WebDAV project to publish/subscribe iCal data
After many moons of thinking, "boy it would be great if my wife and I could subscribe to each others iCal Calendar", I finally got off my butt and figured out what I needed to do. Wasn't quite as complex as I thought it would be. Actually, it was a blank(meaning no jsp's or java code) web app with a settings in the web.xml file. Im using JBoss's auth module org.jboss.security.auth.spi.UsersRolesLoginModule. This works out best since I only have two users.
On thing that wasn't clear to me was how to set it up where we could each publish our work calendar's as Work.ics. I ended up creating a subdirectory for each of us in the root of the webapp stored files there. Not sure if this was the best option or not, but it suits our needs just fine.
Hibernate Presentation
I put on a Hibernate Presentation today for fellow coworkers. I have a goal to analyze and prototype 3 persistence frameworks by the end of the year. Hibernate was the first. Although Id say Im still in the infancy stages of mastering this technology, its quite easy to work with and I enjoy it more than any other framework I've used in the past. Id love to hear comments on the presentation if anyone has the time.
If you are interested in the sample code, its here
I made the switch
.... to Intellij Idea 4.0 that is. After using Eclipse for almost 2 years at home and WSAD for the past year at work, I've moved on to greener pastures. I had heard many good things about JetBrains product but had never really tried it out since I was rather happy with Eclipse at the time. One thing that I always try to do is use different tools and technologies at home from what I was using work.
Once my 30 day trial ran out, I contacted Jetbrains pleading that I loved their tool but couldn't justify spending $500 since I would only be using it at home. I inquired about their personal edition since it was half price($249), but to be honest I still had a hard time rationalizing that much for a tool to use just for fun. Eventually, I emailed there customer service about the dilemma and they suggested that if I had taken any courses recently, that I should buy the educational version. I have not taken any course's so I assumed this was a moot point. Just before sending the email though, I mentioned the NoFluffJustStuff symposium that I attended. Even though it was not the typical academic setting, I did learn a thing or two. Jetbrains ended up sending me an overstuffed URL that allowed me to purchase their product for the educational price $99. I was floored even though I thought this was reasonable. To make a long story short, I’m the proud owner of an educational discounted IntelliJ Idea license :)
Upgraded to Pebble 1.4.1
First, Id like to say thanks Simon for the addition of using a JNDI mail source. Since my mail server requires pop3 authentication, I was unable to use the email updates feature from previous versions. Like a good user, I opened a jira ticket just after the 1.4 release asking for smtp auth support. Simon responded with jndi support, which is even more flexible.
Now the steps to set this up using JBoss 3.2.3.
1) In the deploy dir, edit the mail-service.xml file with your mail server specific info. i.e. hostname, user, pass, etc. Leave the jndi name as it is java:/Mail
2) Edit the default web.xml that comes with pebble 1.4.1. Change <res-ref-name>mail/Session</res-ref-name> to <res-ref-name>Mail</res-ref-name> so it uses JBoss's default mail service. I chose to do this since I have other apps using this same mail service. You could add an additional one to if you wish. Just remember that when you upgrade to the next version of pebble, you changed the shipped web.xml.
3) Add the jboss specific jboss-web.xml descriptor in the WEB-INF dir. It should contain the following resource entry
<resource-ref>
<res-ref-name>Mail</res-ref-name>
<res-type>javax.mail.Session</res-type>
<res-auth>Container</res-auth>
<jndi-name>java:/Mail</jndi-name>
</resource-ref>
Thats all there is to it