World Herald story on blogging

Several of us local nerds were interviewed last week for a story on blogging. The end result appeared today here. Kudos to Betsie Freeman on a well-done feature (despite the "experts" she had to work with *grin*).

lynx - the terrorist's hacking tool of choice

It had to happen sooner or later. See here for the hilarious commentary.

speaking engagement

It looks like I'm speaking at Infotec again this year. Instead of speaking on infovis, this year I'll be tackling the issue of internationalization. Here is my abstract.

Title: Developing Multilingual Web Applications Using J2EE

Many new Web applications have a requirement to provide application content in multiple languages. The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) has support for managing localized content, but exactly how this technology should be implemented is not immediately apparent. In this presentation, I will discuss design strategies for developing multilingual Web applications using J2EE. I will share lessons learned as well as approaches one can use to alleviate common roadblocks. The audience is expected to have some knowledge of Java/J2EE.

grand challeges in computing

Bored? Not sure what to do on a Friday night? Why not get started on solving one of the Grand Challenges in Computing according to the British Computer Society (BCS)? The actual conference reports are here.

frameworks for j2ee app build/deploy

A fair number of Java developers at work have been getting into AppFuse. AppFuse is supposed to simplify building and deploying J2EE applications by providing build scripts and preconfigured OSS frameworks (Struts, Spring, Hibernate, etc.). Their hope is that AppFuse will make it easier for junior developers (and possibly some senior developers) to create and manage J2EE applications in spite of all the XML deployment descriptor muck.

Today, I stumbled upon the Java Application Generator or JAG for short. JAG looks like it takes this concept even a step further by taking your database model and your object model (defined in XMI using a tool like Poseidon)in order to generate everything you need. It looks like JAG is a little more rigid in terms of what frameworks you can use in certain tiers, but the idea of having design phase artifacts as inputs to automated app generation just sounds very cool to me.

As you can tell, I know very little about either of these frameworks as many of you who are reading this are shouting, "That's not what these frameworks really do!" I hope I can find time to look at both of these to see if they would be helpful for new J2EE apps. Anyone out there have any strong opinions on either of these?

xmlbuddy to the rescue

One cool tip I picked up the other night at the Omaha JUG is to use the Eclipse plugin XMLBuddy. The free version of XMLBuddy provides XML element completion, DTD validation, and loading/viewing DTDs over the Net. The pay version has some nice additional features I'd like to get my hands on, including XML Schema support. If you're an XML hack and an Eclipse hack, check it out. I wonder if there's a DTD for SwiXML. :-)

payne presents eclipse/cvs

I attended the Omaha Java User Group (JUG) meeting last night... my first non-UPRR JUG. Local programmer and PhD student Matt Payne gave a talk on Eclipse and CVS. Good presentation, Matt!

February's talks will be on Jython and the PayPal API. See the JUG Web site for more details.

nerdliness confirmed

I didn't think I'd score this high:

snowboarding... in the plains??

In years past, Lisa and I and a group of friends have packed up our vehicle and headed to Colorado for a weekend of spills, chills, and ill-advised speed in the form of skiing/snowboarding. It has become harder to get away and the 8+ hour trip didn't sound nearly as fun this year. Fortunately, there is a four run ski slope just ten minutes from our cozy abode over in Crescent, Iowa. We had never been to Mount Crescent in the 5+ years we've lived in Omaha and after having gone, I'm sorry we didn't do it sooner.

Lisa and I both snowboarded (sorry, no pictures). Aside from a few bruised ribs and strained necks, we had a marvelously refreshing time. What made it even better was a stop back through Crescent on our way home. We picked up prime rib to-go at the Pink Poodle. I guess you might say that for a midwestern town of fewer than 600 people, Crescent is a pretty entertaining area.

xslt localization

I just finished a design at work to allow our XSL stylesheets to be tagged to support localized messages. Once implemented, our application's resource bundles that are normally loaded by the Struts framework will become accessible to both JSP-based views (which is normal) and XSLT-based views (which was previously an unsupported capability). I'm using Xalan-Java extensions to accomplish this.

I don't know of any other projects that have done this. I hope I can find time to publish this design in a trade journal.

Update, 11-Jan-2005: It turns out there was a similar solution to this problem described in a previously published JavaWorld article. My solution is slightly different in that I insert the locale as an XSL variable dynamically rather than hardcoding the bundle name. I use XSLT to insert the variable into the stylesheet used to render the page. I may still publish my solution since I feel it is more elegant. :-)

holiday frenzy

Lazlo Hollyfeld: How did you do?
Chris Knight: I passed... then I failed!
Lazlo Hollyfeld: Then I'm happy... and sad for you.
    -- from the movie Real Genius

In the spirit of Lazlo, my holiday week was relaxing... and exhausting. Lisa, Ian, and I went to my folks' place for December 24th. We returned on the 25th for our immediate family Christmas. On the 26th, we took Lisa to the airport at 4:00AM for her medical mission trip to Mexico. Ian and I returned to my parents' place later that day and spent time there until Wednesday. While there, I went with my sisters to check out the new Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines and ate at Joe's Crab Shack. Jordan Creek is expansive and nice, not to mention they have an Apple Store!

I saw more movies in my time off than I have all year long. I took in Meet the Fockers, Napoleon Dynamite, Bourne Supremacy, and Hero. Napolean Dynamite found a special place in my heart. Moon boots, social awkwardness, great catchphrases... it's a cult classic in the making.

I was actually productive too. Upon returning with Ian to our decimated domicile on Wednesday, I cleaned our house in ways it had never been cleaned before. In be more accurate, I cleaned the house, Ian un-cleaned it, I cleaned it again, Ian un-cleaned it again, and this cycle repeated two or three more times. :-) The end result was a very surprised wife when Lisa returned home on Sunday evening.