Blogging Roller

Thank goodness. I was starting to think that the Java-GNOME project had died.

I'm still totally bogged down in my new job and in finishing up the ProJSP chapters for APress. That's not going to stop me from making time tonight to go see Matrix Reloaded at the IMAX theater.

I'm still at work now, but I'm waiting for my DB2 install to wrap up, so I have some time. I'm testing the limits of my new laptop by installing WebSphere, WebLogic, DB2, and Oracle. I need to learn the nitty-gritty details of J2EE/WebApp/EJB deployment on those platforms.

I also need to get back up to speed on XDoclet and EJB. To get a jump-start on the re-learning curve, I downloaded JBoss-IDE. JBoss-IDE is a plugin for Eclipse that does two jobs. Job #1 is starting JBoss, stopping JBoss, and viewing JBoss log files. Job #2 is providing a new GUI for configuring and running XDoclet. Take a look at <a href= "http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/jboss/Tutorial_1.1.0.pdf">the tutorial (PDF) for more information and screenshots.

The JBoss-IDE XDoclet plugin works like this. You use the GUI to configure XDoclet for your project, then the GUI generates an Ant script containing the code to run the XDoclet taks that you configured. You can then call this generated build script from your project's Ant script. This works pretty well and it is really helpful, especially if you are new to XDoclet or if your XDoclet skills have grown rusty. My only complaint is that I cannot figure out how to make JBoss-IDE generate relative jar paths, so I can't share the generated Ant scripts with other developers.

I've been shopping for a new phone and considering the Nokia 3650, the Treo 300, and a couple of other options, but I really like the soon to be released Treo 600. The 600 is not coming out until this fall, so I decided to keep things on the cheap and buy the $19.99 Sprint PCS Phone module for my Handpspring Visor. It looks kind of clunky, but a coworker has one and it seems to work fine. I'll let you know how it goes.

<a href= "http://brainopolis.dnsalias.com/roller/page/lance/20030702#upgrade_roller_to_use_struts"> Lance has moved the Roller codebase forward and has cross over into Struts 1.1 land. Hurrah! That reminds me... I really need to get the latest Roller 0.9.8-dev running on my site so that I can apply the RSS performance enhancements that I made to Roller 0.9.7 for FreeRoller.

OK, so there was no time for blogging this weekend and there was certainly no time for blogging at work today. That will change as soon as I setup a collaborative workspace for our group using a wiki-blog combo (JSPWiki + Roller). Unfortunately, you will not be able to see results because the server will be behind our corporate firewall.

I haven't been posting this week because I have been busy. I started my new job this week and it is great, but I've landed in the middle of a hotspot emergency project and I barely have time to check email during the day now. I'm also trying to wrap up my chapters in the Professional JSP book, configure my new laptop from work, setup my new Linux box at home, and be a good Dad. That leaves little time for paying attention to blogs, but I'll make some time this weekend.