WSO2 PHP’s WSF Library (or whatever the damn it is called…) and Turmeric SOA
The title of this post is verbose enough about the feelings I have regarding the naming of this library. It's as if WSO2 took a page from Microsoft's book regarding names. What's next? A Home Edition? Maybe throw in Professional, Business and Ultimate versions too for good measure.
Don't take me wrong, I have no special feelings towards names themselves, it's just how difficult it makes to search for people working on the same things and facing the same problems. What do I Google for? WSO2? WSF? PHP? Any combination of these? It's only made worse by these guys developing frameworks in several platforms, which means I end up finding completely unrelated results from a different implementation, in a different technology.
But, naming rants aside, I thought it would be a good idea to share my experience with getting this library up and running on PHP. I came across this library when converting Apache Stonehenge's web application to use Turmeric's instances of Stonehenge's web services, and it gave me quite some headaches. For this reason, and so that other people in the future don't have to go through the same painful experiences, I decided to write this blog post. Keep reading if I got your attention...
On Turmeric SOA, open-source and the Apache Software Foundation
It's been a while since I posted something on this blog, partly due to my laziness, but also due to a chronic lack of time and patience to come home after an intellectually intense day of work and still have the peace of mind to gather my thoughts and put them in words. Today was, luckily, one of those days. Not because it was a particularly easy day at work (reengineering someone else's code with little to non-existing documentation is never an easy job) but perhaps the intense gym session loosed my brains just enough for organized and coherent thought to just happen. In any case, I digress.
This post has three main themes. I will be talking about a platform for SOA applications called Turmeric (funny name, I know. I'm using for SOA the same I use in my lentil soup), open-source in general and finally, the Apache Software Foundation and some recent events I've been involved in.
Adobe Starts Including Spyware With Acrobat Reader
We all know the folks at Adobe are some really nice people and that Steve Jobs was just being a bastard by not allowing Flash on the iPhone. But as it turns out, whilst Apple is too restrictive as to what it allows on their AppStore and their iDevices, Adobe on the other hand is too permissive and they might have just crossed a line.
Free Storage With Dropbox (Free Online Backups)
If you need a way to store your files in a manner that they are always accessible everywhere, then Dropbox is for you. In case you haven't yet heard about this service, then know that Dropbox offers you 2Gb for free to store whichever files you like. The guys at Dropbox also have a software that integrates nicely with Windows and Mac OS and you can even access the files from your iPhone or Android powered phone.
You might think that 2Gb are rather meager and you are right, that's nothing these days. This is why Dropbox has an awesome referral program that will allow you to go up to 10Gb just by referring friends! That's right, 10Gb for free just by referring Dropbox to a few friends.
Read on to find out more!
T-Mobile Sidekick in Danger
Well, truth to be told this had to happen at some point. According to the good folks at Engadget, T-Mobile has most probably lost the data of their customers' Sidekick phones. The T-Mobile Sidekick is a device that relies heavily on cloud-computing and simple things such as looking up contacts or reading old text messages are done through servers in the cloud (that is to say, in the Internet). So if these servers fail for some reason, or more extremely (like it happened) lose all the data they contain, then the end user is pretty much screwed.
I hope for the sake of the costumers that the data isn't just lost; I would have also hoped that T-Mobile had off-site, offline backups of all this stuff but that clearly does not seem to be the case. It is also up to our imagination whom to blame for this. Of course that for all the people affected by this problem, T-Mobile will be the one to blame, but whose fault was it in the end? Is it a bug in the servers? Will it happen again? Has it been patched?
Doesn't really matter now but here's the morale of the story: ALWAYS keep backups of your data.
Google Chrome OS – First Screenshots! [UPDATE]
Here they are! The (supposed) first screenshots of what is to become Google's Operating System. The credibility and plausibility of those screenshots is actually flaky, but it's the best we have at the moment. Whether they are photoshopped or the real thing, time will tell.
The blog the images were taken from: here.
[via Engadget]
Update: The blog is a lie! Like I suspected, the leaked screenshots are actually fake. It didn't look so bad though!
The end of the Ubuntu vs. Windows war!
YAY!
Christopher Dawnson over at ZDNet has announced the end of the Ubuntu vs. Windows war, the world is safe again!
Till the next time!
WAIT! Hold it!
What the heck?! Wasn't ZDNet supposed to be a reliable source of information regarding technology? So what are these shenanigans about his 17 year old saying that they're the same? I'll tell you what it is: it is the most bold statement I've heard all year, and also the most idiotic one. So just because a 17 year old says that they're the same, 6 billion people will just agree and this fact will just be set in stone? Bullshit.
Windows and Linux are different; it's about time people realize that. I absolutely need both so is this proof enough that they are ultimately different?
Christopher says: "Their underlying architectures are quite a bit different, Gnome looks different than the 7 UI, etc.". The underlying architectures are quite a bit different, Gnome looks different than 7 does, but apart from that, which by the way is everything that effing matters in an Operating System, they're pretty much the same.
I have a Hyundai Getz, my neighbour has a Ferrari, but apart from the engine and the chassis they're pretty much the same. They both have wheels! A whole set of four! So they must be the same...
Come on guys... get serious.
iPhone 3.0 Jailbreak and ultrasn0w? It is out!
It might be old news for some, but I am sure that not everyone is aware of this yet.
The good folks at the iPhone Dev Team did it again and after some days that just seemed too long, they released the new tool called redsn0w. This tool is meant to jailbreak the iPhone 3G only, and only with the firmware 3.0 - jailbreak for the 3GS still hasn't been released but since the flaw seems to exist in the 3G, it should only be a matter of days (and of the Dev Team getting their hands on a 3GS - feel free to chip in) until the jailbreak is released.
The process is pretty simple, just update to 3.0 normally through iTunes and when that's done, search for the correct IPSW in the following folder (if you're using Vista or 7):
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates
(For XP, search around the Application Data folders under Documents and Settings)
When you have this file, just feed it to redsn0w and follow the steps. In under 5 minutes you should be running a jailbroken 3.0.
After this is done, if you also want to operator-unlock your phone, you'll need ultrasn0w. This is the replacement for the long-lived yellowsn0w. In case you weren't aware of this fact, the new baseband has a hole again, which allows for it to be hacked. This way, we can all use different operator SIM cards without a problem.
To install ultrasn0w, you simply need to add the repo http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com and then search and install the application ultrasn0w on Cydia. Reboot your phone, and you're done. It really is THAT easy!
So what are you waiting for? Go for it!
The Mozilla Mystery
Howdy readers,
Today I bring you one of the long time mysteries for me. Why in heavens does Mozilla insist on making different menus for Firefox and Thunderbird depending on whether you're using it on Linux or Windows? Seriously, I just can't figure out the reason for this... the Options menu sits in the Tools toolbar in Windows, whereas in the Linux version, it goes under Edit. But WHY?!
'Till the next time!