Raible Designs

Thursday December 11, 2003

I'm impressed - Apple replaces hard drive in less than 48 hours I sent out my PowerBook on Tuesday at 4:00 and got it back today at 1:00. That's pretty darn quick for a mail-in repair! Now begins the process of upgrading to Panther (they installed 10.2.7 on the new drive) and restoring files. Hopefully I can get back where I left off. Posted in Mac OS X at Dec 11 2003, 01:42:24 PM MST 1 Comment

Export JSPWiki pages to HTML using Hula This morning, I discovered Hula - a Java client API to the WikiRPCInterface. The nice feature I really like is that it allows you to export your wiki pages to static html. Here's how to set it up on your JSPWiki:

• Uncomment the XML RPC servlet-mappings in web.xml.
• Download Hula.
• Rename hula.zip to hula.jar and put it into JSPWiki's WEB-INF/lib.
• Copy apps/*.jsp to webapps/JSPWiki/.

You can use my trimmed down version if you like, it only has hula.jar and the JSPs.

Now I can write all my AppFuse documentation on the wiki and bundle it with the downloads - very nice. Posted in Java at Dec 11 2003, 11:52:03 AM MST 3 Comments

[ANNOUNCE] Hibernate 2.1 Final Released! One of the benefits of being up at 3:30 in the morning is you get to get the announcements first! Hibernate 2.1 Final has been released. I'll upgrade my apps to it, though I'm not using any new features. I've basically had the same code since 2.0 - you gotta like that backward compatibility remains a priority. Posted in Java at Dec 11 2003, 03:24:49 AM MST 2 Comments

Denver JUG: XSLT and New EJB 2.0 Certification Tonight I attented the Denver Java User Group meeting. Tom McQueeney did a nice basic concepts meeting on XSLT. Tom's presentation was a nice refresher on XSL and I learned a few things I hope I can remember the next time I use it. I've used XSL a couple of times in the last few years, and for those applications that I still maintain - I'm very glad I did. The e-learning app I developed last year uses JSTL's XML Transformation tags to render assets with different HTML (i.e. Flash, QuickTime, Image). It's worked great, and has always been very easy to add a new asset type to the XSL stylesheet.

The main speaker tonight was Kathy Sierra, the founder of JavaRanch. Her presentation was supposed to be on the new EJB 2.0 Certification, but it turned out to be a explanation of how EJBs work. Only about 1/3 of the room (approx. 40 attendees) had used EJBs, so I guess that's why she went that route. She didn't ask if we weren't using them by choice. ;-).

She started off her presentation talking about how the brain works and how it fights all day long to forget stuff. Your brain has a built-in crap filter. It only remembers those things that it needs to survive. It will only automatically remember those events that spark high emotions - fear, humor, arousal - because the chemicals caused by the emotions help you remember better. So when you're studying for your Java Certification (or any certification), the brain is going "screw this shit, I can survive without it." Repetition is a way to convince your brain that it is important. Another way is to get involved with your learning - be the EJB. Kathy did a captivating one-hour presentation with a number of audience members who acted out how EJBs work.

It was a very humorous presentation and great fun. An EJB presentation that was fun - WTF?! At one point, I looked around the room and almost everyone was learning forward and smiling. This lady is a captivating speaker, one of the best I've ever seen. I was very impressed with her teaching/learning techniques and I might just have to buy her book, Head First Java. Another highlight of the evening was that I actually won a free book.

Later: I forgot to mention what Kathy said about upcoming Sun Certifications. A couple new ones are coming: Mobile Application Developer, Web Services and an update to the Web Component Developer exam. She mentioned that the EJB 2.0 exam would probably remain at 2.0 for at least another year - until all the vendors caught up and support EJB 2.1. She said the Web Services one is going to be hard as will the next Web Component Developer Exam. The Web Component Developer exam will cover JSP 2.0 and Servlet 2.4. She also mentioned that she was reading Pro JSP to help create the WCD exam. How's that for an endorsement?! Posted in Java at Dec 11 2003, 12:17:08 AM MST 5 Comments