Java Timestamps go Database

30 September 2005 ⋅ 2 min read ⋅ java development

Couple of years ago I wrote a small application to manage a post cards distribution for a small advertising company. The application worked with a Cloudscape database but it’s not the point. The point is that my friend, who was working for that company, asked me to help with some strange problem. After the hardware upgrade all of the records in the database became invisible. I need to say that there is a screen where you can examine the amounts of cards sent to a different organizations at the given dates, and there is another screen where you can build a comprehensive reports with the same information but for a given dates range. Well, the records were not visible on the single-date statistics page, but they were in the reports. I was shocked…

User Interfaces

23 September 2005 ⋅ 3 min read ⋅ ui

Check this out in the mean time: Leo Burnett’s design studio. You will be impressed with the design, variety of user-interface solutions and visual effects. I fancy the idea of making non-linear interfaces and avoiding menu-ish look. The existing paradigm has turned into habits of our users already and its dearly hard to break this stereotype. The more applications we write, the more our users go down into the swamp of their stereotypes. The sites (which are also the applications of some sort), like Leo Burnett’s, is a lot of fun to the visitor not only for its fancy graphics, but also for its navigation approach. It doesn’t grate on your eyes since it looks unusual and surprising at first. Two minutes of education and you are “operating” the site, like a pro, since it’s still intuitive and easy to learn. When you are in “free flight”, it’s hard to maintain overall style and paradigm of your user interface because you aren’t bounded in your choices and it’s up to you how your creation will look and feel.

Wonderful Resource On EJB3

4 September 2005 ⋅ 1 min read ⋅ java

For those of you who already started to study this wonderful world of enterprise applications programming with EJB3 I suggest to visit fascinating resource on the web — Oracle’s EJB3 Resources. You will find lots of details on nearly every aspect of EJB3 application plus downloadable source code. As a learner, I found many interesting bit there.

Highly recommended!

Two approaches to testing of code with database access

3 September 2005 ⋅ 4 min read ⋅ development testing

Often we deal with database. Data is flying back and forth between application and data store. Following the modern influences, we wish to have tested everything that might break some day. When you get enough experience and develop the sense of well code design, this task will become easy and straightforward, but unfortunately I can see very often bad samples of code separation and awful design. So what it is all about?

First EJB3 Impressions with JBoss 4.0.3

1 September 2005 ⋅ 3 min read ⋅ development

Wow… My first impression is much like the second:

It’s Amazing!

Funny things in EJB3 Spec

31 August 2005 ⋅ 1 min read ⋅ interesting java

Just don’t take it very serious. :) The clever guys also do funny things.

public interface Calculator {
  public float add(int a, int b);
  public float subtract(int a, int b);
}

(and I am not about number of methods)

Smile! :)

Packaging Java applications for Ubuntu and other Debian’s

31 August 2005 ⋅ 3 min read ⋅ java linux

As all of you probably know, we are building the BlogBridge application – the next generation of feed aggregators. At the present moment we are distributing the application in two forms: as Java Web Start application and ZIP-packaged Java application available for download from SourceForge.net. Lately, we started to think how to create native installation/uninstallation experience for our users on different platforms. We decided to support native installations for Windows, Mac OS X, generic Tar.GZ archives and Debian packages.

In this tutorial I will share the basics of Debian package creation for Java applications.

CiteULike: Academic Papers Repository

29 August 2005 ⋅ 2 min read ⋅ interesting

Now that I’ve spent more than an hour wandering through the CiteULike — academic papers bookmarking site — I can authoritatively say that I’m in love with this web place. I know that these days everything is possible, but sometimes it’s even hard to imagine what you wish to wonder yourself with.

Writing Effective Software Descriptions

29 August 2005 ⋅ 4 min read ⋅ development

Today I was looking for a good manual on how to build correct and well-formed Debian distribution packages. As you might know, every package has some sort of description telling what application it holds, why user needs this application, what platform this application is supposed to work on etc. While it is a regular descriptor, it still plays big role in advertising your product.

Abandoned Atomic Power Plant Party Report

23 August 2005 ⋅ 1 min read ⋅ music

On Sunday we got back from our trip to abandoned power plant. It was very bright performance and we had a very good time. Here’s my small photo-report about what had happened. The dj-guy in the t-shirt with red sleeves is me.

See photos inside…