters could be validated.

Running Drools 5.4.0 Final as a JBoss AS 7 module

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:50:22 +0000

Drools 5 introduces the Business Logic integration Platform which provides a unified and integrated platform for Rules, Workflow and Event Processing. It’s been designed from the ground up so that each aspect is a first class citizen, with no compromises.

Drools 5 has splitted up into 4 main sub projects:

Drools Guvnor (BRMS/BPMS)
Drools Expert (rule engine)
Drools Flow (process/workflow)
Drools Fusion (cep/temporal reasoning)

In this example we will focus on how we can use Drools Expert inside JBoss Application Server 7.

Comparing Device Description Repositories

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 13:41:58 +0000

Web content delivered to mobile devices can benefit from being tailored to take into account a range of factors such as screen size, markup language support and image format support. Such information is stored in “Device Description Repositories” (DDRs).

Until recently WURFL was the de facto DDR standard for mobile capabilities, but its license changed to AGPL (Affero GPL) v3, meaning it is not free to be used commercially anymore. Consequently some free open source alternatives to WURFL have recently started to show up and are improving quickly.

OpenDDR and 51Degrees.mobi are candidate substitutes to WURFL that also provide an API to access DDRs.

These tools ease and promote the development of Web content that adapts to its delivery context. This post summarizes the installation and configuration of these tools and analyzes how they compare in terms of image adaptation.

Java EE 6 Testing Part II - Introduction to Arquillian and ShrinkWrap

Thu, 03 May 2012 13:51:55 +0000

In Java EE 6 Testing Part I I briefly introduced the EJB 3.1 Embeddable API using Glassfish embedded container to demonstrate how to start the container, lookup a bean in the project classpath and run a very simple integration test.

This post focus on Arquillian and ShrinkWrap and why they are awesome tools for integration testing of enterprise Java applications.

Java EE 6 Testing Part I - EJB 3.1 Embeddable API

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:32:27 +0000

One of the most common requests we hear from Enterprise JavaBeans developers is for improved unit/integration testing support.

EJB 3.1 Specification introduced the EJB 3.1 Embeddable API for executing EJB components within a Java SE environment.

Unlike traditional Java EE server-based execution, embeddable usage allows client code and its corresponding enterprise beans to run within the same JVM and class loader. This provides better support for testing, offline processing (e.g. batch), and the use of the EJB programming model in desktop applications. […] The embeddable EJB container provides a managed environment with support for the same basic services that exist within a Java EE runtime: injection, access to a component environment, container-managed transactions, etc. In general, enterprise bean components are unaware of the kind of managed environment in which they are running. This allows maximum reusability of enterprise components across a wide range of testing and deployment scenarios without significant rework.

Changing URL parameters with jQuery

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:32:39 +0000

You can find plenty of resources about this topic just by googling the web, most of which will point to jQuery plugins.

But the fact is that it’s so easy to achieve this by simply using jQuery that you do not need a plugin.

Improving web site performance with Apache .htaccess

Mon, 23 May 2011 14:44:40 +0000

Web performance is getting more and more attention from web developers and is one of the hottest topic in web development.

Fred Wilson considered it at 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps as the #1 principle for successful web apps:

First and foremost, we believe that speed is more than a feature. Speed is the most important feature. If your application is slow, people won’t use it.

Faster website means more revenue and traffic:

Amazon: 100 ms of extra load time caused a 1% drop in sales (source: Greg Linden, Amazon).
Google: 500 ms of extra load time caused 20% fewer searches (source: Marrissa Mayer, Google).
Yahoo!: 400 ms of extra load time caused a 5–9% increase in the number of people who clicked “back” before the page even loaded (source: Nicole Sullivan, Yahoo!).

Stripes Framework XSS Interceptor

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:08:54 +0000

I have created a new project named Stripes XSS Interceptor. This project escapes all the parameters that Stripes Framework binds during its Validation & Binding phase using a wrapped request object (a convenient implementation of the HttpServletRequest interface). The code follows the XSS (Cross Site Scripting) security guidance posted at OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project). Please feel free to report any bug you find in the project’s Issue Tracker.

Maven 2 Cobertura Plugin - Updated

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:10:12 +0000

My previous Maven 2 Cobertura Plugin article gives a workaround for the very buggy version 2.1 of the Cobertura Maven Plugin.

This bug is fixed on versions 2.2 or higher, and consequently, that workaround does not work anymore.

samaxesJS JavaScript library updates

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:26:18 +0000

Both the TOC (Table of Contents) components from samaxesJS JavaScript library have been updated. Changes include: Reduced file size by removing duplicated code using a for loop when defining and processing indexes (1.8KB for the minified jQuery TOC plugin). Added a new option: context, allowing the TOC to list headings from only a portion of the page. Please report any bug you may find in the project Issue Tracking.

Run PHP on Google App Engine

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:24:44 +0000

By adding Java to their App Engine, Google has opened the door for a whole slew of languages that have been implemented on the JVM, now including PHP via Quercus.

This weekend I decided to give it a try and deploy an old tutorial of mine - PHP Tutorials - on GAE.

I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised by how effortless it was. OK, it’s a very rudimentary PHP application, the only PHP code used was to run the examples described on the code blocks and do some includes; nevertheless I didn’t feel the need to change a single line of code.

W3C Widgets Compatibility Matrix for Packaging and Configuration

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:17:40 +0000

Daniel Silva, Marcos Caceres and myself have completed Phase 1 of Widget Packaging and Configuration compatibility testing. We have also detailed the results as part of the conformance matrix. We would like to publish the results as a working group note. Phase 2 will begin in about 3 weeks, in which we are hoping to start working with vendors to improve overall conformance. We need help with Phase 2: if you know a team contact for any of the targeted products that are claiming conformance to W3C Widgets, then would appreciate your help in making them aware of the results of the testing - Implementation Report: Widgets Packaging and Configuration.

Java Web Development with Stripes framework

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:41:33 +0000

Stripes Framework presentation for the Portugal Java User Group session at the JavaPT09 conference. Feel free to download the source code.

Unit Testing JBoss 5 Services

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:02:45 +0000

The JBoss Microcontainer is a refactoring of JBoss’s JMX Microkernel to support direct POJO deployment and standalone use outside the JBoss application server.

It allows the creation of services using simple Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) to be deployed into a standard Java SE runtime environment.

JBoss Microcontainer uses dependency injection to wire individual POJOs together to create services. Configuration is performed using either annotations or XML depending on where the information is best located.

The goal of this article is to show how easy it is to test these services using TestNG testing framework.

Maven Minify Plugin using YUI Compressor

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:08:04 +0000

Following the previous article Combine and minimize JavaScript and CSS files for faster loading, I implemented a similar solution as a Maven plugin. This plugin combines and minimizes JavaScript and CSS files using YUI Compressor for faster page loading. More details can be found on the Minify Maven Plugin page.

Combine and minimize JavaScript and CSS files for faster loading

Mon, 25 May 2009 13:19:17 +0000

Reduce HTTP requests

On most sites, the major component of download time is not the base HTML file itself, but the number of subsequent HTTP requests to load the page’s supporting files - CSS, JavaScript, images, etc.

Each of those are extra HTTP requests, and each unique request takes a relatively long time. The fewer requests to the server that the browser has to make, the faster the page will load.

There is an inherent overhead in each HTTP request. It takes substantially less time to serve one 60K file than it does three 20K files and a lot less than it does six 10K files.

Combine and minimize files

This post will explain how to combine and minimize CSS and JavaScript files using YUI Compressor and Ant.

This can be done by just concatenating all files into two combined files (one for CSS and one for JavaScript) and minimize them. You can quickly go from 10 or more files down to 2, and their size can be greatly reduced.

To keep the modularity that comes with splitting these files out by section (or business unit), keep them split in your development process, and combine them in your build process. A first Ant task will combine them and a second task will generate their minimized versions.

This technique has been successfully used in libraries such as jQuery, MooTools, Dojo, ExtJS, YUI, etc, allowing developers to better organize their code.

Cross Browser Testing

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:16:38 +0000

No matter how anxiously expected, the release of IE8 hasn’t resulted in the end of the support for the old, deprecated, IE6 rendering engine. Giving us, the web developers, need to test against yet another version of IE. Hopefully the eighth version is going to be a lot easier to test and support since it’s more standards compliant and in that perspective, much closer to the other modern browsers. It’s also comes with easier debugging functionality as it has an integrated set of [developer tools](http://msdn.

Axis 1.4 Read timed out and HTTP 1.1

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:03:24 +0000

For those getting a SocketTimeoutException when calling an Axis 1.4 Web Service. This may be a solution for your problem.

JBoss PojoCache configuration

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:17:01 +0000

Everyone knows that documentation is not one of JBoss strengths. This article is meant to fill this gap. It describes and exemplifies how to configure JBoss PojoCache as a MBean service, using loadtime transformations with JBossAop framework, so you don’t need precompiled instrumentation.

Internationalization of the File Upload Form Field

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:36:51 +0000

Internationalization, or i18n, is the design and development of a product, application or document content that enables easy localization for target audiences that vary in culture, region, or language. Localization refers to the adaptation of a product, application or document content to meet the language, cultural and other requirements of a specific target market (a “locale”).

Adapting application to various languages is for me, as a Java and HTML developer, more than a common task. Usually the solution involves a set of supported locales, which is very often different from the system locale and/or browser configuration. Majority of such cases are covered by the scenario when user chooses particular language settings and the only place where the locale setting can be stored is the HTTP Session.

Support for this behavior is now handled by majority of frameworks; nevertheless there is still one HTML element that you can’t effectively change - the file upload form field.

Speed up your site by compressing and caching your content with .htaccess

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:00:46 +0000

Please read Improving web site performance with Apache .htaccess for an updated version of this article.

.htaccess - gzip and cache your site for faster loading and bandwidth saving is one of the most popular posts on samaxes. It’s basically on how to compress and cache your site content with Apache and .htaccess file.

It works like a charm, but it’s not yet the perfect configuration for me. I wanted something that I can use out-of-the-box without having to rely on external extension modules or tools.

Fresh Layout for 2009

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:00:50 +0000

With the new year starting, I decided to try some changes here at samaxes.com.

First, I’ve changed the blog theme to a slightly modified Derek Punsalan’s Grid Focus. Some of these modifications were mostly due to some complains about the size of the content column versus the sidebars columns on the previous theme. Since this is mainly a technical blog it makes it easily on the eye to have a wider content column.

Stripes framework and jQuery Autocomplete

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:01:33 +0000

I really enjoy jQuery. But finding the right UI widget can be a daunting task. Autocomplete is one of those widgets.

I decided to share an asynchronous example on how to use the jQuery Autocomplete plugin with Stripes Framework.

JBoss AS 5.0 is out!

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:18:50 +0000

JBoss announced the GA release of JBoss AS 5.0. JBoss 5 is the next generation of the JBoss Application Server build on top of the new JBoss Microcontainer. The JBoss Microcontainer is a lightweight container for managing POJOs, their deployment, configuration and lifecycle. It is a standalone project that replaces the famous JBoss JMX Microkernel of the 3.x and 4.x JBoss series. The Microcontainer integrates nicely with the JBoss framework for Aspect Oriented Programming, JBoss AOP.

Stripes framework and jQuery: AJAX forms and HTTP Session Validation

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:03:42 +0000

This example was greatly inspired by the Stripes and jQuery AJAX Forms article from Freddy Daoud, but with some nice improvements

Last week I was working on a new Stripes / AJAX example. It involves having a table listing entities, being the last row of the table a form for adding new ones. The form gets submitted via AJAX, using jQuery, and the response is validated in order to check if the HTTP session is still valid.

If everything is OK, the list is refreshed and a success message appears. On the other hand, if validation errors occur, the list is refreshed and an error message appears. Also, if the user’s session has expired on the server, an alert is shown to inform the user that his session is invalid, and the page is reloaded so the user can login once more.

The Semantic Web and RDFa

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:10:18 +0000

There is a lot of momentum around Semantic Web and RDFa. This may be caused by the big milestone reached for RDFa, a Candidate Recommendation of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing.

Recently, several discussion threads have been started on the WHATWG mailing list around the effort of integrating RDFa into the HTML5 specification as XHTML1.1 and XHTML2 that will have it integrated.

While I was pretty aware of the Microformats activity, I can’t say the same about RDFa. But Manu Sporny makes it a lot easier. In fact, this is by far the most comprehensive explanation of RDFa that I have ever seen.

samaxesJS JavaScript Controls

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:40:22 +0000

samaxesJS is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building rich interactive web applications. The first extension is a dynamic Table of Contents script. The TOC control dynamically builds a table of contents from the headings in a document and prepends legal-style section numbers to each of the headings: adds numeration in front of all headings, generates an HTML table of contents, degrades gracefully if JavaScript is not available/enabled.

Deploying BIRT Report Engine API with Stripes Framework

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:31:16 +0000

A long time has passed since my previous BIRT example - Deploying BIRT Report Engine API with Apache Struts. Now that I preferably use Stripes Framework over Apache Struts, I’ve decided to port my last example to this framework.

HTML 5 @media 2008

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:02:35 +0000

Now that almost everyone has heard about HTML 5, maybe not all of you know what’s new for us developers. Lachlan Hunt and James Graham have presented on 2008-05-29 at @media 2008 in London Getting Your Hands Dirty with HTML5. I really find it a great presentation and a good start if you want to check what’s new with the new HTML/XHTML version. Lachlan Hunt is also the editor of The Web Developer’s Guide to HTML 5.

.htaccess - gzip and cache your site for faster loading and bandwidth saving

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:32:38 +0000

Please read Improving web site performance with Apache .htaccess for an updated version of this article.

Last week I changed my hosting provider from Site5 to NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. NFSN is a lot more cheaper (I only pay for what I really use).

So in order to speed up my site and save bandwidth (the more I use the more I pay) I use .htaccess file to gzip my text based files and optimize cache HTTP headers. Although this site is powered by Wordpress which has some really great plugins to optimize PHP output I wanted a more generic solution which can be applied to all PHP web applications.

I also try to follow as much as I can the rules for high performance web sites so don’t be surprised if some Expires header seems too long (far future Expires header rule requires at least 172801 seconds).

Alfresco and Web Content Management - Part II

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:46:40 +0000

I’ve had a lot of feedback with my article Exactly what is Alfresco?. A recurrent question I’ve received was where to find more info about WCM with Alfresco. You can Download Alfresco Web Content Management 2.1 under Download Alfresco Community Network. There you can find Alfresco 2.1 Web Content Management Product Evaluation Guide which is a very complete guide about the WCM module. Hope this helps.

Internet Explorer 8 Application Compatibility VPC Image

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:20:34 +0000

Alongside with the IE6/IE7 Application Compatibility VPC Images (VPC Hard Disk Image for testing websites on IE on Windows XP SP2), Microsoft now provides an IE8 version. This is a great way to test your web applications since the IE8 Beta1 installation overwrites the previous IEs present in your system.

Web Standards Support in IE8

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:03:21 +0000

I’m really impressed about Microsoft responding to their customers and to the community. Microsoft Expands Support for Web Standards Company outlines new approach to make standards-based rendering the default mode in Internet Explorer 8, will work with Web designers and content developers to help with standards behavior transition. Microsoft’s Interoperability Principles and IE8 We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can.

Code Gallery - new Microsoft sharing place

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:48:24 +0000

Microsoft has created Code Gallery. Code Gallery is a place for projects sharing, created to demonstrate .NET key features with a primary focus on C#.

Stripes framework and Java EE

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 02:10:43 +0000

Inspired by the Spring with Stripes integration I decided to make one for Java EE: Stripes Injection Enricher. Stripes Injection Enricher enriches Stripes Framework objects by satisfying injection points specified declaratively using annotations. There are three injection-based enrichers provided by Stripes Injection Enricher out of the box: @Resource - Java EE resource injections @EJB - EJB session bean reference injections @Inject - CDI injections The source code is available on GitHub at StripesFramework/stripes-injection-enricher.

JSCalendar white theme

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:08:00 +0000

For those who are tired of the JSCalendar available skins, check my JSCalendar white theme. Preview: Demo: JSCalendar white theme

Java EE Cache Filter

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:42:19 +0000

In my current web project I was having some performance issues, I needed a tool that allowed me to do some testing so I can see what’s wrong and what I can do better so my application perform faster. My search lead me to High Performance Web Sites and YSlow, a very good talk by Steve Souders the Chief Performance Yahoo! at Yahoo! YSlow is an easy-for-use plugin that allows you to inspect any web page just clicking a button.

Install Internet Explorer 6 in Windows Vista

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:41:14 +0000

You probably have already heard about Yousif Al Saif’s Multiple IE installer which makes possible to run Internet Explorer 6 in standalone mode. The problem is that Multiple IE doesn’t work on Microsoft Vista (still you can use an Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image). Hopefully Yousif Al Saif is making progresses in getting Internet Explorer 6 run natively under Windows Vista. More news to come…

Open Source .NET Framework

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:06:45 +0000

Microsoft announced today the release of the .NET Framework source code under the Microsoft Reference License. Find more at Open Source: The .NET Framework.

Classloader leaks and PermGen space

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:27:02 +0000

After googling a bit for error “java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space” I found many sites talking about that problem. Some tried passing command line arguments to the JVM or changing the size of the PermGen space, others end up recommending using a VM from BEA or IBM, all without success. But after a closer look at their comments I ended up at Frank Kieviet blog. Frank explains what really is a PermGen error

Code conventions and programming style

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 21:40:33 +0000

Coding conventions are rules that computer programmers follow to ensure that their source code is easy to read and maintain. Why is that important? Sun Microsystems provides the following rationale for the Java Programming Language: Code conventions are important to programmers for a number of reasons: 80% of the lifetime cost of a piece of software goes to maintenance. Hardly any software is maintained for its whole life by the original author.

Microsoft Photosynth

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 02:15:21 +0000

Some great graphics technologies are emerging lately. One that looks very promising is Photosynth from Microsoft Live Labs. Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and then displays the photos in a reconstructed three-dimensional space, showing you how each one relates to the next. Earlier this year, Blaise Aguera y Arcas had demonstrated Seadragon and Photosynth at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference in Monterey.

Content Aware Image Resizing

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 01:48:09 +0000

Dr. Ariel Shamir and Dr. Shai Avidan of the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science have presented at SIGGRAPH 2007 the greater digital image effect I’ve seen. “Seam carving” allows an image to be resized non-uniformly, so you can change the height to width ratio in the image without cropping. The algorithm looks for seams (not simple columns or rows) of pixels with the ‘least energy’ (least contrast / change in detail) both vertically and horizontally in the image and then uses this to enable resizing without losing important image content such as human subjects or other detail.

JBoss Web and PHP Install Tutorial

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:24:38 +0000

Approximately 2 years ago I’ve written a set of PHP Tutorials that served as a guideline for a Beginner’s PHP Training Course. These tutorials were made with the WAMP solution stack in mind. Since I’ve been working with Java EE Technologies and Servers recently, I’ve decided do add another one explaining how to install JBoss Web 1.0.1 GA with PHP support (PHP Handler Servlet). This was based on a tutorial by Philippe Fievet that is now offline for some reason.

Creating Offline Web Applications with Dojo Offline Tutorial

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 18:00:57 +0000

Brad Neuberg from Sitepen wrote an extensive tutorial about Creating Offline Web Applications with Dojo Offline. What is Dojo Offline? Dojo Offline is an open-source toolkit that makes it easy to create sophisticated, offline web applications. It sits on top of Google Gears, a plugin from Google that helps extend web browsers with new functionality. Dojo Offline makes working with Google Gears easier; extends it with important functionality; creates a higher-level API than Google Gears provides; and exposes developer productivity features.

SQL Server Paging

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:03:57 +0000

Paging with SQL Server has always been a pain. Although SQL Server 2005 introduced some features that made it possible to page results efficiently more easily than ever before. Paging in SQL Server 2005 at 15 Seconds shows you how to do it with the new ROW_NUMBER() function.

Maven 2 Cobertura Plugin

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:23:00 +0000

The Maven 2 Cobertura Plugin web site lacks information to successfully generate Cobertura reports. Worse, some of the usage examples are incorrect and don’t work. The most common problem when generating Cobertura reports is when the generated report shows 100% test coverage while in reality many of the classes don’t even have tests. The following example shows how to configure the reports so that it would reflect real test coverage and then check if the specified packages achieved the wanted test coverage:

More on offline web applications - Google Gears

Thu, 31 May 2007 15:41:38 +0000

Google announced Google Gears at Google Developer Day 2007. Google Gears is an open source browser plugin that will enable developers to create offline web applications using JavaScript APIs. As a developer, you’ll be able to make an application with the assurance that it will work offline and online across browsers. Google Reader is the first online application to offer “Gears-enabled offline capabilities”. After you load the Gears plugin you get a new icon at the top of your Reader window which enables offline capabilities of Google Reader.

JBoss - Stacking Login Modules

Sun, 27 May 2007 20:43:53 +0000

Sometimes no single login module is enough to meet our needs. Imagine the case of using an external LDAP server to provide the user authentication and a database server to provide the user authorization. A user would be in one repository or the other, and login should succeed if the user is found in either repository. JBoss allows you to specify multiple login modules for a single security domain. But simple module stacking doesn’t resolve the problem on its own.

Where does .NET beat Java?

Wed, 09 May 2007 00:45:54 +0000

Werner Schuster posted at InfoQ an article entitled “Microsoft Surpasses Java’s Dynamic Language Support” trying to show where .NET is doing better than Java. Some of the highlights are: Microsoft CLR (Common Language Runtime), LINQ and the support for multiple languages DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) .NET modularization and versioning

Web PHP framework - symfony

Tue, 01 May 2007 14:15:40 +0000

Web applications frameworks support the development of Java web applications for years. They aim to alleviate the overhead associated with common activities like internationalization, automated form validation, caching, Ajax, and more. Only recently have they started playing an important role in PHP, more specifically since the release of the PHP 5. There are already some awesome PHP frameworks out there like PRADO, CakePHP, and Zend Framework, but the one that seems the most stable, enjoyable, and most feature-packed is Symfony.

Offline web applications with Dojo Offline Toolkit

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:28:58 +0000

Although I’m not a big fan of the Dojo Toolkit, I’m impressed with the the Dojo Offline Toolkit. I’m confident that this will greatly improve the way some actual web applications work. What is the Dojo Offline Toolkit? Dojo Offline is a free, open source toolkit that makes it easy for web applications to work offline. It consists of two pieces: a JavaScript library bundled with your web page and a small (~300K) cross-platform, cross-browser download that helps to cache your web application’s user-interface for use offline.

Web Core Fonts & Windows Vista

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:01:36 +0000

Stuart Brown has written a nice article at Modern Life about the Core fonts for the Web and the New Vista Fonts; a fresh addition to the Web Typography. Once upon a time, back in the early days of the world wide web, when Windows 95 was still revolutionary and Internet Explorer was actually a sensible choice over the competition, Microsoft bestowed a gift unto the web which persists to this day: the Core fonts for the Web project.

The Process of Software Development

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:24:18 +0000

The Process of Software Development humorously/ironically depicted in this illustration from TechZo.

LINQ Resources

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 14:32:58 +0000

LINQ (Language Integrated Query) is one of the most promising technologies for Microsoft®’s .NET. Here are some great resources for those interested in learning more about this generic data query API: LINQ/C# Learning Guide - Quick look at the LINQ extensions and the upcoming release of C# 3.0 in general LINQ in Action - Learn about LINQ, LINQ to SQL (DLINQ) and LINQ to XML (XLINQ) Hooked on LINQ - Developers’ Wiki for .

Secure JSP Taglibs

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 16:12:14 +0000

I’ve created the project Secure JSP Taglibs with the ambition to fill some gaps in the security of the presentation layer in a Java web application. This Taglib allows you to evaluate the nested body content of the tag to test if the user has the specified roles. This is equivalent to the isUserInRole() method, but you can evaluate multiple roles (comma separated) at the same time. <secure:one roles="role1toevaluate, role2toevaluate"> Show this content if the user has one of the specified roles.

Comparison between Stripes and JSF

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 22:47:53 +0000

Reading the TheServerSide.COM news I’ve found a comparison’s article between Stripes and JSF frameworks. I can’t agree more with the author Gregg Bolinger when he says Since I stumbled on Stripes, I’ve found it to be the best all around framework for my purposes. Read it at “Stripes and JSF: A Brief Comparison”.

Java and UTF-8 encoding

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 19:36:17 +0000

If the J2SE platform has come a long way in internationalization, entering non-ASCII text in the J2EE world isn’t nearly as easy. To achieve the same result you have to make some changes in your code and in your web server settings. Firstly, to make sure that the right value in the Content-Type header precedes the text/html content so your browser correctly auto-detects the right encoding, place the following declaration at the beginning of the JSP:

IE6 and IE7 on one PC

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 18:51:15 +0000

With the release of Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7), web developers once again need to test multiple versions of IE. Unlike other browsers like FireFox, IE is a system component for the Windows operating system. This makes running multiple versions side-by-side very difficult. Thanks to Yousif Al Saif’s Multiple IE installer it’s possible to run Internet Explorer in standalone mode without having to over-write previous versions.

Java 6 Final Release Available for Download

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:45:20 +0000

The news article from InfoQ: This morning Sun officially released Java 6 for download after over two years of development. The Java 6 development cycle has been the most open of any Java release with weekly builds available to the public and extensive collaboration between Sun and over 330 external developers. Sun has worked with over 160 companies to ensure backwards compatibility, stability and optimum performance of applications running on the JVM.

BIRT and PHP Reporting

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:24:23 +0000

Actuate Corporation and Zend Technologies have teamed up to allow PHP developers to quickly add reporting capabilities to web applications using Actuate BIRT. The collaboration between Zend and Actuate has resulted in new capabilities in the 3.0 version of the Zend Platform. Zend Platform 3.0 allows PHP developers to quickly integrate reporting capabilities, including charting, to web applications by calling Actuate BIRT reports via the Zend Java Bridge. Web application developers are often faced with strong end-user demands for reports that integrate and summarize application data.

SQL Server - Best Practices Website

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 14:35:21 +0000

Great resources for MSSQL DBAs. Taken from InfoQ: Mark Souza of Microsoft has announced a new web site for database administrators and developers called SQL Server - Best Practices. This site offers a wide range of material from top 10 lists suitable for novices to the in-depth technical white papers needed by seasoned professionals. Topics include capacity planning, database mirroring, and bulk data loading. Over a dozen scripts for troubleshooting and performance tuning are also available.

ASP.NET 2.0 Starting Guide

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 01:13:04 +0000

For those who want to take off into the wide blue yonder of ASP.NET 2.0, read Cristian and Zak’s ASP.NET 2.0: A Getting Started Guide. You’ll tame the installation process, sink your teeth into two ASP.NET languages, and conquer .NET programming basics with your bare hands. Finally, you’ll pull server controls, user controls, master pages, and CSS into the beginnings of an application.

Sun open sources Java under GPLv2

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:34:08 +0000

It’s finally here as you can see in Free and Open Source Java. The key behind moving to the GPL is to drive more volume and more adoption for the platform. The GPL helps get Java into some markets that it hasn’t served as fully as it should - such as educational markets, governments in the developing world, and some commercial customers - as well as, obviously, some distributions of Linux which insist not on Linux-friendly licenses but on actual GPL licensing.

Gantt Charts with JFreeChart

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 04:30:29 +0000

If you have ever tried to draw gantt charts with JFreeChart you have already noticed that it’s a very simplistic implementation - it doesn’t have the facility to display dependency lines or milestones. Gantt chart demo from JFreeChart samples: In a recent project I needed some additional features like: Summary tasks Milestones/deliverables Dependencies between task and milestones/deliverables So I modified BarRenderer.java, GanttRenderer.java, GanttCategoryDataset.java, Task.java, and TaskSeriesCollection.java appropriately and also created my own class called LineAndShapeGanttRenderer.

Apache Struts 2 development build

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 00:25:24 +0000

The first development build (2.0.1) of Apache Struts 2 project has been released. Struts 2 was originally known as WebWork 2. After working independently for several years, the WebWork and Struts communities joined forces to create Struts 2. This new version of Struts is designed to be simpler to use and closer to how Struts was always meant to be. Some key changes are: Smarter! Improved Design - All Struts 2 classes are based on interfaces.

Eclipse RCP to Cellphones

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 23:24:23 +0000

Great news for embedded devices developers. Eclipse has recently released the embedded Rich Client Platform (eRCP) 1.0. eRCP is for J2ME what RCP is for the desktop, and includes among other things Eclipse Core which provides OSGI and Extension Point Framework support a version of SWT called embedded Standard Widget Toolkit (eSWT) eJFace a set of classes which enable eRCP applications to integrate with an eRCP workbench, and provide more complex widgets like MVC oriented viewers eUpdate for dynamically updating device software and microXML a smaller, faster XML parser supporting SAX and DOM API eRCP currently support Windows Mobile 2003/5.

Alfresco and Web Content Management - Part I

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 01:32:01 +0000

A while back (May 24th) I’ve written a post trying to explain what was Alfresco, and some misunderstands about it. At that time Alfresco wasn’t yet a full Web Content Management system. But that is about to change starting at Release 1.4. I think it may worth the shoot… Related Links Alfresco Wiki Release 1.4 Release WCM Preview Alfresco Forum Web Content Management Other Alfresco Enterprise CMS Implementation book

Ajaxian.com 2006 Survey Results

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 22:57:25 +0000

Ajaxian has published their second annual Ajaxian.com survey. The first three by categories are: Most Popular Ajax Frameworks Prototype - 43% Script.aculo.us - 33% Dojo - 19% Most Popular Ajax Platforms PHP - 50% Java - 37% .NET - 16% Read the original article here. Update from Joe Walker’s Blog (with a Java perspective): Most Popular Java / Ajax Frameworks DWR - 53% GWT - 15% AjaxTags - 7%

Great LINQ Resources

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:09:26 +0000

Right now there are two extensions for .NET that I find very interesting.

The first one is Language INtegrated Query (LINQ) and the other one is the Atlas Toolkit.

For those looking for more information about LINQ, visit LINQ Project Overview at MSDN, and Scott Guthrie’s last post where he shares the code samples and slides from his TechEd LINQ Talk in Australia.

IE7 JavaScript library

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 23:09:54 +0000

Today I stumbled on an article from 5ThirtyOne about an IE7 JavaScript library simply called IE7. IE7 is a JavaScript library to make IE behave like a standards-compliant browser. It fixes many CSS issues and makes transparent PNG work correctly under IE5 and IE6 Impressive…

Deploying BIRT Report Engine API with Apache Struts

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 22:59:55 +0000

After reading the great article Deploying BIRT from Jason Weathersby I decide to create a little example on how to use BIRT Report Engine API (RE API) with Apache Struts framework.

Zend Framework articles/tutorials

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:48:09 +0000

Alexander Netkachev has a nice set of articles in his site about Zend Framework (MVC-based framework written in PHP) and its features, how to integrate it with others frameworks like PRADO (component-based and event-driven framework written in PHP5) or Dojo library (Javascript/AJAX toolkit), and more. Have a look at Alex @ Net.

Tribix - Extended Emitters for BIRT

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 23:57:57 +0000

Tribix 2.1.0 final - Extended emitters for BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) provides a set of extended emitters for BIRT 2.1.0 final or above. It comes along with a PPT (MS PowerPoint) emitter preview release. You can now export all your reports made with the BIRT Reporting System to Excel, or even preview them in PowerPoint. This version does support fixed-column-width sheet output and image export to Excel which are great news since my last post about Reporting Tools.

Using Maven 2, XDoclet 2, and Hibernate 3

Mon, 03 Jul 2006 00:53:29 +0000

Problem - You want to use the last Hibernate 3 (Object to Relational Mapping Solution) with a code generation tool that automatically generates your Hibernate descriptor files, and build your project with an advanced build tool like Maven2.

Solution - Use maven2-xdoclet2-plugin.

Maven is a popular open source build tool for enterprise Java projects; it can manage a project’s build, reporting and documentation from a central piece of information (POM file).

XDoclet is an open source code generation engine with the goal of continuous integration. It enables Attribute-Oriented Programming for java. It uses custom JavaDoc-like tags to generate external resource files to support the main Java classes. XDoclet has mainly been used for the auto-generation of EJB descriptors (and related J2EE container technologies). XDoclet2 is a rewrite of the XDoclet engine. It allows you to use Hibernate 3 features, Java5 language features in your model POJOs, and has substantially better error reporting than XDoclet.

Picking an open source license

Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:23:06 +0000

In HOWTO: Pick an open source license (part one), Ed Burnette gives us a simple step-by-step approach for choosing an open source license. It covers such concerns as: control over usage, use in closed-source environments, reciprocal code contributions, and monetary concerns. Here is a resume of what you can find in the article: Do you want to relinquish any control over how your code is used and distributed? NO: put it in public domain and you’re done, don’t copyright it, and don’t license it “public domain” is is not a good choice because in many jurisdictions you can’t give up your copyright.

JBoss Seam 1.0 released

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:44:36 +0000

JBoss Seam 1.0, an application framework for Java EE 5 based on Asynchronous JavaScript and XML(AJAX), Java Serve Faces(JSF), Enterprise Java Beans(EJB3), and other technologies, has been released. Read more in JBoss SEAM 1.0: rethinking web application architecture at InfoQ. The Seam project is proud to announce the release of JBoss Seam 1.0 GA, an application framework for Java EE 5. Seam aims to be the most productive platform for development of enterprise and rich internet applications in any programming language.

Microsoft competing in HPC space

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 23:27:21 +0000

Microsoft is finally ready to enter the high-performance computing market, a technology dominated by open-source Linux technology. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, a 64-bit operating system for industry-standard x64 processors, will be released to manufacturing on June 9, with general availability of the product scheduled for August. More information on Microsoft to Take On Linux in HPC Space.

Web Beans approved by the EC Unanimously

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:40:08 +0000

The Web Beans specification JSR-299 was approved unanimously by the JCP executive committee. This is the first time JBoss (or even Red Hat) has led a JSR, so this is great news to the Java EE community!

Using LINQ with ASP.NET

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 22:12:37 +0000

Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s ASP.NET and Atlas development guru, has posted a two-part article on using the Language Integrated Query, or LINQ, within ASP.NET projects. Part 1 how to create the ASP.NET page using LINQ, using rich collections of strings, refactoring collections, working with .NET Standard Query Operations and using Anonymous types. Part 2 details about DLINQ, or LINQ for databases, such as creating a DLINQ-enabled object model, hierarchical binding and basic pagination.

Web Site's Navigation Structure with ASP.NET 2.0 Site Maps

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:54:45 +0000

A Web site should present visitors with a simple yet flexible navigation structure so that they can travel to various parts of the site easily. ASP.NET 2.0 provides a feature called SiteMap that helps you implement this functionality. This article explains what site maps are and describes how to develop Web site navigation structures that use them.

Google Web Toolkit initial tutorial

Wed, 31 May 2006 22:56:07 +0000

I’ve already commented in a previous post about the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). The Google Web Toolkit was the talk of JavaOne 2006, offering developers a way to create Ajax applications by writing Java and having the toolkit generate the client-side JavaScript, which can call back to Java servlets through an RPC-like call. Robert Cooper offers an initial tutorial to get you up and running with GWT.

Exactly what is Alfresco?

Wed, 24 May 2006 17:47:31 +0000

Update: Alfresco supports Web Content Management since Alfresco 1.4.0.

A lot of people still misunderstand the purpose of Alfresco. Alfresco is not yet a full WCM (Web Content Management) like Joomla or Drupal, but an ECM (Enterprise Content Management).

Alfresco, at its core, is a general purpose content repository with content management services. It can be used to manage all your business documents and transform them in web-ready formats (HTML, PDF) and categorize them linking into overall site navigation and index pages. Alfresco can also be used to capture HTML pages using an included WYSIWYG editor.

All of this is easily configured by an end-user in the Alfresco web app and does not require a programmer. Because Alfresco is a standard JCR (Java Content Repository - basically a next generation CMS (Content Management System) that supports JSR170 Levels I and II), programmers can readily build web pages that call to Alfresco to retrieve content and render on a web page. To make this even easier for web developers building a web app that runs on multiple front-end load-balanced servers against a single database server with the content repository, Alfresco provides a web services interface. Good just gets better.

There is an application surface, the web client, which at the moment is very document-centric. However, this will be changing this year, with WCM features arriving from about June onwards. There are features already there that people are using for managing content that is served to websites (e.g. transformations, content templates), but capabilities like site management are not there today.

Don Brown on Unification of Struts Action and JSF

Tue, 23 May 2006 16:59:24 +0000

In Unification: Struts Action and JSF, Don Brown show us how to use Struts Action 2 and JSF as one framework. Struts Action 2, based on the WebWork 2.2 code, has builtin support for JSF, using an approach that smoothly combines both frameworks into one configuration file, one framework. Struts Action takes the familiar Action-based approach to page logic and navigation, and sprinkles in optional support for JSF components. The result is a framework that lets the developer easily incorporate component-driven pages as application needs dictate.

Localization in ASP.NET 2.0

Sun, 21 May 2006 01:40:35 +0000

In this article, Bilal Haidar presents the new localization feature provided by .NET framework 2.0. Throughout the article, the new tools provided by Visual Studio 2005 to support localization will be highlighted and used to show you how easy it is to localize your web applications with ASP.NET 2.0.

Sun promises to open source Java

Wed, 17 May 2006 17:22:02 +0000

Sun Microsystems is planning to release the source code of the Java programming language, chief executive Jonathan Schwartz said at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. It’s not a question of whether we’ll open source Java, the question is how Schwartz told delegates in his opening keynote at the tradeshow.

Google Web Toolkit: AJAX applications in Java

Wed, 17 May 2006 11:40:49 +0000

Google has released Google Web Toolkit (GWT), a code generation framework that lets you code Ajax apps in pure Java. Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java development framework that lets you escape the matrix of technologies that make writing AJAX applications so difficult and error prone. With GWT, you can develop and debug AJAX applications in the Java language using the Java development tools of your choice. When you deploy your application to production, the GWT compiler to translates your Java application to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.

How to make ASP.NET Applications that support mobile devices

Wed, 17 May 2006 11:14:46 +0000

Richard Bean explains how to make ASP.NET mobile applications by using ASP.NET Mobile Software Development kit (Mobile SDK). By using ASP.NET Mobile Software Development kit (Mobile SDK), a developer can create web pages with the same norms and constructs that are required for building any traditional page.

JavaScript 2 and the Future of the Web

Sun, 14 May 2006 14:33:40 +0000

Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript, give a keynote at The Ajax Experience. Ajaxian have placed the presentation online so everyone can read up on some of the thoughts and discussion on JavaScript 2 and more. Here we got to hear from the mouth of someone deep into the ECMA process about what we are going to see in JavaScript 2 and importantly why: Motivation for JS2 Fix problems in JS1 that bug people daily A type system to enforce invariants instead of writing/debugging lots of value-checking code optional annotations, an extension to JS1 Programming in the large Package system Visibility qualifiers (namespaces, private internal public) Optional static type checking Support bootstrapping and metaprogramming Self-host most of the standard objects Self-host compiler front end and type checker Reduce need for future ECMA Editions As Brendan flicked through these slides, I couldn’t help buy realise how important the decisions are.

Writing PostgreSQL Functions with PL/pgSQL

Fri, 12 May 2006 00:57:54 +0000

One of the most powerful features of PostgreSQL is its support for user-defined functions. The language to learn is PL/pgSQL, an unpronounceable but powerful way to write UDFs. David Wheeler introduces the language and demonstrates why UDFs are useful. Read the full article at ONLamp.

Another 60 More AJAX Tutorials

Mon, 08 May 2006 18:38:59 +0000

Max Kiesler as posted in his site an article with 60 more AJAX tutorials. These examples and how-to’s represent the best tutorials that I’ve personally used or otherwise had the opportunity to work with out of the overall group. This post is intended for individuals who learn best by example. Most of the listed tutorials come complete with instructions and source code. Read the 60 More AJAX Tutorials full article.

IE Conditional comments

Sat, 06 May 2006 15:10:05 +0000

When you’re a web developer, you always keep running into annoying Internet Explorer bugs, so you need to hack your way around. Now with the IE7 out, a lot of the old CSS hacks don’t work anymore, and those that do still work, can’t be relied on to work in the future. IE has a feature, called conditional comments, which could help us. As a hack it’s quite useful. IE 7 will support this too, and it even allows you to detect different versions of IE.

Java EE 5 Passes JCP Executive Committee Unanimously

Tue, 02 May 2006 18:09:31 +0000

The Java EE 5 specification (JSR 244) has passed its final approval ballot unanimously. This means the specifications under it - JSF 1.2, JSP 2.1, EJB 3.0, JAX-WS, and other specifications - are all set to go, even if the implementations aren’t ready for prime time. This clears the way for implementations to solidify compliance, and also providing a stable target for programmers to use in development.

AJAX, what can the web offer?

Mon, 01 May 2006 22:23:03 +0000

Max Kiesler has posted on his site, a listing of 50 different Ajax toolkits and frameworks, and a listing of 30 different AJAX Tutorials. Round-up of 50 AJAX Toolkits and Frameworks Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials Of course, the lists are by no means complete, but they do include not only the “big names” but also several of the smaller, lighter libraries the web has to offer.

Enterprise Web 2.0 software

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:39:30 +0000

Dion Hinchcliffe from http://web2.wsj2.com/ has written a great Enterprise Web 2.0 software list article. It has an extensive list of many enterprise-ready Web 2.0 software applications.

Great CSS Layouts

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:06:25 +0000

If creating standards-compliant, cross-browser compatible page layouts using CSS has you stumped, let A List Apart and SitePoint’s CSS gurus show you that way. In this comprehensive, step-by-step tute, Matthew Levine from A List Apart and Rachel and Dan from SitePoint show you how to create a slick, flexible, and solid 2/3-column layout that will stand the tests of time and evolving technology! In Search of the Holy Grail (3 Column CSS Layout) by Matthew Levine in A List Apart.

Database Connection Pooling with Tomcat

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 09:37:41 +0000

You know how to open and use database connections for each user, but what about optimizing for many concurrent users? Rather than creating and destroying connections over and over again, established practice calls for use of a pool of connections that can be reused. Kunal Jaggi shows how to implement this strategy in Tomcat and how to stress test the app with JMeter, an open source tool for load testing with a drag-and-drop-style GUI.

XLS(MS Excel) Emitter for BIRT

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:00:43 +0000

For those who wanted a XLS emitter for a long time, finally here may be a chance to taste. Thanks the Apache POI project and the new layout engine of BIRT 2.0, we can now easily create a XLS emitter though it looks obviously not that fancy yet. You can see the full article here.

Java 5 extension framework for Struts released

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 01:40:49 +0000

Strecks, a set of open source extensions to the Struts framework aimed at Java 5 users, has been released. Strecks (which stands for “Struts Extensions”) is built on the existing Struts 1.2.x code base. Read Phil Zoio’s article on Strecks, titled Building on Struts for Java 5 Users. Strecks contains a range of features aimed to streamline the Struts programming model. Some key features include: POJO action beans with no framework dependencies action vs.

First Atlas Toolkit official release

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 16:34:09 +0000

The first official release of the ASP.NET Atlas Toolkit is ready! For controls and templates that make adding client-side functionality to your site incredibly easy see Atlas Control Toolkit.

Spring Rich Client Framework Announced

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:47:25 +0000

Spring-RCP’s mission is to provide an elegant way to build highly-configurable, GUI-standards-following rich-client applications faster by leveraging the Spring Framework, and a rich library of UI factories and support classes. It only has a 0.1.0 release available, but might be worth watching.

Communications from the Open Source Software Lab @ Microsoft

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:15:20 +0000

Microsoft has launched a Web site to share the activities of its internal Linux laboratories, an effort to sample feedback from customers who combine Microsoft and open-source software. The Web site is called Port 25 and can be found here.

How to build Multi-Language Web Sites with ASP.NET 2.0 and VS.Net 2005

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:09:50 +0000

In this article, Muhammad Mosa will explore the necessary details for working with resources in ASP.NET applications and for creating international ASP.NET applications based on embedded resources and the integrated localization support.

php|architect features Zend Framework Tutorial

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:36:59 +0000

Framework contributor Chris Shiflett has teamed up with php|architect magazine, another Zend Framework partner, to publish a great new tutorial on getting started with the MVC architecture of the framework.

A Modular Approach to Data Validation in Web Applications

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:57:49 +0000

Data that is not validated or poorly validated is the root cause of a number of serious security vulnerabilities affecting applications, such as Cross Site Scripting and SQL Injection. A paper entitled A Modular Approach to Data Validation in Web Applications presents an approach to performing thorough data validation in modern web applications so that the benefits of modular component based design (extensibility, portability and re-use) can be realised. It starts with an explanation of the vulnerabilities introduced through poor validation and then goes on to discuss the merits and drawbacks of a number of common data validation strategies such as:

Comparing Java Web Frameworks

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 03:54:52 +0000

Struts is by far the most common web framework, but it is by no means the only option. Java Server Faces has made a splash lately, but there are a number of open source alternatives, including Spring MVC, WebWork, Tapestry, and Cocoon. I’ve found two interesting presentations that survey these available web frameworks, taking a look at what kind of code and content you need to write for each, specific strengths or weaknesses, and how to select the best web framework for your unique application requirements.

APT-Jelly (template-based interface to APT) released

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:51:30 +0000

APT-Jelly provides a template-oriented interface to Sun’s Annotation Processing Tool (APT). As an alternative to other source-processing engines (e.g. XDoclet), APT-Jelly fully leverages Java syntax and features including annotations, generics and typesafe enums. Read the full news article here.

The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005/2006

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:48:14 +0000

Dion Hinchcliffe has a wonderful blog at http://web2.wsj2.com/ about Web 2.0. There are some of his posts about Web 2.0 software I want to share: The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005 More Great Web 2.0 Software The Most Promising Web 2.0 Software of 2006 I never even heard of some of these fantastic software before. You can contribute with other Web 2.0 Software below.

Welcome!

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:44:15 +0000

Welcome to samaxes.com! This blog is an informal way for me to collate the random bits and pieces that I find as I browse the net and a way to add my voice to the web. The main focus will be Software development with great emphasis on Java and Web technologies. See you soon. Stay tuned…

About

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 16:44:15 +0000

My name is Samuel Santos and I live in Coimbra, Portugal. I’m the Chief Technology Officer at Present Technologies where I lead the engineering team with a focus on continuous learning, iteration, stimulating innovation, and knowledge sharing. With an extensive Software development experience, I’m passionate about Open Source, Java and Web technologies. I’ve contributed to various JBoss community projects and participate in several W3C working groups as invited expert. I’m the JUG leader of Portugal Java User Group, co-founder of the JNation conference in Portugal, and co-organizer of Undefined.