Raible Designs

Bad Cables?

I'm still experiencing issues with my Internet Connection, and I'm still blaming my ISP. Especially since I went out and bought a new router and everything. Now I have internet access, but it's intermittent and flaky. It's so flaky, in fact, that anytime I've needed to ssh into this site's server or check in to CVS at SourceForge, I've had to dial-up. However, an ingenious idea hit me this morning. Since the original problem was a bad cable between my ISP's bridge and my router, maybe more cables could be bad. So I stuck one of my wireless cards in my box, and Voila! I'm surfing like the wind again. I guess I'll have to stop at a store and see if they have an "ethernet cable tester".

I'm off to work. I'll be broadcasting my presentation (via WebEx) from there today since I didn't trust this connection up until now.

[ANNOUNCE] Struts Resume and AppFuse 0.7 Released!

There's nothing like tootin' your own horn. What's even worse is checking all this stuff into CVS and then uploading it on a dial-up connection. Anyway, here it is - the latest and greatest version of struts-resume and (finally) a version of appfuse. AppFuse is basically struts-resume w/o any resume stuff. There's not much new that's visible for struts-resume, the only real things are User Administration (no add, just list/delete/assign roles) and a smart-menu that stays expanded based on your previous selections. Here is a full list of what's new in 0.7 (both apps):

Features in 0.7
===============
- Upgraded to Hibernate 2.0 Beta 4.
- Upgraded to Struts 1.1 nightly build (2003.03.26) to fix Validator issue.
(http://tinyurl.com/87xa)
- Upgraded DBUnit to 1.6-dev to fix batchStatement error in Ant task.
(http://tinyurl.com/8ei2)
- Upgraded Canoo WebTest from build265 to build276.
- Upgraded XDoclet to nightly build (2003.03.28) for Hibernate 2.0
compatibility. Apache module is still customized for POJO -> ActionForms.
- Upgraded Display Tag Library to version 0.8.5.
- Renamed "test-canoo" task to "test-jsp".
- Added "db-load" as a dependency to running unit tests to get a fresh
database each time.
- In LoginServlet.java and BreadCrumbFilter.java, pre-pended contextPath
to authURL (i.e. "j_security_check") to get absolute path.
- Added User Administrator to list/edit/delete users. This feature
includes using indexedProperties on a form - still using XDoclet, but using
a subclass of UserForm, called UserFormEx to hold the getter/setters for
the indexedProperties.
- Wrote more Cactus and Canoo Tests to verify Resume editing and User
Administration functioned properly.
- Added icons to success and error messages template (common/messages.jsp).
- Implemented role-based Permissions on menu by adding
permissions="rolesAdapter" to in menu.jsp.

I've put a line through the renaming of "test-canoo" to "test-jsp" because it's in the README (part of the download) and I don't want to re-upload just because of one stinkin' line.

Tomorrow, I'm actually presenting for the Struts Training class, so I won't be able to give a full review. One of the gents who wrote Stxx will be presenting first at 8:30 MST, and then I'm up for my preso. I'm going to do some short and sweet stuff on Remember Me and XDoclet with Struts. If you're interested, you can do the labs I put together. I'll post the slides when I'm done presenting.

New Job, New Computers

Have you see what Chris is getting at his new job? Holy shit - I was lucky to even get a machine at my current contract!

• Pentium 4 3GHz with 1GB RAM, 120GB disk, etc, and a 20" flat panel display
• New G4 Tower (maybe dual proc? not sure yet), 1GB RAM, 20" flat panel display
• 15" Ti Powerbook

Sounds like either 1) a great company to work for, or 2) a company that won't be around very long. But it sounds like a good company...

The new job will be way more stable (think big company, but not evil company ;) pay a lot more, have stock that's actually worth something, and rockin' benefits.

Man am I jealous!

Mozilla going to Phoenix

The coolest part about Mozilla moving to the Phoenix codebase is that Matt Croydon got quoted. I've been using Phoenix ever since it came out over Phoenix. If you've been using Mozilla over Phoenix, you're losing precious seconds, possibly minutes throughout the day. It's soooo much faster. I used to be die hard IE user - but Phoenix blows it out of the water. I don't know that it's faster, but if not, it's only milliseconds. And once you're addicted to tabbed browsing, it's tough to go back. The best part about the move is that (hopefully) Phoenix will get better. It's already got way more themes, which allows you to make it look as cool as you want.

Home Sick

I figured riding to work yesterday would get me in better shape, but rather, it has crippled me. After my hour n' 45 minute ride to work, I started to feel sick in the afternoon. Sick like a sore throat and headache. Around 5 o'clock (time to go home), I still felt like crap, but thought some more exercise would do me good. It took me an hour and 35 minutes to get home, and I was wiped out when I got here - in bed at 8:30. I didn't feel too bad last night, just tired. This morning I woke up to tonsils the size of golf balls (yep, I still have my tonsils), a headache and that "I-have-a-cold, man-I'm-tired" feeling. So I e-mailed in sick today, and slept in until 11. I've discovered that my lack of internet connection might be my router, as my LAN does not work anymore. It did work when this first happened, but now it doesn't. I guess I'll drag myself down to Circuit City and try to get a replacement before the repair guys show up and charge me $75/hour.

One thing I've learned using dial-up this week. It isn't that bad. In fact, this site seems to perform just as well on dial-up as it does on broadband. Aaaah, the beauty of server-side code. As for the fact that FreeRoller has been up since Monday, I think it's due to the newest version of Tomcat more than anything.

Update: Well, my ISP sent someone out today to fix my internet connection. It was wierd, my router (a Linksys) would restart itself every few seconds while it was plugged into their wireless receiver. The solution turned out to be replacing the ethernet cable between their router and mine. However, my internet access has been pretty spotty ever since, and I even upgraded the firmware on my router. The guy mentioned that Linksys where probably the poorest quality routers, but awful easy to configure. So I think I'm still going to head down to Circuit City and buy a new one. In order to post this, I ended up using dial-up.

String Tag Library 1.0.1

Jakarta's String Tag Library version 1.0.1 was released about a month ago. I found out today. I'm telling you here because you might be able to use it if you need to manipulate Strings for your UI. The only tag I'm using (from this library) <s:replace>, which can be very handy indeed. For instance, a common task with JSPs is the need to replace a new-line (\n) with an HTML new-line (<br />). With the String TL, it's easy (JSP 2.0 Syntax):

<s:replace replace="NL" with="&lt;br /&gt;NL" 
    newlineToken="NL">${myForm.text}</s:replace>

Struts FAQs

Every Struts Developer should probably read Sciosorks Struts FAQ. Good stuff there. Bookmark it and use it.

I rode my bike into work for the first time this year. I got lost, so it took me 20 minutes longer than it should have. Door-to-door: 1:45. I wonder how long it'll take me to get home tonight.

Some CSS Lovin'

Good ol' Zeldman hooks us up with some cool web stuff today. First, you gotta dig these W3C Validator buttons that are purely CSS and Text - no images. Might be a good way to reduce bandwidth. Secondly, adjacent sibling selectors are a neat way to create rules-based layouts in which elements are controlled according to their contexts.

For instance, you can make a general rule where images have no margin at the top; then make another rule that says margins have 15px of white space at the top if they are preceded by an h3 header.

Finally, he inspires us to checkout Fast Company's re-designed all XHTML and CSS site. Very cool! I especially dig the font-size switcher in the top right corner.

Then there's Russ. Could he be on to something here or just blowin' smoke?

Someday soon, people will be judged by the quality of their weblogs like the Greeks once judged a person by the quality of their oration, or in the middle ages a person was judged by their science and art and later in the 1800s by their letters.

I don't know that weblogs will ever the that popular. The problem is that computers aren't even that popular. Sure, there's a lot, but the household penetration is not where it needs to be - and how many of online users have weblogs. Not many. How many of those that have weblogs are interesting - not many. Maybe he's onto something here - and we're already doing it. We are already judging each other in this community - those that have shorter blogrolls are just judging a little more ;-)

9 GB Served Last Month

I have a hard time believing it, but stats don't lie. I got my monthly bill from KGB Internet and discovered that I had 9 GB of traffic in March. At $.01 per extra MB, 4,062 extra megs adds up to $40.62 extra this month! It looks like the biggest bandwidth hogs are the downloads which means I'd better move everything I can over to SourceForge. I'm already up to the Silver plan, and I'm not about to pay $80/month for the Gold plan.

Dial-Up: 28.8

That's right, I'm posting this message on dial-up since my ISP can't fix my internet connection. Today they said they'd send someone out in a week. That sucks - dial-up for a week. Oh well, productivity will rise, blogging and reading of blogs will decline - which can't really hurt. The choke hold will come when one of my friends sends me the 1MB attachments that they're used to sending. The worst part is that I'm doing a WebEx presentation for the Struts Training class this week and I have to go into my office to do it, rather than in the comfort of my own home. Luckily, the guys I work for are letting me use my work computer - thanks gents!