Raible Designs

Send a Fax from Java?

I'm looking for a (hopefully free) way to send a Fax from a Java program. I think the easiest way would be to send an e-mail to some sort of service that processes it and faxes it the recipient. Any suggestions?

Jalopy source code formatter no longer free

I love the Jalopy Source Code Formatter. I hope it continues to be developed on SF (though it hasn't had a release in over a year). My issue? It doesn't work on Eclipse 3.0 Mx on OS X. Why am I worried development will stop? Because the original author has a non-free version (at www.triemax.com).

I can't blame the guy - developing Open Source projects is fun, supporting them is a pain. You get rewards for developing: personal milestones, discovery, knowledge enhancement. For supporting, you get to use your precious non-paid hours to try to disseminate your knowledge. This can also be rewarding, it's just not as immediate, leading to the frustration and pain of support. Good documentation reduces support, but that's a pain too.

We have test-first methodologies, will we ever get to document-first? Write the help files, then write the tests, and then the actual code. I'm willing to bet you'd get even higher quality software going this route.

Useless Tag Library?

Inspired by this post, I wrote a tag library to expose the fields of my Contants.java class to my JSPs. It allows a user to specify a single variable using:

<appfuse:constants var="USER_KEY"/>

Or all variables:

<appfuse:constants/>

By default, it exposes the values from the Contants class imported into the tag library, but also allows a className variable to specify a different class. The main reason I wrote this was to prove it was possible. The second reason was to get around importing my Contants class (and using <%=Contants.VARNAME%>).

Interested? Read More ...

My Best Christmas Present

My best Christmas present was finding out that Baby Raible #2 is on the way! The only bad part about Julie's 2nd pregnancy is we didn't have to try very hard. Last time it took 6 months, and a great 6 months that was...

Roller Tip: Managing your Comments

I tend to get a few comments a week that I need to delete because a reader has double-posted or said something I don't care to have on my website. Up until today, it's been a pain to navigate the Roller UI and delete these comments. It's almost easier to do it through SQL. No longer - I added a "Delete Comments" link to my _day template that shows up right after the "Edit" link. I'm not using the showEntryPermaLink macro for permalinks because I prefer to show permalinks on their own page (keyed by the anchor parameter). So replace your logic to render your permalink with the following and you'll be able to delete comments easier too:

    <a href="$baseURL/page/$userName?anchor=$entry.anchor"
        title="Permanent link to this weblog entry"
        class="entrypermalink">Permalink</a>
    #if ($pageHelper.isUserAuthorizedToEdit())
        [<a href="$pageHelper.getEntryEditUrl($entry)">Edit</a>] 
        [<a href="$ctxPath/comment.do?method=delete&entryid=$entry.Id">Delete Comments</a>]
    #end

To be thorough, here is the contents of the showEntryPermaLink macro:

    <a href="$baseURL/page/$userName/#formatDate($plainFormat $entry.PubTime )#$entry.Anchor"
        title="Permanent link to this weblog entry"
        class="entrypermalink">Permalink</a>
    #if ($pageHelper.isUserAuthorizedToEdit())
        [<a href="$pageHelper.getEntryEditUrl($entry)">Edit</a>]
    #end

Missed that one - XDoclet 1.2 Released

I must've been asleep at the wheel the week before Christmas - XDoclet 1.2 Final got released (already blogged here) and I didn't notice.

I integrated OSCache's Filter into my project today and needed to order the <filter-mapping>s in my project so cacheFilter comes first. I stumbed upon the order attribute, but it appears to be XDoclet2-only feature. XDoclet 1.2 just seems to ignore it. Oh well, I guess I'll just resort to putting all my filter-mappings in an XDoclet fragment (metadata/web/filter-mappings.xml) like Roller does.

On another note, it was easy to integrate oscache since Hibernate 2.1.x ships with oscache.jar (I wonder which version it is?). If you're using AppFuse 1.2, it's in there and I encourage you to look into using it. I got inspired after reading Dave's Improving Web Application Performance and Scalability chapter in Pro JSP. I finished reading it earlier this week, and have found that it's a great reference for JSTL (and probably JSP 2.0 when I start using it).

RE: Wake a Sleeping Mac (Remotely)

If this is true, and I can wake my Powerbook(s) remotely, it'd be wicked cool. Since I never turn them off (they're always sleeping), remotely waking them would make it seem like they're always on. Crosses fingers and grins.

Update: I got it working using this perl utility. However, it only works if I have an Ethernet cable plugged in. Since I never use an Ethernet cable these days (isn't the whole point of a laptop for the wireless connectivity?), wakeonlan is not an option for me - until the AirPort cards support it.

WebSphere version 6.0 - when's will it release?

Today I discovered that WebSphere is one of the first appservers to support J2EE 1.4. Too bad it's a developer release and not a real release. At my current project, we've been developing on Tomcat 4.1.29 (and MySQL) because it's the only platform I've tested AppFuse on. We plan to migrate to WebSphere and DB2 in the coming months. They currently have a license for WebSphere 4.x, which I heard sucks - especially (IMO) because it only supports Servlets 2.2 and JSP 1.1. Luckily, the app we're deploying to production will be the first Java-based webapp, so we will hopefully be able to use WebSphere 5.1.

I just wish 6.0 was out as a real release, then we could start using JSP 2.0 and leave all those damn <c:out value="..."/>'s behind.

Back in Denver

We arrived back in Denver last night after a nice winter-weather week at the cabin. It's nice to be home and sleep in our own bed. Julie agrees and would add that it's nice to have indoor plumbing again. I hate the fact that I have all this e-mail to plow through and respond to. I like the fact that I'm super motivated to learn new stuff. So motivated that I ordered a few books from Amazon. I hope I can suppress my desire to play on the computer (i.e. blogging, open source) and just learn for the next month or so. On my agenda: Spring, WebWork and a Java 1.4 Programmer Certification. 1 month, 2000 pages - if I can restrain my internet addiction, it should be a breeze.

In other news, I'm pumped to see that IDEA is available for $249. My question is - does that give me a license for both a Windows and OS X install?

We're off to the Cabin for Christmas

We're heading to Montana this afternoon. Thanks God United now flies directly to Missoula from Denver. It used to be a real fiasco - Denver to Salt Lake (1 hour), two hour layover and then another hour to Missoula. Now it's an easy 1 1/2 hour flight.

It's been a long time since I visited the cabin during the Winter (1996) and even longer since I spent Christmas there (more than 10 years ago). I can't fricken wait. We might have to hike in because my parent's Subaru won't be able to make it all the way (they left it at the airport for us). Julie is terrified. I talked to my parents last night and my Dad broke trail in his '65 Ford, so at least they made it all the way up the road. When we were kids, we had a '73 Toyota Landcruiser that would go through almost any amount of snow. We rarely had enough money to get our 3 mile road plowed out, so it was always a gamble on whether we could drive in or not. The road was usually drivable until about mid-December, and then the snow accumulated too much for the poor ol' Landcruiser.

Up until we could no longer drive, my Dad used to wind that thing up like you wouldn't believe. The Landcruiser, as we affectionately called it, would easily get up around 9000 RPM. All four tires would have chains on them and snow would be flying 10 feet high off all four tires. My sister would be sitting in the middle of the front seats, and I'd be sitting on my Mom's lap. The Landcruiser was a soft top, so it was pretty damn cold and the heater sucked, but that used to be the best carnival ride there was. We were all terrified we wouldn't make it and my Dad was determined to get home, even if it killed the Landcruiser. He wasn't gonna let some piddly little 2 feet of snow keep him from driving home.

We all hated the 1 1/2 mile walk to "the Bus Stop," but when the snow got to be too much, we had walk or ski it. This lasted most of the Winter. This was a real pain when we'd just returned from Missoula and we had to pack all the groceries in on backpacks. But there were times when this walk was truly majestic. When there was a full moon and enough snow to ski. It is truly one of the most beautiful sites - snow everywhere and beautiful fields and trees basked in the warm brilliant light of the moon. All you can hear is the swish-swish of your cross-country skis. It is then that all your worries subside and the world become a perfect place - even if only for the 30 minutes you're on the trail.