Projects and Communities Archive

New gaming experiences with OpenGL ES and the Mobile Sensor API
Over the last couple of years, we have seen ever more advanced games for mobile devices. 3D graphics are no longer something you can only experience on the cutting edge devices, but are available on many mid-range mobile phones. In the SDN article New gaming experiences with OpenGL ES and the Mobile Sensor API, Erik Hellman describes a very simple game for a Sony Ericsson w910i that uses both the OpenGL ES API for Java ME and the Mobile Sensor API.

OpenJDK in Fedora 9
Mark Reinhold announces more distribution success for OpenJDK in the blog OpenJDK in Fedora 9. "Fedora 9 (Sulphur) was released earlier today, complete with a set of OpenJDK 6 packages. Dead-simple installation instructions can be found here. As an added bonus these packages have also been contributed into the EPEL project, a community-run effort to make Fedora packages available to users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, CentOS 5, and other RHEL 5 derivatives."

May 13, 2008

Portal Pack 2.0 is now available
The Portal Pack 2.0 final version for NetBeans 6.1 is now available for download. It supports the new JSR 286 portlet specification.There are many new features which will help developers to write portlets quickly using JSR 286(Portlet 2.0) features. These plug-ins are also available at NetBeans 6.1 Auto-Update Center and with Java Tools Bundle Update 5.

How Portable Is LWUIT?
How Portable is LWUIT? Very, according to Shai Almog, who writes, "LWUIT is remarkably portable, from small CLDC cell phones to CDC hi-definition devices through Swing applications it can do it all. Well, over a weekend a few weeks ago I got LWUIT working on Android, this is still a pretty rudimentary port and it suffers some problems but this is a cool proof of concept...". In a followup, he shows off LWUIT running atop Max Mu's port of Java ME to the PSP.

Open Standards vs Open Source?
On Artima, Frank Sommers covers a significant JCP debate from last week in Open Standards vs Open Source? "A JavaOne 2008 roundtable focused on the potential conflict between the way open-source communities work and the JCP's requirement for a Java specification expert group to develop and maintain a compatibility test kit."

May 12, 2008

Demo of New JavaScript Editor in NetBeans IDE 6.1
NetBeans IDE 6.1 contains a completely new JavaScript editor which provides many advanced editing capabilities such as intelligent code completion, mark occurences, instant rename, on-fly analysis of JavaScript libraries, support for many Ajax frameworks and more. Watch the screencast Guided Video Tour of NetBeans IDE 6.0 and 6.1 to discover the new and exciting JavaScript-related features.

JavaOne: Taking mobile application development out of the niche
In the interview JavaOne: Taking mobile application development out of the niche, Java and mobility enthusiast and visionary C. Enrique Ortiz gives his thoughts on why mobile application development is still a niche activity for developers, and discusses the hot topics about mobility at JavaOne.

John Rose: The Golden Spike
Sun's John Rose summarizes JavaOne 2008 developments in his wide-ranging blog The Golden Spike: "In the Java cosmos we can reckon time in terms of JavaOne conferences. For programming languages on the JVM, the just-finished epoch has seen much progress, and the next epoch looks even better. Here is some of the progress that I am excited about, after bouncing around at JavaOne."

May 02, 2008

JavaOne RoboHACC Programming "Un-Contest"
The JavaOne 2008 RoboHACC Programming Un-Contest is designed to challenge your coding skills in Java using the Greenfoot Framework/IDE to direct a Sun SPOT equipped TrackBot through an Arena with various obstacles. You can use existing code examples or start from scratch. Collaboration is highly encouraged; so find some fellow coders and get hacking! The RoboHACC Un-Contest begins NOW, but will really take off at JavaOne where you'll interact with other participants."

OpenJDK to be included in Fedora 9, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
Canonical and Red Hat have announced that OpenJDK-based implementations will be included in Fedora 9 and Ubuntu 8.04 Long Term Support (LTS) Server and Desktop editions. Furthermore, NetBeans IDE 6.0 will be delivered as part of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. "With this announcement, developers using Fedora 9 or Ubuntu 8.04 LTS can now count on free software implementations based on Java technology as a standard element of an open source developer stack that they can leverage to build the next generation of web-based applications for both consumers and enterprises. In addition this announcement opens the door for numerous Java technology-based offerings to be included in the core of these GNU/Linux distributions."

May 01, 2008

JavaTools Community Newsletter - Issue 167
The latest edition, issue 167, of the JavaTools Community Newsletter is out, with a schedule of community members' mini-talks and booth-staffing times at the java.net JavaOne Community Corner, tool-related news from around the web, announcements of new projects in the community and a graduation (GCHisto), and links to last week's tutorial for New project owners.

Metro 1.1.1 released
Metro, GlassFish's high-performance web services stack, has just released version 1.1.1. The new release contains JAXB RI version 2.1.6, and JAX-WS RI version 2.1.3, with JAX-WS changes including a JMX Agent for the server side, Mtom Interop with .NET 2.0/WSE 3.0, and bug fixes. More information is available in the release notes and the Metro and JAXB forum.

Java Posse #183 - OpenJDK Interview
Episode 183 of the Java Posse is an interview about OpenJDK with Rich Sands, Barton George and Bruno Souza. They discuss the ongoing clearing of encumbrances to a full GPL release, Iced Tea, Ubuntu's inclusion of OpenJDK, the merits of the GPLv2 license, other JDK licenses, OpenJDK's status on the Mac, packaging Java for Linux distros, the role of the OpenJDK community, how OpenJDK may provide JDK 6 Update 10 functionality, OpenJDK's reliability, and more.

April 30, 2008

JCP Program Awards nominees announced
The JCP has announced the nominees for the 2008 JCP Program Awards. The program recognizes excellence in six categories: JCP Member of the Year, JCP Participant of the Year, Most Innovative JSR for Java SE/EE, Most Innovative JSR for Java ME, Most Outstanding Spec Lead for Java SE/EE, and Most Outstanding Spec Lead for Java ME. Winners will be announced next week at JavaOne.

Java SE 6 for Mac OS X 10.5.2
Available via Software Update, Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 1 adds Java SE 6 version 1.6.0_05 to your Mac. This version of Java is only for Mac OS X v10.5.2 and later, and only runs on 64-bit Intel machines. Developers may want to check out the release notes, which detail major new features including an API to work with the Dock icon (getting and setting the image, adding a badge, setting a dock menu, etc.), the ability to provide document-modal dialog sheets, support for Java DTrace probes, AppleScript as a supported language to the javax.script API, and more.

April 29, 2008

RoboHACC Programming "Un-Contest"
The RoboHACC Programming Un-Contest is designed to challenge your coding skills in Java using the Greenfoot Framework/IDE to direct a Sun SPOT equipped TrackBot through an Arena with various obstacles. You can use existing code examples or start from scratch. Collaboration is highly encouraged; so find some fellow coders and get hacking! The RoboHACC Un-Contest begins NOW, but will really take off at JavaOne where you'll interact with other participants."

GlassFish v3 Now Embeddable
Kohsuke Kawaguchi reports that GlassFish v3 just got embeddable. "I can now run Hudson in this embedded GFv3. Here's how it works — GlassFish v3 can be run as an OSGi application as Sahoo reported earlier, but in fact it can also be run without any kind of classloader isolation system at all. Sure, you won't get the isolations, but this means you can just drop a bunch of GFv3 jars in your classpath and run it like that."

New OpenJDK projects: XRender and NIO
The OpenJDK project has approved two new sub-projects. The NIO project's "mission is to produce the implementation of the (New) New I/O APIs being defined by JSR 203 as well as related work in the JDK." Meanwhile, the XRender Graphic Pipeline project is working on a "new Java2D graphics pipeline based upon the X11 XRender extension", and is part of the OpenJDK Community Innovators' Challenge.

April 28, 2008

NetBeans 6.1 released
The NetBeans community has announced the final release of NetBeans 6.1, now available for download:

"NetBeans IDE 6.1 supports a wide range of open source scripting technologies and offers improved performance. This release extends language support beyond Java technology by providing a rich set of features for C/C++, JavaScript and the Ruby language, including Ruby on Rails.

One of the downloads available is an Early Access preview of support for PHP. Advance versions of new modules, such as JavaScript debugger, support of ClearCase, AXIS, and Hibernate are available as separate plugins.

NetBeans IDE 6.1 also contains all of the improvements made in 6.0 including: the new smarter editor, next generation of the ground-breaking GUI builder (formerly known as Project Matisse), visual mobile designer, integrated profiler, and Java EE 5 support.

For more information about NetBeans IDE 6.1 features visit the NetBeans IDE 6.1 Release Page."

April 25, 2008

New Features in EJB 3.1, Part 3
The article New Features in EJB 3.1, Part 3 is the latest installment of an ongoing series on TheServerSide by Reza Rahman, who writes, " In this third article, I'll cover two more features that have been discussed in detail--asynchronous Session Bean invocation and EJB Lite. Remember, none of this has been finalized yet. All of this is really just a peek into the inner workings of the JCP so that you have a chance to provide feedback."

JavaWorld article on Wizard project
JavaWorld takes an in-depth look at the Wizard project in Open source Java projects: The Wizard API. "If you're faced with creating a Swing-based wizard from scratch, you'll want to know about Tim Boudreau's Wizard project. This installment of Jeff Friesen's Open source Java projects series gets you started with the Wizard API and concludes with a hands-on installation wizard that is sure to please users and impress the boss."

Compatibly Evolving BigDecimal
Joe Darcy continues a recent run of blogs discussing the specifics of what it means for changes to be "compatible" with a case study: Compatibly Evolving BigDecimal. "Back in JDK 5, JSR 13 added true floating-point arithmetic to BigDecimal, which involved many new methods and constructors along with new supporting classes in the java.math package. I was actively involved in the JSR 13 expert group and integrated the code into the JDK. These changes had some surprising compatibility impacts which can be classified according to their source, binary, and behavioral effects."

April 24, 2008

Book Chapter: Java EE 5 Development with Glassfish: Security
TheServerSide has posted sample chapter from David Heffelfinger's book, Java EE 5 Development using Glassfish. In Chapter 8, the author covers how to secure Java EE applications by taking advantage of GlassFish's built-in security features. Topic include security realms, the specifics of the admin, file, certificate, and JDBC realms, creating self-signed security certificates, and building custom realms.

TrackBot Sensor Evaluation
The newly-unveiled Trackbotcode project provides runtime libs, example and test code for Systronix TrackBots. It's a "PC-based application which connects to TrackBot through a DCE serial adapter and enables testing and characterization of all eight IR sensors on the TrackBot platform. It includes a screen-based text/graphical display of sensor response in all three sensitivity settings. Command line parameters include which pair of the eight sensors to test at a time. The code reports any errors and timeouts, and has been very useful in analyzing PC serial port performance."

Using MySQL and Memcached on the GlassFish Application Server
Pramod Gopinath and Rick Palkovic have posted a new SDN artcile on Using MySQL and Memcached on the GlassFish Application Server. "Many developers use memcached and MySQL to cache content as part of their web application. This article presents a simple example application that uses MySQL and accesses a memcached server. The application is deployed on the GlassFish application server."

April 23, 2008

JavaTools Community Newsletter - Issue 166
The latest edition, issue 166, of the JavaTools Community Newsletter is out, with a note about the recently-concluded FISL conference, tool-related news from around the web, news from projects, announcements of new projects in the community, and a Tool Tip on facilitating access to your open source projects at java.net.

Updated GlassFish Roadmaps
Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart has posted some Updated GlassFish Roadmaps. "Anybody that has been in the software industry for any time knows that roadmaps are always "work in progress". With that caveat, here are the latest news:

GFv2 UR2, this Thursday (wiki page, Msg).
GFv2.1, moved out to Fall 08 (wiki page, Harpreet's blog, Msg)
GFv3 TP2, JavaOne 08 (wiki page)

GFv3 TP2 is a "Technology Preview" release; we will provide a sneak peek at CommunityOne and will be demoed at JavaOne.

OpenJDK Closures project
Following a unanimous vote by members of the Compiler Group, the OpenJDK project has approved a closures project. The project was proposed by and will be led by Neal Gafter. Its stated goal is "to produce a feature-complete prototype of the Java bytecode compiler (javac) for the draft BGGA Closures specification", and will serve as the workspace for the closures effort in the OpenJDK Community Innovators' Challenge.

April 22, 2008

JBrowser project
The JBrowser project hopes to implement a modern web browser using java swing, with a goal of being "fully compatible with current mainstream browsers", learning from other browsers how to deal with broken web pages. Ultimately, the project owners hope to evolve the project into an RIA platform along the lines of Flex. For now, check out an early snapshot build, with initial CSS/HTML/XHTML, JavaScript, and (J)applet support.

Using Filters With the Java ME Device Matrix
The latest SDN Mobility Tech Tip is about Using Filters With the Java ME Device Matrix. "Let's say you have a design for a mobile application, and you know what technology (JSR) is required by the platform. You then want to know: What handsets will support your design? The SDN Device Matrix is a table that lists information on hundreds of devices that run Java ME technology."

NetBeans Community Greenlights 6.1
NetBeans QA is announcing that the NetBeans Community has approved NetBeans 6.1 for FCS. "We are pleased to announce the results of the NetBeans IDE 6.1 Community Acceptance Survey that ended April 16th: 91% of respondents agree that NetBeans 6.1 is stable enough to move into FCS! (A few respondents recommended that we fix some more issues, and we will try to deliver the fixes via the Update Center as soon as possible.)"

April 21, 2008

GlassFish pre-JavaOne Unconference
The Aquarium is announcing a pre-JavaOne GlassFish Unconference. "If you have never attended an Unconference, this is your opportunity! We are hosting one for the GlassFish community the Sunday before JavaOne, at the Moscone (map). The topics and speakers in an unconference are decided by the attendees themselves (see the Open Space principles). The only thing you need to do now is to go to the Wiki page and record your intent to attend and your topics of interest; we already have 26 people."

JT Harness 4.1.3 milestone release
JT Harness, the general-purpose testing harness, has announced its 4.1.3 milestone release. This release supports JUnit tests and test suites, and includes numerous bug fixes. "JT Harness 4.1.3 provides complete backwards compatibility with previous releases of JT Harness, and JT Harness users will be able to easily migrate to this release. Additionally, the JT Harness 4.1.3 release (and subsequent releases) are covered under the GPL 2 license plus Classpath Exception." More details are available in the 4.1.3 README.

OpenJDK: Dude, Where's My Changeset?
Kelly O' Hair discusses using a Mercurial "forest" of repositories and how changesets come out of that process in his new blog OpenJDK: Dude, Where's My Changeset? "Sometimes it's hard to find a changeset. Somewhat independent of the changesets flowing into the various team areas, the Release Engineering Team will use the Master area and attempt to create a promoted build, and if successful will create tags in the Master repositories to record what changesets were included in a promotion. Some people will find this whole process frustrating, but there are some big advantages. "

April 18, 2008

Working with jMaki Events
The latest SDN Enterprise Tech Tips looks at Working with jMaki Events. Author Carla Mott writes, "the following tip expands the discussion of the event mechanism in jMaki. You'll learn more about the concepts that underlie the jMaki event mechanism and how to take advantage of it to easily interact with widgets. "

Kinds of Compatibility: Source, Binary, and Behavioral
What does it mean for changes to be "backwards compatible" with previous versions of Java? Joe Darcy clarifies common misperceptions in the blog Kinds of Compatibility: Source, Binary, and Behavioral. "When evolving the JDK, compatibility concerns are taken very seriously. However, different standards are applied to evolving various aspects of the platform. From a certain point of view, it is true that any observable difference could potentially cause some unknown application to break. [...] Since not making any changes at all is clearly not viable for evolving the platform, changes need to be evaluated against and managed according to a variety of compatibility contracts."

Method Handles in a Nutshell
"One of the biggest puzzles for dynamic language implementors on the JVM, and therefore for the JSR 292 (invokedynamic) Expert Group, is how to represent bits of code as small but composible units of behavior. The JVM makes it easy to compose objects according to fixed APIs, but it is surprisingly hard to do this from the back end of a compiler, when (potentially) each call site is a little different from its neighbors, and none of them match some fixed API." John Rose takes a swing at addressing this problem through a new design for "method handles", which he details in the blog Method Handles in a Nutshell.

April 17, 2008

From the Trenches at Sun Identity, Part 3: Federated Access Management Simplified
The SDN article From the Trenches at Sun Identity, Part 3: Federated Access Management Simplified is the latest in a series involving OpenDS and OpenSSO. In this installment, Sun senior product line manager Daniel Raskin discusses the background for merging two of Sun's access and federation management products and the new capabilities that focus on simplicity, ease of use, efficiency, and convenience.

Pulsar project
The Pulsar project is a Java-based peer-to-peer streaming client that allows the distribution of audio and video in the Internet, both live and on-demand. As viewers help forward the content, there is no need for strong servers. With the release of version 0.6 Pulsar has now become open-source and is hosted on java.net. Various subprojects, like the media player or its peer-to-peer protocols also work independently from Pulsar and can be reused for other projects.

April 16, 2008

Overview of GlassFish Unconference and CommunityOne
Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart has posted an Overview of GlassFish Unconference and CommunityOne on The Aquarium. "I've updated the GlassFish Event Page with the latest information on the 2008 GlassFish Unconference and CommunityOne. I have linked to 18 sessions related to GlassFish, covering AppServer, MQ, Portal, Social Software, ESB, FAM, Scripting, Persistence and Web Tier. Some of the sessions are in the GF "track", others are listed elsewhere. This means you can't be in all the sessions you likely want to attend, so bring a friend and compare notes. CommunityOne is free but space is limited. Register Now to save your place."

Substance 4.3 released
The Substance project has released version 4.3 of the popular look-and-feel. New features include "decoration painters", "highlight painters", better layout of menus and menu items, autoscrolling, initial support for very large fonts, tab close button usability improvements, and more. Kirill Grouchnikov has further details and screenshots in his blog.

Java ME "Hello World" on iPhone
Hinkmond Wong has posted a blog apparently showing Java ME running on the iPhone SDK. Along with a screenshot of the iPhone emulator showing a Java ME version string and "Hello World" output, he writes, "Here's something I'm working on with Chris Plummer and Dean Long for JavaOne this year. Chris recently was able to build our Java ME CDC/Foundation Profile platform on Darwin OS x86 (hmmm... Darwin OS... I wonder what that means... ;-) ) last weekend. (I think he started on Friday afternoon and was ready with it on Saturday). Faster than you can say, "Java ME rules!""

April 15, 2008

Survey: Is NetBeans IDE 6.1 Ready for FCS?
NetBeans 6.1 Release Candidate 1 has been published, and NetBeans.org has posted a Community Acceptance Survey, available to registered netbeans.org users. "The purpose of this survey is to find out if the NetBeans community deems NetBeans 6.1 RC1 as ready for FCS--or not. Thus we are asking everyone who has used RC1 and has developed a solid opinion about it to login to netbeans.org and take the short survey, which will be available until Wednesday 4/16 midnight in the last time zone."

Programming for Cool Devices Using the OpenSource Java ME phoneME Stack
"It appears that much of humanity is meeting and greeting the web through handhelds -- and Java ME. It's kind of thrilling to be the tiniest part of it, even if only as someone who reports on and promotes it." In Programming for Cool Devices Using the OpenSource Java ME phoneME Stack, Janice J. Heiss recounts a session session given by Terrence Barr at Tech Days, which included an update on Java ME.

April 14, 2008

JavaTools Community Newsletter - Issue 165
The latest edition of the JavaTools Community newsletter is out, with tool-related news from around the web, announcements of new projects and recent graduations (SigTest and Eval), and a Tool Tip on managing your application tests.

Introducing Java 6 update 10
Ethan Nicholas has posted a new SDN article Introducing Java 6 update 10. He writes, "don't be fooled by its unassuming name: the upcoming Java 6 update 10 is a very different animal than the updates that preceded it. Java 6u10 pushes the envelope by adding more new features and functionality than in any previous Java programming language update release, including many that have been a long time coming." The article covers 6u10's major features, including the Java Kernel, the new Java Plug-In, the Java Deployment Toolkit, Nimbus look-and-feel, patching improvements, and more.

JUG-Events and the JUG Map
The Java User Groups Community is glad to promote JUG Events, a web application to handle community events for your JUG, created by the JUG Padova (Italy) and tested during the last months by several JUGs all around the world. JUG Events is also integrated with our international JUG Map, created by the Silicon Valley Web Developer JUG (USA). These are two great examples of collaboration and creativity; check them out!

April 11, 2008

SigTest project
The SigTest project is based on Sun Microsystem's signature testing and API conformance tool of the same name. The SigTest tool makes it possible to easily compare the signatures of two different implementations of the same API. It verifies that all of the members are present, reports when new members are added, and checks the specified behavior of each API member. Originally developed to help in the creation of TCK test suites, it has since evolved into a general purpose tool that can be used to compare any two implementations of an API to determine their differences. The SigTest project is being created in order to develop a community that will improve it, further its development, and use it to develop test suites. We encourage you to browse, download, contribute, and get involved.

NetBeans IDE 6.1 Release Candidate Now Available
NetBeans.org has announced the availability of the NetBeans IDE 6.1 Release Candidate, which is now available for download. The final NetBeans IDE 6.1 release is scheduled for late April, and feedback is welcomed and encouraged on the mailing lists. Also you can win $500 USD by blogging about your experience with the NetBeans IDE 6.1; details are on the Blogging Contest page.

JavaOne 2008 Student Program
Are you a college student? Interested in Java? Want to get into JavaOne for free? The JavaOne 2008 Student Program, hosted by Sun's Chief Gaming Officer Chris Melissinos, is a five-day program to attend the CommunityOne and JavaOne conferences in San Francisco, May 5 - 9, 2008. Participants will have full access to the conference, including general sessions, technical sessions, birds-of-a-feather sessions (BoFs), specially developed Java University classes, a coupon for a free Java Certification Class, access to the JavaOne pavilion (come see us at the java.net Community Corner), t-shirts, lunches, the AfterDark party with Smashmouth, and more. Space for this program is limited, so interested students should download the registration PDF right away.

April 10, 2008

NetBeans, Ruby and AppleScript
In the NetBeans.tv screencast NetBeans, Ruby and AppleScript, Mac Developer Tips blogger John Muchow describes how to use NetBeans and rb-appscript (a bridge to connect Ruby to the Apple Event Manager) to control scriptable applications on a Mac. This introduction shows how you can get started using Ruby as an alternative to AppleScript for scripting applications on Mac OS X.

Initial Draft of the Bean Validation Specification Released
InfoQ takes a deep look at JSR 303 in Initial Draft of the Bean Validation Specification Released. "Led by Hibernate Validator lead developer Emmanuel Bernard, JSR-303 aims to standardize the constraints metadata model for Java EE 6. An early draft of the specification has been released and the expert group are keen to solicit feedback. As part of this a forum has been set up, and Bernard has begun to publish a series of articles (part 1, part 2) on the Hibernate blog describing how the API works."

JFugue Music NotePad posts first binary
The JFugue Music NotePad project has announced its first binary release by means of an introductory Javalobby article, 1st Binary Release of Java Music Composer. "The aim of this open source project is to provide a simple standalone application for composing music and generating MIDI files. The underlying functionality provided by this application comes from its reliance on the JFugue API. The JFugue API provides a simple yet powerful set of classes for playing and saving MIDI files. The user interface that is built on top of this API is based on the NetBeans Platform."

April 09, 2008

OpenJDK approves MIPS port
The OpenJDK Porters Group has approved a new project to port OpenJDK to the MIPS architecture. This Linux-based port aims to keep up-to-date with the OpenJDK base, provide client and server compilers, and generalize the port to all MIPS variants, while focusing primarily on MIPS32 and MIPS64 (currently, MIPS64 is the only implemented variant).

April 08, 2008

NetBeans Plugin Portal functionality extended
NetBeans.org has announced that a new version of the Plugin Portal is now available. New features include a verification process for publishing plugins on Plugin Portal Update Center built in NetBeans IDE, comment notification via email, comment management, and more. Further information about the portal's new functionality is available in the full functional specification.

Does Cable "Get It"?
Over on OEDN, a site for developers using OpenCable/OCAP/Tru2way to develop interactive television applications, Will Kreth asks Does Cable "Get It"? "It's a question that needs to be asked. Because, beyond the dichotomy of "Professionally Created Content" vs. "User Generated Content" (sometimes referred to as "UGC") -- we're rapidly moving into the territory of "User CONFIGURED Content." Content that is arranged, assembled and edited as drag-and-drop, click-to-install elements that represent the entertainment/social dashboards of their lives. The "Widget Nation" is here, and combined with the move to time-shifted video viewing, a powerful dynamic is at play"

April 07, 2008

David Coldrick Interviews Sun JavaFX Developer Josh Marinacci
In a new video from NetBeans.tv, Sun Microsystems evangelist David Coldrick interviews Sun JavaFX developer Josh Marinacci during the Sun Tech Days in Sydney, Australia. They discuss JavaFX and the state of desktop Java, how improvements to client-side Java (like Java SE 6 update 10) will help JavaFX, his day-to-day work on JavaFX, the prospects of Java RIA versus Ajax, the JavaFX designer tool he's working on, and more. Josh has more details of his Sun Tech Days Australia presentations in his blog.

OpenJDK 6 b07 and b08 source released
Joe Darcy's blog has a catch-up announcement that the source for OpenJDK 6 b07 and b08 were released in late March. "The most notable fixes in b07 were resolving the last remaining JCK signature test failure (6636951), making window decorations appear (6586752), updating to the 1.1 version of the OpenJDK trademark notification, and enabling the out-of-the-box build to succeed without any binary plugs being present (6672710). If the plugs aren't used, neither the midi synthesizer nor SNMP will work at runtime."

April 04, 2008

Better Programming With Java EE: A Conversation With Java Champion Adam Bien
The latest in the SDN's series of interviews with Java Champions is Better Programming With Java EE: A Conversation With Java Champion Adam Bien. In it, the self-employed consultant / lecturer / software architect / developer / author talks about the perceptions and real challenges of Java EE, the utility of EE patterns, hazards of large IT projects, the power of GlassFish, favorite features in Java SE 6, the traits and habits of effective developers, and more.

OpenSSO Build 4
The Aquarium points out that the OpenSSO project has released build 4. New features include an new OpenSSO configurator, WS-Trust Security Token Service (STS) (based on Metro) is available on Glassfish, Sun Application Server, Sun Web Server, Geronimo, Tomcat and WebSphere. We're working on support in Oracle Application Server, JBoss and WebLogic Server, simplified STS client sample, configuration and/or user store replication across multiple OpenSSO instances where the embedded instance of OpenDS is in use, and various fixes. Check out the release notes or download the current stable build.

April 03, 2008

Adding Voice to Java EE With SIP Servlets
A recent EE Tech Tip, Adding Voice to Java EE With SIP Servlets, shows off how to use Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), a signaling protocol that is used to set up, modify, and terminate a session between two endpoints. SIP is used to set up a two-party call, a multi-party call, or even a multicast session for Internet calls, multimedia calls, and multimedia distribution. The Tech Tip covers some of the basic concepts underlying SIP and SIP servlets. It also presents a sample application that uses SIP servlets and HTTP servlets to provide VoIP phone service.

Java SE 6 Update 10 beta
The so-called "Consumer JRE" is now in beta. Java SE 6 Update 10 is "an update release that introduces new features and enhancements aimed at providing an optimized consumer-end user experience." Its key features include enhanced deployment (via the Java Deployment Toolkit, the Java Kernel online installer, and the Java auto-updater), improved look-and-feel, and a new implementation of the Java plug-in. You can get JDK6u10 beta from the Java SE Early Access Downloads page.

April 02, 2008

Marge 0.5 released
Lucas Torri has announced the release of version 0.5 of the Marge project., just in time for the project's first anniversary. Marge is a framework to simplify development of Bluetooth applications in Java ME or SE, abstracting away some of the more complex parts of JSR 82. Check the releases page to see the 0.5 changeset.

Reduced Footprint Java SE: Bringing Java Standard Edition Down to Size
Jim Connors shrinks the 88MB Linux JDK down to 31MB in Reduced Footprint Java SE: Bringing Java Standard Edition Down to Size. "A previous blog post demonstrated how you can, with minimal effort, lessen the disk footprint of a typical Java SE 5.0 runtime environment by about a third without violating the Java Standard Edition Licensing agreement. That post focused primarily on removing optional files and compressing class library jar files. It turns out that with a little more engineering, there is significant opportunity for further space optimization."

April 01, 2008

Will Closures Make Java Less Verbose?
Citing Steve Yegge's Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns, Bruce Eckel asks Will Closures Make Java Less Verbose? Summarizing and extending Steve's argument, Bruce writes "his point is that Java has gone so overboard into "everything is an object" that it prevents simple and clear expressions of ideas. His very clever translation of Ben Franklin's poem "For want of a nail" into Java makes the point better than anything. So here's my question: if closures allow you to be slightly more verby and slightly less nouny (in Yegge's frame of thought), will it allow programmers to create programs that are easier to read?"

GlassFish for Business blog
The GlassFish team announces: "we have started GlassFish For Business, a news blog that will cover Deployment and Business Needs around GlassFish and will report on Sun's offerings like our Enterprise Support, Training and Partner programs. [...] I have a small backlog of relevant pieces, so there will be some catching up over the next few days. So far I've posted some overview content including: Intro to the Blog, an Overview of Enterprise Support for GF from Sun, and Yael's Screencast on Online Interactions."

JDIC Plus project
Cited recently by Kirill Grouchnikov and JavaLobby, the JDIC Plus project "is a Java Win32-extension development kit, enabling developers to use extended Microsoft Windows API functionality. Mainly the project implements the semi-lightweight wrapper component around Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)." The project's four demos offer a web browser, Flash player, map explorer, and HTML editor.

March 31, 2008

JavaTools Community Newsletter - Issue 164
The latest JavaTools Community Newsletter, issue 164 is out, with tool-related news from around the web, a reminder to check out the java.net Community Corner pod schedule, news from projects, and a Tool Tip on presenting your project at JavaOne.

Mini-talk schedule extended
In response to the overwhelming interest scheduling mini-talks to be presented at the java.net Community Corner at JavaOne 2008, we've expanded our schedule by opening up new spots during Tuesday night's Pavilion Reception. We also cleared two more spots on the schedule by working with existing speakers, meaning that there are now five new spots open for new mini-talk proposals. Rembember to follow the instructions when submitting your mini-talks, as talks without proper abstracts or speaker bios will be deleted.

March 28, 2008

Book Excerpt and Review: OSWorkflow
InfoQ has posted a book excerpt and review of Diego Adrian Naya Lazo's OSWorkflow: A guide for Java developers and architects to integrating open-source Business Process Management. The OSWorkflow project, part of Open Symphony, is a flexible workflow system that can be plugged in to almost any need or existing application. The "review" is really an interview with the author, and the PDF excerpt is the entirety of Chapter 4, "Using OSWorkflow in your Application."

JSR 294 Module membership declarations
Covered earlier this month in Elliotte Rusty Harold's java.net article, the JSR 294 superpackages spec is apparently still in play. In Module membership declarations, Alex Buckley writes, "With my JSR 294 spec lead hat on, I recently proposed a change to the superpackage model which JSR 294 defines in the service of JSR 277's deployment modules. Early feedback has been positive, but where to declare module membership in source code is an ongoing issue."

Why do I have to create a "Merge" changeset when there was nothing to merge?
For those working with OpenJDK's Mercurial sources, Kelly O'Hair answers the question Why do I have to create a "Merge" changeset when there was nothing to merge? "For most of us old TeamWare users, and maybe other SCM users, the need for all the Mercurial "Merge" changesets (or as some people politely refer to as 'merge turds') seems confusing and messy. If the changes don't involve the same file, it can be hard to understand why you need a Merge changeset."

March 27, 2008

Rapidly Building Desktop Applications with the NetBeans Platform
In the on-demand webinar Rapidly Building Desktop Applications with the NetBeans Platform, Tim Boudreau, Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems, demonstrates how easy it is to get started with the platform. You'll learn to create applications and integrate existing code into a NetBeans Platform-based application with real-world code demos, understand the design principles of modular applications, and dscover how your software and development process can benefit from this powerful platform.

Interview: Chet Haase discusses Java FX, Update N and JDK 7
In a video interview from QCon San Francisco 2007, former Sun client architect Chet Haase discusses Java SE 6 Update N, the Java Kernel, Java FX, the shift in focus to consumer desktop features in Java 7, and redesigning of applet. The video, Chet Haase discusses Java FX, Update N and JDK 7, is about 22 minutes long.

March 26, 2008

JSF at Big Lots!
Ed Burns has posted a three-part video interview on TheServerSide, entitled JSF at Big Lots! Following a presentation at JBoss World 2008, Ed talked to Big Lots! developers Kunal Bajaj, Mark Hanes, Chris Henson and Keith Naas about their real-world use of JSF. "Big Lots! has had enormous success with Sun's JSF implementation, Mojarra, and other Java EE technologies in delivering inventory management and other store essential software on time and within budget. My number one take-away from the presentation was a feeling of satisfaction in seeing a line-item validation of many of the design decisions within JSF. As you can see in the presentation, some of the JSF features leveraged by Big Lots! included, custom components, leveraging the JSF lifecycle, separation of rendering from components, custom converters and validators, [and] client device independence."

Fast Directory Deployment in GlassFish
Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart writes on The Aquarium about Fast Directory Deployment in GlassFish: "The Servlet specification describes how to deploy a Web Application as a WAR file but most AppServers, GlassFish included, support deployment from an (expanded) directory. Directory deployment allows fast and easy detection of file changes and thus can lead to an improved deployment experience. Which is what Vance has been doing for NetBeans 6.1 and GlassFish v2.1 combination. Check out the description of the new functionality, first through Debug Tracing and then via Some Commentary."

From the Trenches at Sun Identity
In a pair of interviews, "From the Trenches at Sun Identity," Marina Sum covers identity management projects for the Java developer. In the first part, Access Management for Web Applications, Jamie Nelson, Sun's director of engineering for access and federation management, points out a major oversight in Web development, elaborates on the current state of single sign-on, and suggests the right tool and the right platform for securing application access. Part two covers OpenSSO, a Thriving Community, with Sun federation architect Pat Patterson reflects on the java.net open-source project for single sign-on, outlining its mission, adoption, challenges, future, and an unexpected boon to Sun. OpenSSO is a twin of Sun Java System Access Manager.

March 25, 2008

Integrating Space-Based Architecture with J2EE
JavaSpaces has been around for awhile, but it continues to gain interest as clustering of all kinds gains traction, and as the industry as a whole begins to discuss and implement more advanced forms of distributed computing. JavaSpaces and its close sibling Jini are the topic of Integrating Space-Based Architecture with J2EE, a recent podcast discussion with Joe Ottinger on TheServerSide.

Rails Powered by the GlassFish Application Server
Arun Gupta and Rick Palkovic have published a new SDN article, Rails Powered by the GlassFish Application Server. "This article introduces JRuby, JRuby on Rails, and the GlassFish application server. It presents a traditional Ruby-on-Rails application deployment, describes an alternative using the GlassFish application server, and explains the various options for deploying JRuby applications on GlassFish."

GAP (GlassFish Awards Program) News and Questions
Hoping to keep community members from "leaving money on the table," Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart has posted some GAP (GlassFish Awards Program) News and Questions. "The GlassFish Awards Program (GAP) is intended to encourage and reward innovation in the GlassFish Community. The program's rules are quite loose and many types of projects will qualify. There are US$ 175K available, for both projects and bug submissions; check previous posts for additional commentary."

March 24, 2008

JavaTools Community Newsletter - Issue 163
The latest edition, issue 163, of the JavaTools Community Newsletter is out, with tool-related news from around the web, a graduation (search-tools), and a Tool Tip about a new version of the NetBeans Newsletter in Portugese.

jMaki 1.1 developer release available
The jMaki project has posted a 1.1 developer release for download. New features include performance and security improvements, the initial release of jMaki Webtop, updating to work with the Yahoo UI 2.5 toolkit, support for Dojo Dijit 1.0.2 widgets, improved documentation, new widgets (breadcrumb, tag cloud, carousel), and more. More details are available in the release notes and Carla Mott's blog.

March 21, 2008

Register now for NetBeans Day at CommunityOne
On Monday, May 5 (the day before the 2008 JavaOne Conference), the NetBeans Team hosts the free NetBeans Day at CommunityOne . Hear and see what's new in the NetBeans IDE (Ruby, PHP, Visual Mobile Designer, Swing, Beans Binding, etc.); have lunch with the Java Posse; meet with NetBeans experts and fellow NetBeans developers; and grab some NetBeans swag. Seats are limited, so register now if you plan to attend.

SailFin: When Java EE Met SIP
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) technology is behind many of today's popular services, such as VoIP, instant messaging, and web conferencing. Underpinning SIP is the SIP Servlet, initially defined in JSR-116 and, since then, updated in JSR-289. The latter defines a standard application programming model to mix SIP Servlets and Java EE components. The open source project SailFin adds a SIP Servlet technology extension to the GlassFish Application Server. In SailFin: When Java EE Met SIP, JavaLobby's Geertjan Wielenga interview the main developers involved in this project, Binod PG and Vince Kraemer.

March 20, 2008

Three NetBeans Evangelists Discuss NetBeans 6.1 Beta
Following the recent release of NetBeans 3.1 Beta, three NetBeans evangelists talked about the most important new features in the latest version of NetBeans in an interview with Artima. They discuss JavaScript and Ruby support in the new version, the possibility of supporting Python/Jython, how they decide which languages to support, NetBeans' new Spring-related features, and other 6.1 improvements.

M3G: Bringing 3D Graphics to Mobile Java
Mobile game developers looking to break out of the limitations of 2D can do so thanks to JSR-184, the Mobile 3D Graphics API for Java. According to the ACM Queue article M3G: Bringing 3D Graphics to Mobile Java, "M3G version 2.0 will provide programmable shaders and other OpenGL ES 2.0 features for high-end devices, as well as enhanced traditional rendering for the mass market."

March 19, 2008

OpenDS Roadmap
The Aquarium notes the posting of an OpenDS roadmap. "OpenDS, the project to produce a 100% Java-based LDAP directory now has a proposed roadmap for version 1.0 and beyond. Apart from monitoring through SNMP, all features are already in the current release (v1.0 Milestone 1 from Feb. 27, 2008). Final release for v1.0 is scheduled for May 2008. Ludo Poitou has more details." The post also indicates that, "in other OpenDS news, Tomonori Shioda has posted the Japanese translation of no less than four OpenDS technical posts."

Two new NetBeans Vodcasts
Two new NetBeans Vodcasts have been posted to the Java home page at java.sun.com. The first, from Sun Tech Days in Atlanta, features Robert Eckstein interviewing NetBeans evangelist Gregg Sporar to hear about the latest features in the new NetBeans IDE 6.0 release. The second features Robert showing off how NetBeans runs on the tiny $299 Asus EEE PC.

First non-Sun participant voted into OpenJDK Membership
Mark Reinhold announces a milestone for OpenJDK: First non-Sun participant voted into OpenJDK Membership. "Yesterday Jonathan Gibbons, in his role as Moderator of the Compiler Group, announced that Neal Gafter has been voted in as a Member of that Group. [...] Neal is not the first non-Sun Member of the OpenJDK Community -- several now-former Sun employees beat him to it -- but he is the first person from outside of Sun to be voted in to Membership."

March 18, 2008

Data Reaper project
So what's the new Data Reaper project about? Its owners explain, "we were working on the development project and to get data from one of our client's website with fine grained format to display on our application. The other team does not want to provide us the grained format to serve same information. We searched few websites (java.net, sourforge.net, etc) for similar project, parser, or code to re-use on our project and unfortunately, we did not find any parser or code. Therefore, we planned to start code under public license and others can use our code and update with new enhancements."

SIP Communicator in Google Summer of Code 2008
The SIP Communicator project has been accepted as a mentoring organization for the 2008 edition of Google Summer of Code. If you're a student and you want to write open source this summer (and get a stipend to do so) pick up one of the SIP Communicator summer of code projects. The deadline for joining is March 31.

Finalists Announced for OpenJDK Community Innovator's Challenge
Sun Microsystems, Inc., is sponsoring the OpenJDK Community Innovators' Challenge, a contest with up to $175,000 in awards, intended to encourage and reward developers working together in solving key problems, initiating new innovative projects that promote new uses for the code, developing curricula and training, and porting the OpenJDK code base to new platforms. Finalists, announced March 17, are Closures for Java (Neal Gafter), Implement XRender pipeline for Java2D (Clemens Eisserer), Provide date and time library from JSR-310 (Stephen Colebourne and Michael Nascimento Santos), Portable GUI backends (Roman Kennke and Mario Torre), Virtual Machine Interface (Andrew John Hughes), Free Software synthesizer implemention for the OpenJDK project (Karl Helgason), and OpenJDK on Windows (Ted Neward). The finalists have until 4 August 2008 to implement their proposals, with all work done using transparent development methods and under the auspices of the OpenJDK Community.

March 17, 2008

JavaTools Community Newsletter - Issue 162
The latest edition, issue 162 of the JavaTools Community Newsletter is out, with tool-related news from around the web, a call to sign up mini-talks in the java.net JavaOne Community Corner, new projects in the community, a graduation (CodeSimian), and a Tool Tip on handling users' issues for your project by using Kohsuke Kawaguchi's "issue police" daemon.

Spontaneousware project
The Spontaneousware project is an abstract framework platform targeted to develop middleware systems for mobile computing and mobile ad-hoc networks. Its architecture is designed to be a platform-independent and it can be implemented to any appropriate device and object-oriented language - for example, is possible to have an interoperable implementation for Java, Symbian or Windows Mobile. The project objective is to construct the first implementation of Spontaneousware aiming a middleware system for Java ME platform and Bluetooth network using JSR-82 API.

Closures: Control Abstraction, Method References, Puzzler Solution
Neal Gafter has posted an update to the BGGA closures proposal in the blog entry, Closures: Control Abstraction, Method References, Puzzler Solution. "The Java Closures prototype now supports control abstraction and implements restricted closures and function types. The syntax has changed slightly. Also, as hinted in the draft JSR proposal, there is now support for eta abstraction, which is called method reference in Stephen Colebourne's FCM proposal. We haven't updated the specification, so this will serve as a brief tutorial on the changes until we do. I don't know if this will be the syntax we will end up with, but it will do for now. Finally, we look at solutions to the closure puzzler in my previous post."

March 14, 2008

Hudson Dashboard for GlassFish Builds
In a recent post to The Aquarium, Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart describes a Hudson Dashboard for GlassFish Builds. "The basic arrangement for the GlassFish AppServer is: sources are external (to Sun), we use Hudson on internal machines to build and run all our tests, then push out the builds out for everybody to use. This arrangement works well for everybody except that it is hard to track the build status from outside of Sun, but that has now been fixed thanks to a new Build Publisher plugin contributed by a group at JBoss. Check out the build dashboard and Kohsuke's Announcement. The plugin was discussed a few days ago in a Separate Post, and I clarified that it would qualify for the GlassFish Awards Program; I think it is a very useful plugin."

RESTful Access to JMX Instrumentation
Jean-Francois Denise has posted an OpenDMK add-on to provide RESTful Access to JMX Instrumentation. "Having simple HTTP-based access to a Java Management Extensions (JMXTM) MBean is an idea that I like a lot and one for which I think that there are thousands of real use cases. For example, when developping a Web application, integrating a piece of information obtained from JMX instrumentation, such as the status of a service, should be as simple as loading an HTML page." His blog contains details of how far this experiment has gotten, and how to run the prototype.

March 13, 2008

Five new graduations from all over the world
Five different countries from three continents are represented in the latest batch of JUG project graduations. The worldwide JUGs Community is very close to reaching 400 JUGs thanks to the help of the Java User Group do Instituto de Computacao (JugIC - Brazil), Illawarra JUG (Australia), Sweden JUG (SEJUG - Sweden), Comunidad Java de Chile (Chile) and the Politechnic of Wroclaw JUG (PWr JUG - Poland).

New Features in EJB 3.1, Part 2
Over on TheServerSide, Reza Rahman has published the second article in a series on New Features in EJB 3.1. "In the first article of this series, I covered two of the earliest discussed features -- optional interfaces for Session beans and Singleton beans. I also provided an overview of the rest of the features being discussed. In this second article, I'll cover two more features that have been discussed in detail -- EJB Timer Service enhancements and simplified packaging."

March 12, 2008

Using voice commands to build software
1-800-HUDSON? In his Amazon blog entry, Jott to Build - use voice commands to build software, Paul M. Duvall describes an admittedly "gimmicky" technique to build his project via a voice command and a continuous integration server such as Hudson. "I dial an 800 number provided by Jott from my cell phone. When prompted, I say "Build Stage" and hang up. Jott sends my transcribed voice to my email account. On a scheduled basis, an Ant script parses my email searching for keywords. It finds "Build Stage", so it runs an Ant target to execute a remote deployment in the Stage environment."

Portlet 2.0 is now a Final Specification
The Aquarium reports that Portlet 2.0 is now a Final Specification. "The Portlet 2.0 specification (aka. JSR 286) is now final (see vote). The Proposed Final Draft is now available and should be very close to the Final Final Spec. Sun has support for it in the NetBeans Portal Pack (Blog Entry, Article, download), and will be in Portal Server 7.2, both based on the Open Source Portal-Container project. All these are supported on GlassFish. And Liferay has also announced it will support Portlet 2.0 in Liferay 5.0 (Support Case)... and Liferay is also Supported on GlassFish."

NetBeans Wins Jolt Awards
For the second year in a row, the NetBeans IDE took home the "Best Development Environment" win at the 18th Annual Jolt Product Excellence Awards. The IDE was also a "Productivity Award" winner in two categories: Web Development and Mobility Development (with Sun Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5.2). The Jolt awards celebrate the most innovative, trend-making, ahead-of-the-curve products in the software industry.

March 11, 2008

Patterns for Java EE 5 Project
Over on The Aquarium, Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart reports on the Patterns for Java EE 5 project. "Adam has been making progress on his Patterns for JavaEE 5 project where he will open source all the projects in his Java EE 5 Architekturen book (in German, sorry!). Adam is also using the P4J5 project for additional examples/samples. For example, his recent experiment measuring the (Lack of) Performance Penalty Using EJB3 uses EJB3LoadTest and PojoLoadTest. Also see Adam's State of the P4J5 Project writeup."

JSR 318 (EJB 3.1) in Early Draft Review
JSR 318, Enterprise JavaBeans 3.1, is in Early Draft Review. The goal of the new version " is to further simplify the EJB architecture by reducing its complexity from the developer's point of view, while also adding new functionality in response to the needs of the community. The focus will be on the core session bean and message-driven bean component models and their client API." The review ends on March 30.

VisualVM Beta 1 released
The VisualVM project has announced the release of its first beta of the visual JDK tool. As summarized by Luis-Miguel Alventosa's blog, major features of the beta include support for explicit JMX connections, new options panel settings (MBeans tab plotter polling period, JConsole plugin path, and JConsole tabs refresh period), Java core classes excluded by default in the profiler, application snapshots, and a GlassFish plugin available for download on VisualVM Plugin Center.

March 10, 2008

JavaTools Community Newsletter - Issue 161
The latest edition, issue 161, of the JavaTools Community Newsletter talks about how to publicize your project via the newsletter, rounds up tool-related news from around the web, announces a new project in the community and a new release from the Genesis project, and offers a Tool Tip with a good reference for JavaScript development.

Sun to Bring Java to iPhone
"Sun Microsystems is developing a Java Virtual Machine for Apple's iPhone and plans to release the JVM some time after June, enabling Java applications to run on the popular mobile device," according an InfoWorld article. "The JVM is to be based on the Java Micro Edition (ME) version of Java, said Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing at Sun, on Friday afternoon. Apple had not shown interest in enabling Java to run on the iPhone, but Sun plans to step in and do the job itself after having pondered Thursday's release of an SDK for the iPhone by Apple."

BTrace - a dynamic tracing tool for Java
A. Sundararajan's weblog introduces BTrace - a dynamic tracing tool for Java. "Are you interested in a byte code instrumentation (BCI) based dynamic tracing solution for the Java platform? If so, please visit https://btrace.dev.java.net. BTrace is a safe, dynamic tracing solution for Java. You can express tracing code in Java and run it against a running Java application. Your Java application should be running on JDK 6 or above for BTrace to work. "

March 07, 2008

Brian Goetz on Java 7's ParallelArray class
Brian Goetz has posted the latest installment of a series on currency, Stick a Fork in it, Part 2, introducing an important new Java 7 class. "One of the additions to the java.util.concurrent packages coming in Java 7 is a library for fork-join-style parallel decomposition. In part one of this series, author Brian Goetz showed how fork-join provides a natural mechanism for decomposing many algorithms to effectively exploit hardware parallelism. In this article, he'll cover the ParallelArray classes, which simplify parallel sorting and searching operations on in-memory data structures."

An Update on Java ME JSRs
Coming off appearances at Mobile & Embedded Developer Days and other mobility-oriented conferences, JDJ's "JSR Watch" columnist Patrick Curran focuses on the state of ME and its relevant JSRs in JSR Watch: Java Mobile and Embedded Spotlight. "A total of 77 Java ME JSRs have made some progress through the JCP since its inception and 42 have been completed. Twenty Java ME JSRs were active in 2007 (getting started, publishing drafts, going to ballot, or making final or maintenance releases). A quick review of the active JSRs gives a clear picture of the breadth of technologies covered in the ME space: speech APIs (JSR 113), data synchronization (JSR 230), user interface customization (JSR 258), broadcast services (JSR 272), vector graphics (JSR 287), automotive telematics (JSR 298), event tracking (JSR 190), digital TV (JSR 242), and XML (JSR 280)."

NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta Now Available
NetBeans.org is proud to announce the availability of NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta for download. Highlights of this release include: Rich Javascript editting features, improved performance, especially faster startup (up to 40%), support for Spring web framework, new MySQL Support in Database Explorer, and more The final NetBeans IDE 6.1 release is planned for Spring 2008.

March 06, 2008

NetBeans IDE & MySQL screencast with Roman Strobl
MySQL, the popular open-source database, is now part of Sun's software portfolio. In a new screencast from NetBeans technology evangelist Roman Strobl, get a quick start to developing database driven applications with the NetBeans IDE using the MySQL database server. The demo goes through the steps of connecting to a database from NetBeans, using the MySQL editor to create tables, and exposing the tables in a desktop application and the data as web services.

Java 3D Open Sourced
The Java 3D team has announced the open source release of the j3d-core and vecmath subprojects on java.net under the GPLv2 license with the CLASSPATH exception. This applies to all source code in the javax.media.j3d and javax.vecmath packages. You may notice that the web page and various README files now refer to the "3D Graphics API for the Java Platform" in many places. This is the official name for the open source version of the Java 3D API. Other than the name, there are no differences (and, in fact, we will build the binary version of Java 3D 1.5.2 from the same sources).

March 05, 2008

NetBeans Innovators Grants submission deadline
The submission period for the NetBeans Innovators Grants, part of Sun's Community Innovation Awards Program, ends on Friday, March 7. "The NetBeans Innovators Grant is a process to provide grants to developers or teams of developers to work on an open source project. A total of 10 large projects will be chosen and awarded a grant of US$ 11,500 dollars. Another 10 smaller projects will be chosen and awarded a grant of US$ 2,000 dollars."

Kelly O'Hair: My First OpenJDK7 Mercurial Push
Kelly O'Hair is reporting about the near-future of OpenJDK releases in his blog My First OpenJDK7 Mercurial Push. Describing his upload to the JDK 7 build area forest, he writes, "This is just one of the many team areas for the JDK7 project, as the build team changes accumulate, at some point we will decide (as a team) to do some more detailed build&test runs and when we are satisfied all is well, we will reserve a time to integrate all these build changes to the master area Mercurial forest at http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk7/jdk7."

Interview: Joe Walker about DWR 3.0
The remarkable Ajax project Direct Web Remoting gets the spotlight in the InfoQ interview Interview: Joe Walker about DWR 3.0. "InfoQ had the opportunity to talk with the DWR (Direct Web Remoting) project lead Joe Walker. He discussed the upcoming release of DWR 3.0 including major features, helpful features and fixes for developers, a time line and a look at the future of DWR."

March 04, 2008

A JBoss to GlassFish Migration
Erik Brakkee has posted a blog detailing his experiences with a Move from JBoss to Glassfish. "This migration has caused me a few problems though. I started with the most difficult application where I did a lot of work on security with JBoss. This was an application where I integrated J2EE