Rijkswatch

Java EE web technology version history (edit)

2012-02-07T08:29:00.000+01:00

JSR numbers are included as links

Java EE	servlet	JSP	EL	JSTL	JSF	What’s new
	2.1	1.0				ServletContext, RequestDispatcher
1.2	2.2	1.1				war
1.3	53 2.3	53 1.2				filters
1.4	154 2.4	152 2.0	1.0	52 1.1
5	2.5	2.1	2.1	1.2	127 1.2	annotations
6	315 3.0	2.2	2.2	1.2	314 2.0	asynchronous servlets more...
7	340 3.1		341 3.0		344 2.2	HTML 5, 353 JSON 1.0

Java EE component versions overview (edit)

2012-02-07T08:07:00.000+01:00

The table below lists the components in latest versions of the Java Enterprise Edition.

I put the most important changes in red.
Components with a (version number) between brackets are proposed for removal in a future release.

JAX-WS is intended to replace JAX-RPC

An x indicates a technology is removed from the specification

JSR's are shown as hyperlinked numbers.
SE indicates that an API was moved to the standard edition

eventually followed with the version number

Web front end technologies are in a separate table
I added some application servers at the bottom of the table.

State of application servers with Java EE6 can be found here.

Technologies	151 J2EE 1.4 2003	244 Java EE5 2006	316 Java EE6 2009	342 Java EE7 Q3 2012
Java SE	59 1.4	176 5	270 6	336 7
EJB	153 2.1	220 3.0	318 3.1	345 3.2
Servlet/JSP	2.4	2.5	3.0	3.1
JMS	914 1.1	1.1	1.1	343 2.0
JTA 907	1.0	1.1
JavaMail 919	1.3	1.4	1.4
Connector (JCA)	112 1.5	1.5	322 1.6
Java Activation Framework (JAF) 925	1.0	1.1	SE:1.1.1
Web Services 109	1.1	1.2	1.3
Web Services Metadata		2.0	SE
JAX-RPC 101	1.1	1.1	(1.1)	x
JAX-WS 224	1.0	2.0	SE:2.1
REST (JAX-RS)			311 1.1	339 2.0
JAXB 222		2.0	SE:2.1
JAXR (UDDI Registry)	1.0	1.0	(1.0)
SOAP with attachments (SAAJ) 67	1.2	1.3	SE
StAX 173		1.0	SE
JMX	1.2	SE	SE
container authorisation (JACC) 115	1.0	1.1	1.4
container authentication (JASPIC) 196			1.0
Common annotations 250		1.0	1.1
Java Persistence (JPA)		1.0	317 2.0	338 2.1
Bean Validation			303 1.0	349 1.1
Managed Beans			1.0
Interceptors			1.1
CDI for Java EE			299 1.0	346 1.1
DI for Java 330			1.0	1.1
Concurrency utilities 236				1.0
JCache 107				1.0
State management 350				1.0
Batch processing 352				1.0
Servers
Sun JSAS	8	9.1
Glassfish		2	3 (12/2009)
JBoss	4	5	7 (7/2011)
IBM Websphere	6	7	8 (6/2011)
Oracle Weblogic	9	10	12c(12/2011)
Apache Geronimo	1	2	3 (beta)

J2EE 1.3(2001) introduced

Message Driven Beans
Local interfaces

Profiles are a subset of the spec.

Java EE6 Web profile (only profile currently defined)

contents

java SE
web technologies,
JTA, common annotations, JPA, validation, managed beans, interceptors, CDI, DI

EJB Lite

Stateless, Stateful, and Singleton session beans
only local EJB interfaces or no interfaces
interceptors
security
transactions
No Message Driven, remote or asynchronous beans, no Timer service

implemented by

Resin 4
Apache TomEE

Java EE7 Web profile will include JAX-RS

Telesys opent bescheiden datacenter in Oudenaarde

2012-01-30T10:47:00.002+01:00

De foto in Datanews toont wat bedoeld wordt met bescheiden :

Voeg daarbij een website met 404 links in het nieuws menu...
Het motto van Telesys makt alles duidelijk:

German states use spyware to eavesrop on suspects

2012-01-25T13:05:00.004+01:00

While a laptop was being checked when passing through German customs, spyware was allegedly installed on the computer by the authorities.
More...

Geek & Poke

2011-12-14T20:56:00.001+01:00

Great geek cartoons ...

2011-12-14T11:23:00.002+01:00

Jobat is the winner in the job site category in the Site of the year 2011 election. In the open competition they make the top ten. Great job by the Uniway team there!

Calendra lives on as Cognitum

2011-11-29T15:32:00.000+01:00

Calendra Directory manager was a pretty good platform for rapidly developing web applications based on directories, databases, provisioning and workflow. As such it was a great tool for building Identity a Access management related applications.
Calendra was acquired by BMC Software, but never found its place in the portfolio of the company, and development slowed down.
This year ownership of Calendra was transferred to ITConcepts. Cognitum is the new name for the product. This month a new version of the product, Cognitum 7.7 is released. In addition to some bug fixes it aligns Cognitum with current standards: Java 6, JDBC 4, Tomcat 7 and Windows 7.
The roadmap for the product again looks ambitious now. The next version of the product is expected to merge some Calendra 4 features back into the main branch (Basket functionality, Studio Wizards, History actions...).
here's an overview of Cognitum's architecture:

Devoxx redux

2011-11-18T14:50:00.000+01:00

Stephan Janssens: There will be a Devoxx France event in Paris, 18-20/4. 75% french / 25% english.

Mark Reinhold: Oracle thinks a two year release cycle is optimal. So we can expect Java 8 mid 2013.
Let me think: that puts java 9 mid 2015

Mark Reinhold: We're planning reified generics and unified primitives for Java 9.

Mark Reinhold: Swing is a Sun development. Oracle will concentrate on JavaFX. Do not expect many new initiatives from Oracle for Swing.
Well, I can name some other Sun developments

@Jax-RS 2 talk: JAX-RS will be in the Java EE7 web profile.

Matt Railble: great video in presentation on Play, HTML5, Jade and CoffeeScript.

Shaun Smith: For JPA 2.1 EclipseLink is doing work on

multitenancy: separte datasets per group of users
domain model extensions: storing generic attributes (name/value pairs)

Joshua Bloch: I believe in evolution, even if my country does not.

Joshua Bloch: Who cares about the Java VM, it's the languages that count.

Greg Luck: JSR347 (Datagrid) will be based on JSR107 (caching)

Greg Luck: We talked with oracle to Apache license the TCK (Technology Compatibility Kit). Oracle legal wants to avoid implementations claiming 70% compatible and people testing compatibility of someone else's implementation. We are working with Oracle on a new license for the TCK.

Create a test case in Intellij IDEA

2011-11-16T09:55:00.001+01:00

Position yourself on the name of the class you want to create a test for and press [ALT] + [ENTER].

IntelliJ will let you select your test framework (JUnit 3/4, TestNG) and you can select all methods in the original class you want to generate skeletons for (pity they forgot a select all button).

EDF convicted for hacking greenpeace

2011-11-12T12:26:00.001+01:00

Electricité de France is the second player on the Belgian energy market, selling under the Luminus brand name.
Looking at Electricité de France's website shows you a green company. They claim to have a carbon emission that's three times lower than their average competitor. This is not surprising: EDF is the world's biggest producer of nuclear energy.

Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor (under construction)

In 2006 EDF, which is controlled by the French state, hired private investigators Kargus Consultants. They wanted to anticipate Greenpeace actions in the 2006 debate on building a new nuclear reactor in Flamanville near the channel. Kargus hacked greenpeace computers and stole confidential documents. Kargus got caught however and were charged in court. The court found ound EDF guilty of "complicity in computer piracy". Former policeman Pierre-Paul Francois and former rear admiral Pascal Durieux, who were both in charge of EDF's security, were sentenced. The head of Kargus, a former french secret agent, and Alain Quiros, Kargus' information specialist, were sentenced as well.
Alain Quiros was sentenced as well for a separate case of hacking a french anti doping agency for Floyd Landis. After winning the Tour de France in 2006, he was stripped from his victory when it was discovered he had been using doping in the 17th stage which he won after an epic solo escape.

SABAM wants 3% of ISP subscriptions

2011-11-09T16:49:00.000+01:00

After getting money out of children creches, computer hard disk, taxi's, company phone waiting tunes and the like, Belgium's author rights association SABAM is now attacking ISP's. They want their fair share of the pie, and ask for 3.4% of your ISP subscription, because it provides access to coyprighted work.
SABAM says this does not mean that the sites that distribute coyrighted material (e.g. YouTube) do not have to pay for the copyright anymore (double pay!).
SABAM does not want to be seen as the bad guy, and expresses the hope ISP's will not charge end users for the money they ask.

Patent war II

2011-10-28T08:54:00.000+02:00

Earlier we reported on different types of patent law suits between Microsoft and Motorola.
Here's a global overview of lawsuits in the mobile world from Design Language News, a fine site specializing in visualizing data.

Light field camera

2011-10-25T09:37:00.001+02:00

The eye and conventional camera's capture the colour and intensity of light. They need to focus to get a sharp image for a certain distance.

Light field camera's also capture the direction of the light rays.
This allows you to reprocess and refocus the light information afterwards.
Storing this extra information takes up about 200 times the space of a classical picture. So the camera's have to sacrifice resolution to keep picture storage size within limits.
Lytro will bring a consumer light field camera to the market next year. An 8GB version costs $400 and stores 350 pictures.

You can refocus some pictures in a demo at their site.

Design patterns links (edit)

2011-10-11T12:25:00.000+02:00

Gang of Four (GoF, Gamma/Helm/Johnson/Vlissides)

Catalog

A state pattern implementation

Relationships

Portland Pattern Repository
Antipatterns Top 10
Architecture

SunTone
Design guidelines blueprint

J2EE design guidelines blueprint
J2EE petstore 1.0
Java EE 5 petstore 2.0

subversion repository: https://svn.java.net/svn/petstore~svn/trunk
uses AJAX and JPA, but no EJB

Architectural patterns

Java EE design patterns

1st edition blueprint (more elaborate)
2nd edition (more patterns)
Real World Java EE Patterns digest (Java EE 5)

Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture (Martin Fowler)
Enterprise Integration Patterns
Pattern Oriented Software Architecture

Apache Tommee is Java EE6 web profile certified.

2011-10-05T21:21:00.002+02:00

Apache Tommee is not a new product, but a bundle of Tomcat and Apache Java EE projects (OpenEJB, OpenJPA,...) by the Apache OpenEJB team.The lot is certified as a Java EE 6 Web Profile server.
Tommee is pretty lean (24Mb) and can run embedded.
The server bundles a set of components, all Apache gear:

EJB	OpenEJB
CDI	OpenWebBeans
JSP/servlet	Tomcat
JSF	MyFaces
JPA	OpenJPA
JTA	Geronimo Transaction
JavaMail	Geronimo JavaMail

EDAM: Easy Development And Maintenance

2011-10-02T08:55:00.000+02:00

Design patterns make code more flexible and easier to evolve and test.
Design patterns make code more complex and harder to write.
Strike the right balance between easy work now (development) and later (maintenance).

JPA labs – alternate instructions (edit)

2011-09-25T16:03:00.000+02:00

Lab 3 Exercise 2 Task 1

Adjusting the table and column names

Create the com.acme.entities.AuctionUser entitiy

Follow the same procedure as in Lab 1 Exercise 3 Task 3, steps 1-6
Add the attributes shown in the Student Guide page 2-9, Figure 2-4
Press ALT+INSERT to add a default constructor and a constructor accepting all attributes except the auctionUserId

Add an annotation to save the entity to the table A_USER
Add an annotation to save the auctionUserId attribute to the id column
Add an annotation to save the displayName attribute to the name column.

Set the column length to 50.

Modify the main method created in Lab 1 to save an AuctionUser entity

At the beginning of the method create auctionUser JaneDoe with email address jane@doe.com
After the statement to persist the item, add a similar statement to persist the user

Choose Run -> Run Main Project
Follow the same procedure as in Lab 1 Exercise 3 Task 3, step 9 to run the project and verify the table was created as intended and JaneDoe was inserted.

Lab 4 Exercise 2 Task 2

Working with the entity manager

In the Item entitiy

Press ALT+INSERT to generate a constructor that takes all attributes except the id as an argument
Press ALT+INSERT to generate a default constructor

Create the ItemDao class in the (new) com.acme.daos package
1. Add a static EntityManagerFactory attribute
  1. Initialize the attribute with an EntityManagerFactory for your persistence unit
2. Implement the method
```
private EntityManager getEntityManager()
```
  The method should return an EntityManager created from the EntityManagerFactory attribute
3. Implement the method
```
public Item save(Item item) 
```
Create a unit test to test the save() method.
1. Right-click the Project node and choose New –> Other.
2. Select JUnit from the list of Categories and JUnit Test from the list of File Types, then click Next
3. In the ItemDao class, implement the following method:
```
public Item findByPrimaryKey(Long id)
```
4. Create an annotated test method called find in the ItemTest class to test the findByPrimaryKey method. In this method:
  1. Create a new Item and set all attributes except the id
  2. Save the Item using the ItemDao
  3. Pass the primary key of the saved item to findByPrimaryKey to retrieve the Item from the database
  4. Use the assertEquals method to test that the key of the returned Item has the same key.
  5. Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds.
  Optional steps
5. Create a method in the ItemDao class.
```
public void deleteByPrimaryKey(Long id) 
```
  1. Get an entity manager
  2. Start a transaction
  3. Look up the Item using the getReference method on the entity manager
  4. Delete the item using the remove method on the entity manager
  5. Commit the transaction
6. Create an annotated test method called find in the ItemTest class to test the deleteByPrimaryKey method. in this method:
  1. Create a new Item and set all attributes except the id
  2. Save the Item using the ItemDao
  3. Pass the primary key of the saved item to deleteByPrimaryKey to delete the Item from the database
  4. Pass the primary key of the saved item to findByPrimaryKey to retrieve the Item from the database
  5. Use the AssertNull method to verify that the item is not found.
Lab 5 Exercise 2 Task 1
Creating a unidirectional One-to-One relationship between two entities
1. Create the com.acme.entities.Auction entitiy with these attributes:
```
private Long auctionId;
private BigDecimal startAmount;
private BigDecimal increment;
private String status;
private Date openTime;
private Date closeTime;
private Item item;
```
2. Map the Date attributes to TIMESTAMP columns using the @Temporal annotation
3. Establish a OneToOne relation with Item
4. Press ALT+INSERT to generate getters and setters, a default constructor and a constructor accepting all attributes except the auctionId
5. Create the com.acme.daos.AuctionDao class
6. Create a unit test to test the save() method.
7. Add an import for static assertXXX JUnit utility methods:
```
import static org.junit.Assert.*;
```
8. Add an attribute
```
static AuctionDao auctionDao;
```
Create a test method called save() to test the save() method on the ItemDao

you may modify the method to pass the attributes in the constructor instead of using the setters

    @Test
    public void save(){
        Auction auction = new Auction();
        auction.setOpenTime(new Date());
        GregorianCalendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
        cal.roll(Calendar.MONTH, true);
        auction.setCloseTime(cal.getTime());
        auction.setStartAmount(new BigDecimal("100.00"));
        auction.setIncrement(new BigDecimal("10.00"));
        auction.setStatus(Status.OPEN)
        auction = auctionDao.save(auction);
        assertTrue("id is greater than zero", auction.getAuctionId() > 0);
    }

Right click ItemTest.java and choose Run File. Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds.

Lab 5 Exercise 3 Task 1

Creating a bidirectional One-to-Many/Many-to-One relationship

Add a bidirectional One-to-Many/Many-to-One relationship between Auction (1) and Bid (many)
1. Add an annotated bids attribute to the Auction entity
  1. Set cascade mode to ALL
  2. Initialize the attribute to an empty list of bids
2. Add an auction attribute to the Bid entity
  1. Press ALT+INSERT to generate auction getter/setter methods
  2. Add an annotation for the relationship
  3. Press ALT+INSERT to generate a constructor that takes all attributes except the id as arguments
  4. Press ALT+INSERT to generate a default constructor
3. Implement these methods in the Auction entity
```
public void addBid(Bid bid)
public int getBidCount()
```
Implement a saveBids() methods in the AuctionTest class
1. Create an auction
2. Add 3 new bids with amounts of 150, 175 and 225
3. Save the auction
4. Assert that the saved auction got an ID
5. Assert that the new auction has 3 bids
6. Run the test until it passes.

Lab 6 Exercise 2 Task 1

Persisting an Entity with a superclass

Create an entity called com.acme.entities BookItem.
Make the BookItem entity a subclass of Item.
The attributes of the entity are described in module 2 of the Student Guide.
In the main method add the creation of a BookItem and save it to the database.
Run the main method
Examine which changes were made to the database tables

Lab 7 Exercise 2 Task 1

Persisting an Entity with an enum Field

Create the Status enum.
1. Right click on the com.acme.entities package and choose New>Java class
  1. Type Status for the Class Name.
  2. Choose enum for the type
2. Click OK
Add these values to the enum: OPEN, CLOSED, CANCELLED
Refactor the type of Auction.status and change it to Status
1. Change getter and setter methods
2. Change the call to setStatus in AuctionTest.java
Run the AuctionTest and correct errors until it succeeds
Check the database definition of Auction.status and check the inserted data. What has changed?
Add an Enumerated annotation to the status field and set enumeration type to STRING
Run the AuctionTest and correct errors until it succeeds
Check the database definition of Auction.status and check the inserted data. What has changed?

Lab 7 Exercise 3 Task 1

Persisting an Entity with a List field

Add a Set of String keywords to the Item entity and initialize it to an empty Set.
Annotate it as an ElementCollection

Implement these methods:

public void addKeyword(String keyword)
public List<String> getKeywords()

Add an annotated test method saveKeywords() to ItemTest. You can use the test methods for bids in Auction as a source of inspiration.
Run the AuctionTest and correct errors until it succeeds.
Describe the database table where the keywords are saved.

Lab 8 Exercise 2

Performing a query with the Java Persistence API QL

Add a dynamicJpqlQuery() test to the ItemTest class. In the method

Perform this JPQL query (within a transaction)

DELETE FROM Item i

What does this query do?

Create 3 Items using ItemDao.save(Item i), using different values for all atributes.
Save them to the database
Perform a JPQL query to retrieve them
Assert you retrieved 3 results
perform a JPQL query to retrieve only items in stock
Assert you retrieved the correct number of results

Optional: Add a testPaging() test method that creates 25 Items and retrieves them in groups of maximum 10. Verify that it runs correctly.

Lab 8 Exercise 3

Performing a query with SQL

Copy the dynamicJpqlQuery() test in the ItemTest class to nativeSqlQuery()
In the method replace all queries with native queries

Lab 8 Exercise 4

Add a constructor to the Item class that accepts all attributes

Type ALT+INSERT into the item class
Choose Constructor…
Check all attributes except the ID
Click Generate

Add a default constructor to the Item class

Type ALT+INSERT into the item class
Choose Constructor…
Click Generate

Copy the CriteriaTest.java file from the labs08 directory to the com.acme.entities package in the test directory
Examine the code
Run the code

Lab 9 Exercise 2 Task 1

Creating and running a named query

Define a named query called ClearAuctions using an annotiation on the Auction entity that deletes all auctions
Define a named query called FindByStatusAuctions using an annotiation on the Auction entity. To define multiple named queries use @NamedQueries:
```
@NamedQueries( {
    @NamedQuery(name="xxx",query="XXXX"), 
    @NamedQuery(name="yyy",query="YYY") }
```
1. The query should select all auctions with a certain status
2. Set the status in the query as a named parameter
Add an annotated test method called testNamedQuery() to the AuctionTest clas.
Execute the ClearAuctions query (you can find inspiration in the tests in the previous chapter)
- Do not use the Dao, but create an EntityManager
- Perform the delete operation within a transaction
Execute the FindByStatusAuctions query to look for all closed auctions
Assert no entries are found
Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds
Modify the testNamedQuery() test to insert three auctions and add them to the auction table
1. Add a convenience constructor with common attributes and a default constructor to the entity
2. The start date of the first auction should be between those of the second and the third item(we will use this in the next exercise)
3. Only two auctions should be in open
4. Save them using the Dao
Assert one entry is found
Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds

Lab 9 Exercise 2 Task 2

Creating multiple named queries

Write a new NamedQuery FindAllAuctions that finds all auctions.
Copy the testNamedQuery() test to a new test and call it testOrderedQuery()
Replace the last query in the copied test method (FindByStatusAuctions) with the FindAllAuctions Query and store the results in a List
Assert that the first auction starts after the second.
Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds
Write a new NamedQuery called FindAllOrderByOpenTimeAuctions that sorts by ascending openTime.
Add the query at the end of testOrderedQuery.
Assert that the first auction starts before the second.

Lab 10 Exercise 2

Performing a Query With Multiple Criteria

Define a named query called clearItems that deletes all items. Use an annotation on the Item entity
Add an annotated test method called incompleteItems() to the ItemTest class.
In the incompleteItems method
1. Call the clearItems named query
2. Create 3 items.
  1. An Item with a description
  2. An Item with an image
  3. An Item with an image and a description
(Use test methods from previous labs for inspiration)
Build a criteria query that selects all items that have a description OR an image that is NULL
Hint: use CriteriaBuilder.isNull()
Execute the query
Assert 2 entries are found
Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds

Lab 10 Exercise 3 (extra)

Performing a query with a named parameter

Copy the incompleteItems() test method and call the copy namedParameter()
Replace the query with a Criteria query that selects all items with a given description
1. The description should be received as a parameter called “desc”
Execute the query for each description in your items
Assert that you get exactly one result each time
Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds

Lab 13 Exercise 2 Task 1

Creating a Composite Key

Create the BookPk class in the com.acme.enitities package
Add the @Embeddable annotation and the Serializable interface to theclass declaration.
```
@Embeddable
public class BookPk implements Serializable{
```
Add the following fields:
```
private String title;
private int edition;
```
1. Right-click an empty line and choose Insert Code.
2. Choose Getter and Setter.
3. Select all fields and click Generate.
4. Right-click an empty line and choose equals() and hashCode().
5. Select all fields in the list.
6. Click Generate.
Create the TextBook entity class in the the com.acme.enitities package
1. Add an EmbeddedId of type BookPk
2. Add attributes
```
private List<String> authors;
private int yearPublished;
```
3. Extra: Annotate the authors attribute as an ElementCollection
In the main method add the creation of a BookItem and save it to the database
Run the main method
Examine which changes were made to the database tables

Lab 13 Extra: Exercise 3 Task 1

Using validation

This lab supposes the validator reference implementation has been downloaded to $Home/pkg

In the projects window right click the libraries folder and select Add Library

Click Create...
Enter Library Name: Validation
Click OK

Click Add JAR/Folder...

Select $HOME/pkg/hibernate-validator/hibernate-validator*.jar

* depends on the version of validator

Click Add JAR/Folder...

Select $HOME/pkg/hibernate-validator/lib/required/validator-api-1.0.0.GA.jar

Click OK

Click Add Library

In the Item entity annotate the image with a validation that

prints the message "Only JPG images are accepted"
only accept values matching this pattern

".*\\.jpg"

In the ItemTest class add a test method test Validation that

saves an Item with a null image
saves an item with an image string ending in .jpg
saves an item with an image string ending in .gif

surround the last save line with a try block
catch a ConstraintViolationException

add an empty catch block

in the try block add as a last line

        fail("picture.gif should fail validation");

Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds

NetBeans hints (edit)

2011-09-25T13:31:00.000+02:00

Keyboard shortcuts

view, search (NB >= 6.7) & change shortcuts: tools => options => keymap

You can set the keymap to a profile from another IDE (Eclipse, IntelliJ...) here as well.

help => keyboard shortcuts card. The pdf that is shown, lives in
netbeansInstallDir/nb/shortcuts.pdf. Some additional useful shortcuts:

CTRL SPACE: autocomplete popup

CTRL K: complete to recently typed word

CTRL click: go to definition

CTRL ALT click: go to implementation

CTRL –/+: fold/unfold code

CTRL ; => add semicolon at end of line

CTRL/ALT SHIFT F12: inspect members/hierarchy current selection

Running code

After you ran a program, and corrected some errors Rerun using the >> buttons. Other buttons are Rerun with different parameters and Stop.

Similar options are available for (individual) tests.
- You can also launch an individual test by positioning the cursor in the method and selecting "Run focused test" from the right click menu.

JPA 2 differences (edit)

2011-09-22T21:54:00.000+02:00

JPA 2 is a superset of JPA 1. Added features include:

Entities

mixing of field and getter method annotations
JSR 303 validation

Relations

unidirectional OneToMany
use JoinTable for all relation cardinalities

Automatic actions upon Entity changes

CascadeType.DETACH
orphanRemoval: delete an orphan Entity if its relation to its parent Entity is broken

Collections

Support for mapping collections of Basic and Embeddable types (@ElementCollection)
Map keys and values can both be Basic, Embeddable and Entity types

Embeddables

Can be nested
Can have attributes with relations
Can inherit from a MappedSuperclass

Ordering

@OrderBy: determine order in which elements of List attributes are loaded
@OrderColumn: support for preserving List order in the database using an OrderColumn

Queries

TypedQuery <T>
Criteria API

metamodel generation

JPQL

functions and operations in SELECT clause
COALESCE function (returns first non null argument)
TYPE function: get class of Entity to compare with literal
CASE expression
KEY, VALUE, and ENTRY keywords for map operations
use of enums
enum and temporal literals

Locking

pessimistic locking support
lock mode arguments in EntityManager methods

Cache API

JPA 2 is implemented in Hibernate 3.5+

JPA : choose your enum ordinals

2011-09-21T22:01:00.001+02:00

Ordinal enums are brittle with JPA.
If you change the order of the enum constants,
the ordinal number that is saved to the database changes.

You can solve that by assigning your own code in the enum (10,20,30 in the example).
In the entity, make the enum transient.
Before saving the entity put your code in an int attribute, which will be stored in the database.
After loading convert the int back to the enum.

public enum Status{
  OPEN(10), CLOSED(20), CANCELLED(30);
  private int code;  
  
  private Status(int code) {  
    this.code = code;  
  }  
       
  public int getCode() {  
    return code;  
  }
     
  public static  Status getStatus(int code){
    for (Status stat : Status.values()) {
      if (stat.getCode()==code) return stat;
    }
    return null; // not found: invalid code
  }
}
       
@Entity
public class Auction{
  private int status;
  @Transient private Status statEnum;

  public int getStatus(){
    return status;
  }

   public void setStatus(int status){
    this.status = status;
  }

  @PostLoad private void int2enum(){
    statenum = Status.getStatus(status);
  }

  @PrePersist private void enum2int(){
    status = statEnum.getCode();
  }
  //...
}

NB: kudos to Guy for moving conversion to callbacks.

JPA entity state transitions and EntityManager methods

2011-09-19T17:09:00.000+02:00

only the most common EntityManager methods are mentioned
void return types have been omitted
refresh() is also loading from the database

Java logging toolkit levels mapping

2011-09-18T19:00:00.001+02:00

A comparison of the logging levels (or methods) in different logging toolkits. I omitted the ALL and NONE levels.

java.util logging	log4j/slf4j
FINEST	TRACE
FINE	DEBUG
INFO	INFO
WARNING	WARN
SEVERE	ERROR

Hibernate labs

2011-09-16T11:35:00.000+02:00

Lab 1 Exercise 0

Adding Hibernate JPA 2 support

Start the NetBeans IDE
Select Tools > Libraries

New Library...

Library Name: HibernateJPA2
Add Jar/Folder...

Go to the $HOME/pkg directory and add jars as described here

Click OK

Select this library in subsequent exercises when you need to add a JPA 2 library

Lab 10 Exercise 2

Performing a Query With Multiple Criteria

Define a named query called clearItems that deletes all items. Use an annotation on the Item entity
Add an annotated test method called incompleteItems() to the ItemTest class.
In the incompleteItems method
1. Call the clearItems named query
2. Create 3 items.
  1. An Item with a description
  2. An Item with an image
  3. An Item with an image and a description
(Use test methods from previous labs for inspiration)
Build a criteria query that selects all items that have a description OR an image that is NULL
Hint: use static methods in Restrictions
Execute the query
Assert 2 entries are found
Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds

Lab 10 Exercise 3

Using data filters

Define a filter called BidsApproved that limits bids to those that have their approval set to "OK"
Annotate the Bid class to associate the filter BidsApproved with it.
Write a test method called testApprovedBids(). In the testmethod

Initialize test data

Clear all the Bids from the database
Clear all the Auctions from the database
Create an Auction
Create 3 bids

Only one bid should have approved set to "OK"
All bids should be associated with the Auction
Add all bids to the Auction (bidirectional relation)

Save the Auction

Enable the BidsApproved filter
Select all the bids
Assert that only one bid is returned
Disable the BidsApproved filter
Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds

Extend the test method (just before disabling the bidsApproved filter

Select all the Auctions
Get all the Bids from the first Auction that is returned
Assert that only one bid is returned
disable the BidsApprovedfilter at the end of te
Run the test and write down the result

Activate the filter on the bids Collection

In the Auction class, annotate the bids attribute with the BidsApproved filter
Run the test and correct errors until it succeeds

Lab Performance Exercise 1

Adding L2 EhCache support

In the projects tab, right click the Libraries folder and choose "Add Jar/Folder..."

Go to the $HOME/pkgpkg/ehcache/lib directory and add the ehcache-core jar

Add caching support to persistence.xml

Set the hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache property to true
Add the EhCache provider

 <property name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class"
 value="org.hibernate.cache.SingletonEhCacheRegionFactory"/>

For monitoring

set the hibernate.generate_statistics property to true
Make sure you log Hibernate generated SQL

Caching the Item entity

Add READ_ONLY caching to the Item entity using the @Cache annotation (from org.hibernate.annotations)
Add an annotated test method called testReadCache() to the ItemTest class. Throughout this exercise, print out what you are doing before each database access, to make your test output easier to follow. In the test method do these actions:
1. Create a org.hibernate.stat.Statistics objec
2. Create an Item, save it and get its ID
3. Print out cache hits and misses
4. Lookup the Item again, using the ID
5. Print out cache hits and misses
6. Lookup the Item again, using the ID
7. Print out cache hits and misses
Run the tests and correct any errors. Observe the cache behaviour. Observe that the generated SQL statements are not printed when the cache is used.
At the end of the test method add code to:

Evict everything from the cache
Lookup the Item
Print out cache hits and misses

Run the tests and correct any errors. Observe the cache behaviour.
At the end of the test method add code to:

Modfy the description of the Item to "changed"
Merge the saved Item to the database

Add an update(Item it) method to the ItemDao class for this (if it did not exist yet).

Lookup the Item
Print out cache hits and misses
Assert that the description of the looked up Item is set to "changed"

Run the test. Record the cache behaviour. An exception can be thrown.
Modify the Item caching concurrency annotation to NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE
Run the test until it succeeds. Record the cache behaviour and compare with the previous result.
Modify the Item caching concurrency annotation to READ_WRITE
Run the test until it succeeds. Record the cache behaviour and compare with the previous result.

Caching the keywords collection

In the testReadCache() method, add some keywords to the Item, before it is initially saved to the database.
At the end of the method, add these instructions (remember to add some tracing statements as well):

get the number of keywords associated with the Item
Print out cache hits and misses
Lookup the Item again, using the ID
Print out cache hits and misses
get the number of keywords associated with the Item
Print out cache hits and misses

Run the test. Record the cache behaviour.
Annotate the keywords collection to cache it with READ_WRITE concurrency
Run the test until it succeeds. Record the cache behaviour and compare with the previous result.

Lab Design Patterns Exercise 1

In this lab you will build a superclass with common behaviour for Data Access Objects.
To keep things simple, this template supposes that all primary keys are of type Long.

Copy the GenericJpaDao template from $HOME/labs/lab_design to the com.acme.daos package.
Implement the empty methods (look for //TODO comments)

Use the TClass attribute whenever you need to supply the entity class

Adapt the class that interacts with the database for Item entities to use GenericJpaDao

Let the class inherit from GenericJpaDao

public class ItemDao extends GenericJpaDao<Item>

Refactor all methods in the ItemDao so there names match the names used in GenericJpaDao (Refactoring will update all classes that use these methods to use the new names)

Then delete these methods

In the Item Test class

Create attributes

private static EntityManagerFactory emf;
private static ItemDao itemDao;

If not yet present, create a method

@BeforeClass public static void setUpClass(){}

In the method

create a factory with the name of your persistence unit
call itemDao.setEntityManagerFactory(emf);

Create a static attribute for the ItemDao and assign an instance to it in SetUpClass()
Review your test methods and use the created Data Access Object in them

Run the tests until they succeed

Write down some suggestions for enhancing the GenericJpaDao class

What did you do on 9/11?

2011-09-13T07:47:00.000+02:00

I was teaching a Solaris security course that day, with some NATO people in the class.
I remember meeting my colleague Guido in the corridor saying "World War III just started".
I told the class the news and went on with the course.
Next morning, Raoul, manager of Sun Education Belgium, had a minute of silence for everybody.
One of the British officers told another NATO attendee he should not be wearing a US Army T-shirt, because he was exposing himself as a target.

Reasons to be

2011-09-08T14:43:00.000+02:00

Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly
Good golly Miss Molly and boats
Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet
Jump back in the alley and nanny goats

18-wheeler Scammels, Domenecker camels
All other mammals plus equal votes
Seeing Piccadilly, Fanny Smith and Willy
Being rather silly, and porridge oats

A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it
You're welcome, we can spare it - yellow socks
Too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty
Going on 40 - no electric shocks

The juice of the carrot, the smile of the parrot
A little drop of claret - anything that rocks
Elvis and Scotty, days when I ain't spotty,
Sitting on the potty - curing smallpox

Health service glasses
Gigolos and brasses
round or skinny bottoms

Take your mum to Paris
lighting up the chalice
Wee Willy Harris

Bantu Stephen Biko, listening to Rico
Harpo, Groucho, Chico

Cheddar cheese and pickle, the Vincent motorsickle
Slap and tickle
Woody Allen, Dali, Dimitri and Pasquale
balabalabala and Volare

Something nice to study, phoning up a buddy
Being in my nuddy
Saying hokey-dokey, Sing Along With Smokey
Coming out of chokey

John Coltrane's soprano, Adi Celentano
Bonar Colleano

Reasons to be cheerful, part 3 - Ian Dury

The Object Relational Gap (updated)

2011-08-26T11:38:00.000+02:00

The Object	Relational Gap
transient (mostly)	persistent
classes	tables (user defined datatypes)
inheritance
attributes	columns
objects	rows
instance attribute	field
implicity ID: reference	explicit ID: primary key
relations	relations
references	foreign keys
unidirectional	bidirectional
ordered (lists)
behaviour centric	data centric
behaviour based partitioning	relation based partitioning
methods	stored procedures
tight behaviour-data coupling	triggers, constraints
data hiding, encapsulation
	Permissions

NetBeans 7 new features (updated)

2011-07-20T13:37:00.000+02:00

NetBeans 7 is approved for release now. Here's a list of new features

Remote glassfish interaction
Java 7 support

string switch
enhanced try/catch

multicatch

catch(IOException | FileNotFoundException ex){...}

java.lang.AutoCloseable resources

literal enhancements:

binary numbers

int localhost=0b1111111000000000000000000000001;

underscores (for readability)

double million

=2_000_000.00;

static java.util.Objects#equals/hashCode/hash utilities

Maven 3 support
HTML 5 support
JSON formatter
Git natively integrated
JUnit is now an unbundled plugin (Oracle legal had problems with the old CPL license)
easy JPA 2 metamodel generation

The netbeans 7.0/Glassfish 3.1 combination is still a bit flaky though.

NetBeans, Hibernate and JPA2

2011-07-15T18:52:00.000+02:00

When you create a new persistence unit in a standalone NetBeans project, it only proposes Hibernate with JPA1.
This is because NetBeans bundles an old Hibernate release.
To work with Hibernate/JPA2, download a recent Hibernate (>= 3.5) and SLF4J (same version as the one used in your hibernate download).
Add a new persistence library with these jars from the hibernate installation directory:

hibernate3.jar
jars from lib/jpa folder
jars from lib/required folder
an SLF4J implementation library from the SLF4J download, e.g. slf4j-jdk14-1.6.1.jar

if you are using ehcache there is no need to download SLF4J separately. It bundles slf4j-jdk14-1.6.1.jar.

NetBeans (>= 6.9) will recognize the library as a Hibernate/JPA2 provider.

Mapping the Unified Process to CMMI

2011-07-07T13:09:00.006+02:00

The (Rational) Unified Process (RUP or UP) is an iterative software development process. It was originally developed by the creators of UML at Rational Rose (now IBM).

CMMI (Capability Maturity Model and Integration) is a model that identifies the characteristics for a good software process within an organisation and defines metrics to be used to measure and improve the maturity of this process. CMMI is developed and governed by the SEI at Carnegie Mellon University. CMMI identifies 5 maturity levels:

Initial
Managed (reactive process)
Defined (proactive process)
Quantitatively managed (measured & controlled)
Optimizing

The table below how well the Unified Process implements the CMMI constellation for Development (CMMI-DEV). The table below groups the CMMI-DEV process areas by category. The higher the maturity level associated with a process area, the darker blue the background color is. For each process area we show how well UP covers this project area, using a crude High-Medium-Low classification. The table is based on data from SEI and from IBM.

CMMI Category	Process Area		Maturity level	UP support	UP remarks
Project Management	PP	Project Planning	2	High	only software aspects no data management
	PMC	Project Monitoring and Control	2	High	no data management
	SAM	Supplier Agreement Management	2	Low
	IPM	Integrated Project Management	3	Medium	weak integration of plans and managing dependencies between them
	RSKM	Risk Management	3	High	should add risk parameters
	QPM	Qunatitiative Project Management	4	Low	no process decomposition no statistical analysis
Engineering	REQM	Requirements Management	2	High
	RD	Requirements Development	3	High	should add allocating component requirements
	TS	Technical Solution	3	High	no alternative solutions no reuse/build/buy analysis
	PI	Product Integration	3	High
	VER	Verification	3	High	should add recording mechanism for reviews
	VAL	Validation	3	High
Support	CM	Configuration Management	2	High
	PPQA	Process and Product Quality Assurance	2	High
	MA	Measurement and Analysis	2	High	should add quantitative metrics and analysis
	DAR	Decision Analysis and Resolution	3	Low
	CAR	Causal Analysis and Resolution	5	Low	support for actions on defects and evaluation
Process Management	OPF	Organizational Process Focus	3	Low	basic support
	OPD	Organisational Process Defintion	3	Medium	basic support
	OT	Organizational Training	3	Low
	OPP	Oprganisational Process Performance	4	Low
	OPM	Organizational Performance Management	5	Low

Wikileaks sues credit card companies

2011-07-04T14:52:00.000+02:00

We talked earlier about payment clearing houses blocking payments to Wikileaks.
Wikileaks and their ISP are now suing Visa and MasterCard in Denmark for this action.

FJ-310, lab 4, Exercise 2, task 2, step 7

2011-06-19T09:38:00.000+02:00

Retrieve the "customerIdentity" request parameter
Use the identity to look up the customer in the model and save it to the "customer" attribute
Use the identity to look up the customer shares in the model and save them to the "shares" attribute
If there is an exception, save its message to the "message" attribute

WSDL 1.1 data model (updated)

2011-06-17T12:48:00.000+02:00

Our new logo

2011-06-16T12:03:00.003+02:00

(thanks to Olivier)

Web services/REST resources

2011-06-04T10:13:00.005+02:00

Apache CXF resources
Webservices standards overview
SOAP UI beans and testing tool

Netbeans and metro are fine, but this tool has got a few nice extra's
Pub for the Pro version is a bit disturbing
I tried the Netbeans plugin in Netbeans 7, but got an error when running it ('testrunner.bat' is not recognized as an internal or
external command.). Probably not a big deal, but I did not bother investigating and went for the desktop version which works fine.
Here's a little howto

JAXB tutorial
Firefox RESTClient addon
Oracle Certified Expert, Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 6 Web Services Developer Study Guide

Finally, a reason to use facebook

2011-05-16T12:44:00.000+02:00

PROTECT IP: new US website blocking bill

2011-05-14T12:44:00.000+02:00

The PROTECT IP act, a new US law proposal, will greatly extend last year's COICA internet censorship proposal:

PROTECT IP is targeted at infringement of rights, so it is targeted at distribution of copyrighted material and counterfeited articles.

As such there does not seem to be a problem with that, but it remains to be seen how easily this can be stretched. It might be sufficient to find one non compliant item on a site to take action against the entire site. In the past single clips have caused actions against the entire YouTube site.

PROTECT IP will no longer try to seize domain names, instead it will target intermediate, servicing sites.

This makes it easier to target sites outside the US.

Plaintiffs can by simple court order, take direct against revenue sources for these sites (payment clearing and advertisers).

The site does not have to be notified to be able to defend itself.
The site is notified when action is taken against them starts, if they have an address in the US.
There is a procedure to fight the order afterwards.

If plaintiff completes a procedure at the Department Of Justice that declares that a site is infringing rights, it can also order the site to be removed from search engine results and ISP hosting.

This is a tactic that is copied from the Great Chinese Firewall.

PROTECT IP encourages intermediate sites to do self censorship. If Google or Visa stop doing business with a site because they think it is not kosher, they are protected by law

We have seen such actions by payment providers against WikiLeaks, without any legal order to do so.
Arbitrary business boycotts will now be legal.

Full text and petition against the act.

US CERT recommends disabling WebGL

2011-05-11T08:53:00.002+02:00

HTML 5 is sometimes seen as a flash killer, because of the new <canvas> tag. <canvas> can be used to draw graphics via scripting (usually JavaScript).
Firefox 4 and Chrome 9 support 3D graphics in <canvas> through the WebGL API. WebGL is developed by the non-profit Khronos consortium, basically consisting of everybody but Microsoft.
WebGL accesses your hardware driver, giving you hardware acceleration, but also exposing you to a set of vulnerabilities. US CERT now recommends disabling the feature.
To disable WebGL in Firefox, change the preferences:

navigating to the special about:config URL.
promise to be careful on the warning page
type webgl in the filter bar
toggle the webgl:disabled setting to true

Sun Grid Engine @ Oracle

2011-05-06T10:27:00.006+02:00

Sun Grid Engine used to be available as an Open Source product.
With the purchase of Sun by Oracle, the product will be called Oracle Grid Engine.
Future Oracle Grid Engine versions will no longer be open source.The current version of Oracle Grid Engine is 6.2 update 7.
The Open Source version at the time of the transition (6.2 update 5) was moved to SourceForge and re-branded to Open Grid Scheduler. There is limited activity and progress on the open source project.
Univa provides commercial support for the open source product at $100 yearly per core. Univa also sells a product with closed source extensions as Univa Grid Engine version 8.

Oracle recently reversed its policy of commercialising Sun open source projects for some products that successfully forked:

Oracle stopped the commercial version of OpenOffice (but AFAIK the ODF 1.2 plugin for MS Office is still not free)
Oracle proposed to moved control of Hudson to the Eclipse foundation, after the fork of Jenkins

I doubt that a similar move will happen for Grid Engine

JPA links (updated)

2011-04-25T23:18:00.003+02:00

Reference implementation.

Official documentation:

Others:

Wikibook (incomplete)

Providers often have good JPA documentation as well. Might include extensions (and JDO stuff) though:

Some tips:

Servlet 3 (JSR 315) containers (updated)

2011-04-14T21:05:00.001+02:00

Servlet v3 support in different web application containers + current support state

Glassfish 3+ (12/2009)
Tomcat 7 (1/2011)
Jetty 8 (milestone)
JBoss 6 (12/2010)
IBM WebSphere v8 (beta)

Google App Engine: JPA or Objectify?

2011-04-06T11:14:00.004+02:00

In practice, the biggest difference after abandoning JDO/JPA is that you will stop screaming loudly at your computer, annoying your coworkers.

Jeff Schnitzer

Full post

IPv4 addresses more expensive than .com domains

2011-03-25T11:31:00.002+01:00

Microsoft has bought more than half a million IPv4 addresses from the bankrupt Nortel Networks for 7 million dollar. At $11 per address, this is more expensive than a .com domain name. (although one can argue that it is not more expensive than a good .com domain name).
IPv4 free address space is depleted since February.

2011-03-22T21:29:00.002+01:00

Most teams aren't teams at all but merely collections of individual relations with the boss. Each individual vying with the other for power, prestige and position

Douglas McGregor

The system being produced will tend to have a structure that mirrors the structure of the group that is producing it. One should take advantage of this fact and then deliberatly design the group structure so as to achieve the desired system structure.

Conway's law

Belgian ticket shop Olympic Games 2012 down

2011-03-18T10:07:00.000+01:00

Belgian tickets for the London Olympic games are sold through an online webshop by Suseia.
The sale started last tuesday night, but could not service the load. It was taken off line and restarted the next morning with doubled capacity. After the relaunch it still had problems and produced all kinds of errors in the sales process.
The site is now taken offline for more than a month to correct the problems.
Suseia does not want to disclose the name of the company that built the shop.
According to a tweet by JF Hovinne, a freelancer and working for Vox Teneo, the site was built with Drupal.

Maven 2.1 site command trouble

2011-02-28T20:43:00.002+01:00

The maven site command allows you to generate project documentation, as explained in an earlier post for maven 2.0.

Running mvn:site with Maven version 2.1, I had some problems however:

site plugin version error
SiteToolException: ArtifactNotFoundException: The skin does not exist: Un able to determine the release version
Apparently the skin plugin does not install automatically with a version, so force the issue, from the command line:
$ svn checkout http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/maven/skins/trunk/
$ cd trunk
$ mvn install -DupdateReleaseInfo=true

doxia ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException

[WARNING] Deprecated API called - not org.apache.maven.doxia.sink.Sink
instance and no SinkFactory available. Please update this plugin.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] FATAL ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] 1
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[DEBUG] Trace
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1
at org.apache.maven.doxia.module.xhtml.XhtmlSink.tableCell(XhtmlSink.java:791)

This error is caused by some maven/module version mismatches.
To solve this second issue, add a <pluginManagement> element under the build element to set compatible versions. <pluginManagement> has a <plugins> child element. Do not confuse this with the <plugins> child of the <buid> element.

<project>
   ...
   <build>
     <pluginManagement>
         <plugins>
           <plugin>
             <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
             <artifactId>maven-site-plugin</artifactId>
             <version>2.1.1</version>
             <dependencies>
               <dependency>
                <groupId>commons-httpclient</groupId>
                <artifactId>commons-httpclient</artifactId>
                <version>3.1</version>
                <exclusions>
                 <exclusion>
                   <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                   <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
                 </exclusion>
               </exclusions>
             </dependency>
            </dependencies>
          </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
    ...
 </build>
  ...
</project>

This modification takes care of the exception, and your documentation generation will succeed. The [WARNING]s above, however, will remain.

Networking bookmarks (updated)

2011-02-23T10:55:00.000+01:00

TCP/IP Illustrated Vol I (The protocols) / W Richard Stevens
STD's (Internet Protocal Standards)
IPv6 adoption and IPv4 depletion
DNS root servers
NTP

NTP server pool Belgium
Blueprints

iPhone usage

2011-02-17T13:04:00.002+01:00

Patent war games

2011-02-09T19:26:00.003+01:00

Some nice step by step presentations of recent patent wars by Florian Mueller:

SearchBlox is now free

2011-01-06T13:23:00.004+01:00

SearchBlox is an easy to use search server based on Apache Lucene.
It comes as Java web application which you just deploy in your web container.
Then you configure your search definitions through the web forms in the web application.
You can integrate with the search engine using a REST based API.
We have successfully integrated it in customer web sites without any hassle.
The good news is that from now on SearchBlox is free, as in free beer. It is still closed source however.

Adding JSTL/JSP EL to your web applicaton (updated)

2010-12-19T14:25:00.003+01:00

Quite some environments do not come with JSTL: Eclipse for JEE (Galileo), Tomcat 6, Jetty 6... Follow these steps to add them:

Add JSTL
Grab the JSTL API (jstl-api.jar) and JSTL implementation (jstl-impl-1.2.jar).
Add the jars to your Container (e.g. Tomcat) lib directory (or your webapp lib).
Alternatively add them using maven dependencies:
```
<dependency>
  <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
  <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
  <version>1.2</version>
</dependency>
```

Make sure the web-app root element in web.xml supports at least servlet 2.4/JSP 2.0

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee
 http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd" version="2.4">

If you use <taglib> elements in web.xml, make sure they are embedded in a <jsp-config> element.

Wikileaks: free speech to the test

2010-12-04T11:03:00.006+01:00

As much as I understand that the US wants to protect its confidential information, incidents like these are a good test for democratic values. After all there's a lot of criticism on China. But just how much better are other regimes?

Wikileaks got bumped from US Amazon cloud servers. A good indication of inherent risks of control one has when running cloud based services.
Wikileaks was also removed from French servers. Because France does not want confidential diplomatic information of other coutnries to be available. I doubt that France is applying this as a general rule to all diplomatic information from all countires.
Wikileaks was removed from DNS provider EveryDNS, because it breached the terms of contract. The ongoing denial of service attacks against the site were compromising the service for other clients. Instead of giving good service and protection and going after the attackers, the service provider says the customer is in error? Fun: now botnets can remove all EveryDNS customers by picking them as a DOS target.
Paypal (a subsidiary of US based eBay) blocks donations for WikiLeaks because they do not transfer money for criminal activities. The strange thing about these actions by US companies is that they are based on private company regulations rather than public law.

Using JPA with Spring

2010-11-27T18:12:00.001+01:00

SL-370 module 1 shows an example of using JPA with Java SE.
If you want to use Spring with JPA, the java code is just like in Java EE. Here's how the configuration files for Spring look for an example similar to the Java SE example:

persistence.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<persistence version="2.0"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd">
 <persistence-unit name="StockPU" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
 <provider>org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider</provider>
 <properties>
  <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="public"/>
  <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="public"/>
  <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" 
   value="jdbc:derby:MyDB;create=true"/>
  <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" 
   value="org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver"/>
  <property name="eclipselink.ddl-generation" value="drop-and-create-tables"/>
  <property name="eclipselink.logging.level" value="SEVERE"/>
 </properties>
 </persistence-unit>
</persistence>

Spring XML configuration snippet(e.g. in application-config.xml):

<bean id="entityManagerFactory" 
 class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean" 
 lazy-init="true">
 <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="StockPU" />
</bean>
<bean name="transactionManager" 
 class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager">
 <property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="entityManagerFactory" />
</bean>

<tx:annotation-driven />

IPFilter Components / Solaris 10

2010-11-27T10:43:00.002+01:00

For Solaris 10 8/7 (u4) and higher:

Commands
- svcadm: enable/disable ipfilter
- ipf: manage rulebase
  - -Fa: flush (remove) all rules
  - -f file: load rules from file
- ipnat: manage Network Access Translation rules
  - -F: flush (remove) all rules
  - -f file: load rules from file
- ipfstat: show statistics
  - -io: show active rulebase
Daemons
- ipmon: monitor logging device
  - -D: daemon mode
  - -s: log to syslog local0 facility
Files
- /dev/ipl: device from which you can read log entries
Kernel module

Links

Windows 7: Subsystem for Unix-based applications (SUA)

2010-11-21T17:42:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I was trying to telnet from my new Windows 7 PC and... telnet was not there anymore. I had to go to "Control panel>Programs and Features>Turn Windows features on or off" to activate it.
While being in turn features on/off there was some other interesting stuff:

NFS client (!)
Subsystem for Unix-based applications

Subsystem for Unix-based applications (SUA) is the new name for Windows Services for UNIX (SFU),which in its turn is an evolution of the Interix system that Microsoft acquired. It is a set of utilities that make Windows POSIX compliant and eligible for tenders that require POSIX. Compliance is a very different goal then features and usability, so don't expect too much. The option is only present on Ultimate/Enterprise editions (Vista or later).

After rebooting I could go to All Programs > Subsystem for Unix-based applications and... download utilities for Subsystem for Unix-based applications. That's right, it just enables the possibility to run POSIX programs, but Unix utilities themselves were not bundled, not even a shell.

Going to the download page you get these choices:

Utilities and SDK for UNIX-based Applications_AMD64.exe

use for 64 bit Windows on Intel or AMD x86 processors

Utilities and SDK for UNIX-based Applications_IA64.exe

Use for Intel itanium

Utilities and SDK for UNIX-based Applications_X86.exe

use for 32bit Windows on Intel or AMD x86 processors

Take special care, to download the AMD64 file for Intel 64bit x86 architecture. Microsoft supposes unix heads know that AMD did not follow Intel on the 64bit Itanium path and made a 64 bit x86 (pentium) architecture version. Afterwards Intel followed the AMD strategy and started producing 64bit x86 processors as well.

When installing, choose custom installation if you want to include GNU stuff. When installation is done, Windows prompts for another reboot.

Your system is by default installed with a root directory mapped to c:\Windows\SUA. You can now start a shell from the SUA menu. You can also run commands from windows by passing them as arguments to c:\Windows\posix.exe. From a SUA shell you can access your windows drives from /dev/fs (e.g. /dev/fs/C is your C drive).

Solaris Bookmarks (updated)

2010-11-20T16:11:00.001+01:00

Oracle

documentation

Oracle Technology Network (OTN) (was bigadmin)

Technical Articles

Solaris for Linux administrators

OpenSolaris

With the purchase by Oracle the open source distribution of Solaris was discontinued. OpenIndiana is a public domain fork. Solaris Express continues with binary snapshots, starting with Solaris 11.

Information

Software

Solaris 11 express released

2010-11-20T13:28:00.002+01:00

Oracle has made the first release of Solaris 11 Express available for download. The final release will be somewhere next year. It is the first major Solaris release under the governance of Oracle. You can download the OS for free (and for testing). Take care: the default download is a text based installer, scroll down to get a GUI based installer.

New feature digest:

Image Packaging System (IPS)

A new software package system
Repositories (depot servers) providing packages over the network

mirrors
can assist in network install (Automated Installer)

Automatic updates
legacy solaris packages (pkg) supported

Distribution constructor builds an OS image from a manifest (descriptor file). Images can be

directly installed on client
ISO image
VM image

Boot environments: streamlined Live Upgrade using ZFS snapshots
ZFS

ZFS boot/root environment
deduplication: detect duplicate data and store single copy
encrypted datasets

security

root is a role now
labeling extensions

apply labels to IPSec
apply labels to ZFS datasets
require an extra password to access a labeled resource

bash is the default user shell, ksh the default system shell
optional graphical boot screen
CUPS printing service is the default printing service

printer discovery

Open Sound System API support (Boomer)
Linux removable media management replaces the volume manager (vold)
Command assistant: full text search tool to get information on Solaris commands
git is bundled (distributed version control system for development)
Networking enhancements

Solaris 11 networking enhancements

2010-11-20T13:27:00.013+01:00

As of Solaris 11 Express 2010.11 these enhancements are included:

Network automagic (NWAM): dynamically configure fixed or wireless network depending on discovery and profiles
Network automagic
sockets no longer use STREAMS
Solaris can work as a (L2) bridge (IETF TRILL)
unified handling of different types of network interfaces (project Clearview)

dladm extended (project Brussels)
virtual interfaces, IP tunnels and IPMP can now be accessed as generic IP interfaces. They can now be sniffed (e.g. lo0, traffic between zones...) , asssigned as an exlusive stack to a zone...

use virtual network interfaces (VNIC), virtual switches (etherstubs) and virtual routers, bridges and servers (zones) to siumulate an entire network on a single system (project Crossbow)

zones can exclusivly own an IP stack without a dedicated physical interface (NIC)

Link protection: limit ability of NIC to send spoofed packets
VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy protocol)

Earlier Solaris 10 networking enhancements.

Java annotations primer (updated)

2010-11-07T16:10:00.004+01:00

Slides: an introduction to annotations in Java.

Solaris 10 networking enhancements by release overview (updated)

2010-11-03T11:10:00.005+01:00

Overview of most important changes for networking in solaris 10 releases.
3/5 (base)

specify source IP by (virtual) interface. Example:
# ifconfig eri0 usesrc vni0 The virtual IP vni interface is not associated with any physical hardware and is thus immune to hardware failures. If vni0 has address 10.0.0.1 assigned to it, the system will prefer 10.0.0.1 as the source address for any packets originated by local connections that are sent through eri0.
RIPv2, BGP, and OSPF through GNU Zebra (adapted for Solaris)
/usr/lib/mail -> /etc/mail/cf
routeadm command
rdisc wrapped into in.routed
use ifconfig to configure ipforwarding for individual interfaces
IP quality of service (IPQoS)
WAN boot installation
SSH 3.5p1 (adapted for Solaris)
Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)

1/6 (u1)

SMTP over TLS
source address filtering on multicast traffic
dladm command for data link (layer 2) configuration, link aggregation (ethernet trunk)
IGMPv3 and MLDv2 (IPv6) routing support

6/6 (u2)

IPFilter for IPv6

11/6 (u3)

Mandatory Access Control (from Trusted Solaris) for networking and other functions
Set secure by default network profile during installation

8/7 (u4)

SMF based routing services (svcadm in addition to routeadm)
merge /etc/inet/ipnodes (for IPv6) into /etc/inet/hosts
GNU Quagga routing suite replaces GNU Zebra
Key Management Framework for PKI
encryption kit included + MD4, MD5, SHA1, and SHA2
exclusive access to physical network interfaces by non-global zones
DHCPv6 client
IPFilter firewall enhancements
- pfil driver/daemon removed (replaced by packet filter hooks)
- IPv6 support
- loopback interface support

5/9 (u7)

SHA2 512bit, Diffie-Hellman 4096 bit

10/9 (u8)

NTP 4.1.2

9/10 (u9)

The client queue runner is now a separate daemon (svc:/network/smtp:sendmail-client). It used to be part of sendmail (svc:/network/smtp:sendmail).
The net_access privilege has been added to the basic privilege set. Denying this privilege, cuts network access.

Handling comments with SAX

2010-10-14T21:18:00.002+02:00

DOM and StAX will readily handle XML comments.
With SAX you will need to register an extra handler to be called for comments and other lexical events (CDATA, DTD, Entities).
Here's a little code snippet, that shows how to set up your SAX parser to print comments:

      SAXParser parser = SAXParserFactory.newInstance().newSAXParser();
      parser.setProperty(
        "http://xml.org/sax/properties/lexical-handler",
        new LexicalHandler() {
          public void comment(char[] ch, int start, int length)
            throws SAXException {
            System.out.println(
              "<!-- comment: " + String.valueOf(ch, start, length) + " -->");
          }
          public void startDTD(String name, String publicId, String systemId)
            throws SAXException { }
          public void endDTD() throws SAXException { }
          public void startEntity(String name) throws SAXException { }
          public void endEntity(String name) throws SAXException { }
          public void startCDATA() throws SAXException { }
          public void endCDATA() throws SAXException { } 
        });

New DOM modules by Level

2010-10-11T14:43:00.008+02:00

The W3C DOM specification is partitioned in a set of modules
Release versions of the DOM specification by W3C are called levels.
The table below shows which new modules appeared in each Level. Each higher level contains all modules of previous levels.
Note: DOM Level 2 also introduces namespaces.

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Core	XML	Xpath
HTML	Views	Validation
	Range	Load and Save
	Traversal	Asynchronous Load
	Stylesheets	Mutation Name Events
	CSS	UI Events
	CSS2	Text Events
	Events	Keyboard Events
	User Interface Events
	Mouse Events
	Mutation Events
	HTML Events

Modules can be optional and can have different W3C recommendation statusses. You can check if your implementation supports a module using DOMImplementation.hasFeature(module, level). Append ".0" to the level number (e.g. "3.0" for Level 3).

DOM editing validation

2010-10-10T16:57:00.007+02:00

The example below adds DOM schema validation while modifying the in-memory DOM. It uses DOM load/save example as a basis.
We are adding a text node instead of a comment now, to generate a schema inconsistency.
The checking kicks off when you call normalizeDocument.
Also compare with the parsing validation example.

// SimpleDOML3MemXSD.java

import com.sun.xml.internal.ws.developer.ValidationErrorHandler;
import org.w3c.dom.*;
import org.w3c.dom.bootstrap.DOMImplementationRegistry;
import org.w3c.dom.ls.*;

import javax.xml.XMLConstants;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;

public class SimpleDOML3MemXSD {

  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Document doc;
    try {
      // Create DOM Document using DOM Level 3 Load
      DOMImplementationLS ls = (DOMImplementationLS) DOMImplementationRegistry.
        newInstance().getDOMImplementation("LS");
      LSParser builder = ls.createLSParser(
        DOMImplementationLS.MODE_SYNCHRONOUS,
        "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema");
      doc = builder.parseURI(args[0]);
      DOMConfiguration config = doc.getDomConfig();
      // for DTD use XMLConstants.XML_DTD_NS_URI
      config.setParameter("schema-type", XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI);
      config.setParameter("validate", true);
      config.setParameter("error-handler", new StdErrorHandler());
      //Obtain root elements
      Element root = doc.getDocumentElement();

      // Add text (NOT ALLOWED BY SCHEMA)
      Text text = doc.createTextNode("Training text");
      root.appendChild(text);

      //Now validate
      doc.normalizeDocument();

     // Output to standard output; using DOM Level 3 save
      LSOutput target = ls.createLSOutput();
      target.setCharacterStream(new OutputStreamWriter(System.out));
      ls.createLSSerializer().write(doc, target);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      System.out.println(e.getMessage());
      e.printStackTrace();
      System.exit(0);
    }
  }

  private static class StdErrorHandler implements DOMErrorHandler {

    public boolean handleError(DOMError e) {
      String prefix = "Severity ";
      if (e.getLocation().getLineNumber() != -1) {
         prefix = "Line " + e.getLocation().getLineNumber()
          + " column  " + e.getLocation().getColumnNumber()
          + ", severity ";
      }
      System.err.println(
        prefix + e.getSeverity()
          + " issue: " + e.getMessage());
      return true;
    }
  }
}

DOM XML Load validation

2010-10-10T14:49:00.012+02:00

The example below adds DOM schema validation when you are parsing the XML input file to the DOM load/save example.
The example also features a DOM Level 3 DOMErrorHandler.
Also compare with the editing validation example.

// SimpleDOML3XSD.java

import org.w3c.dom.*;
import org.w3c.dom.bootstrap.DOMImplementationRegistry;
import org.w3c.dom.ls.*;

import javax.xml.XMLConstants;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;

public class SimpleDOML3LSXSD {

  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Document doc;
    try {

      // Create DOM Document using DOM Level 3 Load
      DOMImplementationLS ls = (DOMImplementationLS) DOMImplementationRegistry.
        newInstance().getDOMImplementation("LS");
      LSParser builder = ls.createLSParser(
        DOMImplementationLS.MODE_SYNCHRONOUS,
        // for DTD use XMLConstants.XML_DTD_NS_URI
        XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI);
      DOMConfiguration config = builder.getDomConfig();
      config.setParameter("validate", true);
      config.setParameter("error-handler", new StdErrorHandler());
      doc = builder.parseURI(args[0]);

      // Obtain root elements
      Element root = doc.getDocumentElement();

      // Add comment texts
      Comment comment = doc.createComment("Training text");
      root.appendChild(comment);

      // Output to standard output; using DOM Level 3 save
      LSOutput target = ls.createLSOutput();
      target.setCharacterStream(new OutputStreamWriter(System.out));
      ls.createLSSerializer().write(doc, target);

    } catch (Exception e) {
      System.out.println(e.getMessage());
      e.printStackTrace();
      System.exit(0);
    }
  }

  private static class StdErrorHandler implements DOMErrorHandler {

    public boolean handleError(DOMError e) {
      String prefix = "Severity ";
      if (e.getLocation().getLineNumber() != -1) {
         prefix = "Line " + e.getLocation().getLineNumber()
          + " column  " + e.getLocation().getColumnNumber()
          + ", severity ";
      }
      System.err.println(
        prefix + e.getSeverity()
          + " issue: " + e.getMessage());
      return true;
    }
  }
}

Load and Save XML with DOM (Level 3)

2010-10-09T20:17:00.003+02:00

Prior to DOM Level 3, DOM did not standardize reading and writing XML.
Below is the SL-385 code 4-2 modified to use the standard DOM level 3 Load and Save (LS) API.
An alternative JAXP (but not DOM standard) way is to read using the JAXP DocumentBuilder and to write using the JAXP transformer (TrAX XSLT).
(I included a comment that allows you to combine DocumentBuilder reading with DOM LS writing as well.)

// SimpleDOML3LS.java
import org.w3c.dom.*;
import org.w3c.dom.bootstrap.DOMImplementationRegistry;
import org.w3c.dom.ls.*;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;

public class SimpleDOML3LS {

  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Document doc;
    try {

      // Create DOM Document using DOM Level 3 Load 
      DOMImplementationLS ls = (DOMImplementationLS) DOMImplementationRegistry.
          newInstance().getDOMImplementation("LS");
      LSParser builder = ls.createLSParser(
        DOMImplementationLS.MODE_SYNCHRONOUS,
        null);
      doc = builder.parseURI(args[0]);

      // Obtain root elements
      Element root = doc.getDocumentElement();

      // Add comment texts
      Comment comment = doc.createComment("Training text");
      root.appendChild(comment);

      // Output to standard output; using DOM Level 3 save

      // If you parsed using a JAXP DocumentBuilder
      // you can also get your LSimplementation from your Document:
      // DOMImplementationLS ls = (DOMImplementationLS) doc.
      //   getImplementation().getFeature("LS","3.0");
      LSOutput target = ls.createLSOutput();
      target.setCharacterStream(new OutputStreamWriter(System.out));
      ls.createLSSerializer().write(doc, target);

    } catch (Exception e) {
      System.out.println(e.getMessage());
      e.printStackTrace();
      System.exit(0);
    }
  }
}

To add newlines/indents to enhance readability of the output, replace in the above example

ls.createLSSerializer().write(doc, target);

with

      LSSerializer serializer = ls.createLSSerializer();
      DOMConfiguration serializerConfig = serializer.getDomConfig();
      serializerConfig.setParameter("format-pretty-print", Boolean.TRUE);
      serializer.write(doc, target);

Oracle buys Passlogix SSO

2010-10-06T13:49:00.000+02:00

You got to eat if you want to grow, and Oracle keeps on festing on other companies.
The last buy is a very rational one, and one that will easily integrate into the company.
Oracle was already reselling Passlogix under its own brand as part of its Identity and access management suite and is in-housing the technology now. Additionally Sun Microsystems, which became a piece of the Oracle pie last year, was partnering with PassLogix for Sun Identity and Access management as well.
Oracle's Identity and Access Management suite, will emerge as of the completest in the market.

JAXP DOM/SAX validating parser variations

2010-10-03T22:07:00.010+02:00

You have a JAXP (version >= 1.2) parser that validates using a DTD. Here are some variations that can be used when validating

Suppose you are using SAX and obtained this parser from the SAXParserFactory:

javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser parser

To validated using a schema (xsd) add this line of code to your parser setup:

parser.setProperty("http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaLanguage",

  XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI);

To specify the schema file in your code (for both DTD and XSD) add this line to your parser setup:

parser.setProperty("http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaSource",

  new File("checkers.xsd"));

SL-385.B: add to code 3-2 after line 17

If you are using DOM, and you created this instance from the DocumentBuilderFactory:

javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory builder

To validated using a schema (xsd) add this line of code to your parser setup:

builder.setAttribute("http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaLanguage",

  XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI);

To specify the schema file in your code (for both DTD and XSD) add this line to your parser setup:

builder.setAttribute("http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaSource",

  new File("checkers.xsd"));

XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI = http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema

The corresponding constant for DTD (the default) in these cases is

XMLConstants.XML_DTD_NS_URI = http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml

Google adds keyboard search navigation

2010-10-03T09:38:00.000+02:00

Google's empire is built on providing a mundane search utility. Still it keeps finding opportunities for enhancement while keeping it simple.
We already have suggest, a drop down box that with search term autocompletion suggestions.
Only last month we got instant search, showing search results as you type.
Both are shown in the picture to the left.

Now Google is adding keyboard navigation, allowing you to move down through results (and to next page) using the arrow keys. Keyboard navigation starts after you hit enter in the search box. The current selected item is indicated by the little blue arrow head to the left. Hit enter again to go to the target page.

You need to be logged in with instant search enabled, which is a good way of Google to use a faitfull crowd as Guinea pigs.

Still, criticists say that the blue arrow could be interpreted as a recommendation of the link to the user. It will point to the first position which is often an advertisement, Google's primary source of revenue.

jspx document

2010-10-01T22:40:00.004+02:00

Minimal solution of list headers JSTL exercise (SL-314-EE6 mod 6 lab 1) without any <%…%> tags (e.g. for taglib declaration).
The document must be saved in a .jspx file (e.g. index.jspx):

<html xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page"
      xmlns:c="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core">
  <jsp:directive.page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8"/>
  <head><title>Header jspx page</title></head>
  <body>
    Request headers:
    <ul>
      <c:forEach var="zheader" items="${header}">
        <li>${zheader}</li>
      </c:forEach>
    </ul>
  </body>                                     
</html>

JAXP history

2010-09-28T20:31:00.009+02:00

Java SE	JAXP	What’s new
		DOM level 0: javascript in NS/IE v3
	1.0	DOM level 1 (tree), SAX 1.0 (push) org.xml.sax.Parser
1.4	1.1	DOM Level 2, SAX 2.0 (+validation), TrAX (XSLT) Apache Crimson XMLReader
	1.2	XML Schema Apache Xerces2 XMLReader
5	1.3	DOM level 3, XML 1.1, XInclude 1.0, Xpath 1, Validator API
6	1.4	StAX (pull) SE also bundles JAXB
8	1.5	XQJ (Xquery)

More details on DOM levels.

servlets / JSP links

2010-09-28T16:24:00.000+02:00

Core servlets

servlet utilities sample code

JSP technology home

JSTL specification

LibreOffice: OOo without Oracle

2010-09-28T11:54:00.000+02:00

The OpenOffice public domain community has separated itself from its Oracle head. The body will walk on as The Document Foundation.
Back in the previous millenium Sun Microystems bought a German office suit, called StarOffice, running on Unix as well as Windows.
Sun rebranded the product to OpenOffice and made it a free, public domain competitor for MS Office.
OpenOffice came under the stewardship of Oracle, when it acquired Sun.
Oracle's decision to charge for a previously free MSOffice plugin, that allows it to read the Open Document Format (ODF), created a lot of irritation in the public domain community.
Meanwhile Oracle is continuing work on, Oracle Cloud Office, based on JavaFX technology. Remark that it does not have the Open word in its name.
Recently Oracle closed up Sun's OpenSolaris OS. In response a community project, OpenIndiana, was created.
In a preemtive strike, the community (FSF, Oasis, Google, Novell, Red Hat, Gnome...) now has declared it's independance of Oracle. Because Oracle holds the trademark, the suite has been rebranded to LibreOffice.

Glassfish 3 Admin Console hangs behind a proxy

2010-09-22T13:05:00.003+02:00

When installing glassfish you can install the updatetool (default on) and configure proxysettings for it.
If the proxy settings do not match the currently active proxy the glassfish admin console may hang.
The glassfish web admin console will not forward your browser proxy settings to the updatetool, which has its own settings. It will wait for the updatetool to return, which never happens.

Here's a solution from the forums:
Change the update configuration using updatetool in GlassfishInstallDir/bin (it may ask you to install the tool first, just do so and start updatetool again).
In the tool go to preferences and enter correct proxy settings (or disable automatic updates in the updates tab).

Alternatively, if you fail to install the tool, you can just kick out the module $GLASSFISH_HOME/glassfish/modules/console-updatecenter-plugin.jar by renaming it.

Google just bought you some GWT tools

2010-09-18T17:05:00.000+02:00

Google bought the instantiations developer tools and makes them avaialable for free. The suite contains Eclipse GUI builders, code analysis and testing tools. more...

JSP Model 2 / Web MVC

2010-09-17T12:33:00.000+02:00

Bronze medal for website Sint-Niklaas

2010-09-16T16:29:00.000+02:00

The new website of the city of Sint-Niklaas, we built in partnership with the fine crew at coworks, ended on a third place in the Indigov Monitor. Indigov monitor screens all communal websites in Flanders and Brussels.
Great news!

How to get Java EE6 libraries

2010-09-15T09:11:00.003+02:00

If you want to download Java EE6 libraries, Oracle bundles the whole glassfish server, and more with the java EE6 SDK. Other application servers also bundle the libraries.
That’ a whole lot of bloat if you just want to compile a little webapp. You can just put a small subset of the glassfish jars in your classpath:

glassfish_install_dir/glassfish/modules/javax.servlet.jar
glassfish_install_dir/glassfish/modules/javax.servlet.jsp.jar
glassfish_install_dir/glassfish/modules/javax.servlet.jsp.jstl.jar
glassfish_install_dir/glassfish/modules/jstl-impl.jar
glassfish_install_dir/glassfish/modules/javax.ejb.jar (if using ejb)

If you are using maven this is not so much of a problem, just add a dependency to your POM.

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>javaee</groupId>
    <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
    <version>6.0</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>
<repository>
   <id>java.net</id>
   <name>GlassFish Maven Repository</name>
   <url>http://download.java.net/maven/2</url>
</repository>

Use artifactId javaee-web-api if you just want the web profile.
If you are not using maven, you can just download the jars from the maven repository:

For Java EE5 that is:

<dependency>
  <groupId>javaee</groupId>
  <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
  <version>5</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

http://download.java.net/maven/1/javaee/jars/javaee-api-5.jar

Project cycle coverage by methodology

2010-09-11T16:04:00.000+02:00

Internet map

2010-09-10T18:30:00.000+02:00

French/Belgian newspapers sue public television

2010-09-09T19:27:00.000+02:00

Newspapers judge that articles on the new RTBF site are unfair comptition, given that RTBF articles are payed by the government.The RTBF site is slooow, but that might just be a youth disease.
Having worked for the Corelio newspapers, I've seen the difficulty of making an online newspaper profitable.
You can argue that a public server is not needed where a good commercial service exists.
Then again, I would not like to see public television dropped in favour of commercial television, which is a case that is very similar to the public/commercial e-newspaper debate.

Google scribe

2010-09-08T18:17:00.000+02:00

This is the ultimate blog entry: Written by the tool on topic. Put Scribe in your toolbar and it will autocomplete web forms.
Superb toy, at first glance it seems a bit too eager though, when positioned in the middle of a sentence, it tends to add stuff without asking.

Intel integrates optical connections in a chip

2010-07-28T09:20:00.000+02:00

Intel has integrated optical transmitters (lasers) in silicon chips. Together with existing (and new high speed) optical receivers this will allow chips to communicate directly through optical connections.
In the medium term this can signal the end of electronical chip wiring.

Joda Time Presentation

2010-07-27T16:30:00.000+02:00

Joda time is an alternative to java.util.Date and java.util.Calendar. An introduction.

The national cloud

2010-07-27T09:39:00.000+02:00

Google has launched Google Apps for Government. It is a variant of its cloud application suite (mail, calendar, docs, ...) that is guaranteed to store its data in the US. Similar services for other countries may follow. It is clear that one country does not want to store its data in another country for security reasons.
It is interesting to see if this service will also come to Google App Engine and commercial applications.
It may remove an important legal hurdle: the country where an application's are stored will determine the laws that will be applied to them and under which jurisdiction actions on your data can be ordered.
Note that although Google guarantees where your data are stored, it does not guarantee where your application runs.

MVC communication diagram

2010-06-21T12:50:00.002+02:00

Communition diagram for the InfoTool MVC example in SL-285

Google to introduce micropayment links

2010-06-18T14:15:00.000+02:00

According to La Repubblica Google is developing a pay-per-click system, for visiting indexed links, called Newspass. Content propviders will be able to offer text, images and video that is found and payed through Google.

Applying UML and patterns: Quotes

2010-06-12T09:43:00.001+02:00

Le temps est un gran professeur,
mais malheureusement il tue tous ses élèves.
Hector Berlioz

You should use iterative development only on projects you want to succeed.
Martin Fowler

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.
Voltaire

Fast, cheap, good: choose any two.

In theory, there’s no difference between practice and theory.
But, in practice, there is.
Jan van de Snepscheut

Hardware, n: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.

0x2B | ~0x2B
Hamlet

Je n’aime pas ce mot bombe.
Ce n’est pas une bombe mais simplement un appareil qui explose.
Jacques Le Blanc, French ambassador to New Zealand, on France's nuclear testing

Cats are smarter than dogs.
You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through the snow.
Jeff Valdez

To iterare is human,
to recurse divine.

Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
Rich Kulawiec

Luck is the residue of design.
Branch Rickey

Virtue is insufficient temptation.
George Bernard Shaw

Error, no keyboard – Press F1 to continue
early PC BIOS message

If you were plowing a field,
which would you rather use?
Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?
Seymour Cray

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, us by accident.
That’s where we come in;
we’re computer professionals.
We cause accidents.
Nathaniel Borenstein

internet liability

2010-06-10T12:05:00.000+02:00

A German court ruled someone can be liable if his WIFI connection is unprotected and that connection is used for illegal acts.

Many end users do not understand a thing about internet security, it seams a bit harsh to punish them for that.
It is like jailing someone because he left his car open and it was stolen to rob a bank.

A US court ruled that if you are mailing a link to a website, you are liable for the contents of the page it links to.

This is similar to an earlier ruling on links to illegal downloads.
Liability for actual text is a different case all together.

standalone tomcat?

2010-06-04T11:23:00.000+02:00

A returning topic here is wether you should always run apache httpd as a front end to tomcat for a website.
While apache is more feature rich (non-JVM technologies, URL rewriting, authentication features...) performance is fine on a standalone tomcat:

JSP history of writing bean properties

2010-05-25T21:29:00.001+02:00

JSP 0.9

<% ActionForm form = (ActionForm) request.getAttribute(”LoginForm”); %>
<%= form.getUserName()%>

JSP 1.0

<jsp:useBean id=“form" class=“be.uniway.LoginForm" />
<jsp:getProperty name=“form" property=“userName" />

Struts

<bean:write name=“loginForm" property="userName"/>

JSP 1.2

<c:out value} ="${loginForm.userName}">

JSP 2.0

${loginForm.userName}

Browser fingerprinting

2010-05-17T23:28:00.000+02:00

JSTL/JSP EL alternate Struts excercise solution

2010-05-16T21:12:00.000+02:00

The De Post/PMC excercises (and the Struts blank sample application) are based on

Struts
- tags-bean
- tags-logic
- tags-html
JSP scriptlets

In this post we will show how to move this to

Struts
- tags-html
JSTL
JSP expression language

To enable JSTL/JSP/EL support in your application follow these instructions.Here’s the table from the excercise rendered with JSTL/JSP EL:

<c:forEach  var="product" items="${List}"  varStatus ="status">
  <tr class="${(status.index%2==1)?'odd':'even'}">
    <td>
      <html:link action="<%=modify%>" paramId="id" paramName="product" paramProperty="id">
        <html:img srcKey="icon.edit" altKey="icon.alt.edit" border="0"/>
      </html:link> 
    </td> 
    <td>
      <html:link action="<%=remove %>" paramId="id" paramName="product" paramProperty="id">
        <html:img srcKey="icon.trash" altKey="icon.alt.trash" border="0"/>
      </html:link>
    </td>
    <td> ${product.name}</td> 
    <td> ${product.description}</td>
  </tr>
</c:forEach>

SAP buys Sybase

2010-05-15T21:13:00.000+02:00

In my previous company our two main products were Sun and Sybase.
Both have now been sold within a short interval:
Sybase to SAP
Sun to Oracle

Struts 1 action (mapping) element

2010-05-15T11:06:00.000+02:00

Dealing with Hibernate proxies

2010-04-28T14:44:00.002+02:00

To deal with lazy loading Hibernate uses proxy objects.
Pitfalls for this approach have been documented. Basically the instanceof operator can fail on a sublcass of an entity.
The bug ticket on this has been rejected, with typical JBoss flair:

If you think this through a bit more carefully, you will see why it is impossible.
Gavin King

Still JPA compliancy requires the instanceof operator to work correctly.
Here are some ways to deal with the proxies:

ZFS Commands

2010-04-26T09:22:00.000+02:00

Rosetta stone for Unix

2010-04-22T07:52:00.000+02:00

A dynamic table with command equivalents for different flavours of Unix.

Oracle free software reality check

2010-04-20T18:15:00.001+02:00

Policy shifts, almost 3 months after Oracle acquired Sun:

Oracle has blocked access to Solaris security patches for people without a support contract.
Oracle has stopped shipping free OpenSolaris CD’s.
Oracle is discontinuing the open and free Sun Identity Manager.
Oracle has made the MS Office ODF 1.2 plugin paying (with a minimum of $9000 for 100 users).

7500 users sell their soul online

2010-04-17T16:30:00.000+02:00

From the legal conditions of GameStation:
By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamestation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions.

Solaris disk layout

2010-04-15T17:06:00.001+02:00

On a SPARC system

VTOC is in cylinder 0, sector 0 and can contain 8 slices
- slice 2 by convention represents the entire disk
the primary boot block is in cylinder 0, sectors 1-15
A file system can start on cylinder 0, sector 16

On x86 the situation is a bit more complicated:

If Solaris is installed on cylinder 1 (typical) disk cylinder 1 = Solaris (relative) cylinder 0.
Solaris x86 VTOC supports 16 slices:

0-7: like SPARC slices
8: boot slice (relative cylinder 0)
9: on IDE/SATA disks default alternate slice (relative cylinder 1 and 2)
10-15: unused

Register a Solaris system for patch updates

2010-04-15T10:39:00.001+02:00

You can bring a Solaris automatically up to date with the latest recommended or security (if you do not have a support contract) patches.

You can do this using

a graphical tool: /usr/bin/updatemanager
a command line tool: /usr/sbin/smpatch

updatemanager will guide you through a series of screens to register yourself and your system. Even if you use the graphical tool to register, you can use the command line interface later on to keep your system up to date.

Here’s the procedure to register without using the graphical updatemanager tool.

Register for a Sun Online account on the web. This is a common account for accessing SunSolve, Sun developer connection…
Prepare a registration file and fill in your user name, password, system and optionally other information like contract number and proxy. You can use /usr/lib/breg/data/RegistrationProfile.properties as a template.
Register your system

    # sconadm –a –r <yourRegistrationFile>
    Here’s a Sunsolve howto on this topic.

Rijkswatch

Java EE web technology version history (edit)

Java EE component versions overview (edit)

Telesys opent bescheiden datacenter in Oudenaarde

German states use spyware to eavesrop on suspects

Geek & Poke

Calendra lives on as Cognitum

Devoxx redux

Create a test case in Intellij IDEA

EDF convicted for hacking greenpeace

SABAM wants 3% of ISP subscriptions

Patent war II

Light field camera

Design patterns links (edit)

Apache Tommee is Java EE6 web profile certified.

EDAM: Easy Development And Maintenance

JPA labs – alternate instructions (edit)

Lab 3 Exercise 2 Task 1

Adjusting the table and column names

Lab 4 Exercise 2 Task 2

Working with the entity manager

Lab 5 Exercise 2 Task 1

Creating a unidirectional One-to-One relationship between two entities

Lab 5 Exercise 3 Task 1

Creating a bidirectional One-to-Many/Many-to-One relationship

Lab 6 Exercise 2 Task 1

Persisting an Entity with a superclass

Lab 7 Exercise 2 Task 1

Persisting an Entity with an enum Field

Lab 7 Exercise 3 Task 1

Persisting an Entity with a List field

Lab 8 Exercise 2

Performing a query with the Java Persistence API QL

Lab 8 Exercise 3

Performing a query with SQL

Lab 8 Exercise 4

Lab 9 Exercise 2 Task 1

Creating and running a named query

Lab 9 Exercise 2 Task 2

Creating multiple named queries

Lab 10 Exercise 2

Performing a Query With Multiple Criteria

Lab 10 Exercise 3 (extra)

Performing a query with a named parameter

Lab 13 Exercise 2 Task 1

Creating a Composite Key

Lab 13 Extra: Exercise 3 Task 1

Using validation

This lab supposes the validator reference implementation has been downloaded to $Home/pkg

NetBeans hints (edit)

Keyboard shortcuts

Running code

JPA 2 differences (edit)

JPA : choose your enum ordinals

JPA entity state transitions and EntityManager methods

Java logging toolkit levels mapping

Hibernate labs

Lab 1 Exercise 0

Adding Hibernate JPA 2 support

Lab 10 Exercise 2

Performing a Query With Multiple Criteria

Lab 10 Exercise 3

Using data filters

Lab Performance Exercise 1

Adding L2 EhCache support

Caching the Item entity

Caching the keywords collection

Lab Design Patterns Exercise 1

What did you do on 9/11?

Reasons to be

The Object Relational Gap (updated)

NetBeans 7 new features (updated)

NetBeans, Hibernate and JPA2

Mapping the Unified Process to CMMI

Wikileaks sues credit card companies

FJ-310, lab 4, Exercise 2, task 2, step 7

WSDL 1.1 data model (updated)

Our new logo

Web services/REST resources

Finally, a reason to use facebook