Jan 26
In love with 404
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: , . | icon4 01 26th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

I tend to get annoyed with how badly Maven behaves when it comes to using the network for downloading dependencies. I got several issues with it, the output below illustrates one of them in all it’s glory.


Downloading: http://people.apache.org/repo/m2-incubating-repository//org/springframework/spring-core/2.5/spring-core-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://repo1.maven.org/eclipse//org/springframework/spring-core/2.5/spring-core-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://m2.safehaus.org/org/springframework/spring-core/2.5/spring-core-2.5.jar
Downloading: https://springframework.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/springframework/repos/repo-ext//org/springframework/spring-core/2.5/spring-core-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://s3.amazonaws.com/maven.springframework.org/milestone/org/springframework/spring-core/2.5/spring-core-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://s3.amazonaws.com/maven.springframework.org/osgi/org/springframework/spring-core/2.5/spring-core-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/springframework/spring-core/2.5/spring-core-2.5.jar
264K downloaded
Downloading: http://people.apache.org/repo/m2-incubating-repository//org/springframework/spring-context/2.5/spring-context-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://repo1.maven.org/eclipse//org/springframework/spring-context/2.5/spring-context-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://m2.safehaus.org/org/springframework/spring-context/2.5/spring-context-2.5.jar
Downloading: https://springframework.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/springframework/repos/repo-ext//org/springframework/spring-context/2.5/spring-context-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://s3.amazonaws.com/maven.springframework.org/milestone/org/springframework/spring-context/2.5/spring-context-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://s3.amazonaws.com/maven.springframework.org/osgi/org/springframework/spring-context/2.5/spring-context-2.5.jar
Downloading: http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/springframework/spring-context/2.5/spring-context-2.5.jar
431K downloaded

So, you found spring-core-2.5.jar on http://repo1.maven.org. Now you’re looking for a JAR in the same groupId, how about looking it the same server first? No, I have such an urge for 404:s that I have to check all the servers that previously seemed to have no clue about that exact groupId. Come on.

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Jan 22
Count the nines
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: . | icon4 01 22nd, 2008| icon3No Comments »

It’s the unexpected unexpecteds, not the expected unexpecteds, that kill you.

Joel Spolsky hits the nail as usual in his piece on achieving many-nines and why the usual SLAs are not worth the paper they are printed on.

Jan 22

Half a year ago, I got a copy of a presentation from a former colleague. It was from the then recent Open Group conference and was presented by Bert Hooyman of MphasiS. It covers the risks involved in running your company through the now (too) common SOA initative. The presentation, to me, reflects well on some of the limits you will run into as you implement your SOA strategy. It also suggests that an event driven architecture would be a better fit for your enterprise wide integration needs. Again, something I would tend to agree with. As The Open Group doesn’t seem to publish the presentations (so much for Open I guess), I asked Bert if he could. And he very graciously did so. Go read it, it’s well worth the time.

(This post has been sitting as a draft for quite some time, sorry about the latency):

Update: looks like there is a problem with the MpasiS site, probably temporary

Jan 21
Todos for 2008
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: . | icon4 01 21st, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Alright, it’s about time to write up my todos for this year. Last year I did okay, but not great. This year, it’s time to improve a notch. Also, this year I intend to actually put a quantifiable goal on some of the todos. So without further ado.

Diversify my tasks at work

While I already started down this road in the end of 2007 by switching employer, this year is important for me. I hope to do projects of a wider variety than before.

Finish up my reference application

I got this reference application that I’ve used for prototyping new technologies. However, it needs a heavy face lift to really provide me with enough code and functionality to try out some of the more complex stuff, right now for example Spring-OSGI^H^H^H^H Dynamic Modules.

Learn Scala and dive deeper into Ruby

I’m very interested in the concurrency models of languages like Erlang and Scala. And since Scala is syntactically closer to my background, it’s my choice. For this year, I intend to learn the basics, port my reference app and maybe start up a new open-source project based on Scala. For now I won’t talk more on that, but I got an interesting idea that I would like to try out.

Ruby is my favorite scripting language and this year I hope to start using it for production code rather than play projects.

Blog more

This one keeps coming back each year. But then again, I really need it. For this year, I intend to write 150 posts. That’s very ambitious for me, but should be doable.

Participate more

I had this goal last year and did terrible. This year, again, I intend to be less of a lurker and participate more in discussions that interest me. This includes mailing lists, conferences and personal meetings.

Exercise regularly

Here I did real good last year. This year, with two kids, I realize I won’t be able to get out as much. However, I still hope for 80 sessions, most of which will be MTB.

Get back into DJing

I love DJing. So do Eva. But for some years now, we haven’t had any turntables. With the move to our new house, we now get some space for having a set. This will be the enjoyable goal of all to accomplish.

Cook more and better

I also love cooking food. But, I tend to get a bit boring, doing that same old dishes all the time. This year, with a great new kitchen, I will experiment more.

We’re pretty good at buying ecological food. Being vegetarians, that means vegetables. This year I intend to get even better at choosing ecological and locally produced products whenever possible.

Now, what are your goals for 2008?

Jan 21
Wind of change
icon1 Niklas | icon2 | icon4 01 21st, 2008| icon32 Comments »

Today I was in a workshop with a major business systems vendor who is now building their APIs using REST. How the world has changed. Now, integration middleware needs to tag along.

Jan 13
FtpServer finally graduates
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: , . | icon4 01 13th, 2008| icon32 Comments »

After way to long time in the Apache Incubator, one of the open-source projects in which I’m involved, FtpServer has finally graduated. Our new home is as a subproject under Apache MINA. MINA, being one of my favorite projects, feels like the perfect home. Ever since I wrote an FtpServer Listener implementation based on MINA, I’ve been amazed by how well design the API is.
Since the FtpServer community recently voted to drop our support for Java 1.4, that means we can drop our blocking IO implementation. So, I’m currently in the progress of rewriting our code to make full use of MINA, rather than treating as yet another IO API. Its been great. I’ve been able to drop a large set of ill-designed classes which should make our code significantly easier to work with.
Being part of MINA also means that we will be more visible to more developers, something that will hopefully help us build a larger community. The future for the project is looking bright.

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Jan 8
GPPT adds theming
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: . | icon4 01 8th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

A while back, I complained on Google Docs new Powerpoint-wannabe not having any support for creating a custom theme. Seems like they quite promptly fixed that. Goodie. Now I just need to find a reason to do a presentation.

Jan 8
The loss of an account
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: . | icon4 01 8th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Today I noticed that I could no longer sign into my ICQ account. Someone has hacked it, changed the password, the password reset questions and the account details. I’ve had the account since 1995 with the same lousy password all the time so I was probably begging for this to happen. Looking through the ICQ forum, hacking accounts for selling them back seems to be a common thing. Getting any help from the ICQ support seems unlikely:

Out of the view of an hacker it is to be expected for not being in his interest to have your customized data in the aquired ICQ account. Due to that a hacker at least will probably alter profile and contact list information or even erase it in it’s whole. Therefor you may not and in no means are warranted to reaquire any ICQ account you once owned and cannot proove ownership, aswell as ICQ won’t provide any help with reaquiring an ICQ account as you always may register a new one.

Of course, registering a new account also means figuring out who was on your old friends list and add those back. In my case, I have no clue. That means their users might get tempted into buying back their accounts from hackers. This in turn makes this a lucrative market for hackers. All in all it lowers the value of the ICQ network. Why the support would not help in getting hacked accounts back is beyond me. The ICQ support should be able have the old account details, including the security questions, available which would make it possible for them to prove the ownership. However, they chose not to. As I won’t be buying back my account, that means one less account to keep track of. And one less user for ICQ, not that I was a paying customer anyways.

Instead, feel free to add me on GTalk (protocol7@gmail.com) or MSN (niklas@protocol7.com).

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Jan 2
IBM backs CouchDB
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: , , . | icon4 01 2nd, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Damien Katz is going to IBM to work full time on CouchDB. All arranged by Sam Ruby and friends. This is excellent news for the CouchDB community. Besides having Damien being focused on the project, getting IBMs deep knowledge on storage systems, both from DB2 and Domino/Notes I’m sure will be very beneficial.

And on top of all that, the code is moving to Apache and will be relicensed under ASL2. Still no open discussions in Apache Incubator, but I’m guessing that’s where it’s heading. Having CouchDB at Apache will be great! And I like that Apache is getting into more alternative technologies besides the comfort zone of C and Java.

CouchDB is getting more and more interesting to watch by the day.

Update: links was lost in publishing somehow.

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Jan 2
State of the todos
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: . | icon4 01 2nd, 2008| icon31 Comment »

A year ago, I posted my personal todos for 2007. Before doing the same for 2008, it’s time for some book keeping. Now, how did I do.

Web hacking: recent years has been very focused on integration/SOA/messaging kind of stuff. So much I’m actually hungry from some web development again.

On my way: switching job is a major part in this, as is getting involved in some open source projects.

Release: FtpServer 1.0 should be released. Some of the stuff in my private SVN repos should emerge in the open.

Done: for various reasons, FtpServer wasn’t actually released, but even better, it was graduated from the Apache Incubator (more on that later). Also, some of my private pojects has been published, but I need to write more on that *add todo*

Scripting: get decent at at least one scripting language. I know JavaScript pretty well (due to earlier excursions into web hacking) but I would really need to refresh it, or get really good at Ruby like everyone else seems to.

On my way: still learning Ruby and Rails. But my focused has shifted somewhat so I’m currently focusing on Scala. This is mostly due to my interest in highly scalable and distributed systems.

Switch: The last three years I’ve been saying “this year I’ll switch to Linux as my main OS”. Thanks to Ubuntu, this year I actually think it might happen.

Done: finally a happy Ubuntu user.

Blog more: well, that’s pretty self explanatory, 2006 was crap. Won’t be that hard to get better.

Not really: 2007 wasn’t a great year for my writting, although it was better than 2006. More on this for 2008.

Discuss more: I’m a lurker on a ton of mailing lists and blogs. However, I do not post frequently on more then three or so. This should change, I should get more involved on the stuff I’m interested in.

Not really: like blogging above, expect more here for 2008.

Get to know more people: there’s a ton of people in this industry that I deeply respect. I should get to know more of them. This goal also includes going to more conferences in 2007 (the end result for 2006 was bad, 1).

Not really: I keep repeating myself. However, this is looking better for 2008, already the first conference booked.

Read more books: last year was a terrible reading year for me, probably the low point for at least the last two decades. I read a ton of stuff on the web, but actually sitting down to read a book has a lot of additional values to me.

Done: 2007 meant a lot more reading for me, very happy about that.

Catch up on biology: my university training was in molecular biology. Since switching field I feel like I’m quickly forgetting stuff I knew by heart before. This year I will start reading more on biology and science in general again.

Not really: I’m hoping for my new job to help me get back into this area, however it will likely take some time, probably not for 2008.

Spend more time outdoors: this year I’m really going to drag Eva and Albin out to do more trekking and hiking than last year. Not that hard given that we didn’t do any thing at all.

Done: I spent a lot of time outdoors this year, unfortunately mostly on my bike and not with the family. In two months we’re moving to within meters from the great woods, that should help.

Do continuous exercise: last summer got pretty hectic when we decided on doing the Swedish mountain bike marathon and I realized I wasn’t nearly fit enough for it. Since we’re doing it again this year, I should keep up the training for the entire year.

Done: Training was great this year, lots of biking. And I’ve continued all into the winter.

Finish games: right now I got five or so console games that I’m in the middle of. I really need to finish them so I can move on to Wii :-) Here I’ll also include getting stable at Prince level in Civ4.

Not even close: This area has only gotten worse :-( We got a pretty unused XBox 360 and Wii, have to make more time for gaming, tons of exciting games coming out all the time. Got to finish Halo 3 and buy Guitar Hero and Super Mario Galaxy.