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What's the best Java Hosting Solution?

2009-02-07T10:21:28-07:00

A friend recently asked me who I'd recommend for a Java hosting provider. Since I get asked this question every-so-often, it seemed appropriate to post my answer here.

KGB Internet - I use KGB for this site. I have my own JVM and have full control over what I want to install. I can control Tomcat versions and upgrade as needed. I don't know if I'd recommend him for a business site as he can take up to 12 hours to respond to requests.
Kattare - These guys will give you your own Tomcat instance and seem to have reasonable prices. They do seem to take quite some time to respond to requests (24-48 hours). I have a free instance that I use for a non-profit, so that could be the reason.
Contegix - These guys are far-and-away the best company for Java-based hosting. They're not cheap though. However, they have the best customer service in the business - often responding to e-mails in less than a minute.

Do you agree with these recommendations? If not, who do you recommend for Java hosting and why?

Subversion Hosting

2007-04-20T08:24:13-06:00

In years past, I never had much of a need for source control outside of open source projects I worked on. Now, as I create more and more training materials and presentations - it's essential. While I could host a Subversion repository myself, it doesn't seem like it's worth the hassle. I'd prefer to have it hosted (and backed up regularly) outside of my house. This week I'm looking to setup svn.raibledesigns.com.

I'm not really looking to get my own Linux box hosted somewhere. I pay around $60/month to KGB Internet for raibledesigns.com, demo.appfuse.org and appfuse.org. To get my own "managed" box is somewhere around $300/month. When I say "managed", I mean Contegix-style where I can say "install this", "do that" and they handle all the sys-admin for you. So all I'm looking for is a reasonable SVN hosting provider that'll give me 1-2 GB for a reasonable price. What's reasonable? I'd say $25-50 per month.

I did some googling and there's a lot of Subversion hosting providers. I e-mailed a few of them with my main question - "can I point my subdomain at your servers?" A few of them have gotten back to me, but now I'm curious to hear from folks using these services. Are you using a Subversion hosting provider for your business? If so, which one?

I'm more interested in bad reviews than good ones - but if you're happy with a service, I'd love to hear about it.

The cheapest one I found is SVNRepository.com. However, it's been an hour since I e-mailed them and I haven't had a response. Nevertheless, $10/month for 5 GB, unlimited repositories, Trac instances, etc. sounds pretty nice.

Update August 2, 2007: I ended up going with SVNRepository.com (Level Two - $6.95/month) and I've been very happy with them. I'm using them for Raible Designs' artifacts (presentations, training materials) so I don't use it on a daily basis - more like monthly.

Southeast Light Rail

2006-09-05T09:21:35-06:00

On my way in via Light Rail this morning, I noticed a sign with http://www.southeastlightrail.com on it. This site tells you about the new light rail that's opening in Denver in a few months. The road part of the T-Rex Project was finished last week, and we couldn't be happier. We finally got direct access to the freeway after 3 years! Aaaahhh, the things you notice with an EVDO card on the train...

Carpal Tunnel

2006-03-28T21:25:53-07:00

Every month or so, after working a long-ass week, my left arm usually starts hurting as if I have carpal tunnel. Usually, I go get a massage and it feels better the next day, or a few days shortly after. The Massage Therapist always asks me if I've been diagnosed with carpal tunnel, to which I reply "No." They also ask me if I have tingling in my hands or forearms, and I always tell them "No, I just get a dull pain in my forearms when I work a long week." So I've never really had carpal tunnel AFAIK, just symptoms every month or so.

That all changed this week. I started noticing the dull pain in my left forearm at TSSJS, and I started noticing the tingling in my left hand yesterday. I've never had tingling before. Furthermore, last week was a pretty light typing week (but I might've played cards too much ). So now I'm worried; I'll probably get a massage this week and I have a chiropractor appointment next week. The only think I can think of that might be causing the tingling is: 1) riding my bike to work, or 2) the cheap-ass crappy keyboard I have at work.

I went to the Apple Store and CompUSA to get an ergonomic keyboard tonight, but had no luck. The Apple Store only sell the standard Apple keyboard and CompUSA only sells black Microsoft keyboards. The M$ keyboard's will work, but it seems wrong to hookup a Microsoft keyboard to a MacBook Pro with a cinema display. I have a meeting in South Denver tomorrow morning, so I'm going to stop by Micro Center. Hopefully they'll have something good.

Carpal Tunnel is a scary thing as a programming professional. It's one of the few things that can put you out of commission as a programmer. It looks like I'd better start taking it seriously if I want to keep slingin' code for the next 10 years.

Related: Carpal Tunnel in May 2004.

A Week Later: I went to a repetitive motion specialist yesterday. They said that hand surgeons hate them b/c they can solve most issues. They worked my left arm and hand, and expect everything to be better with a couple more treatments. It already feels a lot better, but I'm also doing stretches every hour - which helps a lot too.

Subversion options for open source projects?

2005-09-21T08:15:54-06:00

I've been using Subversion on quite a few projects lately and I have a hard time switching back to CVS. I currently use CVS for most open source projects, particularly AppFuse and Equinox - which I work on the most. A discussion started this morning on the AppFuse Mailing List about moving to Subversion. While I'd love to do this, I'd prefer to do it at java.net - so I don't have to completely abandon our hosted environment there. However, I don't think java.net is planning to offer Subversion anytime soon. If we move source control to somewhere else, we're pretty much just using it for the mailing list. Then again, the mailing list archive kinda sucks and you can't get it archived by mail-archive.com.

That being said, it might be nice to host everything ourselves. This might allow us to get something like Jive Forums setup. WebWork uses it and it has a pretty cool feature that the mailing list and forums are integrated (messages go to both). While the idea of self-hosting sounds appealing, it also sounds like it might be a lot of work. For hosted SVN options, it seems that there's JavaForge, Codehaus (which I believe is invite-only) and CVSDude. Any other options you know of?

BabyBash - kids love it!

2005-04-27T16:23:36-06:00

A few months ago, I saw Toby Reyelts' post about a game he wrote called BabyBash. I downloaded it when I first saw it and let Abbie play it. She loved it immediately, and would ask me to play it whenever she saw I was "working" on the computer. Of course, she'd say "Daddy - no working" first, and then say "play Abbie's game?".

Then I lost the link for a couple of months and this conversation turned very sour. A couple of weeks ago, I found the link and vowed to never let it go again. This morning, I gave Jack a run at the game (he's almost 8 months now) and he loved it too! It probably doesn't hurt that they're playing it on a 23" display.

If you've have small children, you should really let them try this game. Thanks Toby - you rock!

[ANN] Struts Menu 2.3 Released

2004-09-27T23:08:07-06:00

Download · Release Notes. This release's major feature is the complete de-coupling from Struts - so that no struts.jar is required in the classpath anymore. Of course, if you have it in there, it's used as before. This release was primarily motivated by my need to include this in the WebWork version of AppFuse. In addition, I fixed a lot of bugs that I never even realized were entered. I'm monitoring the tracker's now - hopefully the delay won't happen again.

Additional Struts Menu Links:

Write your Java apps in Visual Studio.NET?

2004-02-17T12:20:00-07:00

Apparently Visual MainWin allows you to write your webapps in C# and .NET and then deploy them to a J2EE server.

Visual MainWin for J2EE enables these organizations to deploy .NET and J2EE applications on a single J2EE infrastructure, eliminating the need to maintain two separate application servers or implement complex interoperability solutions between the .NET and J2EE platforms.

This product certainly won't do anything for me. I've heard that Visual Studio is a great IDE, but if I can't write Java in it - what's the point?

Then again, I'm biased. I have a friend who is a long-time Java developer. Lately, he's been developing in C# because that was the only gig he could get (in Nevada). He says that C# is a piece of sh*t compared to Java.

Update: My friend contacted me to set the record straight. To quote him, "C# is OK, its the .NET framework that sucks ass. The C# syntax is a total ripoff of Java anyways."

Should I buy a PowerBook or a PC?

2004-01-10T17:58:17-07:00

I received the following e-mail from Jason Boutwell a couple of days ago (published here with his permission).

I'm in the market for a new development laptop, either a P4 or a G4. I see from some of your older blog posts that you went through the same thing last year. First you went with a P4, then ended up with a PowerBook, so you've done both.

Since we seem to have similar professional interests (jobs where you BYOL, developing J2EE apps with tools like Hibernate, Struts, XDoclet, IDEA, etc.), you seem an ideal person to ask.

It's as simple as this: you can't beat the form-factor of the PowerBook. The fact that it's so small and light really make it a killer laptop. iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes are all killer apps and make digital photography and video so much easer. However, as a development environment - it sucks. It's sooooo much slower that my Windows XP desktop (that only cost $800).

My perspective of the speed difference might not be fair though - desktops (most likely) will always be faster than laptops. However, to run "ant deploy" for AppFuse takes 23 seconds on my 2.6 GHz CPU / 1.5 GB RAM desktop and 36 seconds on the PowerBook (1.33 GHz CPU / 1 GB RAM). It is difficult for me to develop on the Mac after developing on my PC for awhile, it's just so much slower. That being said, I don't think I'd be happy with a PC laptop - they're too ugly and bulky (for the 17" models) and don't offer the slick digital hub integration that the Mac does.

Don't expect the PowerBook to be a desktop replacement. And if you've never used a Mac, prepare to be frustrated. I've been a Windows user for 10+ years and getting used to the way a Mac works is not easy. It's been most frustrating for me because I can navigate around and do stuff on Windows really fast - it's almost like second nature. On the Mac, I have to think about how to do stuff. I think that Mac or Linux users migrating to Windows would feel the same frustration.

Above all else, you need to experience a Mac first hand. Go to your local Apple Store and play around with one. Download your favorite IDE and checkout an open source project from SourceForge. Download and install Ant and try compiling the project. You're gonna love the feel of the Mac, but you might find it's a bit slower than you're used to.

The one problem with not buying a PowerBook is that you'll always long for one. ;-) Would I buy a PowerBook again? Definitely. Would I give up my Windows desktop for a Mac desktop? No. Why should I give up all my years of becoming an efficient Windows user to be a slow-ass frustrated Mac user - it just doesn't make sense.

Digital Music: Things I want

2003-06-30T07:13:05-06:00

I've come up with a few product ideas. I think these are awesome ideas, and hopefully someone has already come up with them. I doubt I'm the first one to think of these, but if I am, let's hope I get credit. ;-)

1. I want an MP3 Server in my car. Similar to the iPod, in the sense that I can sync from a PC or a Mac while my car sits within 50 feet of my house. How slick would that be to pick your playlist for your roadtrip while you're cutting a new release! It'd have to be fairly inexpensive (~$200) to be profitable I think. Competitors: XM Radio.

2. I want to hook my MP3 collection up to my home stereo. I believe this is already possible, but I want more. I want to be able to sit on my patio and control my home stereo with my iPod. iPod = remote control. Of course, we don't have a home stereo, nor a patio - but I do plan to purchase these luxuries someday, and I'd love to switch from Bare Naked Ladies to Jimmy Buffett when Julie goes to change a diaper. ;-D

New Domain Name - javawebapps.com

2002-11-15T10:03:27-07:00

You can now find this site at www.javawebapps.com. Hopefully, this is much easier to remember (and spell) than www.raibledesigns.com. Probably the best $35 I've ever spent and a fairly inexpensive marketing strategy. If you ever need to tell anyone about this site (don't know why you would), you can now use javawebapps.com. Let's see how many times I can type java web apps in this post. I've got to get past Anthony on Google's results - he's on page 2 right now (I'm on page 4).