Blog Insights
Installing Ubuntu: A Trial and Error Account
Recently I decided it was time to grab up a spare computer that I could use for tinkering as well as back up files from my other machine in the event that it goes down. The one big thing I wanted to do was to install a Linux OS and...
Incrementing Oracle Sequences Without Permissions
If you are ever working with a database where data is consistently being imported, dropped, and/or restored; sooner or later you will find yourself in the situation where the primary key of a table is no longer synchronized with the sequence used to generate it. If you have the appropriate permissions,...Google Analytics Data Export API
When Google exposed its Data Export API, it endeared itself closer to developers and to customers of Google Analytics. Data Export API allows us to develop client applications to retrieve data from existing analytics profiles of authorized users. At this point, Google offers 2 solutions: a Java and a JavaScript client....MySQL Master/Slave configuration with EJB3 and JPA
Well this turned out to be quite an exercise. The goal: scalable reads with MySQL in master-slave configuration, writing to the master, and reading from N slaves, load balanced in round-robin fashion (or something). The problem: using JPA (Java Persistence API) instead of direct JDBC calls. Turns out the MySQL ReplicationDriver (used...Loadbalancing and its benefits
Another, more global, method of load balancing is Anycast. Anycast is an addressing strategy often used in DNS where hosts in multiple geographical locations represent the same IP address. This balances workload because any request is routed to the closest host (as determined by the routing protocol). In the event...Rendering Global t:messages After Redirect
A common problem when working with JSF is getting global info messages via <t:messages globalOnly="true"> or <f:messages globalOnly="true"> to display messages set in the previous request when you have a <redirect/> in your faces-config for a particular page You will not see your <t:messages> that are set on the previous...
Developing a multithreaded test harness
You can't ignore the fact that web servers are multithreaded. We can hide as much as we want, but sooner or later you'll find yourself in the situation where your application works fine during development and testing; but once it hits production you start hearing about "funny" things happening. While...Simple Subversion Branching and Merging
Branching and merging in Subversion is a great way to work on large new features without disrupting mainline development on trunk. However, it has a reputation for being so difficult that many developers never take advantage of it. In this post I'll show just how easy it really is thanks...Environment Specific Properties in Spring
On many occasions I want to be able to inject environment specific property values into my Spring managed beans. These may be things like web service endpoints, database URLs, etc. Values I know for each environment at build time, but I want to use the same WAR/EAR file in each...
The Easiest Way to Organize Zimbra Email
If you're like me, receiving 30-40 emails is par for the day. Because Source Allies provides consulting services for companies wishing to implement or better take advantage of Zimbra, it is also the mail server we use at our company. Zimbra has incredible search capabilities, but my OCD tendencies still...