Month: November 2002

This is interesting.  Simple Web Services Framework is an open source project written in Java that is focused on giving you more control over plumbing and stuff like that:

Simple is a Java framework for the development of web services. The API provides a highly concurrent fully featured HTTP server for serving resources such as files and directories and also provides utilitys for compontent loading similar to Java Servlets. The component loading facility provides a similar service model and lifecycle to that of Java Servlets. Components can be loaded and linked to specific URL patterns from remote locations using Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI).

Simple differs from the Java Servlet API in that it provides extension to the server and services at a lower level. It introdices the concept of a protocol handler which can be implemented and used for management of services requested.

It looks like something in between RMI and SOAP web services.  Hmm…

Mark Mazzetti at Slate on his experience mingling with the military in order to cover the pending war:

Thus begins media boot camp. For seven days, 58 journalists from 31 news organizations are training for war—or, at least as much of the war as the Pentagon will allow us to see. If the Bush administration actually proceeds with a war against Saddam Hussein, the Defense Department is planning to “embed” journalists with military units before they head into Iraq. So for the first time ever, the military is training reporters en masse for the rigors of life in a combat zone. [via Dan Rosenbaum: Over the Edge]

Russell Beattie is going to see Cirque du Soleil tonight.  I’ve seen Cirque several times over my life, and it’s a wonderful thing.  Enjoy.

DPReview reports that Pretec (an excellent supplier of CompactFlash cards) has upped the ante:

Pretec Electronics Corp. has announced three new high capacity Compact Flash cards. Previously their largest capacity had been 640 MB, these new cards widen their range considerably. The 1.5 GB and 3.0 GB are CF Type II, the 2.0 GB is CF Type I. These new cards are all larger than anything else on the market, the 3.0 GB card will no doubt be of special interest to digital SLR photographers who’s cameras continue to create larger and larger files as the manufacturers increase resolution year on year.

I’m sure that they’ll be expensive in the beginning, but all things come down in price.  This will become a neccesity when 11, 13, and 25 megapixel cameras become commonplace.

Kyle Hasselbacher wrote an article on Kuro5hin that seemed curious at the very least.  He has set up an automatic (pgp/gnupg) key signer:

A Robot CA is an automated key signer. Conceived by Phil Zimmermann, the robot’s signature indicates only that the user’s email address is correct, not that the name on the key correctly identifies the user. Given a key signed by the Robot CA, you can be sure that the email address on it really can read email encrypted with that key. This casual verification can be used as part of a larger scheme to make encryption easier for users who wouldn’t otherwise benefit from it.

I’m writing about the Robot CA because I’ve created one.

If this interests you, I’d suggest reading the article, otherwise it’s an interesting microthought.

I pointed out Simon Fell’s TCPTrace to Rogers Cadenhead (of Workbench fame) last night.  It is a great little utility that allows you to view the XML traveling over the wire if you’re trying to debug XML-RPC or SOAP web services.  It totally saved me from trying to hurl a computer across the room, and hopefully it will save others too.  Simon has also released PocketSOAP, a lightweight win32/pocketpc SOAP implementation, as well as PocketXML-RPC and other great tools.

David Johnson pointed out BasicPortal sometime between when I went to bed and when I woke up:

The goal of this project is to leverage a combination of several of the Apache Foundation’s Jakarta projects into a simple vertical sample application that contains the functionality common to 80% of web projects — we let developers customize the last 20%.

The BasicPortal project should allow high developer productivity (of several modules per day per developer) and be KISS; simple to teach and be comprised accepted of good practices (best practices).

I found this article at #RootPrompt.org, so you can bet it’s *nix-centric.  I particularly like the concept presented under the heading ‘Avoid The Cursed Language:’

It should be a crime to teach people C/C++.

This isn’t an attack on the language itself (although there are plenty). The problem is that people use it to write high level applications. People who barely understand the language are writing millions of lines of code with it. Code that will one day run our electric shavers and lawn mowers and air traffic control systems.

An interesting observation.  I won’t call it right, I won’t call it wrong.

Brent Simmons is implementing a weblog editor to the next version of NetNewsWire Pro:

Here’s a screen shot of the weblog editor that’s going into the pro version of NetNewsWire.

Sam Gentile covers the changes to C++ in Visual Studio .NET 2003 (Everett) for O’Reilly’s ONDotnet.  It’s great to see more standards compliance, Managed C++ GUI goodies, and increased performance.  Great article, Sam!

I was going to write a blog entry about structured procrastination, but… [via Adam Wendt]

I’m going to throw something if a Segway shows up in my Amazon gold box.

Fedex Freight likes Linux.  They’ve recently replaced NT/IIS with Red Hat 7.2/7.3 for their web frontend.  From the NWFusion article:

Porting the Java-based applications used by the Web servers to make database calls to back-end systems was painless when the Linux swap was done, Boreni says. FedEx Freight loaded the Linux servers with a version of the Tomcat Java application server, which runs on top of Red Hat Linux. By installing the Tomcat application server, FedEx Freight was able to support the Java-based applications it had been running on the Windows Web servers – now replaced with Linux servers – without having to rewrite its applications. [via NewsForge]

I have managed to set up a web service that generates the same output as the SOAP::Lite implementation I hacked together last week using Axis.  It was a little less trivial to implement, but most of that was squashing the nitpicky Java stuff without an IDE, which was extremely educational but a little time consuming.  I’ve managed to call it from another Linux machine with a SOAP::Lite-based client.  I may still have to work out a few kinks in order to get a .NET-based client to work properly.  Right now it is timing out, which I’m sure is my fault on either the server or the client side.

I also got an email this afternoon from Jake Savin about my problems with the AggregatorAPI.  I’m still pretty sure that these are my problems (I still get bogged down on a lot of gotchas), and not with the XML-RPC interface, but I will put an email together this evening and shoot it off to radio-dev.

Mac Central reports what I found out by checking Washington Apple Pi’s calendar a few weeks ago:

Washington Apple Pi’s “Winter Edition” of its Computer Show & Sale (also known as the Garage Sale) is coming next month. The event takes place at the Northern Virginia Community College Gymnasium in Annandale, Virginia on Saturday, December 14, from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm.

The Washington, DC-area Macintosh user group bills its Garage Sale as “the largest Mac computer show and sale on the East Coast.” The event is expected to have deals for folks looking for Mac hardware and software.

I went to my first garage sale last winter, though I missed the spring/summer one.  It is held at a gymnasium of a community college.  To give you an idea of size, it is comparable to a packed marketpro computer show & sale, but it’s all Mac, baby!

I’ve found that the best high-end deals happen in the first 15-20 minutes, while the best ‘junk’ deals can be had starting at about 1:30, when people realize that if they don’t sell it, they’ve got to lug it back outside.  Last year I scored about a half-dozen pre-powermacs (for a total of about $30), a sweet ergonomic keyboard, and all of those odds and ends that you always need but never want to pay $20 on ebay for.

So if you’re in the need of Mac junk and stuff and live within an hour or so drive of Northern Virginia, you should probably check it out.  I’ll be tailgating with my friend Roger, but if any bloggers out there will be there, let me know.  Here’s the Winter Sale page, poster [pdf], and coupon [pdf], but don’t bother with that.

CNet reports that Fossil wants to put PalmOS on your wrist.  Cool idea, neat watches, but it’s not going to work.  $199-$299 for a low-end PDA on a stylin’ band is a little too much to pay IMHO.

John Udell hypes the ability of Microsoft’s Office 11 to let grandma read and write XML.  I’m a little scared to think what a Word-authored XML document would look like.  Does anyone remember the kind of HTML that it produces?

That’s right, they’re finally here. They’re priced at $299 after rebate for a 400MHz X-Scale, 64MB RAM, 48MB Rom, or $199 after rebate for 300MHz X-Scale, 32MB RAM, 32MB ROM.  Both units run Pocket PC 2002 Premium. [via Slashdot]

Kenneth Hunt set up a virtual linux account with JohnCompanies last night.  Congrats.  Have fun.  🙂

Axis is installed on the server, all associated jars are in their appropriate directories and mentioned in CLASSPATHs, the AdminClient works, deploying by way of .jws works, and everything that I need to finally start using Axis for development works.