Recent Blog Posts
Blogs ยป Archive for January, 2005
PostgreSQL 8 Officially Released
PostgreSQL 8 was officially released this week and has many new features to bring to the open source database table (so to speak).
Of course front and center would be the long awaited native Win32 binary that allows PostgreSQL to run natively on Windows 2000, XP and 2003 as a service. A separate project is underway to ease installation and can be found on the pgFoundry web site (recommended by Postgres).
Other features with an eye toward high performance and stability are point in time backup and restore, which allows for continuous backups and user’s choice for restore points, and tablespaces, which allow for tables and indexes to be stored on different (or the same) filesystems. This latter being an excellent option when tweaking for performance or managing drive space.
Logs, Damn Logs, and Browser Statistics
As we all know, one of the constant joys of web design is the ongoing wrestle with the ever-changing browser landscape into which our creations are released. Camino? Opera 6 or 7? Safari 0.6? What is this… ‘Netscape 4′ of which you speak?
Recently Dan Cederholm, the man behind the Fast Company redesign, ignited some spirited discussion on his SimpleBits journal. Don’t worry about Netscape 4… is it time to give Internet Explorer 5.0 the gentle tap on the shoulder?
Of course, the talk isn’t about banning IE 5.0, just simplifying the presentation of the layout in it — but this is still a scandalous idea in many circles.
If a cross sample of the anecdotal feedback showed anything, it’s the incredible variation from site to site — some commenters reporting IE5 percentages ranging from as low as 0.1%, and as high as 16% (wha!?..). Generally 1.2% seemed to be about the standard figure quoted, although many didn’t seem to be able to separate IE 5.0 from IE 5.5 — a better behaved browser.
IMHO for most sites, the answer is still probably ‘no we can’t drop IE5 yet’, but ultimately the decision should be based on any pre-existing stats describing …
Preventing Blog Comment Spam
This Google blog post was passed along to me today. Google is implementing a tag that penalizes blog comment spammers. They have garnered the support of other search engines including MSN and Yahoo and some prominent folks in the blogosphere. Definitely worth a read if you are a blogger and/or support customers who blog.
Some Favorite Open Source Utilities
I was inspired by Rui at the Tao of Mac and his open source watch list to think about some of the open source utilities I cannot live without.
Some are considered old school, some are new and some are just amazing productivity pieces.
For starters, I discovered that we shared one app in common, Newspipe. It is a python-based newsreader that processes RSS subscriptions and sends the headlines, story summary and links to an email address of your choice. I run mine in cron in the background on my OS X workstation and simply review the latest stories along with my regular email. No GUI RSS reader needed. It has very flexible configuration options and is well worth a look if you rely on RSS feeds and don’t need yet another app open. It works on Linux, Mac and Windows with Python 2.3.
Webmin is by far my favorite systems management app. Though I spend a great deal of time on servers using the command line - there are several repetitive tasks which are just plain quicker using Webmin. Plus, for multi-server environments, I cana chain webmin installs together and broadcast configuration changes, updates, etc. (inside the …
Using data to create pain
Wherever possible, use data to create pain. It works.
For instance, I heard an account exec at a security company make a great pitch the other day. Sites with security breaches can be fined something like $50,000 per incidence by the state of California. They can lose their ability to do business with Visa and MasterCard instantly if they don’t meet their high standards, which can cost all of their revenues. And international issues can also cost money, as standards outside the US are even stricter.
She then offered a free remote security audit of a pre-production web site, an offer I couldn’t refuse. Who wants to risk a $50,000 fine or loss of Visa approval (even if we are pre-production on this particular site and way below the radar)?
Of course, when the results came back, how could I not hire her to fix the issues she uncovered, especially when she explained how she would fix the various issues?
I’m not sure what services you sell to whom. But I hope you collect data from third party sources that will help you create pain and make your case.
James Gosling Unplugged in Australia
James Gosling, “the father of Java” is coming to Australia, and will be conducting developer Q&A sessions at free half-day seminars in Sydney and Melbourne on February 2nd and 3rd, respectively.
In addition to the man himself, other speakers will be talking about Java 5, Java Studio Creator, and Java Studio Enterprise 7.
If you see me at the Melbourne event, do say hello!
Customizing the Autoscrolling Icon
Here’s one from the ‘you could, though you probably wouldn’t, but it’s nice to know you can’ department.
Tom was playing around with FireFox yesterday and came to the realization that the auto-scroll icon is actually inserted dynamically into the document’s HTML, but outside the HEAD and BODY — meaning it’s still within the clutches of our evil CSS.
Mwha Ha Ha HA!!
Try clicking your middle mouse button anywhere onscreen in FireFox 1+ to see the results.
Here’s the CSS:
html>img
{
width: 0!important;
height: 28px!important;
padding-left: 28px!important;
background: url(/images/icons/autoscroll2.png);
}
In reality this is a known bug, so can’t really be relied on into the future (though it’s been around for a long time), but if your client is looking for that little bit of extra branding…
CSS Rollovers - Just Add Water
Isn’t it great when someone not only comes up with an nice solution to a problem (rollovers in this case), but then takes the extra effort to make it easy for you to understand and implement yourself?
Recently Simon Collison spent some time thinking about CSS images rollovers and distilled his conclusions and code into a well thought-out tutorial.
Enough for any man, you may be tempted to think, but no, Simon has gone the extra yard to build a slickly constructed auto code generator - a fine piece of work in it’s own right.
Cheers, Simon.
Pervasive Software Joins Database Race
Pervasive Software became the latest to join what is fast becoming a burgeoning field of database vendors looking to capitalize on open source by way of commercial solutions. They join Sybase, MySQL and others looking for bigger pieces of the mid-size and up corporate market.
Pervasive is known in certain circles as a seasoned veteran of database infrastructure management and is now looking to use PostgreSQL’s solid reputation to bring a new services-oriented solution to the table.
At first glance it may appear they are coming out swinging at MySQL — and personally I still see that as part of the move, gaining ground prior to MySQL’s much anticipated beta release of version 5 of that venerable database. PostgreSQL of course enjoys triggers, stored procedures and other features MySQL users have been rabidly awaiting.
However, Lance Obermeyer, director of products at Pervasive, downplayed getting the jump on MySQL.
“If a user has architected his or her application to work within the constraints of MySQL, then they should stay there. There will certainly be some that outgrow MySQL, and those users we welcome,” Obermeyer told SitePoint. “Our primary target, though, are users with production business applications that require mainstream features and rock solid data …
The Grand Tour: Kickin’ It MVC Style
January is turning out to be a pretty light month for Java news. Oh well, more time to continue my grand tour of Java Web development! Still following along?
Last time, I showed you how to convert a “to-do list” servlet into a JSP. Unfortunately, what we got wasn’t much better in terms of readable code–Java code embedded in an HTML document isn’t a whole lot more readable than HTML code embedded in a Java class.
What to do? Well, so far we have two tools at our disposal: servlets and JSPs. Servlets are great for containing Java code, JSPs are great for containing HTML code. The answer is to split our application apart so that the Java code goes into servlets, and the HTML code goes into JSPs.
A standard approach for this called Model 2 Architecture has been around for a long time, but lately it has become known by the more descriptive name: Model-View-Controller (MVC).
The idea is to break the application into three parts:
- The model: a collection of Java classes that perform the actual work of the application (often called the business logic), independant of the Web interface.
- The view, a collection of JSPs, or some other technology, that produce the …
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