Author: The Great Java

JavaOne 2008 – Day 2

The day started out with a keynote from Oracle. Some interesting stuff. The mentality of Oracle hasn’t changed much over the years. They provide an IDE, runtimes, database integration that is very seamless but hopelessly proprietary. It’s all “standards based” meaning where they use standard plumbing and interfaces. However the key thing here is LOCK-IN. They have tons of Java code to make all the magic happen and it all starts with “com.oracle”. So do you use the magic (and their tool), embrace it, debug it, or just learn to use open source solutions? Very slick Oracle, but no thanks. They ran way over time too.

The first session I attended was a panel (PAN-5435). This was a fun idea for a panel. They had 4 script language presenters (Groovy, JRuby, Jython, and Scala). They had 3 rounds to show similar features with demos and you voted on your cell for the winner in each round and a final winner. I think the winners in order were JRuby, Groovy, Scalia, Jython). If all the presenters had done their labs it would have been better (some didn’t do the example they were given). I would have done JavaScript probably as well. Decent session, fun.

Next I missed the Hands on Struts2 session for a work-related conference call. After grabbing some food I hooked up with Bob Lee for some coffee and we discussed a variety of interesting topics from Android to twitter. Always fun to talk with Bob – hopefully we can get you to move back to St. Louis some day!

The next session was a JRuby versus Groovy – TS-6050 (noticing a trend?) This was arguably the best session I’ve attended. The presenter (Neal Ford) was highly knowledgeable, gave a ton of thought of how to compare, and was an excellent speaker (bring this guy back Sun on any topic!!!). Bottom line is Groovy is a lot like Java and carries some of the verbosity and restrictions. It is an excellent choice for many applications. Things I liked about Groovy: Operator Overloading, closures, ignores private (great test tool), dynamic… JRuby had a ton of things I liked but not very “Java”. The ability to layer a DSL for a framework, expressions, mix-ins (modules), mature, very cross platform (it generated a distributable exe and app file). I think the JRuby language, save the fact it is very different than Java, has a lot of things going for it over Groovy. Top notch presentation and session, I learned a ton of stuff that would have taken a lot of time to sift through on my own.

The next really interesting session was something I deal with a lot in my job – open source – and the politics of it. What really is open source? How do trademarks affect it? Is M$ shared source really “open source”? What is OSI and how do they categorize open source licenses? Those were some of the questions I got answers for at TS-7064. Great advice to corporations participating in open source. Anytime you can see Simon Phipps speak it is worth it.

We spent some time in the Pavilion with some vendors, one interesting tool was project Wonderworld. They have some very interesting ways to use SecondLife type of environments for corporate/business collaboration and visualization. Very great ideas but I think a bit before their time.

We were fortunate enough to have dinner with some of the JRE engineering team (compiler, gc, and other developers). That was very interesting. I got to ask a java compiler guy all my crazy stupid questions (well a few of them). Very interesting to hear some of the guts of how the new JRE (6 update 10) works with the smaller JVM bundle you can bootstrap with. Some of this is way overdue and exciting to see it happen. My own company is so far behind the latest releases I know it will be a while before we can use it.

JavaOne 2008 – Day 1

The keynote had the typical stuff, music, dancing, and of course the infamous t-shirt catapult. I was happy to have one bounce of a Sun rep, hit my coffee, and land at my feet. The main keynote theme hit a few interesting items. Probably the most interesting was the JavaFX demo where they had a 100 HD movies playing and rotating in a cube and you could click one to watch. They also had some interesting JavaFX demos for social networking that ran as an applet, desktop app, or mobile app (it would have been really great if it had not bombed a few times). This year they are using the tags and sensors around the building to track our movements.

The first session I attended was an JRuby (TS-5416). Since I’m often asked about scripting languages, and I’m a general scripting bozo I decided to get more information. JRuby is essentially Ruby running on a JavaVM. It adds things like native threading, ability to call Java classes, and the ability to call Ruby from Java. The Ruby language is pretty interesting. It is dynamically typed, OO – class based with single inheritance. One nice thing was the inclusion of modules which can be pulled into classes without needed in have “helper class” structures to contain these code fragments. Classes can be generated dynamically and augmented at runtime. It seems that JRuby or Ruby Rails (the MVC framework) is quickly mentioned. Some of the basic capabilities where detailed. The session was interesting and pretty well done with a balance of code examples and slides.

Next I went to the JAX-RS (TS-5425) session. It covered the basics of RESTful API (give things IDs, Link things together, etc). This was a great level set to then walk through the JAX-RS API and see how it implements each of those features. Some of the API was done simply with annotations (great idea). Some of it had (what seemed to me) unnecessary API calls to do things like get builders, etc. Then the demo spent a lot of time on how to create XML representations and it slowed down and got a bit boring (I think he generated some code with
a macro and then didn’t really explain it). I had to leave early for the next thing but overall very interesting and useful session on how to host a RESTful app or consume one.

I was lucky enough to get into a small group meeting (about ten) with James Gosling. For about an hour we did Q&A on everything from “why didn’t your demo in the keynote work?” to JDK update pains, and should we use Swing instead of JEE? James is a funny and insightful guy but he doesn’t really think a lot about how we use Java – large enterprise applications. It was fun to meet him and he has a lot of interesting stories to share.

After this I went over to the Pavilion and met some vendors. Got to see Chuck and Eric from Instantiations, met with the Atlassian folks to ask some questions (and make some good contacts).
The JavaScript sucks presentation was a deep dive into crazy Javascript stuff, it didn’t interest me since I’m not a Javascript developer. The last presentation I went to was Building Secure Mashups with OpenAjax (TS-5030). This session gave a background of OpenAjax 1.0 and where 1.1 was heading. The widget API is roughly modeled after the Google API, and they provide the ability to generate wrappers for other widget specs. It was very interesting but I’m not sure I learned much.

After spending more time in the Pavilion I headed out to dinner with a bunch of folks and got to spend a lot of time chatting with Peter Reiser from Sun on social networking which was a awesome!

Time for a Flogging

Ever feel like you are wearing the corporate version of a “kick-me” sign? I’ve found it very interesting dealing with the legal/management concerns some companies have about concepts like blogging. Most companies have knowledge management tools that allow for searching, searchable repositories (often web accessible), and gads of Intranet pages created by goodness-knows-what (you’ve heard of Sharepoint right?).

It’s all okay, just don’t use the “b word”. Don’t understand? Watch the video.

I love the last idea – let’s implement that in every corporate blog across the country!

I can see the pointy-haired boss inviting Dilbert to his office. He asks him to implement “flogging”. Dilbert smiles wondering if it could be true.

I’m Sorry Trader Joes.

I like a lot of your products! I want to like your coffee.

  • Comes in fun cans
  • Less than $8/lb average
  • Quite a few varieties
  • Quick and easy (minutes from home).

It just seems stale to me. I’ve tried a few cans over the last year. The aroma when opening a coffee container says a lot, and your coffee is pretty quiet. I suppose darker roasts have enough of a caramelized roast flavor to make up for the complete loss of varietal flavors for some people. To me it is just terribly boring – they all taste pretty much the same to me.

I can only guess the canister isn’t as good as the valve bag?

Update 4/22/08 : Tried a very dark roast (yeah, I’m punishing myself). I have only seen beans that crumbly and oily when I forgot to turn off the roaster. I threw them away. I always wondered what that would taste like, now I know. Don’t bother.

Great Commericals.

Apple has great commercials. The PC/Mac guy ads are always good for a laugh. Here’s one if case you haven’t seen them.

I recently got an iMac, 20″ LCD screen. I’ve mostly liked it. I’ve had problems with some of the graphics I created for my friend Steve’s website. The top graphic has a background with a slight gradient that looks great, except on my Mac. On the Mac it’s invisible. I assume it’s something about the Safari browser at first, but then FireFox on the Mac has the same display problem. I’m baffled. Maybe my windows graphics program creating some magic windows-only jpeg image!

Then coincidentally my friend Brian tells me about the new class action lawsuit on the iMac I bought. Now all of a sudden it makes sense. It’s the monitor! So I send the URL to a friend with a new macbook – he can see the image fine. It’s time to visit the mac store and make sure it’s not just my monitor. This would be a huge disappointment. I mean I’m used to computer companies advertising false things, using cheap stuff, and of course Windows.

Maybe I believed the commercials…

A Solution to my Latte Art Problem

I’ve had a lot of practice at this, and I’m still not very good at it. Is it the quality of the foam or pouring technique issue? We had our friends Brian and Angela over this Sunday and I made a couple of lattes. One was “abstract art”, the other a “scorpion” (so they were not successful). It is fun trying.

I’m not sure my wife would let me put this on the kitchen counter…

Read More … I just need a flatbed plotter and edible ink…

GPS

Well… I finally took the plunge. I bought a refurb Garmin 550 from buy.com for $179. I’ve wanted one for my wife, and for when we travel – but I also wanted one for bluetooth phone integration (as a speakerphone). The price point was always $350 or more – more than I was going to spend. $179 no tax, free shipping – DONE.

gps

Garmin calls the refurb units “Completely Overhauled”. My wife said, “I think I like REFURB better”. My only observation is the volume knob seems a bit sticky but not worth trying to replace. Screen, etc. all looks superb. Great interface, simple setup, and even works with my AT&T 8125 phone. So far it has exceeded all my expectations but one. It doesn’t allow me to load destination addresses from my phone (maybe would require Bluetooth ADAP protocol).

Works like a champ, Garmin has this nailed – great Navteq maps. 5 stars so far. Go ahead Frank, sell the Newton, get a Garmin… It’s half the size.

Where to be Social?

Social networking tools are becoming a commodity. Look at the script panel of any Internet hosting company and you’ll see blogging tools, interactive content management systems, wikis, and more. There are also a host of free software service sites. Blogger.com and wordpress.com are just a couple examples in the blog space. These online services offer something more than software – they provide an audience!

Through the front page of these sites, taxonomy, and search people can find your content. These sites also are starting to provide integration with other social media through open APIs like OpenSocial.

So given the option of self-hosting a site or using online services what should a person or organization choose? While there are a lot of variables to consider, I think integrating online services into a hosted community is a great option. Maybe your thought leaders should have a blog on blogger.com and incorporate that into your website with RSS/Atom. That gets your organization a place on the larger internet but still allows the content to be part of your custom website.

I think smaller organizations and communities can greatly benefit from hosting a package that best fits their needs. That might be a wiki, SN Site (PHPzabi, Dolphin, etc) or CMS (like Drupal or Joomla). Using blog feeds, IM presence indicators, and flexible profile options allow for the greatest community customizations while embracing what is already available as a service on the web.

This opinion is subject to change next week 😉

Mac Update

Some people have been asking me questions about my blog. I realized something amazing! SOMEBODY IS READING IT.

Would I replace all my windows machines? No. I simply couldn’t afford it. All the software my kids have doesn’t run on it. I can’t afford it. If I was buying a new laptop – it would be a Mac. For the family machine the Mac is working great. I think as I move more toward software services like Gmail with smart apps that can manage those software service I become less concerned with the OS anyway.

I used to think Apple ripped you off on service, etc. Then I looked at the prices at BB and CC (geek squad etc).

K9 comes to the Mac

No, not a dog – a web filter! K9 is an amazing tool for filtering internet content. If you don’t like that idea just stop reading NOW.

Bluecoat is a company that sells industrial strength security and filtering tools. One of their assets is a huge categorized list of Internet sites and their general category. Is the site business, porn, movies? it’s all in the database. K9 is a free tool Bluecoat created for home users to filter internet requests. Most filters just look at the words on the website and make a guess if the content is OK. They use PICS ratings and other things but the bottom line is content filtering only gets you so far. K9 brings an immense categorization of the Internet to the table so most sites can be screened out (or in) with ease. K9 drops down to do content filtering if the site isn’t in it’s database. One thing I like about K9 is you can set it up to only allow sites in a certain set of categories and if it doesn’t know about the website it blocks it. K9 runs in the background – you forget it is there. It doesn’t hog your CPU, slow your internet browsing, or give you a lot of false warnings.

K9 has one HUGE problem. It’s only available for Windows.
Mac has one HUGE problem. Apple’s parental controls filtering is pathetic. The other filters are content only and are EXPENSIVE.

Bluecoat has announced there is a Mac version coming in early ’08! Problem solved. To the folks at BlueCoat – you’ve done a great service to parents and more, keep up the good work. Your product helps protect people from some of the worst society has to offer.