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LiveDocx in
PHP Last Downloaded:
2010-07-30 22:11:36.
There has been a lot of talk about Zend Framework 2.0 in the past few weeks. One of
the major new features is the consistent use of namespaces through
out the framework. This requires that all components be re-written
to take advantage of this PHP 5.3 feature.
Although the release of Zend Framework 2.0 is a long way off —
currently there is no official release plan — contributors are
encouraged to port their components as soon as possible.
Therefore, I am delighted to announce that you can download a
version of \Zend\Service\LiveDocx, complete with the latest
development version of Zend Framework 2.0 from my account at GitHub.
In particular, take a look at the shipped demo applications, in
the directory /demos/Zend/Service/LiveDocx. They illustrate
how to use all parts of the framework and offer a good introduction
to the usage of namespaces in PHP 5.3, if this topic is new to
you.
Jeremy Cook has published a great little article
about LiveDocx from his perspective. His opening paragraph really
hits the nail on the head and is the main motivation for creating
LiveDocx in the first place:
Have you ever tried to create a professional quality document
programmatically from within PHP? It’s a real pain and
surprisingly tricky to do. There are limited options for PHP
developers to produce files in the formats most often used in
business. There are libraries for producing PDF files in PHP but
they are complex and are difficult to use for producing
documents.
I am delighted to announce that LiveDocx will officially be supporting the next PHP Unconference
Europe (PHPucEU). The exact date and venue have yet been
announced, but it is expected to be in Spring 2011.
LiveDocx will be deployed by the unconference in their
contribution and interests web application. Using this
application, unconference participants can register a session that
they would like to host, or register an interest in a specific
topic. Another unconference participant can then register a session,
based upon the original person’s interest.
The LiveDocx powered contribution and interests
web application allows the collection of this data and generates the
so called vote posters. To decide upon which sessions may
actually be hosted, there is a voting process on each morning of the
unconference. In this process, participants stick little stickers
onto the vote posters. The session advertised on vote posters with
the most stickers may then be hosted.
This democratic method of deciding upon which sessions may be
hosted is the quintessence of an unconference and the defining
difference from a traditional conference: The participants of an
unconference decide, on the day, which sessions they would like to
have hosted.
LiveDocx is also being used to generate the badges for the
unconference. This is a typical mail-merge application and ideally
suited to LiveDocx: The badge template, created by a graphic
designer, is populated with data in PHP. The data that is inserted
into the template (name, organization, blog, WiFi credentials etc.)
originates from the database of unconference participants, merged
with a database of WiFi credentials.
In each of the above two applications, LiveDocx is used to
generate the final documents. One document per PDF file.
Additionally, there is a script to concentrate each set of PDF files
together, so that the unconference organizers simply need to send
two PDF files to the printers to get a hard copy of all the vote
posters and badges.
LiveDocx is proud to support PHP Unconference Europe with
professional document generation services.
The Department of Informatics at the Hamburg
University and the Hamburg PHP User Group (Germany) are organizing
the fourth annual PHP Unconference on September 25, 2010 and
September 26, 2010. It will take place at Geomatikum, Hamburg University.
The last three events were excellent opportunities to hear
leading speakers in the web development field and of course to
participate in the sessions themselves.
Tickets for the event cost only EUR 30.00. This includes entry to
both conference days, food and drinks. In comparison to other PHP
conferences, it is an absolute bargain and the quality of the
presentations is just as high. Tickets are selling out really
quickly, so register today at: http://de.amiando.com/phpunconference.html
(Students of the Hamburg University get in free! But hurry, there
are limited free tickets. See this post.)
Please
note: This blog post is for our Italian-speaking readers
only.
Alessandro Nuzzo has just published a great introduction about
Zend_Service_LiveDocx. If you are able to read Italian take
a look at the following:
Mi capita spesso di dover generare dinamicamente dei file PDF o
DOC. Alla ricerca di una soluzione che mi facilitasse il lavoro mi
sono imbattuto in LiveDocx, un servizio basato su SOAP che
permette di generare dei documenti partendo da dei template creati
con un word processor. Solitamente quando devo generare dei PDF
utilizzo 2 approcci: o l’”HTML-to-PDF Approach” oppure il
“Programmatic Approach”.
Please
note: This blog post is for our French-speaking readers
only.
Julien Pauli has just published a great commentary
about Zend_Service_LiveDocx, comparing it to his library
odtphp. If you are able to read French take a look at the
following:
Voila quelques temps j’ai sorti odtphp, un script PHP qui
analyse des fichiers odt à la recherche de “tags” et qui les
remplace par des données que vous fournissez. C’est très
pratique pour générer des factures ou d’autres documents basés sur
un template odt et une source de données type
MySQL.
Please
note: This blog post is for our German-speaking readers
only.
Gjero Krsteski
has just published an introduction that illustrates how to create
word processing documents using Zend_Service_LiveDocx. If
you are new to Zend_Service_LiveDocx and can read German,
this is a great starting point:
Letztens stand ich vor der Herausforderung, eine PDF-Klasse zu
schreiben, die PDF-Dateien erzeugt. Als Inhalt für die PDF Dateien
waren sensible Kundendaten angedacht. Diese Anforderung war mir
nicht fremd, jedoch konnte ich mich gut daran erinnern, dass sie
mit viel Arbeit verbunden war. Die meisten Libraries bieten nur
die Möglichkeit, die PDF-Dateien Zeile pro Zeile zu generieren Je
nachdem woher man die Daten dafür beschaffen muss, kann sich dies
zu einem mühseligem Unterfangen entwickeln. Hier kann ich aktuell
zwei Lösungsansätze vorschlagen, die leicht anzuwenden sind und
eine gute Sicherheit gewährleisten.
Faheem
Abbas has just published a great little tutorial that
illustrates how to create word processing documents using
Zend_Service_LiveDocx. If you are new to
Zend_Service_LiveDocx, this is a great starting point:
You may have heard about FPDF, TCPDF. These are used to
generate PDF document in PHP. But very few of you may have heard
about LiveDocx, can be found here http://www.livedocx.com/. The
most cool news I’m going to tell you that Zend Framework 1.10.0
provides clean and simple interface to LiveDocx API. LiveDocx is
soap based service. If you are interested more in LiveDocx,
following the link I’ve already provided you.
I really recommend taking a look at the demonstration
applications, as they illustrate all of
Zend_Service_LiveDocx functionality.
You can check that your server environment is set up correctly to
run Zend_Service_LiveDocx, by executing
check-environment.php in the directory
/demos/Zend/Service/LiveDocx/.
I would like to thank Matthew Weier O’Phinney, Zend
Framework Project Lead and all other members of the Zend Framework
community, who have contributed to
Zend_Service_LiveDocx.
The first implementation of LiveDocx in PHP was in a family of
classes called Tis_Service_LiveDocx. It was necessary to
give the classes the prefix Tis_ as the Zend Framework
coding standards allow the prefix Zend_ to be used
only for classes, which are part of the official
Zend Framework.
As of the first alpha version of Zend Framework 1.10, the functionality of
Tis_Service_LiveDocx is available directly in the Zend
Framework in Zend_Service_LiveDocx.
As of today, the use of Tis_Service_LiveDocx is
deprecated. Instead use Zend_Service_LiveDocx.
With the exception of the constructor, the API of
Zend_Service_LiveDocx is 100% backward compatible to that
of Tis_Service_LiveDocx.
At the wish of the Zend Framework community, the constructor was
updated from:
1
2
// deprecated - do not use$mailMerge = new Tis_Service_LiveDocx_MailMerge('myUsername', 'myPassword');
to:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
// correct - do use$mailMerge = new Zend_Service_LiveDocx_MailMerge(array('username' => 'myUsername',
'password' => 'myPassword'));
// alternatively$mailMerge = new Zend_Service_LiveDocx_MailMerge();
$mailMerge->setUsername('myUsername')
->setPassword('myPassword');
I would encourage you to update your projects to use the
Zend_Service_LiveDocx family of classes.
If you need any assistance in migrating your code, please post a
support request into the support forum.
New Scientist - Online
News Last Downloaded:
2010-07-30 22:11:31.
Today on New Scientist: 30 July 2010 All today's
stories on newscientist.com at a glance, including: the threat from
cosmic Trojans, a convenient "drop-in" biofuel, and spinning dog
brains
Galapagos: off the danger list, still in danger
The decision to take the Galapagos off UNESCO's danger list suggests
the islands are in the clear – but conservationists say that's far
from true
Are cloned steak and milk on European menus?
Reports suggest that meat and dairy products from the offspring of
cloned cattle are already on sale in Europe, says Jessica Griggs
Dog brains rotated by selective breeding Thanks to
thousands of years of skull morphing, the brains of some domestic
dogs have shifted and a key component relocated
Graphene bubbles mimic explosive magnetic field
Electrons trapped inside strain bubbles in graphene act as if they
were in an incredibly powerful magnetic field – good news for future
electronics
Regulation could save genome scanning, not kill it
The personal genomics industry has been bruised by the US Congress,
but embracing sensible regulation could shift it to the heart of
clinical medicine
Today on New Scientist: 29 July 2010 All today's
stories on NewScientist.com, including: doubts over shaken baby
syndrome, a new take on Alzheimer's and the decline of
Phytoplankton
Galapagos off the Danger List – but why? The World
Heritage Committee has taken the Galapagos off its Danger List, says
Michael Marshall. In other news, mice have nothing to fear from
cats
Phytoplankton in decline: bye bye food chain? Tiny
marine plants that help support life in the oceans are declining in
numbers – and that's worth worrying about, says Michael Marshall
Doctor gagged for doubting shaken baby syndrome A
pathologist in the UK who argues that symptoms of "shaken baby
syndrome" can have an innocent cause has been prevented from
testifying in court
Aurora mission makes detour to moon Two satellites
that were doomed to die if they remained in orbit around Earth are
heading to the moon for a life extension
Climategate scientist breaks his silence With
inquiries into the affair now complete, Phil Jones reflects
on his bruising experiences at the centre of the storm
Packet Storm Security
Exploits Last
Downloaded: 2010-07-30 22:11:29.
uplusftp-overflow.txt UPlusFTP Server version
1.7.1.01 remote buffer overflow post authentication exploit.
symantecams-flaw.txt Symantec Antivirus Corporate
Edition AMS Intel Alert Handler service (hndlrsvc.exe) proof of
concept command execution exploit.
jira-xss.txt Jira version 4.0.1 suffers from a
cross site scripting vulnerability.
zemana-escalate.txt Zemana AntiLogger with
AntiLog32.sys versions 1.5.2.755 and below suffer from a local
privilege escalation vulnerability.
ceteraecommerce-sqlxss.txt Cetera eCommerce
versions 14.0 and below suffer from cross site scripting and remote
SQL injection vulnerabilities.
apachetomcat-traversal.txt UTF-8 directory
traversal /etc/passwd grabbing exploit for Apache Tomcat versions
prior to 6.0.18.
joomlaphotomapgallery-sql.txt Joomla PhotoMap
Gallery version 1.6.0 suffers from multiple remote blind SQL
injection vulnerabilities.
avarcade-insecure.txt AV Arcade version 3 suffers
from insecure cookie and SQL injection vulnerabilities.
nubuilder-rfi.txt nuBuilder version 10.04.x
suffers from a remote file inclusion vulnerability.
punbbpunpm-sql.txt PunBB versions 1.3.x and below
with Pun_PM versions 1.2.6 and below remote blind SQL injection
exploit.
When AMD spin-off GlobalFoundries broke ground on its fab in
upstate New York last year, the chip manufacturer boasted it was
"closing the gap" on Intel. "We were a year behind Intel at the 45nm
node, and that difference will be cut significantly at the 32nm
generation," said vice president of manufacturing systems
technology Tom Sonderman. "By 22nm, there will be no difference. It
will be in the noise level."…
More evidence has surfaced that Apple's beleaguered Judas Phone
does, indeed, have serious reception challenges — and today's facts
and figures come from a sophisticated source.…
Warning of an uptick in attacks, Microsoft plans to issue an
emergency update to patch a critical Windows vulnerability that
hackers are exploiting to seize control of PCs.…
Leaving aside the creepy privacy aspects, Street View is one of
Google's most valuable services. The ability to familiarise yourself
with somewhere strange, before you arrive, is genuinely
useful.…
A mainframe cloud may seem oxymoronic like a lead Zeppelin ("a"
included on purpose), or intuitively obvious (given the
virtualization and metering capabilities that have been in
mainframes for decades). But Unisys has nonetheless fluffed up a
mainframe cloud for its ClearPath mainframe customers.…
BlueArc, the hardware-accelerated NAS array supplier startup, has
pocketed another $20m in a seventh funding round, taking total
funding to around $225m.…
The US House of Representatives has passed a law which will
render libel rulings from the English courts unenforceable there.
The bill has already been passed by the Senate and will go to US
President Barack Obama to be signed into law.…
Security shortcomings in Black Hat's newly established streaming
media service allowed a security consultant to hack into the system
and see presentations for free.…
Beer drinkers in the Czech Republic, and that's most of country,
will be raising a glass today to celebrate a local victory against
Anheuser-Busch, the maker of US "beer" Budweiser.…
The UK's Cyber Security Challenge has announced the winner of its
prologue crypto puzzle, as well as the solution - for
anyone still struggling to find an answer.…
Computers in Whitehall will largely continue to run Microsoft’s
Internet Explorer 6, which will make web coders spit out their
cheese‘n’pickle sarnies this lunchtime.…
Review The news that Polaroid has a new instant
camera, after we thought it was done with all that frivolity, is likely to be
greeted with squeals of nostalgic joy. While digital is superior in
almost every sense there's a real warmth about those 80s prints that
we remember adorning fridges and noticeboards. The Polaroid 300
(tsk, these unwieldy techie names) takes you straight back to your
childhood, making a spontaneity-encouraging break from all that DSLR
refinement.…
A year after leaping into bed with O2, NatWest is no longer
backing the operator's pre-paid credit card offering, citing
differences in strategic goals as the cause of the
breakup.…
The four politicians facing fraud charges over their expenses
today failed in their bid to avoid prosecution by using ancient
Parliamentary privilege laws.…
Hey, Mr Trampoline Man... what's that in your hand?
A 55-year-old described by the BBC as a 'man' and by Scotland's
Daily Record as a 'pervert' has avoided jail after being
spotted by neighbours having too much fun with too few clothes on a
trampoline.…
If you've ever wondered what happens when you stick a Google
Nexus One phone in a rocket and blast it to 28,000ft from the Nevada
desert, then here's your answer:…
Four Whitehall departments gave Google and similar search engines
more than £6m in two years to encourage web users to do more
exercise, emit less CO2 and stop smoking, among other
initiatives.…
Apple's iPhone 4 went on sale today in New Zealand. But Vodafone
NZ's handling of the launch left much to be desired, with hundreds
of customers left in the lurch.…
In a lot of ways, Nvidia is the belle of the GPU/accelerator ball
these days. (Make your reservations early for the upcoming "GPU
Fancy Dress Cotillion" later on this year; tuxedo t-shirts
encouraged.) Intel withdrew Larrabee, IBM isn't pushing Cell, FPGAs
aren't gaining a lot of traction yet, and AMD is late to the party
with Fusion.…
Starcraft 2 was released this week and at the
hefty RRP of £45. Many games sites are hopping mad at this, although typically retailers
are selling Blizzard's strategy game at £10 less than
RRP.…
Orwellian black Opel scoots past infamous murder site
Until now, we at El Reg have assumed that Google's Street
View spymobiles are as fearless as they are all-seeing, but it
appears this may not be entirely true.…
The head of the government's website for the release of public
sector data has said it is a challenge to ensure that users can
understand the statistics.…
Review If a recent survey for HP is to be believed, Britons
remain committed to packaged media, with 75 percent wanting hard
copies of films in a box. So despite the advance of video streaming
and downloading, perhaps it’s not yet time to write off conventional
disc players, like Pioneer’s latest Blu-ray offering, the
BDP-330.…
An Android wallpaper application that collected data from users'
phones and uploaded it to a site in China was downloaded "millions
of times", according to mobile security firm Lookout.…
Underscoring the permanence of data published on the internet, a
security researcher has compiled the names and URLs of more than 100
million Facebook users and made them available as a BitTorrent
download.…
The US Department of Justice has filed a fresh lawsuit against
Oracle, three months after intervening in a whistleblower suit that
accuses the software giant of overcharging the government by "tens
of millions of dollars."…
FAM Microsoft's chief executive has come very
close to telling investors he screwed up after years of writing off,
belittling and underestimated Apple's potential success in
touch-based computing.…
Nvidia announced some new CUDA stuff last week, a new developer
kit (3.1) and the Parallel Nsight Visual Studio plug-in, both
designed to make it easier for ISVs and other coding types to
support Nvidia GPUs in their apps. Our pal TPM has a typically
detailed story here.…
Black Hat Fighting wars that target computer
networks is fraught with risks that don't exist in traditional
warfare, raising the stakes for future conflicts, a retired US
general told security professionals Thursday.…
High performance computing – by which is meant traditional
parallel supercomputing as well as data analytics and hyperscale
cloudy infrastructure – is facing a looming file system and storage
bottleneck, and Whamcloud, a startup backed by $10m in private
funding and some of the top people behind the Lustre file system,
want to help.…
US wireless carrier Sprint is slated to offer a kind of handset
sleeve that could provide 3G wireless access to an iPod Touch, the
Apple iPhone that's not a phone.…
The inscrutable plan of Oracle for Solaris 10 on x64 servers
became more... scrutable this morning. The company announced that
Dell and Hewlett-Packard would be certifying and reselling Oracle's
Solaris and Enterprise Linux operating systems, as well as its
Oracle VM implementation of the Xen hypervisor on their respective
PowerEdge and ProLiant servers.…
Comments for GBH - The man
in black rants back Last Downloaded: 2010-07-30
22:11:26.
Hi Graham and Lucy, I am well chuffed for you both….and a
great photo of Lucy crossing the line….I reckon you should
contact Lord Coe and represent UK in the 2012 Olympics…move over
Paula Radcliffe.
comments by race organisers re the lack of water between miles 15
and 21 and god it was hot
EDINBURGH MARATHON REPORT WATER THEFT
The Edinburgh Marathon today reported the theft of at least 6,804
bottles of water (3 Pallets) and 4,040 Lucozade Energy gels which
were stolen from the route in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The thefts left two out of nine water stations on the Edinburgh
Marathon route without water for a period of 40 minutes between
miles 15 and 21.
Organisers quickly organised mobile teams of police and support
vehicles in an attempt to deliver water to those who missed out.
Neil Kilgour, Race Director of Edinburgh Marathon,
commented; “We are furious that someone would steal water and
energy gels from marathon runners on a hot day but unfortunately
that is the case. It did leave us with problems which we
unreservedly apologise for but I believe we did everything we could
to mitigate the problem.
“When it became apparent that the water supply was getting low at
water station 6 we moved water from water station 7 across the road
to water station 6. We also activated our distribution company who
had picked up the surplus water at water station 2 (the 5.5 mile
mark on Portobello Prom) and moved it to water stations 6 and 7
between Lyars Roads and Gosford House. Water was moved under police
escort to get it to the stations as quickly as possible. The
marathon distribution company collected around 10,000 bottles of
water from other water stations at the end of the event”.
“In collaboration with the police and emergency services we set
up mobile water stations for people that missed the water at these
stations and we wish to express our gratitude for their support in
trying circumstances”.
Geoff Sims, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Marathon Ltd
announced a £5,000 reward to anyone that gives information to police
that leads to a conviction. Geoff Sims went on to say; the marathon
staff spend the best part of a whole year planning a race with the
aim that every runner will leave Edinburgh having had a great
experience and were devastated to hear that some water stations had
run out of water. Most of all our sincere apologies to all the
runners that were adversely affected. We will of course be
increasing our security measures in future years to ensure that this
never happens again”.
Those with information should call the Lothian and Borders Police
on 0131 311 3131 with incident reference number 454 dated the
02/06/09.
To add to the above situation water station one at mile three ran
short of water. Runners were rightly very nervous about water in the
heat and as one of our volunteers said, runners were taking several
bottles of water. We had a large surplus at water stations 2 (which
was brought to the end of the course) as lots of runners already had
water on them when running past this station. We unreservedly
apologise for the shortage of water at the first water station and
in future years the marathon organisers will add extra water to this
station to cater for our runners. We will also adding extra security
to all the water stations throughout the whole course.
13,104 runners entered the marathon. 8,419 marathon runners
started the race and 8,257 finished the race. 162 marathon runners
started but did not finish. 1,052 Teams entered the relay. 965 relay
teams started the race and 933 teams finished with 32 teams not
finishing. There was a maximum of 9,384 runners on the course at any
one time.
Geoff Sims – Chief Executive Neil Kilgour – Race
Director Caroline Vevers – Event Director Damien O’Looney –
Marketing Director
You didn’t drag me – it was an honour to come along with my hero!
Well done my love, your dad would have been so proud of you – Lucy
and I certainly
are.
Packet Storm Security
Headlines Last
Downloaded: 2010-07-30 22:11:21.
BBC News -
Technology Last
Downloaded: 2010-07-30 22:10:54.
Call to check on mobile security Owners of mobile
phones are being asked to test the security of their network to see
if enough is being done to stop eavesdropping.
Facebook data hoarder speaks out Security
researcher Ron Bowes tells BBC News why he collected and published
the personal details of 100m Facebook users.
Chip sales boost Samsung profits Samsung
Electronics reports record quarterly profits thanks to higher sales
of smartphones and components such as memory chips.
Google cleared of wi-fi snooping No "significant"
personal data was grabbed by Google when it snooped on wi-fi
networks, says the UK data protection office.
Amazon offers new look UK Kindle Online retailer
Amazon launches its popular Kindle e-reader into the UK market for
the first time, with a new look and more books.
Nintendo game copiers 'illegal' A High Court has
ruled that devices that allow gamers to play pirated video games on
the Nintendo DS console are illegal in the UK.
Government's £6m web search bill Four government
departments spent almost £6m ensuring their websites appeared on
search engine results pages, new figures show.
State of global internet revealed Asian countries
top the charts when it comes to internet speeds, according to a
global survey by network giant Akamai.
Facebook makes move into search Facebook has made
its first steps into the search market with the launch a servcie
that allows users to quiz the site's 500m members.
Hybrid supercar to go on sale Porsche has
confirmed it'll make a limited number of a new hybrid supercar it's
been developing.
Online etiquette Nothing said online is really
private, says Bill Thompson
Step away from the iPod Banning technology from
classrooms is unlikely to solve any problems, thinks Bill Thompson.
Building the Networked World Open software, fast
broadband and a narrower digital divide. Europe lays out its digital
agenda.
Ash cloud passengers publish zine The volcanic ash
cloud that shut down British airspace, leaving thousands of
travellers stranded also brought many strangers together digitally
to create a silver lining.
Accessing content under the radar Click looks at
how people are using proxy servers and VPNs to access restricted
content on the internet, and bypass geographical borders.
Who will win the 3D TV war? Some of the biggest
names in Japan's technology industry report earnings later today and
the likes of Panasonic and Sony are betting on 3D to drive sales of
new TVs, DVD players and camcorders.
The man with the keys to the web A British
computer expert has been entrusted with part of a digital key, to
help restart the internet in the event of a major catastrophe. Paul
Kane talked to Eddie Mair on Radio 4's PM programme about what he
might be called upon to do in an international online emergency.
Gamers try out Nintendo 3DS Two Newsbeat
listeners, Neil and Melanie, have been given a sneak preview of
Nintendo's new hand-held console the 3DS.
HTC makes first foray into China One of the
world's top designers of smartphones, Taiwan's HTC, has announced it
is moving into the Chinese market for the first time.
Space age sub explores slick David Shukman takes a
dive in a research sub as it investigates the effects of the oil
spill on the Gulf of Mexico's coral reefs.
Why women gamers are big business Almost half the
people who play computers games in Britain are women, but they often
prefer a different type of game to men.
BBC News -
UK Last Downloaded:
2010-07-30 22:10:53.
Coroner raises rail safety fears A coroner raises
ongoing safety fears as an inquest jury blames a points failure for
the Potters Bar train crash.
Venables' identity must be secret The new identity
of Jon Venables must be kept secret because there is "compelling
evidence" of a threat to his safety, a judge says.
UK soldiers push to clear Taliban Hundreds of UK
soldiers launch an operation to clear Taliban insurgents from a key
stronghold in southern Afghanistan.
Immigrant worker limit criticised Government plans
to limit the number of skilled foreign workers allowed into the UK
are criticised by the Lord Mayor of London.
Prescott Iraq intelligence doubts The intelligence
on Iraq's weapons threat was "not very substantial", former deputy
prime minister Lord Prescott says.
Balding complains over sex jibe Sports presenter
Clare Balding makes an official complaint to the Press Complaints
Commission over an article which mocked her sexuality.
Killers among prisoners at large A total of 22
killers remain at large in the UK despite having their licences
revoked and being recalled to prison.
Benefits face 'radical' shake-up Ministers are to
set out options for "radical reform" of the benefits system and
moving people from welfare into work.
MoD 'to pay for Trident renewal' The chancellor
says the MoD, not the Treasury, will have to pay £20bn to renew the
nuclear deterrent, putting extra pressure on the defence budget.
Widow's relief as remains found The widow of a man
believed to have been killed by the IRA in 1981 said she felt sad
but relieved that her husband's remains appeared to have been found.
Pair forced six children to beg A Romanian man and
a woman are jailed for 30 months for forcing six children, the
youngest aged two, to beg on London's streets.
Fugitive Nadir will stand trial Fugitive Polly
Peck tycoon Asil Nadir, who fled to northern Cyprus in 1993,
confirms he will come back to the UK to stand trail on theft
charges.
Child, 3, drowned in garden pond A toddler drowned
after falling into a garden pond during a visit to a house in
Edinburgh, it has emerged.
Vases 'transform' couples' retirement A retired
couple say they are "delighted" after a pair of Chinese vases they
were given as a wedding gift sell for £500,000.
Bishop backs 1971 killings probe A Catholic bishop
calls for an independent inquiry into the deaths of 11 civilians
killed by the Army in Ballymurphy in west Belfast in 1971.
IFA fails to halt player exodus The Court of
Arbitration for Sport rules against the Irish Football Association
in their bid to prevent more Northern-Ireland born players opting
for the Republic.
Family funeral tribute to soldier Hundreds of
mourners attend the funeral of a "brave, courageous and loyal"
soldier killed in Afghanistan.
Charges follow quad bike deaths Two men, 21 and
23, will face charges after a raid on a Cardiff shop ended with the
deaths of two others on quad bikes.
Men escape with five-figure sum Three men wearing
ski masks have stolen more than £10,000 from a man in the Carntyne
area of Glasgow, police say.
Sisters detained over stab death Two sisters from
north Manchester are detained after one stabbed her boyfriend and
the other let him bleed to death.
Sex parties banned at London home The High Court
bans a man from staging sex parties and pole-dancing classes at the
mansion he owns in central London.
Turner leads GB Euro medal haul Andy Turner leads
Great Britain's medal haul on the fourth day of the European
Championships as he takes gold in the 110m hurdles.
Anderson puts England in command Birthday boy
James Anderson produces a superb bowling display to put England on
top in the first Test against Pakistan at Trent Bridge.
Quiz of the week's news The Magazine's weekly quiz
of the news, 7 days 7 questions - plus the Weekly Bonus Question.
Choosing to be child-free More women in the
developed world are choosing not to have children. So why do others
think it's OK to question this decision?
The big cheese With thousands expected to flock to
a major cheese fair, why are Britons taking this once-humble
foodstuff so seriously?
Expenses four in appeals defeat Three ex-Labour
MPs and an ex-Tory peer lose appeals over a ruling that they are not
protected by parliamentary privilege from prosecution over expenses
fraud allegations.
No change after policy feedback The coalition
government issues detailed responses to the public's policy
suggestions but says there will be no changes.
Gove defends academy schools list The Education
Secretary insists there no is rush for schools in England to become
academies, after criticism over the number of schools coming
forward.
Widow's relief as remains found The widow of a man
believed abducted and murdered by the IRA in 1981 said she felt sad
but relieved that her husband's remains appeared to have been found.
Kathleen Armstrong talks to the BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty about her
"very mixed emotions".
BP boss scaling back oil effort Incoming BP chief
executive Bob Dudley has said it is time to scale back some parts of
the oil spill clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico.
Cameron's doubts on becoming PM David Cameron has
confessed that, on the day before entering Downing Street, he told
his wife Samantha he was sure he would not become prime minister.
Corey does Kerrang! - he's 'desperate' Slipknot's
Corey Taylor says he has hope for the rock scene, based on the large
number of new bands nominated for the Kerrang! Awards.
King's Troop enjoy seaside break The Kings Troop
Royal Horse Artillery have made special plans to ensure that some of
their most valuable members are rested over the summer break.
Grand finale Lord Prescott brings curtain down on
Iraq hearings in style
In Pictures Weston-super-Mare's Sand Sculpture
Festival.
On the run Northern Cyprus is a "haven" for
fugitives no longer
Rum ration What did they do with the drunken
sailor?
Bad trip Are family holidays worth all the hassle?
Hoop dreams Did they really play croquet at the
Olympics?
BBC News -
Home Last Downloaded:
2010-07-30 22:10:49.
Coroner raises rail safety fears A coroner raises
ongoing safety fears as an inquest jury blames a points failure for
the Potters Bar train crash.
UK soldiers push to clear Taliban Hundreds of UK
soldiers launch an operation to clear Taliban insurgents from a key
stronghold in southern Afghanistan.
BP boss scaling back oil effort The incoming BP
chief executive has said it is time to scale back some parts of the
oil spill clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico.
Venables' identity must be secret The new identity
of Jon Venables must be kept secret because there is "compelling
evidence" of a threat to his safety, a judge says.
Child, 3, drowned in garden pond A toddler drowned
after falling into a garden pond during a visit to a house in
Edinburgh, it has emerged.
Immigrant worker limit criticised Government plans
to limit the number of skilled foreign workers allowed into the UK
are criticised by the Lord Mayor of London.
Lebanon urged to resist violence Syria's president
and the Saudi king call on Lebanon's rival factions to avoid turning
to violence amid mounting political tensions in the country.
Fugitive Nadir will stand trial Fugitive Polly
Peck tycoon Asil Nadir, who fled to northern Cyprus in 1993,
confirms he will come back to the UK to stand trail on theft
charges.
Benefits face 'radical' shake-up Merging all tax
credits and benefits into a single payment is one option being
considered by Iain Duncan Smith in a "radical" welfare shake-up.
French mother 'relieved by truth' A French mother
who admitted killing eight of her newborn babies is relieved that
her secret is finally out in the open, her lawyer says.
Turner leads GB Euro medal haul Andy Turner leads
Great Britain's medal haul on the fourth day of the European
Championships as he takes gold in the 110m hurdles.
Anderson puts England in command Birthday boy
James Anderson produces a superb bowling display to put England on
top in the first Test against Pakistan at Trent Bridge.
Vettel heads Alonso in practice Red Bull appear to
be in control as McLaren struggle during second practice for
Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix.
Redknapp defends Parker pursuit Tottenham manager
Harry Redknapp defends the club's pursuit of West Ham's Scott Parker
insisting the Hammers are guilty of unsettling the midfielder.
Sisters detained over stab death Two sisters from
north Manchester are detained after one stabbed her boyfriend and
the other let him bleed to death.
Pair forced six children to beg A Romanian man and
a woman are jailed for 30 months for forcing six children, the
youngest aged two, to beg on London's streets.
Men escape with five-figure sum Three men wearing
ski masks have stolen more than £10,000 from a man in the Carntyne
area of Glasgow, police say.
Widow's relief as remains found The widow of a man
believed to have been killed by the IRA in 1981 said she felt sad
but relieved that her husband's remains appeared to have been found.
Bishop backs 1971 killings probe A Catholic bishop
calls for an independent inquiry into the deaths of 11 civilians
killed by the Army in Ballymurphy in west Belfast in 1971.
Family funeral tribute to soldier Hundreds of
mourners attend the funeral of a "brave, courageous and loyal"
soldier killed in Afghanistan.
Charges follow quad bike deaths Two men, 21 and
23, will face charges after a raid on a Cardiff shop ended with the
deaths of two others on quad bikes.
Three charged with Uganda bombing Three Kenyans
are charged with the murders of 76 people killed when bombs exploded
as they watched the World Cup on TV in Kampala, Uganda.
Four fined over SA 'racist video' Four white South
Africans are fined $2,700 (£1,700) each after making a video
humiliating black university workers.
Sale of EDF's UK networks agreed A consortium
headed by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing agrees to buy the UK
networks of French power group EDF for £5.8bn ($9.1bn).
China river hunt for toxic drums Search teams in
north-east China are still searching for thousands of barrels of
toxic chemicals washed into a major river by flooding.
Deadly forest fires ravage Russia Forest fires
kill at least 23 people in central Russia, while a forecast of heavy
rain brings relief to Moscow.
Sarkozy threat on police attacks President Nicolas
Sarkozy says he would like to strip French nationality from anyone
of foreign origin who threatened the life of a police officer.
Military kills Mexico drug lord The Mexican
government says security forces have killed leading drug trafficker
Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel.
Argentine gay weddings go ahead A gay couple
become the first to marry in Argentina under a new law allowing
same-sex unions.
Israel launches Gaza air strikes Israel launches
air strikes into the Gaza Strip, reports say, hours after a
Palestinian rocket hit the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Saudi warned on expelling Somalis The UN refugee
agency urges Saudi Arabia to stop deporting Somalis, saying 2,000
have recently been sent to Mogadishu.
South Asia floods kill hundreds Floods caused by
heavy monsoon rain kill at least 385 people in Pakistan and
Afghanistan, washing away whole villages, roads and bridges.
US has deadliest Afghan war month US forces
suffered the deadliest month of their nine-year Afghan campaign,
with 66 service members killed in July.
US economic growth slows to 2.4% US economic
growth slowed between April and June, with GDP growing by an
annualised rate of 2.4%, the US Commerce Department says.
'Video leaker' moved to US base A US soldier
accused of leaking video of a deadly 2007 Iraq helicopter attack to
the Wikileaks website is transferred to a Virginia base pending
trial.
Strikes and ash extend BA losses BA reveals a
steep quarterly loss of £164m after being hit by cabin crew strikes
and disruption caused by the volcanic ash cloud.
Northwest agrees to pay $38m fine Northwest
Airlines will plead guilty and pay a $38m fine for fixing air-cargo
prices, the US justice department says.
Airbus firm EADS lifts output aim Airbus parent
firm EADS says it is confident about future orders, despite
reporting a fall in second-quarter earnings.
Prescott Iraq intelligence doubts The intelligence
on Iraq's weapons threat was "not very substantial", former deputy
prime minister Lord Prescott says.
Expenses four in appeals defeat Three ex-Labour
MPs and an ex-Tory peer lose appeals over a ruling that they are not
protected by parliamentary privilege from prosecution over expenses
fraud allegations.
MoD 'to pay for Trident renewal' The MoD is facing
further pressure on its budget after the chancellor says it will
have to pay for new nuclear submarines, and not the Treasury as
before.
Calcium pills 'raise' heart risk Calcium
supplements taken by many older people could be increasing their
risk of a heart attack, research shows.
Pregnant women rights questioned The right of
women to choose whether they have home births is being questioned by
a leading medical journal.
Drug prescribed after web search A father
persuades the NHS to give his sick daughter a "miracle" drug he
found on the internet.
Gove defends academy schools list The Education
Secretary insists there no is rush for schools in England to become
academies, after criticism over the number of schools coming
forward.
Maths fears over A-level reforms Plans to reform
A-levels could put students off maths and lead to university
department closures, an academic body warns.
150 schools ask to be academies More than 150 top
schools in England have applied to become academies, government
documents show.
Call to check on mobile security Owners of mobile
phones are being asked to test the security of their network to see
if enough is being done to stop eavesdropping.
Facebook data hoarder speaks out Security
researcher Ron Bowes tells BBC News why he collected and published
the personal details of 100m Facebook users.
Mammals decline in Chernobyl zone The largest
wildlife census of its kind conducted in Chernobyl reveals evidence
of mammals declining in the exclusion zone.
Further Chile quakes 'possible' Land in the north
of Chile is "ready" for another major earthquake, say researchers,
adding that authorities did not act on previous warnings.
Galapagos off Unesco danger list A UN panel votes
to remove the Galapagos Islands from a "red list" of endangered
heritage sites, to protests from a leading conservation group.
Balding complains over sex jibe Sports presenter
Clare Balding makes an official complaint to the Press Complaints
Commission over an article which mocked her sexuality.
DeGeneres leaving American Idol Comedienne and
chat show host Ellen DeGeneres is leaving American Idol after one
season on the judging panel.
Ben Shephard says goodbye to GMTV Ben Shephard
bids farewell to GMTV after 10 years telling viewers: "I'm going to
miss all of you, every single one of you."
Choosing to be child-free More women in the
developed world are choosing not to have children. So why do others
think it's OK to question this decision?
The big cheese With thousands expected to flock to
a major cheese fair, why are Britons taking this once-humble
foodstuff so seriously?
Was Dr Crippen really innocent? Hawley Crippen is
one of the most infamous killers in British history. But was he
really innocent of murdering his wife?
Grim task of China oil clean-up China is
struggling with an arduous clean up after the country's worst oil
spill, with grim conditions for those involved.
Armed robber chooses Jesus over cash A 20-year-old
woman has managed to convince a man attempting an armed robbery in
Florida to walk away - by preaching to him about Jesus.
'I survived grizzly bear attack' A Canadian woman
has said she played dead in order to escape from a bear during an
attack in Montana that left one man dead.
Rescues as Pakistan flood toll soars More than 400
people have been killed and nearly 400,000 displaced in floods
triggered by heavy monsoon rains in northern Pakistan.
Gaza children 'break' kite flying record Thousands
of children in Gaza appear to have broken their own world record for
the number of kites flown at the same time, the UN says.
Families' reaction to crash verdict The families
of the victims of the Potters Bar train crash say they would like a
public inquiry into the incident which killed seven people.
Deadly forest fires ravage Russia Wild fires have
continued to rage in central and western Russia, with more than 20
people now reported to have died.
Bad trip Are family holidays worth all the hassle?
Ultimate rejection What could drive a mother to
kill a child in first few minutes of life?
Hoop dreams Did they really play croquet at the
Olympics?
Admin Slideshow Block Released I have coded a
very sought after block with an admin integration area. A modern
rotating block that will display images and content of your
choice.
Included is a install script for easy installation
and an integrated admin panel for easy configuration and
adjustment.
In total there are 4 slides that can be adjusted
to include: - Image - Image Link - Title -
Description - Read More Link - Admin Edit Link (for admin
only) - Option to place the Text overlay Top, Bottom, Left or
Right.
The admin area uses a JQuery Accordion so you can edit
each slide individually without getting confused. Once you have
edited the slides simple save and your done.
This file is
for Club Membership only and can be downloaded >>
SlideShow
Block
It
allows you to show the status of your recruitment needs. From the
admin area you can specify each class's level of importance, High,
Medium, Low or Closed. You can also specify the colour codes for
each class and you can also specify the link to apply which is
located at the bottom of the block.
If you want this block
for any other Guild or Game please ask in the forums I would be
more than happy to convert it over for you.
Tested on Ravens
Nuke and Standard Nuke, but should also work on Evo.
Set up a professional development environment using
Packts new PHP 5 Tools bookExpert PHP 5
Tools is a new book from Packt, which provides developers with
best practices and enterprise tools required for designing, coding,
testing, and deploying PHP applications. Written by Dirk Merkel, this book will
enable developers to write unit tests and practice test-driven
development from an expert. The developers will also learn to
develop their own coding standard and enforce it automatically.
Medal of Honor Theme Released The Medal of
Honor Theme is a fixed width theme of 1000 pixels but will
accommodate all screen resolutions, it comes with matching forums
theme, MP3 player block and interactive Admin Area to easily add
songs and a matching Flash Shout block and Admin Management module.
I have made the right blocks wider than the left blocks typically
nearly twice as wide that will easily fit content 250 pixels wide,
giving the site a modern look yet keeping the center blocks adequate
room to promote news and center content easily.
The theme
also comes with a very full and detailed theme install
instructions.
Features: Admin only link
in header Register + Login Bar for guests in header Account
Link for members in header Header PSD to add your own clan name +
Various other designs and matching MOH Fonts MP3 Player Module
and Block with integrated Admin Area Flash Shout Box Module and
Block (Only works on Ravens Nuke and Evo Nuke variants) 125x125
Advertisement Block 100% XHTML Complaint 100% CSS
Compliant Banner Advertisement placement in footer Join Us
Block and Image XML Image/Banner rotating Block Modified
Center Forums Block 30 Matching Avatars Matching Topic images
and new topics module Matching Theme Fonts Module Title
PSD Matching NukeNav for Ravens Nuke Cross browser
compatibility, tested in IE, Mozzila and Opera Matching Forums
Theme
Navicat Version 9 is released PremiumSoft today
announces the immediate release of version 9 for the whole Navicat™
family, including: - Navicat™ Premium - Navicat™ for
MySQL - Navicat™ for PostgreSQL - Navicat™ for Oracle -
Navicat™ for SQLite
To meet the wishes of Navicat customers
and the demand of managing SQLite database server through a GUI,
Navicat for SQLite is introduced to the Navicat family in this
launch. Navicat for SQLite provides SQLite users a tool for
administering and managing database objects as well as for database
migration, data import, export, synchronization, reporting, and
more.
With the launch of Navicat for SQLite, database
connectivity to SQLite servers is also added to Navicat Premium.
Navicat Premium unites all Navicat family members for database
administration and development, into one powerful and easy-to-use
work environment. With the new Navicat Premium version 9, users can
connect to 4 of the most common databases including MySQL, Oracle,
PostgreSQL and SQLite within one single application, making
cross-database data management feasible.
In addition to the
introduction of Navicat for SQLite, another significant feature
improvement to version 9 is the introduction of PL/SQL debugger in
Navicat for Oracle. The PL/SQL debugger lets users debug their code
easily, it helps to avoid tedious PL/SQL debugging tasks, saving
time and improving the overall quality of applications.
“We’re very excited about the launch of Navicat version 9”,
said Mr. Ken Lin, the Software Development Director at PremiumSoft.
“We see the demand of managing SQLite database server through a
Graphical User Interface, so we have released Navicat for SQLite to
meet customer’s requests. In addition, we have enhanced many of the
functions in Navicat and introduced new features like PL/SQL
debugger in Navicat for Oracle. In version 9, Navicat Premium is
supporting connection to one more database, SQLite. With all these
improvements and changes, we aim to make Navicat to be one of the
essential tools for all web developers and database
administrators.”
New Key
features: - Support of SQLite - Oracle PL/SQL
Debugger - Enhanced Code Completion - Code Formatter - Code
outline - Recovery of Documents from crashes - Shortcut to
open official online documents - Option to show query results
below query editor - Storing favorite actions as shortcut -
Enhanced User Interface
Navicat Premium starts from US$199,
currently available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
supporting simultaneous connections to MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and
SQLite databases.
Or,
download the 30-day fully functional free trial at: http://www.navicat.com/download Retrieved
from
"http://prect2003/wiki/wiki/index.php/MySQL_Mac_OS_X_Press"
About
PremiumSoft CyberTech Limited: PremiumSoft was founded
in 1999 and is a fast growing company, aiming at accelerating
application development and database management with software that
enhance productivity and maximize results of our customers. With our
customer-centric focus and best-of-breed products and services,
PremiumSoft has been successful in making customers significantly
more productive. Copyright 1999 - 2010. PremiumSoft ™ CyberTech
Ltd All rights reserved
PHPNukeZ Theme Release (2 Free) PHPNukeZ continues
its theme release with 2 Free NFL Themes: Arizona Cardinals and New
Orleans Saints. Stop back often and see if your team has made it. Or
Post to our FORUMS
on which NFL team you would like to see done next.
Professional Nuke Services For 4 years Nuke
Install has become the top Professional Nuke
Installation Company on the net. With over 200 installations,
conversions, upgrades and custom services provided to date, we have
developed services useful to both newcomers and the experienced
users of the various Nuke systems. Customers can have piece of mind
knowing that we have a 100% customer satisfaction rate. We work
closely with each and every customer to ensure they get exactly what
they would like in their web site. Many of our customers have become
repeat customers or have hired us on a long term basis for ongoing
work.
If you are new to the various Nuke systems or
would like to have some custom work done, then I encourage you to
stop over at Nuke
Install and see if we can be assistance. We offer a
large array of services
including but not limited to the following:
*
Nuke Installations
* Nuke Conversions
* Nuke
Upgrades
* Module/Block/Theme Installs
* Forum Mod
Installs
* Nuke Security checks and Installs
*
Repairs and Troubleshooting
* Custom Work on Request
If our professional services sound like
something that interest you, but you are still not convinced. Feel
free to checkout what our customers have to say in our forums.
eMule module 2.0 is now out! Hi everyone, few
years ago I started to work on a new module of the Edonkey module
that published to the PHP-Nuke community, after a lot of work i
managed to get a great module that i used for few month in my site
(until i shot down my site) and i called that modules "eMule 1.8a".
A few weeks ago i started to work on a new version of this module
which called "eMule 2.0". Download now the eMule
module 2.0 From NukeAll.Co.iL!
PHPNukeZ Theme Release (5 Free)PHPNukeZ
continues its theme release with 4 Free NFL Themes: Pittsburgh
Steelers, Denver Broncos, Dallas Cowboys, and Seattle Seahawks. Also
being released is a Cartman South Park Theme. Stop back often and
see if your team has made it. Or Post to our FORUMS
on which NFL team you would like to see done next.
I gave a 3-hour hands-on workshop on Java EE 6, GlassFish, and NetBeans. The room was packed during
the first part (about 60 or so) and most of the audience retained
for second part. The workshop explained several advantages of Java
EE 6 such as simplicity, ease-of-use, and richness of the platform.
These concepts were demonstrated using multiple coding sessions
involving several technologies from the platform. Specifically it
showed:
Creating simple Java EE 6 application using JSP, Servlets 3.0,
Enterprise Java Beans 3.1
Facelets-based page creation using Java Server Faces 2
Contexts & Dependency Injection with Java Server Faces
2
Accessing database table using Java Persistence API 2
RESTful Web services using JAX-RS
NetBeans IDE specific features like Deploy-on-Save and
Session-Preservation features that boosts your development
productivity were also demonstrated using code samples.
Watch Tim Rayburn (one of
the conference organizers) talks about where Dallas Tech Fest is
today and how they like to evolve it for next year:
One of the attendees mentioned after the workshop that it was
like "drinking from the fire hose". The content could be
overwhelming for users who are not familiar with NetBeans and new to
Java EE 6. As repeated multiple times during the workshop, all the
code shown in the workshop is clearly explained in screencast
#30 (also in-lined below).
Feel free to re-run the workshop at your own pace and
convenience. And you can always post any comment on this blog or GlassFish
forum for question and/or clarifications.
Check out some pictures from the event:
On a personal front, met a few avid readers of my blog, connected
with some Oracle folks, and barely met Ted Neward. I found Texas
very humid and hot early in the morning for me. But still managed to
squeeze in a 10K run, at a much slower pace:
One of the advantage of staying at Westin hotels is that they
have a running map close to their hotel. And if not then their
"Westin Workout" gyms are typically well equipped - even a stepper
and exercise ball ;-)
Thanks Erik & Tim for providing me the opportunity to speak,
I definitely look forward to participating next year!
Just a reminder that the JCP is calling for Award
Nominations. This year will be the 8th annual awards,
celebrating excellence in the JCP program membership, JSR
development, innovation and leadership. Please nomination via
the board or
send email to either heather at jcp dot org or the PMO-- pmo at jcp
dot org today! The nominations will be up for an Executive
Committee vote and the awards will be presented during JavaOne this
September.
For fun, I thought I would share some images from the the JCP
program office potluck last week. We enjoyed a picnic lunch
and played bocce ball in the park.
There
are four ways how one can modify Confluence's runtime behavior:
Config Files in Confluence Home directory
Config Files in WEB-INF/classes
JVM Options
Admin UI
Config Files in Confluence Home directory
Confluence
Home directory contains one or more config files that control
runtime behavior of Confluence. The most important file is
confluence.cfg.xml that must be present in order for
Confluence to start. This file can be modified by hand while
confluence is shut down, but also gets modified by Confluence
occasionally (mostly during upgrades). Your changes will be
preserved, as long as you made them while Confluence was
offline.
Another relevant file is
tangosol-coherence-override.xml which must unfortunately be
used to override Confluence’s lame multicast configuration needed
for cluster configuration (see below).
Lastly there is
config/confluence-coherence-cache-config-clustered.xml
which contains configuration of the Confluence cache. Generally you
don't want to modify this file by hand. I’ll come back to talk about
cache configuration later in the Admin UI section of this
chapter.
In general it is advisable to be very consistent
about your environment, so that you can then just have a single
version of these files that you can distribute on all servers when
needed. This includes the directory layout, network interface names,
and so on.
A combination of the first two files will allow
you to configure the following:
Clustering
As I mentioned, this configuration is split
between two config files. confluence.cfg.xml contains
confluence.cluster.* properties, which allow you to set
multicast IP, interface and TTL, but not the port. Only
tangosol-coherence-override.xml can do that.
The
cluster IP is by default derived from a "cluster name" specified via
the Admin UI or installation wizard. For some reason Atlassian
believes that in an enterprise environment one can just let a
software pick a random IP and port to run multicast on. I don’t know
about any serious datacenter where things work this way. You’ll
likely want to explicitly set IP, port, interface name and TTL and
the only way to do that is by modifying these files by hand and
ignoring the "cluster name" setting in the UI. Make sure that
settings are consistent in both files.
DB Connection Pool
Confluence comes with an embedded
connection pool. I believe that you can use your own too (if it
comes with your servlet container), but I’d suggest sticking with
the embedded one since it is widely used and Atlassian runs their
tests with it also. The pool is configured via
confluence.cfg.xml and its hibernate.c3p0.*
properties. The most important property is pool max_size
which will prevent the pool from opening more than a defined number
of connections at a time. You want this number to be higher than
your typical peak concurrent request count (are you monitoring
that?), but not higher than what your db can handle. We have ours
set to 300, which is double of our occasional peaks. Don’t forget
that in order to take advantage of these connections, you’ll likely
need to also increase the worker thread count in your servlet
container.
DB Connection
The connection is configured via
hibernate.connection.* properties in
confluence.cfg.xml. Depending on your db, you might need to
specify several settings for the connection to work well and grok
UTF-8. For our MySQL db, we need to set the connection url to
something like
Note
that if you are editing this file by hand, you must escape illegal
xml characters. More info about db connection can be found in the Confluence
documentation.
Config Files in WEB-INF/classes
Just a side
note: if you are building confluence from source then these files
can be found at
confluence/confluence-project/conf-webapp/src/main/resources/.
These
files are the most cumbersome to work with because you need to apply
your changes to them after each upgrade. I'll describe how we use
our automated patching machinery to do this in the future chapter of
this guide. For now let's just go over the available config files
and what you can change here.
atlassian-user.xml -
used to configure user provisioning, e.g. LDAP. For more info read
the docs.
confluence-init.properties
- this file allows you to specify the path to Confluence Home
directory. There is a better way to set this; see the JVM Options
section below.
log4j.properties - modify logging
preferences, this can also be done via the UI, but AFAIK the changes
are not preserved after restart or
upgrade.
seraph-config.xml - controls authentication
framework. You'll likely need to modify this file if you have a
custom authenticator and login page.
I should note that there
are many other (usually xml) configuration files bundled with
individual jars in WEB-INF/lib, but those rarely need to be
modified.
-Dcom.atlassian.user.experimentalMapping=true -
this is a critically important setting for us with 180k users.
Without it, our cluster panics due to data overload (CONF-12319),
unfortunately despite Atlassian’s claims that this experimental
feature is production ready, it got broken soon after release, and
then again recently, so
you’ll have to patch
atlassian-user module to get it to
work.
-Dconfluence.disable.peopledirectory.anonymous=true
- for big public deployments the people directory is a privacy risk
and generally useless for anonymous users, we have it disabled for
anonymous
users.
-Dconfluence.disable.mailpolling=true - early
on we decided that we don’t want people to build up mail archives on
our site. While the feature is useful for small internal wikis, it’s
too much of a risk with little reward to provide it on a public
wiki. Unfortunately, this option only disables mail fetching. The UI
for setting up mail archives will still be present in the wiki;
you'll have to patch Confluence to remove it.
I didn't learn
about -Dconfluence.home until recently. I would much prefer
to use it than to mess with confluence-init.properties file
in WEB-INF/classes.
Admin UI
Most
of the Confluence settings can be configured via Confluence
admin interface. The downside is that the configuration is not being
versioned, and there is no easy way see diffs and to roll back
unless you want to hack the db and replace data from backups. With
that in mind lets look at the most important settings.
General Configuration
Server Base Url - make
sure this is set up correctly, otherwise confluence and its plugins
won’t work properly.
Users see Rich Text Editor by
default - we have this set to off. In the past many RTE bugs
were causing headaches to our writers especially those who did lots
of editing. In Confluence 3.2 and 3.3 the editor has improved a lot
and it might be the time for us to reconsider this
decision.
CamelCase Links - this used to be one of
THE wiki features in general a few years ago, but as wikis have
matured and people started creating more and more content, the
automatic linking started to cause more problems than help. We have
it off.
Threaded Comments - very useful; make sure
it’s on.
Compress
HTTP Responses - OMG please turn this on if is isn't already.
It’s a major performance booster.
JavaScript served in
header - we have this on, but for better performance it should
be off. Unfortunately that breaks many plugins and legacy code that
uses obtrusive javascript. Since this option has been around for a
while, it might be worth it to just set it to off and deal with the
remaining broken things as they are identified.
User
email visibility - we have this set to visible to admins only,
but our power users found it too be a collaboration barrier so I
patched the code and made emails visible to our global employees
group in addition to the admin group. It would be nice if confluence
allowed such a configuration out the of box.
Anonymous
Access to Remote API - No sane person will leave this on. If I
were in charge, I would go as far as removing it from Confluence
product.
Anti XSS Mode - This is a very handy
feature. Not 100% bulletproof, but it helped to significantly
decrease the number of XSS exploits in Confluence since its
introduction.
Attachment Maximum Size (B) - I
mentioned this one already in the first chapter when discussing the
db configuration. If you are running a cluster (or think that you
will eventually run it), set this to some low value. Ours is
5MB.
Connection Timeouts - these options are pretty
handy when you have lots of feed macros, gadgets and other plugins
that pull contet from remote sites. In order to prevent worker
thread pileup in your servlet container don’t go beyond the default
10sec (which is already pretty high).
Daily Backup Administration
As I previously mentioned,
this backup feature is useless for anything but tiny sites. Disable
it.
Manage Referrers
Collecting referrers is ok, but don’t
display them publicly if you run a site on the Internet. Otherwise
you run a risk of exposing some internal only URIs that might
contain confidential information.
Languages
Most of our documentation and content is
written in American English, but unfortunately Atlassian doesn’t
provide such a language pack. I just patch the default Australian
English pack to get a US English pack. It works great and is almost
no hassle to maintain.
User macros
I discourage their use in enterprise
environement. The lack of versioning, automated testing and
documentation makes them a nightmare to maintain. Just create
Confluence plugins for everything you need.
PDF Export Language Support
This is a tricky one. It
took us quite a while to find the right single font that could be
used to generate PDFs in almost all languages. Finally we found
soui_zhs.ttf, which is distributed with OpenOffice. It’s a
huge file, but it works like charm for all kinds of non-wester
languages.
Themes
For reasons I’ll discuss later, we disabled all
the themes except for our custom one, which is the global and
default space theme. To disable a theme you have to go to plugins
view and disable the appropriate theme plugins.
Cache Statistics
The name of this section in the UI is
misleading, because not only can you view cache statistics here, but
more importantly you can fully control the cache size via the UI.
And in this case, I’m really glad that there is a UI to manage the
cache config xml file, which due to its size is really hard to work
with by hand. The changes you make via the UI are persisted in the
Confluence Home directory and propagated thought the
cluster.
Out of all the things you can tune via the admin UI,
the cache tuning will have the biggest impact on your site’s
performance. Confluence ships with cache settings optimized for
smaller sites, so increasing the cache size is unavoidable for
larger deployments.
Tuning the cache settings is a
time-consuming process because you need to balance the memory
consumption with performance improvements. Usually I revisit the
cache stats once a month and look for caches that are performing
badly because the number of objects allowed in that particular cache
is low. Confluence caching system is composed of many caches that
are controlled via this UI.
The best indicator of an
overflowing cache is when the "Effectiveness" value is low (under
70-80%) AND “Percent Used” value is high (over 80%) AND usually the
“Expired” value will be relatively high compared to “Hit” value in
the same cell. This means that Confluence needs to go to the DB too
often, even though it could cache the data in memory if the cache
was bigger.
If you don’t understand what all the cache names
and numbers mean, don’t worry about that too much. As long as you
don’t make any dramatic changes too quickly and you monitor your JVM
heap usage, you can’t break anything.
As you increase the
cache sized, you’ll eventually start running out of heap space.
That’s why you need to monitor the JVM and increase the
-Xmx value as needed. If the number of concurrent users
increases, you might also need to slightly increase the
-Xmn value (see the JVM
Tuning chapter for more info).
I wish Atlassian would
provide better descriptions for all the available caches, because
unless you know Confluence internals well, you won’t know what you
are doing and that doesn’t feel good. Additionally, I’d like to see
a way to limit memory usage, not the number of objects, because
their size varies. Ideally, I'd really like to be able to just say
"Use 3GB of memory for cache and distribute it in the most efficient
way. Oh and let me know if you need more or less memory to work
effectively". Maybe we'll get there one day.
Plugins
This section of the Admin UI is where you can
install, uninstall, enable and disable plugins and their modules.
There is also a Plugin Repository which additionally allows you to
install plugins from Altassian’s remote servers or user specified
URIs. The recently released Atlassian
Universal Plugin Manager will eventually replace the latter one
(or both?), I’m glad to see that happening.
I suggest that
you disable plugins that you don’t use or don’t want your users to
use as soon as possible. We disabled all the bundled themes because
we wanted to provide users with only one custom theme developed and
maintained by us (I’ll explain the reasoning in a future chapter).
For security reasons thehtml and html-include
macros should in my opinion be disabled on all but family Confluence
deployments. And for performance reasons Confluence Usage
Stats plugin is not
suitable for any bigger deployments.
Plugin installation
is very easy to do. That’s both good and bad. The plugin framework
provided by Confluence is a very sophisticated piece of
software which allows you to install and uninstall plugins on the
fly without any need to restart the server. Need to quickly install
a fixed version of a buggy plugin without disturbing hundreds or
thousands of users that are currently using your site? Done. That’s
how easy it is.
On the other hand, it is tempting to install
plugins just because they have cool names or promise great features.
You can do that in your dev or test environment, but in production
you should only install plugins that you picked after some serious
consideration.
This is what I look for when deciding whether
to install a plugin or not:
was the functionality provided by the plugin requested by
larger group of users or is the plugin needed for site
administration purposes?
was the plugin developed and tested in-house, if no is it
supported by Atlassian, if no can we or some respectable Atlassian
partner support it should there be some problems?
is the plugin compatible with our confluence version? does it
have a track record of being compatible or was it made compatible
with new Confluence versions as they were released?
are there no major unresolved bugs in the areas of
performance, scalability, data integrity and security?
does the plugin have an automated test suite with good test
coverage?
If you answer “yes” to all of these
questions, then you may go ahead do a trial before installing the
plugin in production. Otherwise, you might provide your feedback to
the plugin authors and wait if the pending issues get resolved
before proceeding.
I don’t want to be harsh, but especially
2-3 years ago most of the plugins created for Confluence were crap.
But as the platform matures, and Atlassian partners get involved
more, the quality of available plugins has been slowly increasing.
The main issue that I see is that the existing plugins are not
developed and tested with large scale deployments in mind. Hopefully
things will change as more and more deployments grow beyond small
and medium sites. It’s unfortunate that even some commercial
plugins, suffer from the very same issues that plague plugins
created by bunch of volunteers and enthusiast. So pick your plugins
carefully, do a trial, check for unresolved bugs and existing user
complaints, and then decide.
I've been reasonably active in
the Atlassian development community and from these interactions, I'd
like to highlight the work done by Dan Hardiker (Adaptavist) and Roberto
Dominguez (Comalatech). And
though I haven't worked with guys from CustomWare, they are also
considered to be pretty sharp.
Be especially careful with
plugins that provide new macros for the wiki content. Once you
install such a plugin you won't be able to uninstall it without
breaking wiki pages until all the references to that macro are
removed (with tens of thousands of pages and no ability to track the
references this might be a big challenge).
In general
however, try to keep the number of plugins low. It’s better for
performance and you won’t get in trouble as often when you need to
upgrade Confluence but some of the plugins you use are not
compatible with the new Confluence version.
Conclusion
You should now have a good idea about how to
configure Confluence and where this configuration is done. In the
next chapters we'll look at upgrading Confluence, patching and more.
smtp-notify is a small, lightweight daemon that is
fully managed by the Service Management Facility (SMF). It uses
the interfaces delivered in libfmevent to subscribe to both
software and FMA problem lifecycle events. Upon receipt of an
event, it produces an email notification based on a set of
notification preferences which are stored in the SMF service
configuration repository.
snmp-notify will generate one of two types of SNMP
traps, based on the event class. For FMA events (list.* events),
snmp-notify will generate the existing sunFmProblemTrap trap as
defined in /etc/net-snmp/snmp/mibs/SUN-FM-MIB.mib. For software
events (swevent.*), snmp-notify will generate a sunSweventTrap
trap as defined in
/etc/net-snmp/snmp/mibs/SUN-SWEVENT-MIB.mib.
Furthermore
there are lot of other changes, for example a way to configure the
notifications in the SMF
repository or the
definition of FMA events for instance state transitions (eg. a
service going online or offline or in maintainance state).
As SMF is running in each zone on it's own, the fmd (the
fault management daemon) had to be enabled to run in non-global
zones as well. This was introduced by PSARC
2010/225:
This RFE will enable fmd and associated SMF services
in a non-global Solaris zone. The set of fmd plugins delivered
into a zone will be restricted to those that are relevant - the
hardware-oriented modules, particularly, will not be delivered in
a non-global zone.
The first consumer of the fmd service in
a non-global Solaris zone will be SMF; this will work with fmd to
achieve snmp and email notifications of instance state
transitions.
Happy SysAdminDay The world celebrates the 11th SysAdminDay today. To
all the users out there: This is a nice opportunity to thank your
admin staff for doing migrations at night to keep your business
running at day, for making seemingly impossible requirements
possible, for keeping the systems up and running, for answering your
questions, that would be able to answer yourself with google in the
time you need to pick up the phone
And keep
in mind, your admin would do everything for you to restore the
operations of your datacenter:
Albeit the recent announcement just talked about HP and Dell,
this offer is valid for all certified systems on
the HCL. There are 508 server systems right now on the HCL. You
will find the HCL here.
If the systems isn't on the HCL, ask your vendor to certify it. So
you are able to buy support and for Fujitsu Systems as well as for
IBM systems for example.
Pricing is socket-based. You pay $1000 for Oracle Premier
Support for Operating Systems per year per socket for systems with
one to four sockets and $2000 per socket per year for systems with
more than five sockets.
As most of my readers are interested in Solaris, i think i
know the next question: As you may know, the Software License
Agreement for Solaris for example just allows you to use Solaris
10 up to 90 days in production use without entitlement. This
support offering provides you a non-perpetual entitlement to run
Solaris 10 on a non-Oracle HW. To say it simple: It's a
subscription. This entitlement is valid for the same period as
your support. When you don't renew the support, you don't have an
entitlement to use Solaris in production after your support
expires.
The support is provided directly from Oracle.
The rules with Sun servers are different: You get a bundled
perpetual license with your server and pay only 8% (SW) or 12%
(SW+HW) of the net systems price for support.
Albeit you have now the choice to run Solaris on non-Oracle
x86 servers, i see several advantages to use Solaris on Sun
equipment. Those advantages range from "Same vendor of OS and HW"
to "Better integration of the system into the Fault Management
Architecture of Solaris"
(Safe Harbour: Keep in
mind, that this blog is a private one. I don't write in my function
as a Oracle employee. The interpretation of the rules expressed by
an Oracle representant is the authoritative one)
Oracle Directory
Server Enterprise Edition 11gR1 just released!
Like Sun Directory Server
Enterprise Edition 7.0, ODSEE 11g Release 1 allows companies
to grow faster and easier. The significant improvement in
performance overs previous releases allows companies to accelerate
their applications while reducing their total cost of ownership.
Companies can also reduce cost by improving serviceability with
faster import times and smooth, in-place upgrade that reuses your
existing data store. This complete solution provides a directory
server, proxy server (for high availability and distribution of data
and load) , web console and synchronization with Active Directory,
all under one product (ODSEE) and licensed as part of Oracle
Directory Services Plus.
ODSEE 11gR1 is a rebranded release of Sun Directory Server
Enterprise Edition 7.0 and is equivalent to a patch release. It does
not include new functionality but provides additional stability and
security with the inclusion of many fixes that where previously
released as patches and hot fixes.
This updated release
improves the overall quality and robustness of deployments. Among
other features and capabilities , by upgrading from DSEE 5.2 or 6.x
you might benefit from:
Up to 300% performance
improvement
In place upgrade from
DSEE 6 and 7 (no need to export/import existing
data)
Reduced disk space and
memory footprint
Optional data
compression
Instant restore
capabilities
Advanced tuning
capabilities
Improved control over
traffic going through Directory Proxy Server
New distribution
algorithm with Directory Proxy Server
Updated list of
supported Operating Systems, IP v6 supported on all
platforms
Directory Service
Control Center supported on broader list of application servers
Out of the box, VNCServer is not 100% ready-to-run. The
free version of VNCServer and it's related components are installed
in /usr/bin, however, it is necessary to make 2 additional
directories available in your $PATH:
add /usr/X11/bin and /usr/openwin/bin to your path
The other change to make if you want the standard gnome desktop
to be displayed can be be achieved two ways:
modify the xstartup file located in the users .vnc
directory
modify the /usr/bin/vncserver startup script directly (root
permission required)
The first method alters the individual user's vncserver
environment, while the second method makes the change available to
all user vncserver configurations.
Note: Method #2 needs to be performed before an individual
user runs "vncserver" for the first time. This is when the
$USER_HOME/.vnc/xstartup file is created.
Method #1:
Modify the existing $USER_HOME/.vnc/xstartup file to look like
this:
---
!#/usr/sh
gnome-session &
---
Now when the user starts "vncserver", the gnome desktop will be
used. If vncserver is already running, the session will need to be
killed and restarted.
Method #2:
This procedure modifies the /usr/bin/vncserver script so that it
creates the desired $USER_HOME/.vnc/xstartup file the first time
through.
by Sherry Yu, Chad Prucha, and Yumiko Hata April
2010
Oracle’s CoolThreads servers and open storage
technologies, together with the Oracle Solaris operating system,
provide an ideal platform to run the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise
XI software suite and deliver a rapidly-deployable, fast,
cost-effective, and stable business intelligence (BI) solution. This
white paper describes a sizing study that illustrates the functional
capabilities, deployment flexibility, and performance capacity of
the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI software suite installed on
CoolThreads technology-based servers and Oracle storage
systems.
This white paper is targeted at technical IT
managers and system architects who are responsible for implementing,
managing, or recommending SAP BusinessObjects solutions.
Oracle today announced Dell and HP will certify and resell
Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their
respective x86 platforms.
Customers will have full access to Oracles Premier Support
for Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM
running on Dell and HP servers. This will enable fast and
accurate issue resolution and reduced risk in a companys
operating environment
Congratulations to the product team! Oracle Directory Server
Enterprise Edition 11g is now
available.
This DSEE version includes over 100 fixes and enhancements to
7.0, plus Oracle branding and delivery. If you have not upgraded
since before 7.0, you will be impressed with the performance and
quality of this release.
I ran San
Francisco 1/2 marathon over the weekend and improved my timing
from last
year by 3 minutes. I guess dance at a pre-wedding ceremony and 4
hours of sleep the night before slowed me down otherwise could've
pushed harder. Anyway the results are still encouraging and the bar
is higher for the next time!
This makes me among top 1.2 % runners overall, top 2.5% for
"Men", and top 2.3% in "M 30-39" category. Here is the overall
leader board:
I'm about 20 minutes behind the winner (5:47 pace) and so need to
push really hard to close the gap there. Who knows I may win one
day, but for now the plan is to close the gap as much as possible.
Seems really difficult, but not impossible!
And I almost made it to the women's leader board ;-)
Michael
Wardian, a popular American marathoner and ultramarathoner came
second in the full marathon. It was a pleasure to see him cruising
back on the Golden Gate birdge.
Here are the mile splits:
One thing clearly evident from the
splits is that any amount of hill training is less. This is all the
more evident by looking at speed / elevation chart:
Click on the image to replay the
race.
And finally here is race route:
Here is the cumulative result of all the marathons so far:
I ran San
Francisco 1/2 marathon over the weekend and improved my timing
from last
year by 3 minutes. I guess dance at a pre-wedding ceremony and 4
hours of sleep the night before slowed me down otherwise could've
pushed harder. Anyway the results are still encouraging and the bar
is higher for the next time!
This makes me among top 1.2 % runners overall, top 2.5% for
"Men", and top 2.3% in "M 30-39" category. Here is the overall
leader board:
I'm about 20 minutes behind the winner (5:47 pace) and so need to
push really hard to close the gap there. Who knows I may win one
day, but for now the plan is to close the gap as much as possible.
Seems really difficult, but not impossible!
And I almost made it to the women's leader board ;-)
Michael
Wardian, a popular American marathoner and ultramarathoner came
second in the full marathon. It was a pleasure to see him cruising
back on the Golden Gate birdge.
Here are the mile splits:
One thing clearly evident from the
splits is that any amount of hill training is less. This is all the
more evident by looking at speed / elevation chart:
Click on the image to replay the
race.
And finally here is race route:
Here is the cumulative result of all the marathons so far:
As you may already know, Oracle Sun patches are now available
from My Oracle Support (MOS).
We've uploaded over 30,000 6-2 digit PatchIDs to MOS, including
all Solaris 8, 9, and 10 patches, SunCluster, and patches for over a
thousand other products. Virtually any patch which is
available on SunSolve is now also available
from MOS, making MOS your one stop support shop for all Oracle
products.
Customers with an Oracle support contract can log into My Oracle Support.
Click on the "Patches & Updates" tab and you'll see that the
Patch Search options have been expanded to "Patch Name, Number or
Sun CR ID". As it suggests, you can search by the 6-2 digit
PatchID or a Sun CR (Change Request) number (i.e. 7 digit BugID).
You can also search by "Product". For example, select
"Solaris Operating System" and then in the next line select the
versions you are interested in. MOS remembers choices
across login sessions, so previous choices will appear top of the
list next time you login. You can refine your search -
for example, click on the arrow beside "Platform" and select
"Type". If you select "Patchset" and click the "Search"
button, it'll return the Patch Clusters and Patch Bundles such
as the Solaris OS Recommended Patch Cluster and Solaris OS Critical
Patch Update (CPU).
So which Oracle Sun patches are currently available from MOS ?:
Over 30,000 Oracle Sun 6-2 digit PatchIDs (i.e. of the format
xxxxxx-xx) for over a thousand products and product
versions. This includes all Solaris 8, 9, and 10
patches, SunCluster patches, etc.
Almost all the Oracle Sun Patch Clusters and Patch Bundles.
What's not yet available (but coming soon) ?:
Oracle Sun "patches" which are not hosted on
SunSolve. These are patches which are not in 6-2 digit
PatchID format and are not applied using the Solaris 'patchadd'
utility, including Firmware patches for x86
and M-Series. It is planned to upload these in a
future MOS release. In the meantime, please continue to
download them from the existing download sites. See http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/patches/firmware/index.html.
StorageTek 6-2 digit PatchIDs. Most StorageTek patches
are in a mainframe patch format and are not applied using the
Solaris 'patchadd' utility. To host them on SunSolve after
the StorageTek acquistion, we wrapped them in a 6-2 digit
PatchID. However, it doesn't make sense to wrap these
StorageTek 6-2 digit PatchIDs in Oracle BugDB IDs which would
be a second level of indirection. Instead, it is planned to
upload the original Storagetek
patches natively to MOS in a future release.
In the meantime, please continue to download them from SunSolve.
Really, really old patches, such as SunOS 1.x patches, Solaris
7 and older patches, etc. These are utterly obsolete
products so there's no point in propageting this crud
forward.
Security T-Patches and ISRs (Interim Security Relief).
It is planned to support these in a future MOS release.
In the meantime, please continue to download them from the SunSolve
Temporary or Interim Security Updates page.
Public patches available without a support contract, such as
OpenOffice and StarOffice patches. It is planned to support
these in a future MOS release. In the meantime, please
continue to download them from SunSolve.
Some patch metadata files such as the "Checksum" and
"patchdiag.xref" files. It is planned to support
these in a future MOS release. In the meantime, please
continue to download them from SunSolve.
MySQL is the most popular open source database,
particularly in the Web. Both twitter
and facebook are
avid users of MySQL. MySQL has influenced plenty of projects, has
contributed to the creation of a multiplicity of social networks and
it's behind many intriguing entrepreneurial
ideas. The question is: how influential are you?
Fast
Company started a project to measure how much we influence the
online communities. Here is the description coming from their
website.
We started with a simple question: Who are the most
influential people online right now? That's what The Influence
Project is designed to answer. By participating, you will have
your picture appear in the November issue of Fast Company magazine
as part of an amazing photo spread. The more influence you
demonstrate, the bigger your picture will be. You may discover
that you're more influential
than you think. Influence is not only about having the most
friends or followers. Real influence is about being able to affect
the behavior of those you interact with, to get others in your
social network to act on a suggestion or recommendation. When you
post a link or recommend a site, how many people actually bother
to check it out? And what's the likelihood of those people then
forwarding it on? How far does your influence spread? This is
the type of influence we're looking for. We want to find the most
influential person online. Who knows? It might even be
you.
Our net take is that while it may still be hard to
convince a new customer to jump on board the SPARC bandwagon,
existing customers have no reason to make an abrupt migration, and
can wait and see if Sun delivers on the milestones that they will
reveal over the remainder of 2010 and into 2011. As these
milestones are disclosed we will have further
analysis.
Interestingly there is an comment about
Solaris on x86 at the end of the article:
On a related topic which we will address in more depth
in future posts, Solaris on x86 will remain a solid enterprise
choice for both current and new users. Customer issues with Sun
were centered around SPARC and the strategic future of the company
as opposed to technical issues with Solaris functionality,
performance or stability. The continued availability of this
proven operating environment, with an anticipation of continued
investment and improvement by Oracle, is a strong positive for any
customer looking for an enterprise-class Unix environment on an
x86 platform.
NetBeans has supported deployment onto remote GlassFish for a
long time.
There is a new feature into today's dev
build that improves that feature significantly. Users can
see the log for remote GlassFish Server 3.1 instances
The log view window can be opened using the 'View Server Log'
menu item, that is in the instance's right-click menu in the
Services explorer, if the remote server is running.
The log view will open automagically when you deploy a project to
a remote GlassFish Server 3.1 instance, too.
The log view for a remote instance of GlassFish Server
3.1 Notice: only the restart tool is available
SATA TRIM support in Opensolaris The Opensolaris
SATA subsystem got TRIM
support with this putback to the codebase. The TRIM command is
really interesting for SSDs, as the operating system can tell the
SSD which blocks aren't used by the filesystem any longer with this
comment. This helps the internal garbage collection of the drives to
work more efficiently at erasing blocks ahead of their usage. As
erasing is really an costly operating with Flash-SSD, erasing the
blocks before you need them speed up things a lot.
Open Source is very strong in Brazil (see for example this post). As you can see
from our GeoMap,
GlassFish has a fair amount of
adoption, but we need to improve our outreach. If you have
suggestions or want to contribute, post them as comments on this
entry, or contact us at theaquarium at sun dot com.
Thanks for Open Sourcing IntelliJ IDEA Thanks for
Open Sourcing IntelliJ IDEA. It's come in really handy now that I'm
creating facets for the NetBeans Platform and NetBeans modules (at
some point, for OSGi bundles too, I think). Here
you can learn how to create Facets, simply by reading the facet
for Groovy.
Without the Groovy facet, I would have been totally lost. I doubt
that, now that that Groovy facet is available in the open source, a
tutorial on facets is even needed. Simply read the Groovy facet and
adapt it to your own purposes, as I did here:
In the Java
EE 6 Feedback from Community series you can learn about how Java
EE 6 is currently being used in production, development and
deployment environments used within the community, and even feature
requests for Java EE 7.
This entry comes from Johan Vos who started to
work with Java in 1995. He worked on the Java Linux port with the
Blackdown team. He has been doing Java consulting and development
for a number of customers in completely different areas. Over the
years, he has been active in a number of Java-based community
projects, e.g. OSGi, the Glassfish project and JFXtras.org. With
LodgON, the company he co-founded, he is mainly working on Java
solutions for social networking software. Since he can't make a
choice between embedded development and enterprise development, his
main focus is on end-to-end Java, combining the strengths of
back-end systems and embedded devices. His favorite technologies are
currently Java EE / Glassfish at the backend and JavaFX at the
frond-end.
Here is a short summary of Java EE 6 from him:
Developers can concentrate on business logic, Java EE 6
is providing a standard for the infrastructure
Read on for other fun stuff ...
1. How are you using Java EE 6 today ? What limits your
adoption ?
I'm using Java EE 6 in most of the
Enterprise projects I'm doing. This is not a requirement, but it
turns out that when talking to people about what they really want,
the Java EE 6 platform provides lots of the components that are
needed to create an end-to-end solution.
Java EE 6 has
evolved since the announcement of J2EE. It became more usable, and
easier to develop and configure. In the past, a large number of
non-standard libraries and frameworks have been developed since J2EE
was too complex for most simple problems. The Java EE expert group
clearly has learned from these evolutions, and the current Java EE 6
spec provides the functionality that is available in those
frameworks, but as a standard. This is a huge benefit.
2. What Java EE 6 technologies are you using and why
?
I often use JPA. In earlier versions of the
Java Enterprise standard, it was very hard to use the persistence
layer in order to connect to a database. It was often easier to
write your own connection pooling system, and perform SQL queries.
But with JPA 2.0, it became much easier to manage the
persistence.
I'm using (stateless) Session Beans as well,
including the new Singleton Bean, combined with the @Startup
annotation. The latter makes it much easier to perform tasks that
need to be done only once.
I'm also using JAX-RS and Jersey
frequently. In particular, I use Jersey for the communication with
clients based on XML. The Transaction API is also something that I
often use, either explicitly or implicitly.
3. What is your development and deployment environment
?
I'm mainly using NetBeans 6.9 on Linux. I
download the full version of NetBeans, since I need both Java EE as
well as JavaFX. NetBeans 6.9 comes pre-installed with Glassfish
3.0.1, so there is no need to download a whole application server to
start Java EE 6 development.
4. What previous versions of Java EE / J2EE have you
used ? How has the migration to Java EE 6 benefited
?
I've been working with Java EE since version
J2EE 1.2. I have always avoided to migrate projects from older to
newer versions, but I always start new projects on the latest
released version. Early version of J2EE required more
implementation-specific XML configuration (remember the
sun-cmp-mappings.xml), and once you've done this you don't want to
change this. Once projects are in deployment, you cannot easily
change the runtime procedures.
Operations are often carried
out by a different group than the development team. New versions of
the J2EE/Java EE standard require changes in development but also in
operations.
One of the benefits of Java EE 6, however, is that it also
simplify the packaging and deployment procedures. Using annotations
in JAX-RS and Servlets, for example, eliminates the need of
XML-based configuration files. And often these configuration files
make the handover from development to production deployment
difficult. Clearly, the TCO for an average Enterprise project can be
much lower when using Java EE6.
5. Describe the benefits of Java EE 6 to you in 120
characters.
Developers can concentrate on
business logic, JavaEE6 is providing a standard for the
infrastructure.
6. Advice for anybody who is looking at Java EE 6 for
their next project ?
Use what you need. Nothing
less, and nothing more. Although much easier than 10 years ago, Java
Enterprise development can be complex. There are 2 situations you
have to avoid:
Sometimes, developers don't know about the infrastructure
already provided by the Java EE platform, and they are duplicating
functionality in their own code. If you look at the JPA and the
JTA for example, that provides functionality that is needed in
most projects.
In a number of other cases, I see developers using
features that are available in the appserver, but that are not
needed in their application. The Java EE 6 spec is a composition
of a number of specifications, and you don't have to use all the
sub-specs.
7. What new features you'd like to see in Java EE 7
?
Java EE 6 brought simplicity in complex
enterprise applications, and made a significant move towards
web-based projects. Indeed, the Java EE 6 specification is rather
focused on the Web. While there are many usecases and real-world
scenarios that have the Web as the most important client, I think
there should be more attention for other clients, i.e. PDA, mobile
phone, TV, JavaCard. Easy integration capabilities between those
low-resource devices and high-end backend system will drive the
adoption of Java EE.
From another point of view, more
integration with the environment would be useful. For example, in a
number of cases I would like to execute a specific EJB-call once CPU
load is below 50%, or once disk usage is too high. I understand this
is rather difficult to standardize in a non-platform dependent
way.
Thanks you Johan for taking time to prepare the answers!
Are you using, consulting, training, authoring books, etc in Java
EE 6 ? Drop a comment on this blog and I'll line you up for the
Q&A session :-)
The Java EE 6
hub is your key resource to learn all about the technology.
In the Java
EE 6 Feedback from Community series you can learn about how Java
EE 6 is currently being used in production, development and
deployment environments used within the community, and even feature
requests for Java EE 7.
This entry comes from Johan Vos who started to
work with Java in 1995. He worked on the Java Linux port with the
Blackdown team. He has been doing Java consulting and development
for a number of customers in completely different areas. Over the
years, he has been active in a number of Java-based community
projects, e.g. OSGi, the Glassfish project and JFXtras.org. With
LodgON, the company he co-founded, he is mainly working on Java
solutions for social networking software. Since he can't make a
choice between embedded development and enterprise development, his
main focus is on end-to-end Java, combining the strengths of
back-end systems and embedded devices. His favorite technologies are
currently Java EE / Glassfish at the backend and JavaFX at the
frond-end.
Here is a short summary of Java EE 6 from him:
Developers can concentrate on business logic, Java EE 6
is providing a standard for the infrastructure
Read on for other fun stuff ...
1. How are you using Java EE 6 today ? What limits your
adoption ?
I'm using Java EE 6 in most of the
Enterprise projects I'm doing. This is not a requirement, but it
turns out that when talking to people about what they really want,
the Java EE 6 platform provides lots of the components that are
needed to create an end-to-end solution.
Java EE 6 has
evolved since the announcement of J2EE. It became more usable, and
easier to develop and configure. In the past, a large number of
non-standard libraries and frameworks have been developed since J2EE
was too complex for most simple problems. The Java EE expert group
clearly has learned from these evolutions, and the current Java EE 6
spec provides the functionality that is available in those
frameworks, but as a standard. This is a huge benefit.
2. What Java EE 6 technologies are you using and why
?
I often use JPA. In earlier versions of the
Java Enterprise standard, it was very hard to use the persistence
layer in order to connect to a database. It was often easier to
write your own connection pooling system, and perform SQL queries.
But with JPA 2.0, it became much easier to manage the
persistence.
I'm using (stateless) Session Beans as well,
including the new Singleton Bean, combined with the @Startup
annotation. The latter makes it much easier to perform tasks that
need to be done only once.
I'm also using JAX-RS and Jersey
frequently. In particular, I use Jersey for the communication with
clients based on XML. The Transaction API is also something that I
often use, either explicitly or implicitly.
3. What is your development and deployment environment
?
I'm mainly using NetBeans 6.9 on Linux. I
download the full version of NetBeans, since I need both Java EE as
well as JavaFX. NetBeans 6.9 comes pre-installed with Glassfish
3.0.1, so there is no need to download a whole application server to
start Java EE 6 development.
4. What previous versions of Java EE / J2EE have you
used ? How has the migration to Java EE 6 benefited
?
I've been working with Java EE since version
J2EE 1.2. I have always avoided to migrate projects from older to
newer versions, but I always start new projects on the latest
released version. Early version of J2EE required more
implementation-specific XML configuration (remember the
sun-cmp-mappings.xml), and once you've done this you don't want to
change this. Once projects are in deployment, you cannot easily
change the runtime procedures.
Operations are often carried
out by a different group than the development team. New versions of
the J2EE/Java EE standard require changes in development but also in
operations.
One of the benefits of Java EE 6, however, is that it also
simplify the packaging and deployment procedures. Using annotations
in JAX-RS and Servlets, for example, eliminates the need of
XML-based configuration files. And often these configuration files
make the handover from development to production deployment
difficult. Clearly, the TCO for an average Enterprise project can be
much lower when using Java EE6.
5. Describe the benefits of Java EE 6 to you in 120
characters.
Developers can concentrate on
business logic, JavaEE6 is providing a standard for the
infrastructure.
6. Advice for anybody who is looking at Java EE 6 for
their next project ?
Use what you need. Nothing
less, and nothing more. Although much easier than 10 years ago, Java
Enterprise development can be complex. There are 2 situations you
have to avoid:
Sometimes, developers don't know about the infrastructure
already provided by the Java EE platform, and they are duplicating
functionality in their own code. If you look at the JPA and the
JTA for example, that provides functionality that is needed in
most projects.
In a number of other cases, I see developers using
features that are available in the appserver, but that are not
needed in their application. The Java EE 6 spec is a composition
of a number of specifications, and you don't have to use all the
sub-specs.
7. What new features you'd like to see in Java EE 7
?
Java EE 6 brought simplicity in complex
enterprise applications, and made a significant move towards
web-based projects. Indeed, the Java EE 6 specification is rather
focused on the Web. While there are many usecases and real-world
scenarios that have the Web as the most important client, I think
there should be more attention for other clients, i.e. PDA, mobile
phone, TV, JavaCard. Easy integration capabilities between those
low-resource devices and high-end backend system will drive the
adoption of Java EE.
From another point of view, more
integration with the environment would be useful. For example, in a
number of cases I would like to execute a specific EJB-call once CPU
load is below 50%, or once disk usage is too high. I understand this
is rather difficult to standardize in a non-platform dependent
way.
Thanks you Johan for taking time to prepare the answers!
Are you using, consulting, training, authoring books, etc in Java
EE 6 ? Drop a comment on this blog and I'll line you up for the
Q&A session :-)
The Java EE 6
hub is your key resource to learn all about the technology.
Joyent, a leading global provider of cloud computing
solutions, today named Bryan Cantrill as VP of Engineering.
Cantrill will be responsible for overseeing worldwide development
focused on operating systems, including building additional
innovation into Joyents SmartOS and
SmartDataCenter.
Confidence or desperation Is this a new trend in
IT sales? Companies offering AMEX gift cards for attending a sales
presentation. Got the second mail of this kind. Greenbytes offered
$50 for listening to them, a few minutes ago i've got a similar mail
from a company called Exagrid offering $100 for an half hour web
presentation.
Somehow i'm not sure what i should think about
that: Should i translate this "We are so sure that you will buy the
product that we pay you to take a sales call!" or "We are so
desperate that we need to pay people just to take a sales
call...".
Perhaps you could make a living out of professional
sales attending ... given that such examples are representing a
trend ... or auction an hour a day on eBay in half-hour increments
for such paid sales calls
A roughcut of
Multicore Application Programming has been uploaded to Safari
books. If you have access you can read it, and provide feedback or
comments. If you don't have access to Safari, you can still see the
table of contents, read the preface,
and view the start of each chapter.
Is Oracle trying to kill
VirtualBox? Muktware The
latest product to get the axe seems to be none other than the
Flagship Virtualization program xVM VirtualBox. Ever
since VirtualBox 3.2 was released
...
Living the Linux Lifestyle Datamation I own one
single (legal) copy of Windows XP Pro that I use for work
purposes (software testing) inVirtualBox. Does this
mean that I choose not to spend
...
Cuando el consumo de gasolina no preocupaba, lo importante era
tener un coche muy grande y potente. Hoy el consumo forma
parte importante de la decisión. Cuando las casas eran un
bien especulativo el precio era lo de menos si había un crédito
asumible. Hoy el crédito es fácil y se compra mucho más para
habitarla que como inversión, por lo que prima la adaptación
de la vivienda a las necesidades.
Podría seguir con muchos más ejemplos, pero creo que no hace
falta. En sanidad ocurre una cosa curiosa, debido al retraso
comparativo de la digitalización de la historia clínica. Y es
que se vivía en el día a día. Lo importante era lanzarla y
consolidarla y para ello se buscaba el almacenamiento más
potente.
Pero hemos alcanzado el punto de no retorno ("tipping
point") y tenemos ya mucha información y, además, cada vez
crece más y encima hay que conservarla por mucho
tiempo y no hay plan B en papel o película. El
almacenamiento de altas prestaciones es muy bueno,
pero también es costoso, consume mucha energía y ocupa mucho
espacio.
Por otra parte, el acceso al 90% de la información decrece
radicalmente tras pocos meses. ¿Tiene sentido seguir conservando
esa información y sus copias de respaldo en un soporte muy
rápido, pero que crece inexorablemente y consume cada vez más?.
¿Tiene sentido tener un potenente 4x4 aparcado sin usar en el garaje
por si algún día queremos hacer un viaje de varios meses por la
Europa oriental?. Posiblemete la respuesta a las dos preguntas es la
misma: no es la mejor solución desde el punto de vista de
eficiencia económica.
Desde Oracle se viene proponiendo pensar en el uso y
necesidades de la información, si es estructurada o no
y decidir una estrategia de adaptar las tecnologías a las
necesidades. En sanidad hay mucha información no
estructurada y que su acceso es muy pequeño tras cierto tiempo.
Pensemos en imagen médica, vídeo, documentos pdf, o, simplemente
correos.
Si pensamos en implantar soluciones con un primer nivel de
máxima velocidad de acceso, un segundo con buena velocidad
pero muho más económico y un tercero en una librería
de cintas en que se pueda ofrecer respuestas de segundos si
está cargado o minutos si está en una cinta externa, estaremos
disponiendo de niveles de servicio muy razonables y con una
alineación de coste por GB que baja varios órdenes de
magnitud por nivel, con lo que el coste global se reduce
mucho, el consumo no crece o, incluso, disminuye y además
tenemos un modelo sostenible en el tiempo, ya que seguro que
las tecnologías cambiarán pero el modelo es consistente.
Oracle
ofrece soluciones para todos los niveles y recientemente ha
anunciado importantes mejoras en su familia Unified Storage
que pueden cubrir el primer o segundo nivel. Del tercero ya he
hablado recientemente y remito a esa entrada
aquí. Los sistemas Sun Storage 7000 forman parte de la
oferta de soluciones completas listas para permitir a los
clientes crecer en sus soluciones convencionales o en modelos
cloud computing.
Las mejoras incluyen la incorporación de la deduplicación
de datos en línea que completa la compresión en
línea ya existente, soporte de protocolo Fiber Channel a 4 y
8 Gbit/seg, múltiples pools de almacenamiento y los
nuevos discos SAS de 1 y 2 TB que permiten alcanzar la capacidad
máxima de 576 TB.
Estas mejoras ayudan a reducir severamente los costes
del almacenamiento de datos, consolidar y gestionar datos con
gran eficiencia, conectar los Sun Storage 7000 Systems a
SANs con Fiber Channel y mejorar la capacidad y
disponibilidad. Las potentes capacidades de diagnóstico y
monitorización de DTrace Analytics se extienden a las
conexiones Fiber Channel, lo que permite optimizaciones de
rendimiento sin parangón al identificar los cuellos de botella y
gestionar eficazamente los recuros y provisionar las prestaciones de
los aceleradores Flash sin procesos de prueba y
error.
Como parte de la estrategia de Oracle de ofrecer sistemas
completos, abiertos e integrados, la línea Sun Storage 7000
System Product Line está diseñada y soportada con
Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Oracle VM, Oracle Database
11g, Oracle Applications, Oracle Fusion Middleware y los productos software
provinientes de Sun System, así como muchos otros productos de
terceros. Por ejemplo, Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g permite un
diagnóstico simplificado de los problemas de las aplicaciones
y el impacto del almacenamiento durante el despliegue de las
aplicaciones y de la base de datos.
Servlet 3.0 has some very nice ease-of-development features in
the form of new annotations (such as @WebServlet) and
some useful extensibility features with web-fragments (details here)
and ServletContainerInitializer
which all contribute to make web.xml optional. While
this is a great step towards more modular applications and an
overall development simplification, you may want to have more
control over what's being deployed in your production system. This
is what metadata-complete helps you achieve.
web.xml contains a metadata-complete
attribute in the web-app element whose binary value
defines whether other sources of metadata should be considered when
deploying this web application, this includes annotations on class
files (@WebServlet, but also @WebListener,
@WebFilter, ...), web-fragment.xml as well
as classes located in WEB-INF/classes. If set to
true all of these will be ignored and
web.xml is the only metadata considered. Setting it to
false falls back to the default behavior. Note you can
also use this attribute inside fragments to have them consider
annotation or not. Check the Servlet
3.0 specification (section 15.5) for details on that part.
Better than a long blog entry, here's a short screencast
(available in HD) illustrating the basics of this feature :
Präsentation auf der DOAG 2010 Konferenz Habe
heute vormittag die Mitteilung bekommen, das mein Vortrag auf der
DOAG 2010 angenommen worden ist. Damit werde ich dort einen Vortrag
zum Thema "Performance Analyse - oder: Was macht eigentlich mein
Solaris?" halten. Die DOAG Konferenz
2010 findet von 16. bis 18. November 2010 in Nürnberg statt.
New server docs At docs.sun.com you will now find
the docs for the X4800,
the X4470,
the X4270M2
and the X4170M2.
I prefer the the manuals over the slide decks
The world isn't just a datasheet ... In a
discussion at eWeek a commenter wrote, that the world of IT news
doesn't just consists out of datasheet. Yes he is right, it contains
reading manuals and to take press releases with a large grain of
salt.
Oracle upgraded the Oracle SL8500 library to house
100.000 tapes. This is done by linking 10 libraries together with
10.000 tapes each. This is the largest library you can purchase at
the moment. More information is available in the data
sheet.
Of course the Chris Mellor of TheRegister can't
let Oracle get away with this and points in "Oracle
unleashes robo-tapeswapping monster" to the T-Finity library of
Spectralogic, and indeed the press release of Spectralogic talks
about 120.000 tapes in 4 linked tape library with something called
"Skyway".
But there is just one kink with that: The
datasheet says "future", the promotional video says "future" and
there is no manual (1st rule of IT: When you really want to know
something about a device before buying, read the manual, not the
datasheet) available at the Spectralogic website. Of course you
can't find the word "future" in the press release.
BTW: The
Skyway looks like a concept i want to see working for a while before
believing that it will work reasonably problem-free. The T-finity
complex housing that large number of the tapes consists out of 4
libraries that are linked at both ends by something called skyways.
So a tape going from one library to another has to be transported to
the ends of the library (sounds unproblematic), has to be put into a
device at the top of the connecting racks that builds the T-finity
(sounds relatively unproblematic), then it has to be put into the
gadget called "skyway", which connects the rows of racks by spanning
over the aisle between the tape racks. And that sounds not
unproblematic at all to me. In theory this sounds like a nice idea,
but i would like to read the manual to see, how they circumvented
all the problems i can think of. However .... there is no manual
available.
31 libraries for Automated Cartridge System Library
Software (ACSLS) connection, connected through PTPs, containing
over 320,000 cartridge slots and 1,984 tape drives.
But
that's a "Mine is longer/mine are bigger" contest on a scale totally
irrelevant for us mere mortals ...
Moreover Technologies -
Java news Last
Downloaded: 2010-07-30 22:10:12.
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Review Stylish and powerful, the new 18.4in
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