Thought I'd post this because Google didn't give me the answer I needed and I'm sure there are other people out there who find out they need VS 2003 for some reason, AFTER they install VS 2005.
Problem: The VS 2003 installer tries to setup the prerequisites and fails on the .Net Framework 1.1 installation, because 2.0 is already installed. This then causes the rest of the installation to fail.
Solution: Install the 1.1 framework using a downloadable installer, which for some reason succeeds where the one shipped with VS 2003 failed. After that, start the VS 2003 installation again; it'll find 1.1 in place and perform the rest of the installation flawlessly.
Caveat: MS says multiple versions of VS can coexist, but recommends the installations to be in the order of release, so I'm not sure if I've actually broken anything obscure going in reverse.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
The Best Things in Life...
After having cut code in everything from COBOL to Java for almost nine years, I had the audacity once to state that my three year plan was to be a Software Architect. That was at a job interview six years ago, so it took me twice as long to get here but it was worth waiting for.
Another bunch that achieved a dream are Nemesis who won best band with their founding member Mackie winning best musician at TNL Onstage 2008. I was there of course, to cheer the band on and to celebrate my own little victory. Had a great time and hope they put up the videos soon, so all of you can enjoy their music as much as I did!
Another bunch that achieved a dream are Nemesis who won best band with their founding member Mackie winning best musician at TNL Onstage 2008. I was there of course, to cheer the band on and to celebrate my own little victory. Had a great time and hope they put up the videos soon, so all of you can enjoy their music as much as I did!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Rock Star at SOAWorld
"Mashups are the rock stars of personal productivity..." starts the press release on WSO2's session at SOAWorld 2008.
Talking about "Mashups - Bringing Springtime to Your SOA" is Jonathan Marsh, the visionary behind the WSO2 Mashup Server who is now WSO2's VP of Business Development, but still very much a Mashupper at heart! If you're in the area or already at SOAWorld and want to learn how to improve your SOA, increase productivity and enjoy doing it, don't miss this!
When: Thursday, November 20, 2:20-3:05 p.m.
Where: SOAWorld 2008, Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, CA
While on the subject of Rock Stars. rumor has it that Nemesis have made it to the finals of OnStage. Hope to be there to see them win!
Talking about "Mashups - Bringing Springtime to Your SOA" is Jonathan Marsh, the visionary behind the WSO2 Mashup Server who is now WSO2's VP of Business Development, but still very much a Mashupper at heart! If you're in the area or already at SOAWorld and want to learn how to improve your SOA, increase productivity and enjoy doing it, don't miss this!
When: Thursday, November 20, 2:20-3:05 p.m.
Where: SOAWorld 2008, Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, CA
While on the subject of Rock Stars. rumor has it that Nemesis have made it to the finals of OnStage. Hope to be there to see them win!
Friday, November 7, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Why I'm glad Obama won
No, It's got nothing to do with the party he represents. I'm not a democrat or republican, I'm not even American!
Neither do I think there will be any direct or immediate benefit to me. As a Software Engineer in Sri Lanka I'm not overjoyed when someone talks about not giving tax breaks to US companies that outsource; if he actually does that he's probably going to make things worse for the IT industry here, not better!
It's not the whole person-of-color thing either. Yes, I have dark brown skin, but wasn't happy when Lewis Hamilton became Formula One World Champ this year and hate Timo Glock for making him that! From the beginning Lewis came across as such a media wh**e, to me he's almost like Paris Hilton but with real talent. I didn't celebrate the first black formula one champion's victory.
Why then?
It's because whether the rest of us like it or not America has the world's biggest economy and most powerful military and it's better for everybody if someone with a little intelligence is in charge.
It's because this time the Americans seem to have kept the problems their country is facing in mind in the voting booth, and chosen the pair of candidates who seemed to have the better solution, instead of the ones who said "What problems? America is awesome and we're more religious, patriotic and real-American, so vote for us!" Gives us all hope!
It's because Obama can and does inspire; I just watched his 2004 keynote and yesterday's acceptance speeches and they actually motivated me, someone completely outside his target audience, and got me believing in the change that's coming. Hey, he's got me writing this post, so I can only imagine the effect he'll have on actual Americans as their president!
I've always had a lot of respect for Putin; ex. secret agent, Judo black belt, got a country back on it's feet from the brink of collapse and so on. Suddenly America has a cool president too! Damn, now everybody's gonna want one!
Neither do I think there will be any direct or immediate benefit to me. As a Software Engineer in Sri Lanka I'm not overjoyed when someone talks about not giving tax breaks to US companies that outsource; if he actually does that he's probably going to make things worse for the IT industry here, not better!
It's not the whole person-of-color thing either. Yes, I have dark brown skin, but wasn't happy when Lewis Hamilton became Formula One World Champ this year and hate Timo Glock for making him that! From the beginning Lewis came across as such a media wh**e, to me he's almost like Paris Hilton but with real talent. I didn't celebrate the first black formula one champion's victory.
Why then?
It's because whether the rest of us like it or not America has the world's biggest economy and most powerful military and it's better for everybody if someone with a little intelligence is in charge.
It's because this time the Americans seem to have kept the problems their country is facing in mind in the voting booth, and chosen the pair of candidates who seemed to have the better solution, instead of the ones who said "What problems? America is awesome and we're more religious, patriotic and real-American, so vote for us!" Gives us all hope!
It's because Obama can and does inspire; I just watched his 2004 keynote and yesterday's acceptance speeches and they actually motivated me, someone completely outside his target audience, and got me believing in the change that's coming. Hey, he's got me writing this post, so I can only imagine the effect he'll have on actual Americans as their president!
I've always had a lot of respect for Putin; ex. secret agent, Judo black belt, got a country back on it's feet from the brink of collapse and so on. Suddenly America has a cool president too! Damn, now everybody's gonna want one!
Monday, November 3, 2008
Mashup Screencast 3: Service Composition
In this, the last of his original trilogy of screencasts, Jonathan continues and concludes the example he used in the two previous installments, by explaining service composition via-a-vis the WSO2 Mashup Server.
One inherent advantage of using web services is the ability to compose or orchestrate and the screencast shows how easy it is to do this using the WSO2 Mashup Server. You'll learn how to use auto-generated stubs to access other services that you wish to compose, manipulate the response from an operation using E4X and schedule periodic service invocation using our implementation of setTimeout function.
As usual, if you don't have the bandwidth to watch the high-res version, you can view the YouTube clip below instead.
One inherent advantage of using web services is the ability to compose or orchestrate and the screencast shows how easy it is to do this using the WSO2 Mashup Server. You'll learn how to use auto-generated stubs to access other services that you wish to compose, manipulate the response from an operation using E4X and schedule periodic service invocation using our implementation of setTimeout function.
As usual, if you don't have the bandwidth to watch the high-res version, you can view the YouTube clip below instead.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
It's the year 2058
The world is back to bartering because everybody gave up on the IMF, exchange rates and money in general when it was discovered that the economy of Zimbabwe, with inflation of 11 million percent, was actually healthier than that of Iceland!
Terrorism does not exist in the new economy because it turns out no terrorist organization had ever created a product or provided a service of any value to anybody. Ditto for pickpockets and people engaged in petty theft. They have all died of starvation.
With the banking system gone, most politicians have very short careers as the corrupt are easily identified. It's not easy to hide 300 cows that suddenly stop in your backyard on the way to a neighboring farm; sending them to Switzerland is not an option.
All research is in the hard sciences as no farmer will feed someone who intends to pay for three square meals a day for two years with "The largest prime number ever"!
Wars are still fought, but only to gain territory or resources. People will not fight to defend an ideology because when it's 'Grow food or Die' the other person's beliefs seem quite acceptable.
Everybody speaks, reads and writes Chinese. Computer programming is taught at literature classes as writing an if-then-else statement in ideograms is closer to haiku than C++.
A significant portion of Hollywood's revenue comes from South Asia. The Oscars now present 'best hero', 'best villain' and 'best comedic character' awards.
'Heroes' season 132 is playing and features new characters that can talk to molluscs and fish, send text messages while driving drunk and write bug free software. All of them are long lost siblings of Peter Petrelli.
Terrorism does not exist in the new economy because it turns out no terrorist organization had ever created a product or provided a service of any value to anybody. Ditto for pickpockets and people engaged in petty theft. They have all died of starvation.
With the banking system gone, most politicians have very short careers as the corrupt are easily identified. It's not easy to hide 300 cows that suddenly stop in your backyard on the way to a neighboring farm; sending them to Switzerland is not an option.
All research is in the hard sciences as no farmer will feed someone who intends to pay for three square meals a day for two years with "The largest prime number ever"!
Wars are still fought, but only to gain territory or resources. People will not fight to defend an ideology because when it's 'Grow food or Die' the other person's beliefs seem quite acceptable.
Everybody speaks, reads and writes Chinese. Computer programming is taught at literature classes as writing an if-then-else statement in ideograms is closer to haiku than C++.
A significant portion of Hollywood's revenue comes from South Asia. The Oscars now present 'best hero', 'best villain' and 'best comedic character' awards.
'Heroes' season 132 is playing and features new characters that can talk to molluscs and fish, send text messages while driving drunk and write bug free software. All of them are long lost siblings of Peter Petrelli.
Monday, October 27, 2008
WSO2 ESB Webinar
Daniel will be presenting a webinar on using the WSO2 ESB to put together a real world integration tomorrow, the 28th of October 2008. If you've read this post in time, register now!
Why am I blogging about the ESB now? Well, I got a basic training on using it a few weeks back and am now working on an ESB component for Carbon. Although I still do believe that the WSO2 Mashup Server is more fun to work with, I've decided to spend some time on learning about the WSO2 ESB and Synapse, if only to complete my knowledge of the WSO2 Java Stack.
How's that, you ask? Well, the Mashup Server actually runs WSAS under the covers, which in turn is powered by Axis2. We use our Registry internally as our repository for Mashups and meta data and the OpenID and InfoCard authentication options are from our Identity Solution. Since the Mashup Server actually incorporated Data Services from 1.5 onwards, that just left the ESB and Synapse untouched. Truly a MASHUP Server!
So, though I'll continue to learn the internals of our ESB and Synapse, this webinar's about WHAT it can do in the real world and that's something I can't get from just the code. Daniel will start the webinar half an hour before midnight tomorrow night, Sri Lanka time, but given his credentials, even if you're in a timezone like mine, this one's worth losing a little sleep over!
Why am I blogging about the ESB now? Well, I got a basic training on using it a few weeks back and am now working on an ESB component for Carbon. Although I still do believe that the WSO2 Mashup Server is more fun to work with, I've decided to spend some time on learning about the WSO2 ESB and Synapse, if only to complete my knowledge of the WSO2 Java Stack.
How's that, you ask? Well, the Mashup Server actually runs WSAS under the covers, which in turn is powered by Axis2. We use our Registry internally as our repository for Mashups and meta data and the OpenID and InfoCard authentication options are from our Identity Solution. Since the Mashup Server actually incorporated Data Services from 1.5 onwards, that just left the ESB and Synapse untouched. Truly a MASHUP Server!
So, though I'll continue to learn the internals of our ESB and Synapse, this webinar's about WHAT it can do in the real world and that's something I can't get from just the code. Daniel will start the webinar half an hour before midnight tomorrow night, Sri Lanka time, but given his credentials, even if you're in a timezone like mine, this one's worth losing a little sleep over!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Mashup Screencast 2: The Scraping
This is one sequel you didn't have to wait long for; the second part of the mashup screencast trilogy, Web Scraping, is out. In this episode, Jonathan uses a real world example to teach you the basics of screen scraping.
For the un-initiated, scraping enables you to extract information available in web pages and make it available in a machine consumable form. It's a technique most people want to learn as soon as they start using the WSO2 Mashup Server, because it potentially allows you to use the entire web as your data source.
Spoilers: In the screencast Jonathan teaches you to write a scraper configuration to retrieve the contents of a web page and create a sanitized XML document from it. He then uses 'firebug', a firefox plugin, to view the structure of the web page and help him extract the specific data element he's after from the XML. By the end of the screencast you'll be ready to go out and scrape a few pages yourself!
If you've got good bandwidth, you'll appreciate the hi-res version, but if you don't mind youtube quality, click below.
As before, watch this space for the next installment.
For the un-initiated, scraping enables you to extract information available in web pages and make it available in a machine consumable form. It's a technique most people want to learn as soon as they start using the WSO2 Mashup Server, because it potentially allows you to use the entire web as your data source.
Spoilers: In the screencast Jonathan teaches you to write a scraper configuration to retrieve the contents of a web page and create a sanitized XML document from it. He then uses 'firebug', a firefox plugin, to view the structure of the web page and help him extract the specific data element he's after from the XML. By the end of the screencast you'll be ready to go out and scrape a few pages yourself!
If you've got good bandwidth, you'll appreciate the hi-res version, but if you don't mind youtube quality, click below.
As before, watch this space for the next installment.
Friday, October 24, 2008
RESTful PHP Web Services
Samisa, our Director of Engineering, has just published a book on RESTful PHP Web Services. As the father of Axis2/C and the person who lead the WSF/PHP team, he is certainly an authority on the subject.
You really do need to get this book if you're a PHP developer and agree that an SOA is the way forward, because Samisa says:
"This book targets PHP developers who want to build or make use of RESTful web services, or explore the options available to them in PHP. You will need to know the basics of PHP development, but no knowledge of REST is assumed, nor any knowledge of creating web services generally."
The book goes into:
* Basic concepts of REST architecture
* Consuming public REST-style services from your PHP applications
* Consuming RESTful web services, such as those from leading APIs such as Flickr, and Yahoo Web Search
* Making your own PHP applications accessible to other applications through a RESTful API
* REST support in the popular Zend framework
* Debugging RESTful services and clients
* A case study of designing a RESTful PHP service from the ground up, and designing clients to consume the service
With this, Samisa becomes the 5th person from WSO2 to publish a book! I've blogged about Deepal's book, am halfway through Sanjiva's and am yet to get my hands on the one by Glen and Paul. I've always enjoyed writing almost as much as reading and have long had the dream of actually publishing something myself; very soon peer pressure alone is going to get me started on writing something!
You really do need to get this book if you're a PHP developer and agree that an SOA is the way forward, because Samisa says:
"This book targets PHP developers who want to build or make use of RESTful web services, or explore the options available to them in PHP. You will need to know the basics of PHP development, but no knowledge of REST is assumed, nor any knowledge of creating web services generally."
The book goes into:
* Basic concepts of REST architecture
* Consuming public REST-style services from your PHP applications
* Consuming RESTful web services, such as those from leading APIs such as Flickr, and Yahoo Web Search
* Making your own PHP applications accessible to other applications through a RESTful API
* REST support in the popular Zend framework
* Debugging RESTful services and clients
* A case study of designing a RESTful PHP service from the ground up, and designing clients to consume the service
With this, Samisa becomes the 5th person from WSO2 to publish a book! I've blogged about Deepal's book, am halfway through Sanjiva's and am yet to get my hands on the one by Glen and Paul. I've always enjoyed writing almost as much as reading and have long had the dream of actually publishing something myself; very soon peer pressure alone is going to get me started on writing something!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Two Great Performances
I managed to squeeze two really great events into last Saturday and I decided that day itself that I HAD to write something about each.
First it was Aba, a proper Sri Lankan epic! What the director has managed to create is a great movie that is based on recorded history but deviates enough from what we're taught at school to ensure that it doesn't feel like a documentary and even makes me think again about my own origins.
It's obvious that a lot of time, money and effort was put into making the movie because the cast, script, sets, costumes and music are all pretty good. I think Aba's been a success at the box office and really do hope it does well enough to encourage other directors and producers to invest in quality. It would be a shame if the public that's been complaining about the current state of the Sri Lankan entertainment industry doesn't bother to get up and go to a theater when something worth watching has actually been provided.
Now, for those of you who know what I generally consider to be an 'Epic', I'm not saying this is 'Lord of the Rings'; just that it's probably the closest we've got to making something that is grand, exciting, intelligent and beautiful at the same time, in a long time!
After the movie was Nemesis at TNL On Stage! Their lead guitarist is a friend and I went to On Stage last Saturday because I've heard them play and knew they wouldn't disappoint. They did not!
Their first two songs were a Metallica cover and an original, which were pretty good, but they came on later for an acoustic session where they performed a cover of Audioslave's 'I am the highway' which blew my mind! I can't wait for a video of this performance to get to youtube, but until it does, here's an older recording of them doing Shinedown's 45.
First it was Aba, a proper Sri Lankan epic! What the director has managed to create is a great movie that is based on recorded history but deviates enough from what we're taught at school to ensure that it doesn't feel like a documentary and even makes me think again about my own origins.
It's obvious that a lot of time, money and effort was put into making the movie because the cast, script, sets, costumes and music are all pretty good. I think Aba's been a success at the box office and really do hope it does well enough to encourage other directors and producers to invest in quality. It would be a shame if the public that's been complaining about the current state of the Sri Lankan entertainment industry doesn't bother to get up and go to a theater when something worth watching has actually been provided.
Now, for those of you who know what I generally consider to be an 'Epic', I'm not saying this is 'Lord of the Rings'; just that it's probably the closest we've got to making something that is grand, exciting, intelligent and beautiful at the same time, in a long time!
After the movie was Nemesis at TNL On Stage! Their lead guitarist is a friend and I went to On Stage last Saturday because I've heard them play and knew they wouldn't disappoint. They did not!
Their first two songs were a Metallica cover and an original, which were pretty good, but they came on later for an acoustic session where they performed a cover of Audioslave's 'I am the highway' which blew my mind! I can't wait for a video of this performance to get to youtube, but until it does, here's an older recording of them doing Shinedown's 45.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
How to write Mashups
The Quick Start Guide assumes that the reader just knows he or she wants to create a Mashup and maybe something about JavaScript; nothing much else.
It starts by helping the reader to either download, setup and provision their own WSO2 Mashup Server or self-register on mooshup.com which actually runs one under the covers.
Next, it's click-by-click instructions to create, manage and test their first Mashup.
The final section describes how to bring in data from a web page, an external web service and a feed. The first two scenarios make use of tooling provided by us to make a user's life easier, while the third is probably the simplest use of a host object possible.
Since the idea of the quick start guide is to get someone going without overwhelming them, it ends with these typical first questions answered. Please do let us know if you're a first time user and would like something more included in the quick start.
It starts by helping the reader to either download, setup and provision their own WSO2 Mashup Server or self-register on mooshup.com which actually runs one under the covers.
Next, it's click-by-click instructions to create, manage and test their first Mashup.
The final section describes how to bring in data from a web page, an external web service and a feed. The first two scenarios make use of tooling provided by us to make a user's life easier, while the third is probably the simplest use of a host object possible.
Since the idea of the quick start guide is to get someone going without overwhelming them, it ends with these typical first questions answered. Please do let us know if you're a first time user and would like something more included in the quick start.
Friday, October 17, 2008
WSO2 Mashup Server - The Movie
Well, not exactly, but for those of you who skip the book and wait for the movie, this is as good as it gets! Jonathan has done a trilogy of screencasts, and the first of these, Hello World is on air now!
If you always wanted to get started on the WSO2 Mashup Server, but never got around to reading through our user documentation or articles, this is probably the easiest way to get going.
If you're on a slow line and don't mind low-res, you can watch the you tube version here.
Watch this space for links to the sequels.
If you always wanted to get started on the WSO2 Mashup Server, but never got around to reading through our user documentation or articles, this is probably the easiest way to get going.
If you're on a slow line and don't mind low-res, you can watch the you tube version here.
Watch this space for links to the sequels.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Windows to Linux
First time I tried running Linux at home was around 2002, with Red hat 7.1. I really can't remember what finally convinced us to revert to Windows, but I remember it was a little too alien to my wife, who loved the games that shipped with the distribution, but missed Windows/IE/Office. There was no Firefox back then and Open Office wasn't really hot either, so I don't really blame her for wanting Windows back at the time.
I've been using Linux at office for quite some time now; created a partition for it on day 1 itself and installed 'Gutsy' a few days later, but switched to using it full time only this year. My primary goal at the time was to learn some Linux Administration, but now I only boot Windows when I have to fix and test IE or Windows specific defects in code and switch back to Linux as soon as I'm done because everything just takes so much longer to do! I can't explain why a maven build takes a fraction of the time in Linux as it does in Windows, but that is the easiest to compare because maven actually prints the time taken at the end of a build!
About two months back, the XP on my home system started acting up and instead of reinstalling I decided to switch to Hardy. The switch over was quite smooth, with the partition tool in 'Hardy Heron' doing a great job of moving stuff around to make space for root and swap partitions. I created a separate home partition later and moved my home there, using instructions I found on a blog post. I'm sure I could've lived with everything on root, but separating out the home directory is apparently the way to go as you can quite easily upgrade or replace the OS in it's own partition without actually affecting your data in the home directory.
Since then it's been a journey of discovery so I thought I'd put down my experiences in case someone else is considering the same move.
1) If you're using Firefox and Open Office in Windows right now, you're already halfway there. My wife is affected by the switch because she's been using MS-Office until now and Open Office feels different to her. My daughter is hardly aware that things have changed because Firefox is the same and that's all she uses.
2) Use Ubuntu or some other distribution that's not too 'geeky'. You're used to doing everything via wizards, so starting off with an operating system that needs to be compiled first would not be a good idea! Canonical has the right idea, pop the CD in the drive, reboot and install if you like what starts up.
3) GParted is pretty good at moving and resizing partitions, but be aware that any change you do may make your existing Windows installation unusable! I wanted to have my XP available as a boot option, and I've done previous installations which left Windows intact, but I think I messed things up when I deleted a secondary Windows partition while in Linux. Anyway, my XP hasn't worked since then.
4) Some of your peripherals may not work on day one, but some work surprisingly well with the drivers that ship with Hardy. My camera (a Canon A550) can just be plugged into a USB port and Hardy recognizes it, launches FSpot and prompts me to select and download pictures. My webcam (a GE MiniCamPro) on the other hand pretends to be OK; even the red 'active' light on top turns on at PC startup itself, but that's it, no pictures yet! I've found a Google group of users with cams from the same vendor; let's see if this 'support group' will help me to get the drivers sorted out. I found the GNU/Linux Compatible Hardware List which I will use when buying peripherals in future.
That's about it for advice, really. Hardy works fine out-of-the-box, comes with almost all the software you'll need for home or office use and anything else is just an 'apt-get install' away. The only thing I actually downloaded and installed separately was Skype, and that was accomplished with just a few clicks.
Now a few observations.
a) Why does the ls command have a non-default -h argument to list file sizes in 'human readable format'? If the default setting's for Cylons, it's wasted; they interact with computers by either putting their arms into litte tubs of liquid or sticking wires straight into their forearms!
b) Why is it so difficult to share a directory using samba? It can't be just me because I see a lot of very smart Linux users pulling out USB drives when they want to copy stuff from one PC to another.
Actually, to resolve #4 and b, I need to stop whining and start writing code; I've got two itches so I should start scratching!
I've been using Linux at office for quite some time now; created a partition for it on day 1 itself and installed 'Gutsy' a few days later, but switched to using it full time only this year. My primary goal at the time was to learn some Linux Administration, but now I only boot Windows when I have to fix and test IE or Windows specific defects in code and switch back to Linux as soon as I'm done because everything just takes so much longer to do! I can't explain why a maven build takes a fraction of the time in Linux as it does in Windows, but that is the easiest to compare because maven actually prints the time taken at the end of a build!
About two months back, the XP on my home system started acting up and instead of reinstalling I decided to switch to Hardy. The switch over was quite smooth, with the partition tool in 'Hardy Heron' doing a great job of moving stuff around to make space for root and swap partitions. I created a separate home partition later and moved my home there, using instructions I found on a blog post. I'm sure I could've lived with everything on root, but separating out the home directory is apparently the way to go as you can quite easily upgrade or replace the OS in it's own partition without actually affecting your data in the home directory.
Since then it's been a journey of discovery so I thought I'd put down my experiences in case someone else is considering the same move.
1) If you're using Firefox and Open Office in Windows right now, you're already halfway there. My wife is affected by the switch because she's been using MS-Office until now and Open Office feels different to her. My daughter is hardly aware that things have changed because Firefox is the same and that's all she uses.
2) Use Ubuntu or some other distribution that's not too 'geeky'. You're used to doing everything via wizards, so starting off with an operating system that needs to be compiled first would not be a good idea! Canonical has the right idea, pop the CD in the drive, reboot and install if you like what starts up.
3) GParted is pretty good at moving and resizing partitions, but be aware that any change you do may make your existing Windows installation unusable! I wanted to have my XP available as a boot option, and I've done previous installations which left Windows intact, but I think I messed things up when I deleted a secondary Windows partition while in Linux. Anyway, my XP hasn't worked since then.
4) Some of your peripherals may not work on day one, but some work surprisingly well with the drivers that ship with Hardy. My camera (a Canon A550) can just be plugged into a USB port and Hardy recognizes it, launches FSpot and prompts me to select and download pictures. My webcam (a GE MiniCamPro) on the other hand pretends to be OK; even the red 'active' light on top turns on at PC startup itself, but that's it, no pictures yet! I've found a Google group of users with cams from the same vendor; let's see if this 'support group' will help me to get the drivers sorted out. I found the GNU/Linux Compatible Hardware List which I will use when buying peripherals in future.
That's about it for advice, really. Hardy works fine out-of-the-box, comes with almost all the software you'll need for home or office use and anything else is just an 'apt-get install' away. The only thing I actually downloaded and installed separately was Skype, and that was accomplished with just a few clicks.
Now a few observations.
a) Why does the ls command have a non-default -h argument to list file sizes in 'human readable format'? If the default setting's for Cylons, it's wasted; they interact with computers by either putting their arms into litte tubs of liquid or sticking wires straight into their forearms!
b) Why is it so difficult to share a directory using samba? It can't be just me because I see a lot of very smart Linux users pulling out USB drives when they want to copy stuff from one PC to another.
Actually, to resolve #4 and b, I need to stop whining and start writing code; I've got two itches so I should start scratching!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Rotten Tomatoes Completely Rotten?
We've been shipping the Tomato Tube as a sample on the WSO2 Mashup Server since before 1.0, but I think I'm going to try and convince Tyrell, the author, that maybe an IMDB based Mashup would be better. Why this sudden loss of credibility in my eyes I hear you ask? Rotten Tomatoes published a countdown of the Best Animated Films and there was not a single movie from Studio Ghibli in the top 10!
Now I'm perfectly fine with people not liking some of the books and movies I enjoy; I'm actually quite used to it because Sri Lanka isn't full of Science Fiction fans (I walked the length and breadth of the Colombo Book Fair last week and couldn't find a single book by Iain M. Banks, though there was a whole shelf full last year). I'll also be the first to admit that I'm not qualified to be a movie critic in any way, I just love watching them and know when I've enjoyed one more than another and why.
I'm not saying I didn't enjoy Toy Story 2, or any of the other movies in the top 10, because 'Finding Nemo' and 'Wall-E' would actually be in my top 10 too, but movies like Spirited Away, Grave of the Firefly or Howl's Moving Castle not making it in there is strange to say the least. If you read through the wiki pages, IMDB or just Google the titles, you'll see I'm not the only one who thinks they're great.
If the list was titled 'Best English Language Animated Films', I would have no issues with the selection. I should ideally run through the other 40 movies in the list and see if this is simply a mistake in the title of the list and there ARE only US/UK movies there, but I really don't think I should risk it. If I see Castle in the Sky ranked lower than, say, 'Barbie Fairytopia' I might just throw something at the monitor or whatever and be the ultimate loser!
Now I'm perfectly fine with people not liking some of the books and movies I enjoy; I'm actually quite used to it because Sri Lanka isn't full of Science Fiction fans (I walked the length and breadth of the Colombo Book Fair last week and couldn't find a single book by Iain M. Banks, though there was a whole shelf full last year). I'll also be the first to admit that I'm not qualified to be a movie critic in any way, I just love watching them and know when I've enjoyed one more than another and why.
I'm not saying I didn't enjoy Toy Story 2, or any of the other movies in the top 10, because 'Finding Nemo' and 'Wall-E' would actually be in my top 10 too, but movies like Spirited Away, Grave of the Firefly or Howl's Moving Castle not making it in there is strange to say the least. If you read through the wiki pages, IMDB or just Google the titles, you'll see I'm not the only one who thinks they're great.
If the list was titled 'Best English Language Animated Films', I would have no issues with the selection. I should ideally run through the other 40 movies in the list and see if this is simply a mistake in the title of the list and there ARE only US/UK movies there, but I really don't think I should risk it. If I see Castle in the Sky ranked lower than, say, 'Barbie Fairytopia' I might just throw something at the monitor or whatever and be the ultimate loser!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Pressure sales vs. open source...
There was this vacuum cleaner salesman who managed to 'gain entry' to our apartment while we were living in Dubai, under the pretext of giving us some gift we had won in a raffle. The adage about vampires also applies to commission driven door-to-door salesmen - you DO NOT invite them into the house! He seemed so passionate about what he claimed to be the greatest vacuum cleaner in the world, which used space age technology and had a few hundred attachments, one of which would even give me a back rub or foot massage!
Now explaining the features of a product is good, but every time I asked him how much it cost, just to find out whether it was within our budget, he kept telling us about another feature or attachment! It was getting to a point where I would have to start being openly rude to him because I knew that there was no way I could afford all the 'free accessories' included and this guy just wasn't going to leave until we had committed to buying the product. Fortunately Navindee was 1+ at the time and when she got hungry nothing stood in her way - including our mafia salesman. He finally told us how much it cost (a little more than what my first car was worth) and we said 'no thanks' - obviously.
Why am I ranting about this now? It's apparently this approach to sales, where people are paid to push crap with no interest in the customer's actual needs or a long term relationship that's screwing up the world economy! The salesman I spoke about spent more than an hour doing his pitch and had I given in, I would have been holding onto an electric fan with a filter and 300 accessories I would never use, feeling like a sucker, while he would have been laughing all the way to the bank!
The typical open source way of doing business is the diametric opposite of this, where there is no sale or money made up front - we only make money if the customer wants a relationship. The customer downloads the product, tries it out and if it suits his or her needs, pays for support and/or services.
Open source products depend on actually providing value because we can't depend on hype and a cool marketing campaign to get the customer to pay us - there is no shrink wrapped box that we can push someone to buy. We're paid only if we deliver a great product that actually meets the customer's needs. Now everyone could figure out a formula that makes it mandatory to think of long term benefits to the customer, I'm sure we could prevent future financial meltdowns!
I've heard the open source movement being labeled as not being capitalist, but I say it is; the person with the best product and services offering will ultimately get paid. It just doesn't reward pressure selling and hype, which screws the customer and ultimately the supplier as well, which I think is capitalism gone mad!
For further reading, Jonathan wrote a post that will give you an idea of how a user of open source software can reward the creator without spending a cent, and this article talks about Open Source SOA offerings out there, including ours.
Now explaining the features of a product is good, but every time I asked him how much it cost, just to find out whether it was within our budget, he kept telling us about another feature or attachment! It was getting to a point where I would have to start being openly rude to him because I knew that there was no way I could afford all the 'free accessories' included and this guy just wasn't going to leave until we had committed to buying the product. Fortunately Navindee was 1+ at the time and when she got hungry nothing stood in her way - including our mafia salesman. He finally told us how much it cost (a little more than what my first car was worth) and we said 'no thanks' - obviously.
Why am I ranting about this now? It's apparently this approach to sales, where people are paid to push crap with no interest in the customer's actual needs or a long term relationship that's screwing up the world economy! The salesman I spoke about spent more than an hour doing his pitch and had I given in, I would have been holding onto an electric fan with a filter and 300 accessories I would never use, feeling like a sucker, while he would have been laughing all the way to the bank!
The typical open source way of doing business is the diametric opposite of this, where there is no sale or money made up front - we only make money if the customer wants a relationship. The customer downloads the product, tries it out and if it suits his or her needs, pays for support and/or services.
Open source products depend on actually providing value because we can't depend on hype and a cool marketing campaign to get the customer to pay us - there is no shrink wrapped box that we can push someone to buy. We're paid only if we deliver a great product that actually meets the customer's needs. Now everyone could figure out a formula that makes it mandatory to think of long term benefits to the customer, I'm sure we could prevent future financial meltdowns!
I've heard the open source movement being labeled as not being capitalist, but I say it is; the person with the best product and services offering will ultimately get paid. It just doesn't reward pressure selling and hype, which screws the customer and ultimately the supplier as well, which I think is capitalism gone mad!
For further reading, Jonathan wrote a post that will give you an idea of how a user of open source software can reward the creator without spending a cent, and this article talks about Open Source SOA offerings out there, including ours.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
How to upgrade your WSO2 Mashup Server and why
The past month has been fairly fruitful in terms of publications related to the WSO2 Mashup Server, with Keith, Tyrell and Ayanthi doing an article each and Jonathan running a webinar. That's the 'why'; to see the features Jonathan talks about and try the examples provided by Keith and Tyrell, you need to be running version 1.5! There's also a bunch of other cool new features in 1.5 that we're yet to write about, that you can discover by using the product or reading the documentation - consider them a bonus!
Now the 'how'. If you've not got any data in your existing WSO2 Mashup Server that you want to preserve across an upgrade, it's a simple matter of uninstalling/deleting the old and installing the new, just backing up your old Mashups and adding them to the new server. If, however, you have user info, ratings or comments that you want to preserve, you need to follow these instructions.
Have fun with 1.5!
Now the 'how'. If you've not got any data in your existing WSO2 Mashup Server that you want to preserve across an upgrade, it's a simple matter of uninstalling/deleting the old and installing the new, just backing up your old Mashups and adding them to the new server. If, however, you have user info, ratings or comments that you want to preserve, you need to follow these instructions.
Have fun with 1.5!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Memories
Getting a toy car that turns when it hits an obstruction and has a passenger that turns around to take flash-photographs one birthday, a Meccano set the next year and a bicycle which he needs to hold right at the start as it didn't come with training wheels, the year after. Does life get any better?
Trips to the beach, Mt Lavinia or Wellawatta on a Sunday morning, being a little scared of the sea, but not enough to spoil the fun.
Getting a whack because I put a car headlamp bulb into a mains socket, thereby learning the difference between AC and DC; being consoled later on.
Waking up to be told he'd gone to buy us a TV, getting a 12" Black and White set, which was was still the bleeding edge of technology at the time. Letting all my friends in the neighborhood come over to watch; so many, right at the start, that some sit outside on the wall and watch through the window.
Getting out first VCR later on, along with the option to rent 5 tapes a week and being taken to chose the selection for the week on Saturdays. Watching 'Aliens' about once a month because the guy at the video shop keeps recommending it to him every time he goes alone and enjoying it every time!
Borrowing a book from a friend on how to build my own radio one evening, in tears the next morning because he wouldn't take me into town to get the diode and tuning condenser I needed to get going. Finally being taken to Nugegoda, getting the stuff, building the radio and enjoying the barely audible sounds of SLBC so much on the crystal set that, in reality, he built for me.
Seeing a Sinclair ZX81 on a bus, finding out how much it costs, asking for one and being so surprised when we set off for Kirullapone to actually buy one; finding out later on that everybody else has a Spectrum with 16 or 48 K RAM, but not minding anyway, knowing that this is the best he could afford!
Asking for a basic Origami book as a birthday present, going to the bookshop in the rain, picking the book I want and being asked if I'm sure it's enough! Keeping it safe from the weather on the trip home and feeling contented making paper animals after a shower and hot coffee!
Buying Blakes' 7 and 2001 for me, even though he can't stand science-fiction himself; how he was so irritated by programs like 'Dr. Who' and tried to convince me that I'd benefit a great deal more if I watched the news instead.
Always asking for a turn at the wheel, getting short practice runs with an 'L' board, and him pulling aside one evening and letting me drive home all the way from Dehiwala.
Going on trips in the Austin, different breakdowns on each trip; broken axel on one, silencer leaks another time and engine mount failure on a third. Learning how clean spark plugs, change tires and how to cut-out a carburettor gasket from an old file cover in the process.
Most school concerts or prize givings being followed by dinner at a Chinese restuarant, getting an order of 'firework prawns' if he's in a very good mood!
Being taken to watch 'Tron' followed by dinner, then getting to watch 'Missing in Action' aftewards becuase he thought Tron was boring!
Being driven to a job interview and having to insist that I can manage from there on, that he doesn't need to come and sit at the reception with me.
Trips to Kataragama, where we would stop at Hambantota rest-house. Sea baths during the day, reading in the evening with the sound of the sea and fishermen as background music, fried fish course for dinner on the last evening of the trip. Sometimes returning to Colombo via Nuwara-Eliya or Kandy - that's taking the scenic route!
Getting home early Saturday morning, barely sobered up after a night out clubbing, to find him up watching TV; getting a cup of tea to drink before I go to bed.
On a hospital stretcher, after a pretty serious car accident that is undoubtedly my fault as the other party is a wall, finding out that he is actually more scared and relieved than angry, then realizing that everybody else will have the same reaction!
On weekend visits he watches F1 Racing with me, even though he isn't really a great fan of the sport.
Our trip to India for a PET scan and squeezing in a bit of shopping as he says he feels fine. Me remarking after we return home that a security guard at the airport was the only REALLY pretty girl I saw on the whole trip; being surprised to learn that he noticed too and agrees!
Trips to the beach, Mt Lavinia or Wellawatta on a Sunday morning, being a little scared of the sea, but not enough to spoil the fun.
Getting a whack because I put a car headlamp bulb into a mains socket, thereby learning the difference between AC and DC; being consoled later on.
Waking up to be told he'd gone to buy us a TV, getting a 12" Black and White set, which was was still the bleeding edge of technology at the time. Letting all my friends in the neighborhood come over to watch; so many, right at the start, that some sit outside on the wall and watch through the window.
Getting out first VCR later on, along with the option to rent 5 tapes a week and being taken to chose the selection for the week on Saturdays. Watching 'Aliens' about once a month because the guy at the video shop keeps recommending it to him every time he goes alone and enjoying it every time!
Borrowing a book from a friend on how to build my own radio one evening, in tears the next morning because he wouldn't take me into town to get the diode and tuning condenser I needed to get going. Finally being taken to Nugegoda, getting the stuff, building the radio and enjoying the barely audible sounds of SLBC so much on the crystal set that, in reality, he built for me.
Seeing a Sinclair ZX81 on a bus, finding out how much it costs, asking for one and being so surprised when we set off for Kirullapone to actually buy one; finding out later on that everybody else has a Spectrum with 16 or 48 K RAM, but not minding anyway, knowing that this is the best he could afford!
Asking for a basic Origami book as a birthday present, going to the bookshop in the rain, picking the book I want and being asked if I'm sure it's enough! Keeping it safe from the weather on the trip home and feeling contented making paper animals after a shower and hot coffee!
Buying Blakes' 7 and 2001 for me, even though he can't stand science-fiction himself; how he was so irritated by programs like 'Dr. Who' and tried to convince me that I'd benefit a great deal more if I watched the news instead.
Always asking for a turn at the wheel, getting short practice runs with an 'L' board, and him pulling aside one evening and letting me drive home all the way from Dehiwala.
Going on trips in the Austin, different breakdowns on each trip; broken axel on one, silencer leaks another time and engine mount failure on a third. Learning how clean spark plugs, change tires and how to cut-out a carburettor gasket from an old file cover in the process.
Most school concerts or prize givings being followed by dinner at a Chinese restuarant, getting an order of 'firework prawns' if he's in a very good mood!
Being taken to watch 'Tron' followed by dinner, then getting to watch 'Missing in Action' aftewards becuase he thought Tron was boring!
Being driven to a job interview and having to insist that I can manage from there on, that he doesn't need to come and sit at the reception with me.
Trips to Kataragama, where we would stop at Hambantota rest-house. Sea baths during the day, reading in the evening with the sound of the sea and fishermen as background music, fried fish course for dinner on the last evening of the trip. Sometimes returning to Colombo via Nuwara-Eliya or Kandy - that's taking the scenic route!
Getting home early Saturday morning, barely sobered up after a night out clubbing, to find him up watching TV; getting a cup of tea to drink before I go to bed.
On a hospital stretcher, after a pretty serious car accident that is undoubtedly my fault as the other party is a wall, finding out that he is actually more scared and relieved than angry, then realizing that everybody else will have the same reaction!
On weekend visits he watches F1 Racing with me, even though he isn't really a great fan of the sport.
Our trip to India for a PET scan and squeezing in a bit of shopping as he says he feels fine. Me remarking after we return home that a security guard at the airport was the only REALLY pretty girl I saw on the whole trip; being surprised to learn that he noticed too and agrees!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
WSO2 Mashup Server 1.5 Released
We took our time doing this release, more than five months, but in that time we managed to squeeze in a bunch of features big and small, that we felt were really critical when creating Mashups for Personal, Enterprise and Community use. Of these, I would say data services, security, gadget and OpenID support are the coolest 'big' features we added.
As far as I'm concerned, just getting data service creation into the Mashup Server doubled it's usefulness for almost everybody out there! Now, with mostly mouse clicks and just by stepping through a wizard, you can expose information from a database, spreadsheet or CSV file as a web service! We always had the ability to create and expose data services using the underlying WSAS, but now data services are first class citizens on the Mashup Server, so I can create, edit, delete, tag, comment and rate them from the UI, just like any other Mashup!
I keep remembering projects in a past life, where reading some data from a few tables, applying some business logic to make it a little more useful and then exposing the result as a web page and/or service was such a complicated task that took up days of my time. Using the Mashup Server, I can pretty much achieve the same result in minutes! Mashups you always dreamed of, that combine data from a text file on your desktop and you company's ERP with information on the web and write the results to a database, are now a few clicks away!
Another feature we always felt we needed, especially for the enterprise user, was the ability to secure services. Now all it takes is a few clicks, because you just need to chose one from a list of common security scenarios to be applied to your service! On the other side, you can also call secured services now, using our new and improved WSRequest object.
We also added another another ultra-cool pair of features, a gadget interface for Mashups and a dashboard on which to host them! This would be pretty useful in enterprise scenarios for the manager who wants to see an overview of his or her business in a single page, but it's also loads of fun for everybody else! You can add any Mashup to your own dashboard or iGoogle, create your own custom gadget interface starting with a default template and even import external gadgets into your dashboard. Tyrell wrote about having fun with gadgets here!
OpenID has been the hot new buzzword in the security space and we've got full support in the Mashup Server now. You can just login with your OpenID and if you haven't got an account on the server, you'll be registered, verified and allowed to login, without ever needing to fill a form or key in a password. Jonathan blogged about what WSO2 has been up to on this front.
Besides these, there are a quite a few other improvements that we made since 1.0; over 300 in all! If you really want the details, it's all in our Issue Tracker where everyone logged everything, bugs, improvements, new features and wishes. It wasn't easy getting everything into the release (and we finally had to postpone a few items) but it was fun, educational and something we can look back to with pride!
If you've already downloaded 1.5, taken it for a spin and have a compliment, complaint or wish, please do let us know!
As far as I'm concerned, just getting data service creation into the Mashup Server doubled it's usefulness for almost everybody out there! Now, with mostly mouse clicks and just by stepping through a wizard, you can expose information from a database, spreadsheet or CSV file as a web service! We always had the ability to create and expose data services using the underlying WSAS, but now data services are first class citizens on the Mashup Server, so I can create, edit, delete, tag, comment and rate them from the UI, just like any other Mashup!
I keep remembering projects in a past life, where reading some data from a few tables, applying some business logic to make it a little more useful and then exposing the result as a web page and/or service was such a complicated task that took up days of my time. Using the Mashup Server, I can pretty much achieve the same result in minutes! Mashups you always dreamed of, that combine data from a text file on your desktop and you company's ERP with information on the web and write the results to a database, are now a few clicks away!
Another feature we always felt we needed, especially for the enterprise user, was the ability to secure services. Now all it takes is a few clicks, because you just need to chose one from a list of common security scenarios to be applied to your service! On the other side, you can also call secured services now, using our new and improved WSRequest object.
We also added another another ultra-cool pair of features, a gadget interface for Mashups and a dashboard on which to host them! This would be pretty useful in enterprise scenarios for the manager who wants to see an overview of his or her business in a single page, but it's also loads of fun for everybody else! You can add any Mashup to your own dashboard or iGoogle, create your own custom gadget interface starting with a default template and even import external gadgets into your dashboard. Tyrell wrote about having fun with gadgets here!
OpenID has been the hot new buzzword in the security space and we've got full support in the Mashup Server now. You can just login with your OpenID and if you haven't got an account on the server, you'll be registered, verified and allowed to login, without ever needing to fill a form or key in a password. Jonathan blogged about what WSO2 has been up to on this front.
Besides these, there are a quite a few other improvements that we made since 1.0; over 300 in all! If you really want the details, it's all in our Issue Tracker where everyone logged everything, bugs, improvements, new features and wishes. It wasn't easy getting everything into the release (and we finally had to postpone a few items) but it was fun, educational and something we can look back to with pride!
If you've already downloaded 1.5, taken it for a spin and have a compliment, complaint or wish, please do let us know!
Friday, June 27, 2008
ESB Leading the Pack
Asankha's team released v1.7 of their Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) a few days back and then did a round of performance tests in which every other vendor running was clearly visible in their rear view mirrors.
Daniel has such a cool post about it, where he starts with what I sometimes end up talking about on a post related to software, cars, and really fast ones in this case!
Why am I so proud of this, you say? First, we're all in the same scuderia, and second, they source the engine block from the same manufacturer we do! If the ESB's the F2008, think of our Mashup Server as a Quattroporte, something you can use to drive the kids to school, but with the same bits inside that will let you go really, really fast if you need to!
Daniel has such a cool post about it, where he starts with what I sometimes end up talking about on a post related to software, cars, and really fast ones in this case!
Why am I so proud of this, you say? First, we're all in the same scuderia, and second, they source the engine block from the same manufacturer we do! If the ESB's the F2008, think of our Mashup Server as a Quattroporte, something you can use to drive the kids to school, but with the same bits inside that will let you go really, really fast if you need to!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Filling in the Blanks
After a full day training session with the guy who literally 'wrote the book' on Axis2, I'm now well on the way to understanding the engine that drives our Mashup Server!
I have always been grateful to object orientation for allowing me to work with interfaces while having no idea what happens inside, much like I can enjoy a drive without knowing the internals of the combustion engine, but it's fun to learn what actually makes it tick! I suppose could have always walked across to Deepal's seat at any time in the last few months and just asked him any of the stuff I learned yesterday, but it's different when you're sitting somewhere else, no net, no mail, no JIRA and no access to the SVN, just Axis2!
So, to extend the code/car analogy a little bit more, yesterday to me was like a day spent discussing the internals of the McLaren F1 with Gordon Murray! Well, OK, that's stretching it a bit, (besides, I don't think Murray had much to do with the F1's engine itself [which was almost a Honda - Dammit] AND I've never actually seen an F1, let alone driven one) but it was a good day and one that I had been looking forward to for quite some time now!
Oh yes, to explain my regret that the Honda Motor Company didn't take up Mr. Murray's request when the F1 was being designed, I've been using a Civic since last December and am loving it. It's a 1.5 L, as opposed to the 1.8 of the Scooby, but it's Dual Carb, so just 3 BHP short of the Legacy's 103. Not as much torque (was used to 145 N*m and this has just 125), but it's lighter and revvs up pretty quick, so it nippy and fun AND does MUCH better on petrol, which is the most important thing next to fun. Oh yes, it's still just as safe - mustn't forget safety, being a mature and responsible father of two ;-).
I'm reading "Howl's moving castle" these days, the book Miyazaki's amazing movie (which actually got me started on his Anime) is based on. I bought it to read to/with Navindee, but she's more interested in watching any one of the many instances of 'Beautiful Princess rescued by Handsome Prince' class, made available now on DVD by all the toy manufacturers! I decided she can read it herself when she sees the light someday, and went ahead alone, putting 'Foundation's Edge' aside for now!
I have always been grateful to object orientation for allowing me to work with interfaces while having no idea what happens inside, much like I can enjoy a drive without knowing the internals of the combustion engine, but it's fun to learn what actually makes it tick! I suppose could have always walked across to Deepal's seat at any time in the last few months and just asked him any of the stuff I learned yesterday, but it's different when you're sitting somewhere else, no net, no mail, no JIRA and no access to the SVN, just Axis2!
So, to extend the code/car analogy a little bit more, yesterday to me was like a day spent discussing the internals of the McLaren F1 with Gordon Murray! Well, OK, that's stretching it a bit, (besides, I don't think Murray had much to do with the F1's engine itself [which was almost a Honda - Dammit] AND I've never actually seen an F1, let alone driven one) but it was a good day and one that I had been looking forward to for quite some time now!
Oh yes, to explain my regret that the Honda Motor Company didn't take up Mr. Murray's request when the F1 was being designed, I've been using a Civic since last December and am loving it. It's a 1.5 L, as opposed to the 1.8 of the Scooby, but it's Dual Carb, so just 3 BHP short of the Legacy's 103. Not as much torque (was used to 145 N*m and this has just 125), but it's lighter and revvs up pretty quick, so it nippy and fun AND does MUCH better on petrol, which is the most important thing next to fun. Oh yes, it's still just as safe - mustn't forget safety, being a mature and responsible father of two ;-).
I'm reading "Howl's moving castle" these days, the book Miyazaki's amazing movie (which actually got me started on his Anime) is based on. I bought it to read to/with Navindee, but she's more interested in watching any one of the many instances of 'Beautiful Princess rescued by Handsome Prince' class, made available now on DVD by all the toy manufacturers! I decided she can read it herself when she sees the light someday, and went ahead alone, putting 'Foundation's Edge' aside for now!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Artist edition?
If you've never been too good with a paint, clay, marble and other traditional tools of the artist, or found they were too expensive and still lacked basic features like 'Undo' and 'Replace all', we have a solution for you - our Mashup Server!
Yes, mashups are now ART, because the Museum of Modern Art included some in this exhibition. Good thing we're making the server 'skinnable' for the next release; maybe in addition to the 'professional' UI out of the box and the 'fun' UI that we did for the community site, we can put together a stylesheet with psychedelic colours for the people out there who don't really care for service composition, but do like to create pretty pictures!
Jonathan, the artist who drew up the initial sketch for the Mashup Server did a demo at TechEd a couple of days back and has blogged about it. Though this demo didn't actually highlight the Mashup Server, but featured WSAS which is at it's core instead, the Mashup team grabbed front row seats to watch the webcast on our cool new HD projection system!
Yes, mashups are now ART, because the Museum of Modern Art included some in this exhibition. Good thing we're making the server 'skinnable' for the next release; maybe in addition to the 'professional' UI out of the box and the 'fun' UI that we did for the community site, we can put together a stylesheet with psychedelic colours for the people out there who don't really care for service composition, but do like to create pretty pictures!
Jonathan, the artist who drew up the initial sketch for the Mashup Server did a demo at TechEd a couple of days back and has blogged about it. Though this demo didn't actually highlight the Mashup Server, but featured WSAS which is at it's core instead, the Mashup team grabbed front row seats to watch the webcast on our cool new HD projection system!
Monday, May 12, 2008
From the Creator of the TomatoTube!
Another Oscar worthy performance from the WSO2 Mashup Server under the able hands of director Tyrell Perera, the TwitterMap is definitely a strong contender for this years title!
Written and produced in under 6 hours, this Mashup brings entertainment, live action and maps to a computer screen near you!
For tonight only ladies and gentlemen, step right up if you want to create the next blockbuster and would like to be introduced to our star!
Written and produced in under 6 hours, this Mashup brings entertainment, live action and maps to a computer screen near you!
For tonight only ladies and gentlemen, step right up if you want to create the next blockbuster and would like to be introduced to our star!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Free as in Webinar
If you've been meaning to read up on what Mashups are and what they can do for you, have information available as web services, feed and pages and want a way to put it all together in more useful ways or simply love JavaScript and would like to use it for more than just building web pages, I'm about to tell you how you can learn everything you want to know and for free!
Jonathan Marsh, our Director of Mashup Technologies is running a webinar on the 13th of May and all you have to do is register yourself as a participant. Since it's free, just like our Mashup Server, you have the opportunity to learn what Mashups can do for you, try creating a mashup or two on our community site and then download and install a server on your local system once you get serious.
Of course you could take the other approach; download and try out the server first and learn how to do things better at the webinar! Since the product is pretty easy to install and writing a 'Hello World' Mashup takes just two clicks, this would be a better approach if you can spare some time up front.
Oh yes, if you do need more reasons why you should attend the webinar and learn about our server, Jonathan's also blogged about the Gartner 'Cool' report that I mentioned in my last post, as have Keith, Glen and Daniel.
See you next Tuesday!
Jonathan Marsh, our Director of Mashup Technologies is running a webinar on the 13th of May and all you have to do is register yourself as a participant. Since it's free, just like our Mashup Server, you have the opportunity to learn what Mashups can do for you, try creating a mashup or two on our community site and then download and install a server on your local system once you get serious.
Of course you could take the other approach; download and try out the server first and learn how to do things better at the webinar! Since the product is pretty easy to install and writing a 'Hello World' Mashup takes just two clicks, this would be a better approach if you can spare some time up front.
Oh yes, if you do need more reasons why you should attend the webinar and learn about our server, Jonathan's also blogged about the Gartner 'Cool' report that I mentioned in my last post, as have Keith, Glen and Daniel.
See you next Tuesday!
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Certified Cool!
Yes, we are officially cool! I've been telling everybody that WSO2 is cool and so is our Mashup Server, but if you don't want to just take my word for it, Gartner's report on Cool Vendors in Web Technologies, 2008 lists WSO2 as one and feels the Mashup Server may be our most interesting offering!
You can read Sanjiva's blog and Paul's for more details, but I'm afraid if you want to read the full text, you'll have to buy the report or get a subscription!
You can read Sanjiva's blog and Paul's for more details, but I'm afraid if you want to read the full text, you'll have to buy the report or get a subscription!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
An appreciation
Early on Friday morning, one of the few people who have managed to influence my life without ever having met me passed away. The story starts in 1983, at the then Katunayake airport where I was waiting with my father to see off my uncle. After 3 years of watching Blakes 7, I knew what a space station looked like, so when I saw one on the cover of a paperback copy of '2001' in an airport bookstore, I asked my father to buy it for me, and was pleasantly surprised when he did, just like that!
A few pages later I was hooked - I still remember everybody else watching TV that night and me sitting under a fluorescent light in the hall, unable to put the book down. I guess I was still too young to fully appreciate the science, but I could certainly enjoy the fiction! The only science fiction I had read at the time was the novelization of Blakes 7 by Terry Nation, so I remember feeling a little dazed by the time I finished off 2001, and realizing that this was something completely different altogether!
I was hooked after that and I started going through everything written by Sir Clarke available at the public and school libraries, friends' collections (there were a few sci-fi buffs in my class by then) and the second hand book stores in Darley road, when I could get my mother to take me there. Imperial Earth, Rendezvous with Rama, Childhood's End, Fountains of Paradise and a few other of his books had the same effect on me that 2001 did; for about half an hour after finishing each of these I was almost high, not really knowing what a high was at the time! I guess I was either still stuck in my imagination or maybe it was just my mind trying to open up a little more to accommodate the new possibility that had been presented to it!
I still do get the same feeling when I finish off a great book or movie and to some degree I think I only read books or watch movies when I think there is a possibility of such a 'mind-expansion'. This explains why there is so little non-science fiction in my lists of favorite books or movies - very few have that 'wasabi effect' on my brain that sci-fi can!
A few years later my father bought me my first computer, a Sinclair ZX81, which I think I called HAL, though it could have been called Zen or Orac because I never lost my love for Blakes 7 either. I wrote my first code on that machine and I guess I've been coding ever since! It took me about 20 years more to get myself a 'department store telescope' and I'm still not done with space!
I guess what I'm saying is that the books I read as a kid had a great influence on what I've been passionate about all my life (soon after I publish this post, I'll be getting back to reading 'American Gods' or watching an episode of 'Enterprise'). I really can't imagine being as happy with any other profession as I am with Software, and I shudder to think what I would have been left with for entertainment had I not been introduced to science fiction when I was ('maha gedara' every evening - noooooo)! Maybe some other author would have got me hooked on the future anyway, but since it was you, thank you Sir Arthur C. Clarke!
A few pages later I was hooked - I still remember everybody else watching TV that night and me sitting under a fluorescent light in the hall, unable to put the book down. I guess I was still too young to fully appreciate the science, but I could certainly enjoy the fiction! The only science fiction I had read at the time was the novelization of Blakes 7 by Terry Nation, so I remember feeling a little dazed by the time I finished off 2001, and realizing that this was something completely different altogether!
I was hooked after that and I started going through everything written by Sir Clarke available at the public and school libraries, friends' collections (there were a few sci-fi buffs in my class by then) and the second hand book stores in Darley road, when I could get my mother to take me there. Imperial Earth, Rendezvous with Rama, Childhood's End, Fountains of Paradise and a few other of his books had the same effect on me that 2001 did; for about half an hour after finishing each of these I was almost high, not really knowing what a high was at the time! I guess I was either still stuck in my imagination or maybe it was just my mind trying to open up a little more to accommodate the new possibility that had been presented to it!
I still do get the same feeling when I finish off a great book or movie and to some degree I think I only read books or watch movies when I think there is a possibility of such a 'mind-expansion'. This explains why there is so little non-science fiction in my lists of favorite books or movies - very few have that 'wasabi effect' on my brain that sci-fi can!
A few years later my father bought me my first computer, a Sinclair ZX81, which I think I called HAL, though it could have been called Zen or Orac because I never lost my love for Blakes 7 either. I wrote my first code on that machine and I guess I've been coding ever since! It took me about 20 years more to get myself a 'department store telescope' and I'm still not done with space!
I guess what I'm saying is that the books I read as a kid had a great influence on what I've been passionate about all my life (soon after I publish this post, I'll be getting back to reading 'American Gods' or watching an episode of 'Enterprise'). I really can't imagine being as happy with any other profession as I am with Software, and I shudder to think what I would have been left with for entertainment had I not been introduced to science fiction when I was ('maha gedara' every evening - noooooo)! Maybe some other author would have got me hooked on the future anyway, but since it was you, thank you Sir Arthur C. Clarke!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Teach a man to moosh....
I'll be running an on-line training which teaches you how to create Mashups on the WSO2 Mashup Server next week.
In addition to the people who actually want to learn specifically about creating Mashups and personalizing or composing web services, this would also be a good starting point for all those people out there who want to get started on web services, but don't want to go though the hassle of learning Java or C# and the internals of a typical application server.
If you've already downloaded and played around with our server you know by now that it's a simple, no-nonsense platform for creating your mashups. Chances are you'd have had your 'HelloWorld' mashup running 10-15 minutes after downloading the installer or zip file. This training will show you how to use the features we've built into it and really harness the power of the server.
Anyone with some programming experience and a basic knowledge of JavaScript could quite easily be mashing up information from a web service, static HTML page and an RSS feed, to create a personalized service with a HTML UI and EMail/IM alerts at the end of the 3 hour session.
Sounds interesting? Take a look at the course details and decide.
In addition to the people who actually want to learn specifically about creating Mashups and personalizing or composing web services, this would also be a good starting point for all those people out there who want to get started on web services, but don't want to go though the hassle of learning Java or C# and the internals of a typical application server.
If you've already downloaded and played around with our server you know by now that it's a simple, no-nonsense platform for creating your mashups. Chances are you'd have had your 'HelloWorld' mashup running 10-15 minutes after downloading the installer or zip file. This training will show you how to use the features we've built into it and really harness the power of the server.
Anyone with some programming experience and a basic knowledge of JavaScript could quite easily be mashing up information from a web service, static HTML page and an RSS feed, to create a personalized service with a HTML UI and EMail/IM alerts at the end of the 3 hour session.
Sounds interesting? Take a look at the course details and decide.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Release
We went on a trip to Eheliyagoda between Christmas and the new year, which I believe was the perfect end to 2007. We got back home after 3 days of good food and drink and great company (Sharm's schoolmates with their families) on 31st evening, so when the new year dawned I was relaxing at home, sober, alternating between watching episodes of 'Enterprise' and reading 'Darwin's Radio'!
The year started out pretty busy, getting our Mashup Server ready for release - something that's always been on the horizon since I joined WSO2, now within reach. The release date was decided pretty early so there was an immovable point in time, which we had to meet.
Of course, true to Murphy's law, trust something I had written to completely blow up the Friday before release Monday! The service monitor, an innocent little system tray icon which displays server status, causes service deployment to fail! Turns out the act of observing server status using a certain MBean actually DOES affect the status of the server and very badly at that. I would've called it a 'heisenberg uncertainty bug' if I had been thinking clearly about anything besides the bug itself at the time, and maybe if I had watched the particular episode of 'Numb3rs' that I did last night.
I suppose the astrologers out there would now be saying 'so you finally have evidence that seemingly unconnected things can affect each other, so why do you have trouble believing that a random scattering of stars, light years away from us, that appear to be in a certain pattern when viewed from a certain angle, affects how your day is going to turn out'. Well, this is different and I have more faith in my belief that watching the progress bar actually can affect the speed of the download; something a friend showed me could be explained by the above mentioned principle!
Anyway, the unlikely solution turned out to be the right one, the fix was checked in on Sunday evening and Monday morning dawned nice and bright. Unfortunately nightfall on the 28th brought with it another surprise; the home page of our web application was making the browser crash - not good! This started happening at 7:00 PM on release eve, long after we had stopped doing anything significant enough to cause this sort of catastrophic failure! Turned out to have a perfectly rational explanation and a trivial solution with no code changes, so we finally managed to put the artifacts up and sent the release announcements!
The next night I took Sharm and the Kids out to our favourite Japanese restaurant; Sharm's now a total sushi addict herself and the kids love the fried-chicken-like meal they serve. All release related transgressions compensated for in full!
After this, while we were quietly preparing the data sheets, samples and training material and answering questions on forums, a security vulnerability was just waiting to be exploited on the community site running our server! Discovery, a quick release with the security fix and one more to fix the feature that we broke with the aforementioned fix and we're already at 1.0.2 with a few lessons learned!
Oh yes, Samadhi started playschool on the 7th, something that probably didn't feel very important to her at the time, but the first step in what I hope will be a long journey that will be it's own reward!
The year started out pretty busy, getting our Mashup Server ready for release - something that's always been on the horizon since I joined WSO2, now within reach. The release date was decided pretty early so there was an immovable point in time, which we had to meet.
Of course, true to Murphy's law, trust something I had written to completely blow up the Friday before release Monday! The service monitor, an innocent little system tray icon which displays server status, causes service deployment to fail! Turns out the act of observing server status using a certain MBean actually DOES affect the status of the server and very badly at that. I would've called it a 'heisenberg uncertainty bug' if I had been thinking clearly about anything besides the bug itself at the time, and maybe if I had watched the particular episode of 'Numb3rs' that I did last night.
I suppose the astrologers out there would now be saying 'so you finally have evidence that seemingly unconnected things can affect each other, so why do you have trouble believing that a random scattering of stars, light years away from us, that appear to be in a certain pattern when viewed from a certain angle, affects how your day is going to turn out'. Well, this is different and I have more faith in my belief that watching the progress bar actually can affect the speed of the download; something a friend showed me could be explained by the above mentioned principle!
Anyway, the unlikely solution turned out to be the right one, the fix was checked in on Sunday evening and Monday morning dawned nice and bright. Unfortunately nightfall on the 28th brought with it another surprise; the home page of our web application was making the browser crash - not good! This started happening at 7:00 PM on release eve, long after we had stopped doing anything significant enough to cause this sort of catastrophic failure! Turned out to have a perfectly rational explanation and a trivial solution with no code changes, so we finally managed to put the artifacts up and sent the release announcements!
The next night I took Sharm and the Kids out to our favourite Japanese restaurant; Sharm's now a total sushi addict herself and the kids love the fried-chicken-like meal they serve. All release related transgressions compensated for in full!
After this, while we were quietly preparing the data sheets, samples and training material and answering questions on forums, a security vulnerability was just waiting to be exploited on the community site running our server! Discovery, a quick release with the security fix and one more to fix the feature that we broke with the aforementioned fix and we're already at 1.0.2 with a few lessons learned!
Oh yes, Samadhi started playschool on the 7th, something that probably didn't feel very important to her at the time, but the first step in what I hope will be a long journey that will be it's own reward!
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