devnulled: A stream for software developers and engineers

Oof. The site was offline for a good 30 hours or so. I attempted to add a Ruby On Rails install to FastCGI for a family related project I’ve been working on and my server totally exploded.. even the file system became unreadable. It reminded me a lot of a ‘buildworld’ upgrade gone awry on FreeBSD. I think the Debian VPS image was so out of date that it ate itself trying to process all of the updates. Since that happened I decided to move to a shiny new Futurehosting Ubuntu VPS which is bigger/better/faster (1 GB of RAM now, previously 512 MB) and I can already tell that this machine is much faster than the past.

After having to learn a lot of MySQL DBA magic to repair some very broken databases in my backup, get DNS, Apache, MySQL, and all of that other sort of junk setup again, the site is finally back up with no data loss much to my surprise.

I’ll be working on getting my other sites back online as well as upgrading/updating everything, and hardening this server a bit more, so if you see any blips over the next few days that’s why.

I’m going to skip over a rant about how much Axis2 sucks in order to pass a tip on how to include Axis2 artifacts (AAR’s, MAR’s, etc) into an EAR file using the Maven plugin to package EAR files, maven-ear-plugin. It’s a pretty obvious solution but if you’re in a hurry like I’ve been to convert a project from a single WAR to one with several EJB’s, a WAR, etc, there are a lot of new things to learn all at the same time (how classloading works with EAR’s in JBoss, how to share the same Hibernate transactions between your web app and EJB’s, etc), and this was one of those little things which wasn’t immediately obvious. If you’re seeing exceptions like these when trying to package an EAR in Maven:

[code]
[INFO]
————————————————————————
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO]
————————————————————————
[INFO] Failed to initialize ear modules

Embedded error: Unknown artifact type[mar]
[INFO]
————————————————————————
[DEBUG] Trace
[/code]

… you’ve came to the right place.

There are many ways to setup your package structure under Maven2 to build EAR’s, but essentially what I do is create a root level project which packages a given application into an EAR, and nothing more. Once you have the maven-ear-plugin setup for the most part, all that you need to do is to tell the Maven EAR Plugin to treat the various Axis2 pieces of shit packages like JAR’s:

[code]

[/code]

This is just one of many gotcha’s I learned about while working on an aforementioned project. In fact it’s really pretty hard to find any comprehensive documentation on getting EJB3, Spring, and Hibernate working together on JBoss with a typical Java web application, especially while using Maven. I have a sample project I used to work through some of the integration issues with this, and will hopefully be able to wrap it up and add it to Google Code in the next few weeks to provide an example of getting all of these technologies to play together.

Although this is a topic which has gotten much coverage, to the point of beating a dead horse, I felt obligated to comment on it as someone who served on the Editorial Board of the ColdFusion Developer’s Journal until is was recently shuttered.

When I was originally asked to join the board, I had some strong reservations about it for many reasons, but decided to give it a try for the purpose of helping out the community in a constructive way. For instance, I’d heard about a previous editorial board for LinuxWorld who all resigned at the same time, I think not compensating people who contribute to the magazine is completely unethical, and their website reminds me of a “warez” site where popups, videos, and all kinds of other annoying crap invade your computer. Despite all of that, I assumed that being part of an editorial board would help voice developers concerns like “Your site makes the baby Jesus cry, make it stop!”, “What kind of monkeys are editing the articles?”, and “Why do you keep stealing people’s content and publishing it as your own?”.

I thought perhaps as a board member, I’d have a chance to read articles which were still in draft and help with the code and articles, offer suggestions, and maybe even catch some of those typos which seem to plague the CFDJ. Having worked in ColdFusion for (at the time) 8 years, writing somewhat useful blog entries for quite some time, as well as doing tech editing for a ColdFusion book, and having a Computer Science background (kind of a rarity among CF Developers?) this seemed like a pretty good fit.

Instead, I think it just entailed having some community names added to the board to show that they were involved but in reality none of the people listed had any say in anything, nor even had any idea what things were being put in each issue. We never saw any articles, or even previews of what a printed issue would look like. I would have even appreciated a free subscription for writing and editing articles, but I never got that either– it certainly wasn’t worth paying for. I saw the final version of magazines the same way everyone else does, by going to the PDF download site. As others have noted, we had no idea it was being shut down until the entry was posted at the CFDJ itself.

I really never went out of my way to promote the CFDJ or even write new articles for them because it didn’t seem like anything had changed. It fact, it only got worse as time went on– it was hard to even get any sort of e-mail response from anyone on SysCon on the editors mailing list as time went on.

That said, the board really put a lot of time and effort into trying to breathe life back into the publication, but it was for little to no gain. It is with a little sorrow however– I can remember when I was first getting started with CF how valuable the publication was. I’d say most of us were all ready to resign out of frustration, though it wouldn’t have really mattered since communicating with SysCon has been like talking to a black hole for quite some time.

I think the only way I can sum this up is– I for one welcome the Fusion Authority overlords.

I can’t say I’m an avid reader of Dilbert by any means, but today’s comic features a mention of Java:

Don’t bother. I already coded a Java app to do everything you do.

Good stuff.

My blog postings have been fairly sparse since starting a new position earlier this year, but it’s nice to finally be able to show some of the things happening at my not-so-new job. My employer, Me.dium, just announced today the availability of an IE 7 Version of the Me.dium Sidebar, as well as a new Widget.

I’ll try to update this post a few times later today with news and blog coverage, but here’s what I’ve seen so far:

• Microsoft IE7 Featured Add-On
• Mashable
• Profy
• Download.com (was on front page)
• Tucows
• Spyware Sucks
• Social Enterprise TV

In terms of my contributions to what you see, my primary focus had been working a couple of scalability items on the Java front, but I’m currently working on something new which you’ll be able to see sometime this Fall.

I just added the new Me.dium Widget to my site which you can see below my bio– check it out. In summary, it allows you to see the real-time activity of Me.dium users on my site and related sites.

Not a Me.dium user yet? What are you waiting for?

The default Eclipse for Mac OS X font is kind of annoying since it’s way too big and reminds me of MS Comic Sans. If you try to replace it with one of the wonderful ProggyFonts without tweaking them first, you get stuck with anti-aliased fonts that look terrible. During my quest to get past this problem, I came across a way to setup a more programming friendly font in Mac OS X which uses one of the Proggy Fonts in aliased mode.

Although the above instructions aren’t terribly explicit, you can find the various Eclipse font settings under Eclipse > Preferences > General > Apperance > Colors and Fonts once you’ve installed the font and made the appropriate changes to your System Preferences.

As mentioned earlier, I finally broke down and ordered a Dell Dimension E520 with Ubuntu Linux to replace my doddering primary workstation which is four years old at this point. Rather than writing a review right after opening the box, I thought I’d use the new rig for a few weeks and kick it around a bit before summarizing my experiences with the new machine.
Although I’ve read a couple of reviews of the XPS system here and there, I thought I’d go ahead and post my experiences with the least expensive Dell Ubuntu workstation, the Dell Dimension E520.

The Aesthetics

One thing I noticed as soon as I took the machine out of the box– it’s actually built quite well for an inexpensive workstation. The sides are made from fairly sturdy metal panels, and the general fit and feel was much better than I expected. This is not a machine I would be afraid to put in a car and move across the country with, or use as a doorstop when it gets old.

At the same time I think the majority of Dell’s system designs for the past year or so have been terribly corny and gaudy ripoffs of Apple. I think the only brand identity that Dell has with their hardware is to use a bunch of different colors and grades of material, and then top it off by making sure it says DELL. YES, ITS A MOTHERFUCKING DELL. HEY, LOOK, I’M STILL A DELL everywhere. For the price I can’t complain, but I think Dell could certainly stand to continue to try and make their machines look less like IM IN UR HOUSE LOOKING LIKE UR COMPUTRON, and more like something you don’t mind having on display. I think recent designs of LCD TV’s are a good example of this.

I’d take some photos of the new machine, but with 3 other machines on my desk (a server, my old workstation, and my work laptop) there’s just too much chaos on my desk for such things.

Ubuntu Installation & Configuration

There’s really not much to report here, though it was certainly pretty painless compared to the recent experience I had installing Ubuntu Feisty on a Lenovo T60. When I booted-up the machine some sort of Dell looking screen appeared that I had to agree to, and then the Ubuntu installation started. Admittedly it’s been awhile so I can’t remember every exact detail, but essentially there were only 4 install screens which let me set things such as time zone, keyboard layout, currency, and language preference, and it was pretty much done.

Once it rebooted I was somewhat disappointed– the display did not account for the Dell 2007WFP 20″ widescreen monitor I ordered and would only display in 1024×768. This would be a complete show-stopper for the average computer user, and I couldn’t believe that this wasn’t something which was accounted for in the installation process.

Also missing was the restricted driver for the Nvidia video card. This oversight is certainly debatable, but it also goes to show that there wasn’t much time put into tweaking the shipped version of Ubuntu to be Dell friendly (at least on the Dimension E520). I ended-up having to do the dreadful task of poking around in xorg.conf to get the monitor and video card to play nicely with each other, and now I’m using it in 1680×1050 glory.

After finally getting the resolution tweaked, I got all of the multimedia foo in working order by installing various codecs and applications using Automatix. I also installed VMWare Server and created a Windows XP virtual machine just because I could and also attempt to push the new hardware a bit, but I have yet to really do anything in the Virtual Machine other than get updates installed.

I’m still waiting for the whole Compiz / Beryl merger to happen with an actual release, so I haven’t played with the window effects at all. I did install Synergy which was quite painless and can now use the same mouse and keyboard as well as copy and paste across two other machines. Very nice!

Life With Ubuntu

Being that I switched to using Ubuntu as my primary operating system at home last year, and use it on my work laptop for writing software, I pretty much already knew what to expect. For the most part Ubuntu provides you with ways do do almost everything you can already do with Windows, including:

• Surfing the internet and using various instant messaging protocols
• An office suite for Word Processing, Spreadsheets, etc
• Support for removable media such as USB drives or Flash Memory cards from digital cameras
• Image editing and photo management
• Managing your iPod and music library
• Support for video, music, flash, and more via Automatix
• The ability to burn CD’s and DVD’s
• Built-in support for printers and other devices

About the only thing I can’t do with it at the moment is manage my Samsung Blackjack smartphone. I’ll probably keep my old Windows XP box around specifically for this purpose. Otherwise, Ubuntu has been a really great choice for me. In fact, one thing that surprised me is that it automatically installed a driver for and supported an old 3Com HomeConnect webcam I have which is about 7 years old now and almost impossible to find Windows drivers for.

Conclusion

I’m at a point in life where I just don’t have time to build machines from scratch and troubleshoot their idiosyncrasies, so I prefer to buy pre-assembeled machines. I seem to be a repeat Dell customer because their machines are reasonably priced, run quietly, and are generally built fairly well for the money. Also, because they are such a popular platform, it’s fairly easy to find people who have had similar issues as you (especially in regards to Linux issues) by a well crafted Google search.

For a price just a bit North of $1,000 including a nice monitor and free shipping, I’m very happy with my Dell Dimension E520 system and would recommend it to others interested in getting a new Ubuntu system. Just make sure you customize the machine with more than the base options so you’ll be happier with it in the long run, and search online for Dell coupons and try several different ones for the best deal before placing your order. Granted you might want to order a minimum amount of RAM and install your own as it’s quite a bit cheaper to do so.

At the same time, I don’t think Dell did a very good job of integrating Dell specific needs into the install process. I think that Ubuntu Linux is good enough once configured correctly by someone who knows what they are doing for 80% of computer users, and Dell missed a chance to show the general populace that there are choices beyond Windows DRM Dogfood and Mac OS. However, give Ubuntu a couple more years at the pace they’ve been innovating and maybe they’ll take care of it themselves.

Et Cetera

If it’s of any comfort, I have no association with Dell and just wanted to present my honest experience. If you liked the article or also have a Dell E520 and are a new visitor, please come back as I’ll be posting tips and how-to’s for a few configuration issues I came across along the way with this machine and will do my best to keep this post updated. You can also subscribe to my RSS Feed.

My current desktop, right around four years old now, has been overdue for replacement for quite a long time. I’ve been holding out until quad core processors became mainstream at a price point that I was okay with, but I finally caved in to ordering a new machine before that happened now that Dell offers Ubuntu systems. I used their feedback site when they first launched saying I’d buy from them again if they offered Ubuntu, and followed through with my order of a new system within a few days of them making it available.

I ordered it over the weekend and it’s already shipped! Delivery date looks to be this Saturday, but unfortunately I probably won’t be home due to prior commitments. I pretty much maxed most everything I could hardware wise and got it out the door for a bit over $1K (using a coupon I found online) including the higher end 20″ UltraSharp widescreen display. I wasn’t really looking to get the most hardcore machine ever, just something that was at a good performance to price ratio. I really thought hard about upgrading to the 24″ display but decided it seemed silly to spend that much on a monitor for an inexpensive machine.

As far as the ordering process goes, I couldn’t tell a bit of difference between the low end Dimension E520N and the XPS once I configured them similarly other than the XPS was more expensive, and there were only coupons available for the Dimension (as usual). I would guess that the XPS has a better case and maybe has more room for expansion, but lately I stick to external USB drives for data and don’t really add hardware to base machines.

I’m curious to see what about the Ubuntu install is different coming from Dell, as well as if it includes any installation media. I will need to transfer my Windows XP license over to a fresh install on the new machine in order to manage my chic nerd phone, the Samsung Blackjack and a few other odds and ends that I need from time to time. That said, it would be nice to be able to have the OEM install media in case something doesn’t go well with the additional XP install.

Anyhow, I’ll write more about it once it comes in.

Me.dium, my employer which you can read more about here has been nominated as a Webware 100 Finalist in the Community category. The Webware 100 represents the top 10 sites in 10 different categories, and we’re up against some pretty stiff competition (such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn among others). We’re also currently the featured extension on Flock, and have had quite a lot of good press lately. Given that we’re still currently in private beta mode while we get our infrastructure and product ready for a public launch, chances are you haven’t heard of us. However, you can join in and check-out a preview of our product using this invite link which will also auto-friend me. Please keep in mind it’s a a true beta, but I think you’ll be impressed with what we’ve accomplished so far.

If you like what you see, don’t forget to vote for us! Voting starts on Wednesday May 23rd at 12:00 PM Pacific Time.

As for me, I’m a Java developer at Me.dium working on the server software which supports the service and am very proud and excited about what we’ve been up to. That and the occasional blog posting about work helps show why I’ve been so light on blogging since starting my new job.

I have to say I’m pretty annoyed with Ubuntu Linux at the moment. I’ve been wrestling with it all afternoon and evening to try and get it installed and working on an Lenovo / IBM T60 Thinkpad, and thus far it’s been a huge waste of time. After much googling throughout the day and trying many different things out without any success, I finally came across what I think the problem is, so I’m downloading yet /another/ ISO of Ubuntu to install.

Long story short, when trying to install Ubuntu 7.04 or upgrade to 7.04, XWindows is totally broken and won’t start with many ATI video cards, including the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 which is in the T60. Dealing with XWindows was a deal breaker many years ago when I first tried switching to Linux on the desktop, and I can’t imagine their target audience trying to fix a problem like this.

I’m not so much annoyed that it’s a bug, but rather, it was a bug which did not exist in previous versions of Ubuntu, and was known about before Feisty Fawn was released. While ATI is known to barely even provide Linux drivers, I think the blame primarily goes to Ubuntu as this bug was filed and reproduced before the release date. I was able to install previous versions just fine, but 7.04 would simply not install. Someone didn’t do good regression testing or should have called this bug as a blocker for the release. Shame on you, Ubuntu QA, or whoever allowed this product into the wild without fixing the bug. I even read the release notes before installing this and there was nothing mentioned about this bug. I don’t know enough about the ATI driver fiasco in general, but they definitely share some of the blame in general for being the cause of the bug to begin with.

Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” 7.04 should not have shipped with such a major bug for a large segment of users.

UPDATE: Looks like this is not the only major bug they shipped with.