Download all java older releases

Ok, i know that at least once in the life java programmer has to download jdk 1.3.0_u03 to reproduce the old, freaky and disturbing issue on the legacy system.

Because we need to support this system.

Searching for such a download main be a pain in the butt, unless we know the magic url - http://java.sun.com/products/archive/

Yes, I know that's no more Sun, but it anyway allows you to download specific versions of JDK, JRE and other stuff! Which is really useful for real-life experience.

Show effect - collecting ideas!

Hello, my dear fellows.

Show effect - as is
I have recently thought of the 'Show effect'. You know it - when you are presenting your application, or the new iteration to the customer (or anyone external) - you frequently run into situation when the small action results in a large stack trace spanned for the screen?

Imagine the demo to your customer. You:

• show nice things - feature A is implemented
  
• show great things - feature B which is very important for the business - is implemented! (applause on the background)
  
• show awesome things - the designs ARE there, even if they were provided 2 days ago!
  
• and then you are about to show little bit of functionality (notifying user about their registration), which is not that important (and thus not that verified) - you get an awful error statring with text Unhandled exception java.lang.NullPointerException

Then all your show becomes a bit compromised.

Minimize your risks with smaller efforts
So, I kept thinking on this for a while - how does one minimize these 'show' risks?
I have been feeling this myself - we had a demo each week for 5-6 weeks with a customer, and we had to demonstrate the progress.
It is pretty hard to show significant feature progress within a week, isn't it? And we were on really tight schedule.
So, these are several things I figured out - sure that I'm not the first who found them, but better would be if you the readers would get them from other's experience than from own:

1. Time and connection. Be sure that you don't make everyone wait too much and also that everyone is setup for the show. In the distributed teams it is common that dev team is located in different country, so that the technical solutions for presentations are being used (screensharing services and the voice calls usually)
   Make sure everyone knows where to get and how to setup the screensharing before you start the show. Provide your help if needed.
   
2. Always have a plan of presentation. Even if the things are simple, you need to have written plan before you so you don't waste time thinking on 'what should I click next?'. You should be presenting your work in such a way so your listeners feel that you are completely confident with what you are doing.
   Surely, there is always a place for unforseen changes - your customer may ask you to perform some action which does not fit to your plan. Be calm and confident :)
3. Rehearse the demo, at least 2 times, following the written steps you've done in item 2 of this list.
   
4. Try not to show too much - if some features are half-implemented you'd rather not show them than make the whole appearance of the project half-complete.
   
5. Make sure no one could compromise your demo without knowing it. Good point here is that you ask no one to touch demo server during the show - by any means. 2 demo users logged in with the same accounts from different machines can lead to catastrophic results.
   
6. Don't forget about the user experience. If you are showing something to non-technical people (or even technical people but not of your organization) make sure that you have the unexpected exception page configured correctly - so that even if everything fails, user is still presented with the comfortable page with correct and unambigous steps of what to do next. Making custom pages for HTTP 500, 404 etc is also a nice thing.
   Another point here is that if the custom error page is not breaking the overall design feeling. With this little trick subject of your demo would feel much more like a complete application (if it even is a prototype).
7. Put mocked things in. If you have designed sketches with very nice flash application you don't have yet (and your customer knows you don't) - put them as static pictures. And then as soon as the new feature is completed, replace that static pictures with the functioning parts.
   
8. Don't forget to say thanks once the demo is over - the people involved had to put off their ongoing work and tasks (which may be also important) to take participation in your show.
9. ...

The question is still open
It would be great if you could share some of your great experience - cases, practices, ideas - about the show effect.
Thank you! And comment on, I'll add the wise thoughts to the list :)

Google Alerts: watch the web growing

Google has very cool service, which is now that widely used as mail, or docs...
It is Google alerts. Basically, idea is very simple - you just get to their website and enter keywords you want to get notified about.

Once Google bot indexes page, which may be relevant to the search query you've provided - you get an e-mail message about that. Some kind of 'Google bot news' :)

You can tune the service to send you updates on each encounter of relevant page, or pack these pages to daily/weekly digest.

This things becomes very useful, when you watch some activity on the web - for example, your partner's website.

Google Alerts is an example of minimalistic interfaces (as for me), and that's why it has this tag granted :).

Different TRAC workflow for individual ticket types

TRAC is a tracking software, used to store and work with different issues during software development process - let it be bugs, development tasks, requirements, or feature requests.
It is free, flexible, has good SVN integration (as for me), and is quite minimalistic in its design.

And - yes it heavily uses wiki markup everywhere, making all linkable to all.
But - if you want to setup custom workflow, and you want it to be different for different ticket types, you'll hit a wall. This is currently not implemented in trac workflow.

The good news are that TRAC is python-based, and thus its sources can be changed easily.

Different workflows for different ticket types in TRAC (TRAC ticket link:) ) describes how one can solve the problem, with minor application of patch command. Have not tried it yet, but will report soon...

Example of the job done with GWT

Just found out site I've been developing some time ago.
It's done with pure gwt, when I was completing it, it seemed to me veery cool.

For english-speaking guys: sorry for cyrillic :)

So, here's link: Металлопластиковые окна в Херсоне: ТМ Основа

It is very easy. It incorporates usage of the GWT history support (try clicking back button) , and it has some heavy-duty stuff done with GWT and modified Canvas widget from GWT widget library.

To see it, you can go to Посчитай!->Выбрать тип конструкции.

The wireframe pictures of the window shapes are drawn here, on the client! For Opera/Safari/Mozilla element is used, and for the IE6/7 - VML. Looks good, isn't it?

Google Docs

This is not an advertisement.
It's just a short story of how today's services can be used in order to perform some daily tasks for free.

So, here's an example.
We have:

• Document in M$ Word format, created elsewhere
• Laptop with Linux installed on it
• OpenOffice on linux which does not open correctly the M$ Word document (styles are shifted and paragraphs are misplaced with text
• Need to port this document to PDF in order to e-mail as CV.

Instead of installing Word application on the virtualized XP, we can do much simpler thing:

• Just forward an e-mail with document attached to the specific email address which is found in the Google Docs setup page, on Upload tab.
• Log into Google Docs.
• Open the document (it is already imported - Google has imported all the attachments as separate pages.)
• And from menu select Save-As PDF File
• That's all - you can now dl it!

So, economy is completely understood. How much does Microsoft Word license cost?

MInimalizm

First of all, sorry for showing plain thoughts, without specific technical background.
I have found, that I like minimal things. I like:

1. Ipod shuffle 2nd generation - it does not have screen. It has only the blinking led. It has only one hole through which it gets charged, filled with data and into which your favourite headphones fit flawlessly.
2. TRAC. Yes, this is an abbreviation. http://trac.edgewall.org/ This is a tracking software (for bugs, change requests, some planning, for vivd documentation and for having all this stuff interlinked well. THis really works hard.
3. Awesome window manager. http://awesome.naquadah.org/ THis drives me crazy. Perfect thing for professional works with computer. It is tiling window manager, it does not have nor window headers neither borders, windows don't get overlapped normally, all is powered with keyboard. Result: you don't spend time on working with windows - dragging, resizing, etc.. You just spend time on working.

I hope to explain more of this stuff in the future posts, but tendency is prominent.
Things take your time. You need some things. So, you need things which take minimal amount of your time - MINIMAL ones.

Time, endless short time

KISS.
We have all heard of this principle, we try to use whenever we can.
There are tons of books about programming that use this principle - XP KISS system design, KISS code, which is easy-readable.

I have spent about 3 hours fighting with Ubuntu sound systems. I have discovered that there are several different sound servers/systems/modules that do use sound devices on different level of abstraction and HAVE NO COMMON INTERFACES.

Know what? My sound disappeared: I could not call with skype, I could not listen to music; no sound at all. I tried to revert to the original configuration, back and force - no sound at all.

And know what the problem was? My pcm device was muted in the mixer. I spent few minutes checking and fixing that. And three hours finding out what the hell is going on.

So, KISS.