Category: Software

Non-Java Binary Dependencies in Maven

2013-07-18 rolfje 9 Comments

Suppose you have a Java Server application, and some of the runtime binaries in that application are external to your application. Generated image files, compiled Silverlight components in your pages, or resource files which are managed by an external team.

Much like the jar files used by your application, these external binaries can be seen as dependencies, with versions. This blogpost assumes your project is built with Maven 2, because the real world isn’t always a greenfield project.

Because Maven is designed around jar file dependencies, and a lot of it’s internal decisions are based on file extensions, it looks like this problem can not be tackled with Maven. But there is a way to do this. It will decouple your sub-projects and make version and dependency management much better.

Software

BaseCamp Import problem [fixed]

2013-05-03 rolfje 2 Comments

On Mac OSX, when installing Garmin BaseCamp 4.1.2 from the Appstore, there is a chance that importing downloaded routes in gdb or gpx files from your local machine will not work. The error you’ll get is “[filename].gdb not found”, in a popup much like the one shown here. If you open the console app, you’ll see the following error in the logfile:

sandboxd[28092]: ([27931]) Garmin BaseCamp(27931) deny file-read-data /Users/rolf/Desktop

This means that the OSX Sandbox mechanism does not allow Garmin BaseCamp to read files in that folder. I have briefly searched documentation on how to grant BaseCamp the rights to read files there, but I couldn’t find anything that would work. I did find a way to work around this problem though: Garmin BaseCamp does have rights to read your Garmin device. So here we go:

Temporarily copy the files you want to import in Garmin BaseCamp onto your device (or in my case: the extra SD card in the device).
Start Garmin BaseCamp, and select “File” -> “Import…”.
Browse to the Garmin SD card and select the gdb file to import. Voila. That will get it into BaseCamp.
Delete the gdb file from the Garmin. We don’t need it anymore, the Garmin was just a place where BaseCamp could read the file.

From here on, everything should work as normal. This is just a workaround. If anybody finds out how to really fix this problem let me know.

Software

Why you should not use SOAP Headers

2012-12-24 rolfje 3 Comments

container

In the project I am working on right now we use apache XCF and Spring to provide a SOAP service to our customers. As part of the messages, there is a userid/password combo telling the application which user sent the request. I struggled with that today because I think that userid/password info should actually be in the SOAP Header, cleaning up my API, enable me to implement different authentication techniques in the future and generally be more “compliant” to the SOAP standard. Boy was I wrong.

Software

Make your buildserver talk

2012-12-16 rolfje No Comments

Jenkins talking Have you ever started a shell script which takes a while and you keep monitoring that window because you really need those results? If you are working on a Mac, you can use the Mac’s power of speech to tell you a command is finished. Here’s how:

./yourreallyslowbuild.sh; say &quot;really long build is finished&quot;

With a little curl and shell scripting magic, I told my Mac to constantly monitor our Jenkins buildserver, and bug everybody in the office when the hourly build is failing:

Apple, Fun, Software

Why developers are never on time

2012-06-28 rolfje No Comments

If you have worked in IT as long as I do, you probably have noticed that developers have a tendency to not be on time. They are late for meetings, late for lunch, and on other days they are in at 6am or (and) they work until 3am the next morning. If you ever wondered why this is, I might have some answers for you.

You might also find this post interesting if you are trying to figure out why you can’t get your time zones working in MySQL.

Software

Distributed jMeter through VPN and SSL

2012-02-16 rolfje 19 Comments

This week I created a jMeter test setup for distributed testing. I thought it would be straight forward but I ran into some interesting things you might want to know if you are considering distributed testing using jMeter.

In my case, I had to test an application which was inside our corporate network, while working from home through a VPN and a firewall. Normally that is no problem, but jMeter has this funny construction where the slave (jMeter server) wants to connect back to the master (jMeter gui). It took some fiddling with iptables, the jMeter configuration and ssh tunneling to get it to work. Here’s my setup:

Software

Strange fix for SMB problems in Linux

2011-11-28 rolfje 4 Comments

Last week, the upgrade to Ubuntu 11 severely broke all carefully selected menu colors, graphics settings and icon sets. I gave up the fight after a few hours of effortless restoration work and switched to Linux Mint 11.

While setting up my machine and restoring the links to the company Windows file servers I could not connect. The password window would re-appear without any feedback. The fix was even stranger than the problem.

Software

Having fun at J-Fall 2011

2011-11-03 rolfje 3 Comments

This year’s Dutch Java Nerd event called J-Fall was held in Nijkerk, in a beautiful location called “Hart van Holland” . With plenty of sessions by speakers from all over the world it promised to be a great day for Java enthusiasts, at a great location for meeting friends and colleagues. I took a day off from work and it was well worth it.

Read More “Having fun at J-Fall 2011” »

Microsoft, Software

Gmail: Save an email to disk

2011-10-18 rolfje 15 Comments

Want to save a single email from gmail to disk, in a readable format for Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail? Here’s how:

Open your browser and log into your gmail account.
Open the email you want to save.
On the top-right, there is a little triangle next to the “Reply” button. Click that, and select “Show Original”.
The original, raw email opens in a new window or tab.
Right-click on this new window, and select “Save as…”.
When saving the file, make sure the extension of the filename is “eml“. So for example “MyEmail.eml”.

All done. Now you dan open the file in Thunderbird, Outlook or whatever email viewer you have out there and see the original mail, in all it’s marked-up glory.

Software

Add some magic to Eclipse

2011-07-30 rolfje No Comments

The top feature of the eclipse IDE is the very impressive refactoring possibilities. It makes code feel like play-doh, allowing you to knead it in any shape way or form you think fits the current situation. A close second to that is the impressive templates and code assist. Yes, Java is verbose, but I think 80% of the characters which make up a Java program was never actually typed. All the readability without the labour, brought to you by eclipse’s powerful templates.

What many people don’t realize is that you can easily add to this magic by creating your own templates. One of the first templates I always add to the environment is the one which adds a private static final log4j logger. I thought it would be great example to share with you.

Read More “Add some magic to Eclipse” »

Software