Category: Web Services

I loathe critical updates.

Jeremy Allaire: After eight years with Allaire and Macromedia, I’ve decided to move on. What a ride its been, and will no doubt continue to be.

Good luck, sounds like the new gig will be tough but fun.

John Burkhardt after releasing his baby into the wild: “Ok guys, what’s next?”

I’m posting this from a temporary install to make sure that I gather all the neccesary bits from my hard drive.  I figured that if I went to all the trouble, I wouldn’t loose anything, but if I just trusted everything to be backed up, I’d forget something.

Hopefully I’ll get everything double backed up and restored later this evening.

It looks like I’ve hosed my main XP box.

One second I was playing a demo (that shall remain nameless to protect the thing that hosed my OS) and the next it was locked up. I hit the reset button, and have been booting with various options, using the XP recovery console, and trying other fun tricks ever since. All is not lost, as all of the crucial stuff is on a different drive and/or backed up.

Do not worry, Radio is not on that box, so I’ll be able to bitch and moan throughout the reinstall process 🙂

Uche Ogbuji released a tutorial at IBM DeveloperWorks in 2001 that guides you through using WSDL in Python.  He also released a library for Python called WSDL4py.

It is interesting that neither of the two “major” Python SOAP implementations seem to support WSDL at all.  I have been spoiled by the tight WSDL integration with C#/.NET and WSDL2Java.  Even the lightweight SOAP::Lite for Perl has WSDL support for the client side.

I might have to take a closer look at WSDL4py (which was hard to locate, the links from IBM’s website didn’t want to work).  It looks like I can use it to generate a WSDL document as well as consume them.

It feels weird getting back into SOAP after spending a lot of time in more lightweight web services.

CNet:

Sun Microsystems, which controls the widely used Java standard, said Tuesday that it will push out the delivery of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4 specification until this summer. The J2EE 1.4 specification, which gives Java licensees the blueprint for building Java programming tools and server software, was set to debut in the current quarter.

The forthcoming J2EE specification incorporates Web services protocols, a set of standards and a programming method for connecting disparate computing systems. Adoption of Web services is accelerating as companies look for ways to lower the cost of sharing information.

Sun representatives said the company chose to push back the finalized J2EE 1.4 specification in order to comply with interoperability guidelines set forth by the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I).

DPReview:

SMaL Camera Technologies have today announced their new Ultra-Pocket 1.3-Megapixel digital camera, this builds upon the award-winning 6mm thin Ultra-Pocket® VGA digital still camera. It has the same credit card size of its predecessor, with only a slight increase in thickness due to higher resolution optics, plus a strobe flash and an SD card for expanded memory storage.

Sam Ruby is experimenting with weblog comments via email.  He’s got the proof of concept up and working.  The rest will follow.

*Yawn*

I’m tired.  I’m hoping to catch up on my feeds later this evening.

I’m unplugging for a bit.  This Google News query will give you the most up to date (most recent news at the top).  It looks like Google News passed its first major disaster, it was extremely helpful today.

I blogged my first entry today at school.  It was eerie.  I was in class, learning about Java, JSPs, Servlets, RMI, and all kinds of stuff like that while I was reporting the news.  I don’t think anyone else surfed over to a news site.  Nobody seemed to acknowledge what had happened after class.  I just left quickly and quietly.

The only reason that I knew something was up was because of RSS and my aggregator.

The rest of the news entries today were done while at work.  I only caught some TV coverage, but felt pretty informed.

Today is grouped together with a few days in my life that I can remember exactly where I was when something major happened: Challenger, Desert Storm, 9/11, and this.  I’m sure there are others, but these are the ones that come to mind.

This is one of those days that is like JFK’s assasination for my generation.

We won’t know exactly what happened for quite some time.  We may never know completely.

Fox News:

The first indication of a potential problem occurred minutes before 9 a.m. EST, when there was a loss of temperature sensors on the shuttle’s left wing, said Ron Dittemore, the program manager. During Columbia’s liftoff, a piece of insulating foam from the fuel tank was believed to have hit that wing.

Dittemore said the loss of the sensors on the left wing was followed seconds later by several other problems, including a loss of tire pressure and indications of excessive structural heating.

[…]

Military satellites with infrared detectors recorded several flashes as Columbia broke apart, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity. It was unclear whether those “spikes” of heat indicated an explosion, the burning of pieces of debris re-entering the atmosphere or something else.

[…]

In another room at Kennedy Space Center, O’Keefe met with the astronauts’ families, who had been waiting at the landing site for the shuttle’s return, spokeswoman Melissa Motichek said. Six of the seven astronauts were married, and five of them had children.

This is so sad.  I’m sorry that this had to happen to these people and their families.

[…]

“When the countdown clock, when it got to zero and then started going, instead of counting down, counting up and they were still not there, I told my friend, ‘I have a bad feeling. I think they are gone.’ And I was in tears,” Barr said.

Yahoo News/AP:

A Soyuz vehicle attached to the space station could bring the three astronauts onboard back to Earth at a moment’s notice. But if the space agency’s remaining shuttles are out of service for an extended period in the wake of Saturday’s catastrophe, as seems likely, it could prove difficult to maintain the station’s operations.

KRNV:

Johnson Space Center, Houston-AP — It sounded like routine communication — but now it’s taken on a whole new meaning.

It’s believed to be the final radio communication between NASA and space shuttle “Columbia,” which broke up this morning on its way to landing. All seven astronauts on board are dead.

The communication message was heard shortly before nine a-m Eastern time.

It starts with a mission controller at the Johnson Space Center in Houston saying, “Columbia, Houston we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last.”

A reply comes from an astronaut believed to be shuttle commander Rick Husband, who says “Roger.”

The transmission then breaks off after the crew member starts to say a word starting with the sound “buh.”

The Washington Post has the full text of the brief speech that Presiden Bush made this afternoon:

BUSH: My fellow Americans, this day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country. At 9 o’clock this morning, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with our space shuttle Columbia. A short time later, debris was seen falling from the skies above Texas.

The Columbia’s lost. There are no survivors.

Onboard was a crew of seven–Colonel Rick Husband, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Anderson, Commander Laurel Clark, Captain David Brown, Commander William McCool, Dr. Kalpana Chawla, and Ilan Ramon a colonel in the Israeli air force.

These men and women assumed great risk in this service to all humanity. In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the earth.

These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.

All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You’re not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.

The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.

In the skies today, we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see, there is comfort and hope.

In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

The same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth, yet we can pray that all are safely home.

May God bless the grieving families, and may God continue to bless America.

KansasCity.com/AP:

A timeline of events in the last flight of space shuttle Columbia. All times EST.

Jan. 16, 10:39 a.m. – Columbia rockets into orbit from Kennedy Space Center.

Feb. 1, 8:15 a.m. – Columbia fires braking rockets, streaks toward touchdown.

9 a.m. – Mission Control loses all data and contact with Columbia crew.

9 a.m. – Residents of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana report hearing “a big bang” and seeing flames in the sky.

9:16 a.m. – Columbia’s scheduled landing.

9:29 a.m. – NASA declares emergency.

9:44 a.m. – NASA warns residents to stay away from possibly hazardous debris.

11 a.m. – NASA lowers flag next to its countdown clock at Cape Canaveral, Fla., to half-staff.

2:05 p.m. – President Bush: “Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.”

Reuters:

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Thousands of people in northern India braved a cold winter’s night on Saturday to ring temple bells and pray for a miracle after the space shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry with an Indian-born astronaut on board.

MSNBC posts the flight path of the lost space shuttle Columbia.

Clemens Vasters:

Radar traces of shuttle going down.

Bill Humphries:

Writing from the Starbucks down the street from my dad’s in Dallas. We heard the sonic boom around 8am. It shook the windows. WFAA had a crew out to shoot the reentry for the morning newscast, and they caught the whole sad incident on tape. Ironically, some of the debris fell in the town of Palestine. Dad and I watched the video with a self-imposed clinical distance, it seemed to be the best way to handle it.

The Houston Chronicle:

A steady stream of somber-faced employees filed into the Johnson Space Center this morning as NASA scrambled to gather information on Space Shuttle Columbia’s disintegration over Texas.