Episodes from the Life of a Mac Convert - How to install Apache?

Posted on September 5th, 2011 by Reiner.
Categories: Mac OS X, English.

Yes, I shout it out to all my fellow brothers - after having led a sinful life of Windows miseries, I now have become a true and humble Apple believer :-)

I wanted to install a web server on my Snow Leopard MacBook Pro in order to hand out some documents and thus ventured into googling for mac install apache. I was quite dissatisfied most articles appeared to be rather involved, requiring to either install by source or mandating other system wide packages to be fetched.

It was no sooner than half an hour I discovered that all that was required is just a single tick within a System Preferences Panel:

  1. Open Sharing from System Preferences
  2. Tick Web Sharing

Apache is included off-the-shelf and started immediately after Web Sharing has been enabled :-)

MacMost has a video that includes PHP as well:

1 comment.

Mac OS X (Snow Leopard): 1-2-3 Minimal Tomcat Install for Developers

Posted on August 2nd, 2011 by Reiner.
Categories: Mac OS X, Java.

This will install Tomcat for developer use - i.e. within your user home path, using your login, not as a service:

  1. Get the tar.gz for Tomcat Core from Apache Tomcat
  2. Change to your private Library: cd ~/Library
  3. Unpack Tomcat, e.g. tar xvfz ~/Downloads/apache-tomcat-6.0.32.tar.gz
  4. Create symbolic link to remain stable even when upgrading: ln -s apache-tomcat-6.0.32 Tomcat

Then:

  • Start Tomcat: ~/Library/Tomcat/bin/startup.sh
  • Stop Tomcat: ~/Library/Tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh

Configure at your leasure, e.g. look here for enabling Tomcat Manager Login: http://www.mkyong.com/tomcat/tomcat-default-administrator-password/

0 comments.

Build Maven, Build ant, Build ivy, Build gradle

Posted on January 16th, 2010 by Reiner.
Categories: English, Computers.

Have a look at Google Trends to see who’s likely to survive :-)

Ok, I’ll admit to be a Maven fan - because it’s the only one that has a holistic concept.

…that will never make it into the heads of people that attempt to reduce complexity to a hammer and all problems to the shape of a nail.

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Warum Vodafone und T-Mobile bei Skype zurück rudern

Posted on May 13th, 2009 by Reiner.
Categories: Deutsch, at other Locations, Computers, La Palma.

Z.B. bei heise mobil - 11.05.09 - Vodafone und T-Mobile: Kein Streit mit Nokia wegen Skype-Handy liest man darüber, dass Vodafone und T-Online zuerst jegliche Skype-Nutzung verbieten und blockieren wollten, nun aber doch plötzlich wieder vom Monopol-Saulus zum kundenfreundlichen Paulus mutieren. Warum?

Wahrscheinlich liegt es an der EU!

Bei mir selbst ist das Thema durchaus aktuell: Mein Freund sitzt auf einer Datsche auf den Kanaren und ist nur per Handy zu erreichen. Da klingelt die Kasse, egal wer wen in welcher Richtung anruft.

Deshalb wollen wir ausprobieren, ob und wie das mit Skype funktioniert und ich habe jetzt zuvor versucht zu ergooglen, ob der VoIP- und Skype-Ausschluss, die ich mich entsinne noch vor kurzen in diversen AGBs von Vodafone Spain gesehen zu haben, sich auch auf den “bono prepago” (z.B. 1 Monat / 1GB / danach Drossel für 60€) beziehen.

Es ist wie im Ministerium für Wahrheit: Der String Skype oder sogar auch nur VOIP sind aus allen spanischen Vodafone-Dokumenten spurenlos getilgt. Dafür steht da jetzt überall nur noch P2P. Ich habe an meinem Verstand gezweifelt, bis ich heute auf eine Artikelsammlung unter dem Titel Carriers could by forced by EU to support VoIP services stieß. Ach so ist das :-)

Bin gespannt, ob das nur ein Hütchenspielertrick von Vodafone Spanien ist. Nicht nur technisch ist Skype auch und gerade eine P2P-Anwendung. Die Verbindung und der Transport erfolgen - egal ob Sprache oder File-Transfer - immer direkt zwischen den Skype-Usern.

Die - noch nicht umgesetzte - EU-Drohung könnte auch erklären, warum T-Mobile und Vodafone in Deutschland die Drehrichtung ihrer Schrauben gerade nun umkehren und japsend und für uns überraschend wieder zurück rudern. Insbesondere da Skype eben nicht nur Lieschen Müller ist, sondern neben seiner eigenen Größe noch dazu zu einer illüstren Familie gehört (eBay und PayPal).

Nachtrag: Funktioniert super!

Da müssen Vodafone et al auch Angst bekommen:

Funktioniert 1a - Sprachqualität sogar wesentlich besser (!!!) als per normalem Handy-Anruf, Verbrauch auf der spanischen Handy-Seite 3
kByte/s = 180 kByte/min = ca. 1 Cent pro Minute (bei 60€ / 1 GByte).

Trost für Vodafone: Der Cent geht jetzt direkt zu Vodafone statt zum zum Konkurrenz-Discounter (Yoigo).

Nicht auszudenken, was demnächst alles passieren wird, wenn Nokia jetzt anfängt, Skype flächendeckend in seine Handies einzubauen…

1 comment.

Google Chrome and Java - Needing Both Java 5 and 6 - an Experience in Nightmares - Possible Solution Provided

Posted on March 21st, 2009 by Reiner.
Categories: Chrome, Java, English, Computers.

When you google for Google Chrome and Java you’ll find poor souls that are driven to distraction by Chrome insisting that there is no Java 6 Update 10 or later installed.

Maybe, there are no problems on a clean virgin-like system in mint condition, just unwrapped from its packaging. That’s not mine. I’m a Java developer and all sorts of Java VMs tend to pile up. Right now, I’ll need at least two of them: Java 5 and Java 6.

After an hour of agonizing failures, I found a way to have both Java 5 and Java 6 on my PC and still be able to run Java applets within Google Chrome:

  1. Remove all and every bit of Java, including changes to environment variables (e.g. JAVA_HOME and PATH)
  2. Install Java 6 SDK+JRE (as of now it’s Update 12 - ok for Chrome)
  3. Install Java 5 SDK+JRE unchecking any browser applet integration checkboxes (not sure, whether this is required).
  4. Add any environment variables you might need (pointing to Java 6).

Now I have all three of them, Java 5, Java 6 and Chrome running Java 6 applets :-)

It still puzzles me, I had to install Java 6 first and then Java 5. The other way around would not allow Chrome to recognize Java 6, regardless of any changes being applied to Java within Control Panel…

1 comment.

NetBeans 6.5.1 fixes Nullpointer Exceptions that occurred with 6.5 using Java 6 Update 12

Posted on March 17th, 2009 by Reiner.
Categories: NetBeans, English, Computers.

As I’ve just learnt from Benjamin’s Blog, the Nullpointer discussed yesterday that causes various NetBeans dialogues to fail almost silently when running NetBeans 6.5 with Java 6 Update 12 (6u12) has now been fixed.

And yes, I’m now again able to edit the application descriptor for NetBeans mobile projects :-)

Download NetBeans 6.5.1 now.

See also Error with jdk 1.6.0u12 and Services and NetBeans Issue 157948.

0 comments.

NetBeans 6.5 and Java 6u12 - A No-No!

Posted on March 15th, 2009 by Reiner.
Categories: NetBeans, J2ME, English, Computers.

I recently stumbled upon a problem within a NetBeans mobile project: The editor for the items within an application descriptor would no longer open. Instead a red light on NetBeans frame (all the way down and to the right) would indicate a NullPointer Exception :-(

It appears that the problem is related to running NetBeans 6.5 with Java 6 Update 12.

It appears that other areas and plug-ins might suffer from similar issues as at Do not use JDK 6u12. Use some previous JDK version. We are working on this and NetBeans throws NullPointerException when adding a server.

Update: This bug has now been fixed. Get NetBeans 6.5.1 now.

Work-Around

I don’t know who is the culprit, so just use Java 6 Update 11 (6u11) instead of 6u12:

Download and install Java 6u11 from Sun’s archives or directly from Archive: Download Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) 6 Update 11.

Change your NetBeans configuration (e.g. ) to use 6u11 instead of 6u12, e.g.:

# Default location of JDK, can be overridden by using –jdkhome <dir>:
netbeans_jdkhome=”C:Program FilesJavajdk1.6.0_11″

5 comments.

J2ME + Keep-Alive + Chunking = Out-of-the-box + automagically :-)

Posted on March 15th, 2009 by Reiner.
Categories: J2ME, English, Computers.

Wondering about best practices on how to use HttpConnection with J2ME, I had a peek at the sources and to my surprise, I found out, that HttpConnection should offer both keep-alive and chunking without any additional application code (e.g. adding http headers).

The implementation of HttpConnection uses an internal connection cache, so your application code can happily create - Connector.open(”http://…”, …) - and close connections and still transparently re-use the underlying TCP-connections as per HTTP/1.1 Keep-Alive specs, provided the operations being performed on those connections do not preclude Keep-Alives (e.g. by using the request property “Connection Close”, forcing HTTP/1.0, encountering any errors, or just the server plainly rejecting keep-alives).

It is a common misconception, that in order to use Keep-Alive, the HttpConnection object should be kept open. Just don’t do that! Instead always tidy-up resources you’re fed up with, as is the case with HttpConnection that is best used for a single transaction (request-reply) only. HttpConnection will transparently take care of caching the underlying TCP socket connection for you.

HttpConnection appears to be far more powerful than most J2ME programmers suspect. My advice: If you are not completely sure whether a particular option, header or application code is required, just leave it out and see what happens. For instance, HttpConnection will either add a Content-Length header (provided the content does not exceed its output buffer) or enable chunking (again adding the appropriate header) on its own and in a way completely transparent to your application code.

I myself had to learn it the hard way after having set up an implementation for chunking of my own. Not before trying to find out about how to properly interface my implementation to HttpConnection (and peeking at its sources), I realized that it’s all there already - ready to be used for free without even having asked for it :-)

I was able to verify this behavior using a Nokia 6131 NFC mobile device (CLDC-1.1 + MIDP-2.0) and GlassFish v2ur2. It works like a charm!

Notes

The automatic keep-alive may not be what you want when your mobile pays for each second of online access. Keep-Alive can easily be disabled by calling conn.setRequestProperty( “Connection”, “close” );.

Your actual mileage may vary :-( The behavior of the implementation on your phone might be inferior to the one I dealt with (Nokia with lots of implementation code from Sun - judgement derived just from looking at package names) . Nick reports about some of his amazing experiences in his post Using HTTP-Over-Socket and HTTP Proxy in J2ME Applications.

My test responder is implemented in Grails and it succeeds in chunking but fails the keep-alive test (i.e. multiple socket connections are being established) when being run in developer mode from Grails built-in Jetty-Container (i.e. grails run-app). Don’t know (and don’t care), whether this is due to Jetty or Grails running in development mode.

I would have liked to post this as a comment to Codepimps’ article at http://codepimpsdotorg.blogspot.com/2008/12/every-byte-counts.html, however I did not succeed in talking Blogger into accepting my WordPress.com account :-(

0 comments.

Gmail Offline Access with Google Apps Premier Edition outside of the US

Posted on January 31st, 2009 by Reiner.
Categories: English, Computers.

I encountered a tiny problem using Gmail Offline with Google Apps Premier, that might apply only to some non-US countries.

The Create Desktop Shortcuts action does not create any shortcut at all (at the time of this writing and using Google Chrome). So how do I access my mails when offline?

The URL to be used for accessing Google Mail (gmail.com) as given in the help pages does not apply to Google Apps accounts. Normally I just access my Gmail by browsing to http://mail.saddey.net, eventually being redirected to https://mail.google.com/a/saddey.net/. When offline, mail.saddey.net cannot be accessed.

The work-around is both trivial and effective: Just navigate directly to the very same URL that shows up in your browser after invoking Gmail while being online. For convenience, you can create a shortcut of your own just as easily by right-clicking your desktop and selecting New, Shortcut and entering the full URL (from Google’s domain).

Notes: As of now (31-jan-09), using Gmail Offline with Google Apps Premier requires:

  • A browser that is supported by the Google Labs feature (common but up-to-date ones will do)
  • The Google Labs feature (”new features”) to be enabled in your Google Apps domain settings (if you don’t know what this is, please call your admins).
  • The display language no longer needs to be set to English (US), your language might already be supported now.
  • The Google Labs feature to be enabled in your personal Gmail settings
  • Offline to be enabled in your personal Gmail Labs settings

0 comments.

How to send Alert Mails with GlassFish v2ur2

Posted on January 20th, 2009 by Reiner.
Categories: English, Computers.

I’d like to demonstrate GlassFish configuration settings that will cause GlassFish v2ur2 (aka SJAS 9.1_02) to to send alert emails on logging errors or warnings.

A trivial task for an application server that implements a plethora of standards and offers such a slick user interface, I thought.

But I was very much mistaken. Even after having struggled for more than a day, I was unable to identify self management configuration settings that would produce alert mails on any severe or warning entry being logged.

Eventually I succeeded by adopting back level configuration settings from SJAS 8.1 (see Managing and Monitoring Sun Java System Application Server 8.1 - Declarative Alerts at the very bottom). Syntax errors and a package name had to be fixed to get <alert-service> going. What works for me within my domain.xml looks similar to:

      <thread-pools>
        <thread-pool .../>
      </thread-pools>
      <alert-service>
        <alert-subscription name="AlertSubscription1">
          <listener-config listener-class-name="com.sun.appserv.management.alert.MailAlert"
                           subscribe-listener-with="LogMBean, ServerStatusMonitor, HeapSizeMonitor">
            <property name="recipients" value="joe@company.com, jim@service.net"/>
            <property name="fromAddress" value="glassfish@company.com"/>
            <property name="subject" value="Alert From GlassFish Application Server"/>
            <property name="includeDiagnostics" value="true"/>
            <property name="mailSMTPHost" value="my.smarthost.company.com"/>
          </listener-config>
          <filter-config filter-class-name="com.sun.appserv.management.alert.MailFilter">
            <property name="filterWarningMessages" value="false"/>
          </filter-config>
        </alert-subscription>
      </alert-service>
      <management-rules ...>
      </management-rules>
    </config>
    <!-- config model with name "server-config" ends -->
  </configs>

I still would like to know, how to set up mail alerts using self administration settings (e.g. What is the object name to listen for? How to properly install the “default” Custom MBeans with GlassFish PE)?

0 comments.

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