Calendra lives on as Cognitum

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

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

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

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

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.