You might recall that I promised some screenshots of the blog we built for a client. Unfortunately, we can’t post them because the client doesn’t want us to - they prefer to claim all credit for the stuff they have built. Disappointing, but you’ve got to keep the client happy. We recently added podcasting support to the blog, which took about a day. (Not bad for using something “old” like Struts.)
The only thing we had to figure out was how to control access to the podcasts, and if iTunes supported HTTP BASIC authentication. It does, so we were in business. Creating the RSS file presented some debate. Should we use Rome or something simple like Velocity? In the end, we went with Velocity since it’s already part of the application for templating emails. The other issue was that Rome just seemed overly complicated, while the Velocity solution was a snap.
We’re still adding features to the blog, and it’s still very easy to work with. So far, it’s taken about two weeks to build. Not bad at all.
nick Uncategorized
Recently, I had a need to process some vCards, like you’d get from Outlook or Address Book on OSX. A search on Freshmeat and Sourceforge turned up vCard4J, which appeared to do what I needed. After downloading and checking out the forums and mailing lists, it turns out the project has been abandoned.
Luckily, this is where Open Source kicks in. Somebody else picked up the project, fixed some bugs, and rolled it into MimeDir.
I’m not one to beat the Open Source drum very often, but I’m all for this type of project transition, especially when it helps me. 
nick Uncategorized
A number of people have asked me if I’ve checked out Rails, which I have. I quite like it, and I’m very impressed with it. Ruby, as a language, appeals to me. However, there are a number of problems delivering a solution with Rails that haven’t been addressed.
First, the web applications we build tend to include much more than simple Java code. Often, we need to process credit cards, or create PDF and Excel reports. Or we need to interface with some exotic printer in a desktop app or kiosk. As far as I can tell, Ruby doesn’t have the rich selection of libraries that Java currently enjoys. Not that the situation won’t change in the future, but I can’t afford to push back projects because I can’t find a decent reporting API.
The second issue is one of scalability. While I’ve heard the Rails horror stories, it’s more than addressing the comparatively easy N+1 SELECTs problem. What about clustering a Rails application over 5 servers? 15 servers? These problems have been solved in Java, to varying degrees of success.
Personally, I can’t wait for the Rails camp to address these problems. In the meantime, Wicket and Spring have made my development life much easier.
nick Uncategorized
Looks like Apple has released Java 5 Release 3 for OSX. The documentation can be found here.
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Each time I upgrade IDEA on my Powerbook, I have to change the JDK that it uses. While IDEA is content to use JDK 1.4+, some of the libraries I use, like the TestNG plugin, require 1.5. Assuming you have JDK 1.5 installed, it’s pretty easy to update:
- Open /Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 5.0.app/Contents/Info.plist.
- Grep for “1.4+” and replace it with “1.5″.
- Restart IDEA.
That’s all there is to it. The instructions also assume you have IDEA installed in your /Applications directory.
nick Uncategorized
In the first of a two part article, Tim O’Reilly discusses open source. The interview recaps the history of open source from Tim’s perspective.
nick Uncategorized