2005-10-28

POJ - Struts Applications Project

The goals of the Struts Applications Project are:

* to provide example Struts applications,
* to host Struts extensions and utilities, and
* to put the code out where the Community can use it, fix it, and maintain it

The Struts Applications Project currently consists of the following sub- projects:

* AppFuse - A baseline Struts application to be used for future web applications
* Polls - A survey-management Struts application
* Struts Action Invocation Framework (SAIF) - Adds features like Action interceptors and Inversion of Control (IoC) to Struts.
* Struts BSF - A Struts Action implementation that uses BSF-compatible scripting languages.
* Struts Cocoon - Integrates Struts and Cocoon, using Cocoon for the presentation layer
* Struts Dialogs - Implements event handling paradigm, state management, provides simplified control flow and facilitates component development.
* Struts Flow - Brings Cocoon\'s Control Flow to Struts
* Struts Resume - An application written using AppFuse as a foundation.
* Struts Spring - Integrates Struts and the Spring Inversion of Control (IoC) framework.
* StrutsDoc - A JavaDoc-type documentation tool for Struts and Struts-related configuration files
* AjaxTags - A modified version of the Struts HTML taglib that adds AJAX functionality in a purely declarative fashion (please see the important note about this project on the AjaxTags page)

http://struts.sourceforge.net/index.html

Misc - Skywatchers await Mars close-up

Mars is ready for another close-up.

For the second time in nearly 60,000 years, the Red Planet will swing unusually close to Earth this weekend.

On Saturday, Mars' orbit will bring it 43.1 million miles away from Earth, with its closest pass scheduled for 11:25 p.m. EDT.

The two planets -- normally separated by about 140 million miles -- will not be this close again until 2018.

Mars will still seem small to the naked eye, appearing about the size of a penny seen from 620 feet away.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/10/27/mars.close.up.ap/index.html

Microsoft / Windows - .NET Framework 2.0 Final Released

POJ - IzPack installer 3.8.0 released

2005-10-27

*ware - MSN Messenger 7.5.0311 released

POJ - Jakarta HiveMind 1.1 released

HiveMind is a services and configuration microkernel:

* Services: HiveMind services are POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects) that can be easily accessed and combined. Each service ideally defines a Java interface it implements (but this is no longer mandatory). HiveMind takes care of instantiating and configuring each service just as necessary. HiveMind lets services collaborate with each other via dependency injection.
* Configuration: HiveMind allows you to provide complex configuration data to your services in a format you define. HiveMind will integrate the contributions of such data from multiple modules and convert it all into data objects for you. HiveMind configurations allow for powerful, data-driven solutions which combine seemlessly with the service architecture.
* Microkernel: HiveMind is a framework for creating applications, not an application, or even an application server, itself. The \'core\' of HiveMind is the startup logic that knows how to parse and understand the module deployment descriptors, and use that information to instantiate and initialize all those services and configurations.

In HiveMind, a service is an implementation of a Java interface. Unlike other SOAs (Service Oriented Architectures, such as a SOAP, or EJBs), HiveMind is explicitly about combining Java code within a single JVM. HiveMind uses a descriptor to describe different services, their lifecycles, and how they are combined. HiveMind takes care of thread-safe, just-in-time creation of singleton service objects so your code doesn\'t have to.
http://jakarta.apache.org/hivemind/downloads.html

Misc - JavaZone 2005 Videos Now Available

JavaLobby has published 24 presentations from JavaZone 2005 in video and audio formats. They write in, "We hope you enjoy these 24 excellent presentations recorded this past September in Oslo, Norway. You'll need the FREE Real Player plugin to watch the presentations, which are encoded as 200 kbps RealVideo streams. If you don't care for the video, then you can stream just the audio, or download it as MP3 and play it on your iPod."
http://www.javalobby.org/av/javazone/

*ware - Firefox and Thunderbird Release Candidate 1 "candidate" builds available for testing

2005-10-26

Misc - 14 things you didn't know about Bill Gates

http://www.computerg.net/index.php?title=14_things_you_didn_t_know_about_bill_gat

*ware - Open Source Version of WebSphere Released

IBM has released an opensource\'d version of WebSphere, the WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE), which is based on Gluecode which it purchased earlier this year. \"WAS CE features a small footprint, making it easier to download and manage. Based on core open source technology from the J2EE-certified Apache Geronimo application server, WAS CE and related subscription support provide a flexible and affordable alternative to traditional commercial software offerings and can help customers begin to deploy a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).\"
http://www.webservices.org/index.php/ws/content/view/full/74788

AJAX / CSS - DWR 1.1 beta 1 Released

The feature list for 1.1 looks like this:

* New ObjectConverter (called \'object\') that reads fields rather than bean getters and setters. Includes a \'force\' parameter to read from private fields
* New parameter to BeanConverter that allows you to specify an implementation. This allows you to convert according to an interface but create some implementation of that interface
* Basic support for synchronous calling, either use DWREngine.setAsynchronous(false) or meta-data - { asynchronous:false, callback:function(data) {...} }
* Most remoting options can now be set on a global, batch or call level. The remoting options are: timeout, errorHandler, warningHandler, [pre|post]Hook, method (XHR/iframe), verb (GET/POST), ordered, synchronous
* Exceptions are now marshalled across Ajax (without stack trace information) which can help to know what has gone wrong.
* Added EnumConverter (called enum). Enable it in an allow section like BeanConverter
* ScriptedCreator and SpringCreator now have a setClass method that allows you to specify the class that they create without having them go through the motions to find out what it is and then throwing it away
* Added WebContext. WebContext will take over from ExecutionContext at some stage to enable features in a later release
* Several bug fixes

http://getahead.ltd.uk/dwr

AJAX / CSS - MochiKit 1.0 released

MochiKit is a highly documented and well tested, suite of JavaScript libraries that will help you get shit done, fast. We took all the good ideas we could find from our Python, Objective-C, etc. experience and adapted it to the crazy world of JavaScript.
http://mochikit.com/

POJ - Customizing Maven 2 Site Layout

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/wilfred?entry=customing_maven_2_site_layout

*ware - Wine 0.9 released

Wine is a free implementation of Windows on Unix.

After 12 years of development, this release marks the beginning of the
beta testing phase. Everybody is encouraged to try it; while there
are still bugs, most applications are expected to at least install and
do something useful.
http://www.winehq.org/site/download

Misc - U.S. Passports to get RFID chip implants

All U.S. passports will be implanted with remotely readable computer chips starting in October 2006, the Bush administration has announced.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5913644.html

*ware - Skype 1.4.0.84 released

* bugfix: fixed certain Skype calls that were vulnerable to buffer overflow (Skype Security Bulletin SKYPE-SB/2005-002)
* bugfix: fixed a bug in networking code that made Skype vulnerable to remotely induced crash (Skype Security Bulletin SKYPE-SB/2005-003)
* bugfix: Skype ring sound never stopped when call was automatically answered
* bugfix: user's avatar disappears after they are logged in continiously for 7 days
* bugfix: problems with handling Skype usernames that did not start with a letter
* bugfix: Skype passwords were occasionally not remembered during first login


http://skype.com/products/skype/windows/

2005-10-25

Databases - MySQL 5.0 Now Available for Production Use

The MySQL development team has announced the release of version 5.0 as production ready. "MySQL 5.0 is the most ambitious release in MySQL's history. MySQL 5.0 delivers the enterprise features the community has been asking for, including Stored Procedures, Triggers, Views, Information Schema, XA Distributed Transactions, and new Storage Engines. We also added Strict SQL Mode to eliminate some of the 'Gotchas'. Plus, MySQL 5.0 builds on our reputation for Reliability, Performance, and Ease of Use."
http://dev.mysql.com/

*ware - RFID Device Development Kit

IBM alphaWorks has released the RFID Device Development Kit. "This RFID Device Development Kit consists of an OSGi-based infrastructure, tools, and examples that together make up the core of IBM's RFID Edge-of-Network software solution. (RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification.) When integrated with IBM Workplace Client Technology, Micro Edition, a complete development environment is provided that allows the user to explore the infrastructure, learn about the included technologies and APIs, and develop support for new devices."

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/rfiddevice

Microsoft / Windows - Going Beyond

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/goingbeyond/indexFlash.html

2005-10-24

POJ - Project Looking Glass - LiveCD version 2.3 Available

The LiveCD is based on Slax, which is a Linux distribution based on Slackware designed to booted and run from CD.

Looking Glass is a pretty cool example of just what Java3D is capable of, but you will need a pretty powerful system to run it, including a video card with decent OpenGL capabilities such as an Nvidia one. Other than a decent OpenGL card, recommended minimum requirements are a 2 Ghz CPU and 512 Mb of RAM.

The download is about 245 Mb
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lg3d-livecd/

Web App Frameworks - RIFE 1.2 released

# Bug-fix release with no new major features
# Improvements to the out-of-container testing framework
http://rifers.org/