Star Office now free

Google is going to offer Sun's Star Office for free as a part of Google Pack. Also, Sun will now be traded under the Symbol JAVA replacing the old symbol SUNW.

• Google Goes After Microsoft Again
• The Rise of JAVA - The Retirement of SUNW
• Sun boots workstation roots in favor of JAVA ticker
• On Slashdot - Google Pack Adds StarOffice

OpenJDK and JavaFX

Java is now completely open source. The JDK source code is now available through the OpenJDK project. According to the marketing manager of the OpenJDK project Rich Sands, Developers can,

... learn how the JDK is put together, fix that bug that's been 
driving you nuts, join the conversations in the mailing lists, 
start or participate in projects to improve the implementation.

It's good to see that the governing body consists of not just Sun employees.

On a related note, Sun has announced the new JavaFX product family. Following Adobe's Flex, and Microsoft's Silverlight, JavaFX script is another product for building rich internet applicaitons. JavaFX Mobile is a complete mobile operating and application environment built around Java and Linux. JavaFX Mobile includes support for Java ME applications and other standard Java APIs.

Java EE 5 on WebSphere

While the next version of WAS (v7.0) with Java EE 5, is yet to be released, you can now test some of the features such as EJB 3.0 with WebSphere software early programs. The new features are available as feature packs for the current WebSphere Application Server (v6.1).

Custom Search Update

Back from the vacation. Updated the Java custom search - Now includes over 100 Java related sites.

Google Related links

Added a related links control on the top. Let's see if we get any use out of this.

This will be the last post for a couple of weeks, as I will be on vacation in India.

Geronimo 2.0

Geronimo 2.0, milestone 1, is available for download. While still a milestone build, this gives a view into the direction of the latest version. The support for Java EE 5 includes, the latest Jetty and Tomcat servlet engines so users can experiment with Servlet 2.5, JSP 2.1 as well as JSF 1.1 and JSTL 1.2. Also included is Apache's OpenJPA for Java Persistence as well as the latest Javamail 1.4 and Java Activation Framework.

Java Updates

Sun released updates for Java EE SDK and Java Application Platform SDK. They can be downloaded from here. These new versions bundle JDK 6 and are fully tested with JDK 6 as well
as JDK 5. The Java Application Platform SDK includes Sun Java System Access Manager (7.1 Beta), JBI Runtime with BPEL from project Open ESB and a beta version of Portlet Container to enable development and testing of JSR 168 portlets. Developer content such as Java EE 5 samples, blueprints, tutorial and API javadocs are also included. Sun Java System Application Server (9.0 Update 1 Patch 1) based on Project Glassfish is included in the SDK. This is the only SPECjAppServer result published so far on an open-source application server. It is also the first and only SPECjAppServer result published on an application server that is certified to the Java EE 5 specification. The Java EE Tools bundle has also been refreshed to use the Java Application Platform SDK Update 2.

Google Web Toolkit Open sourced

Google has opensourced it's Google Web Toolkit. The project is now fully opensource under the Apache 2.0 license. The new 1.3 RC has no new features since 1.2. In addition to simple directions for compiling the source yourself, the updated site includes the often-requested development roadmap as well. Here are a few of the features of GWT:

• Dynamic, reusable UI components: Create and Send your Widgets to other developers in a JAR file.
• Really simple RPC: To communicate from your web application to your web server, you just need to define serializable Java classes for your request and response.
• Browser history management: GWT lets you make your site more usable by easily adding state to the browser's back button history.
• Real debugging: In production, your code is compiled to JavaScript, but at development time it runs in the Java virtual machine, and so you can take advantage of Java debugging, with exceptions and the advanced debugging features of IDEs like Eclipse.
• Browser compatible Your GWT applications: Automatically support IE, Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, and Opera with no browser detection or special-casing within your code in most cases.
• JUnit integration: GWT's direct integration with JUnit lets you unit test both in a debugger and in a browser

Here is a list of few resources to kick off with GWT

• GWT Examples
• Developer Guide
• Class Reference
• Developer Forum
• Google Web Toolkit Performance and Interoperability:Presentation from the server side
• An introduction to GWT

Java Platform Standard Edition 6

Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced the availability of Java Platform Standard Edition 6 (Java SE 6) today. In less than 2yrs of the release of Java SE 5, we have another version of Java. Hope the industry can catch up the new releases so quick. Considering the fact that IBM released the latest version of Rational developer platform today, which incorporates Java 5, it seems that Sun is going too fast. And we know that they already started working on Java SE 7 (dolphin). Here's a list of key features available in the new version.

• Scripting Language Support: The new framework API for scripting languages allow you to
  • Access and control Java technology-based objects from a scripting environment
  • Create web content with scripting languages
  • Embed scripting environments within Java technology-based applications
• New Security Features:The new security features include
  • Native platform Security (GSS/Kerberos) integration.
  • Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) login module that employs LDAP authentication
  • New Smart Card I/O API
• Integrated Web Services
  • New API for XML digital signature services for secure web services
  • New Client and Core Java Architecture for XML-Web Services (JAX-WS) 2.0 APIs
  • New support for Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) 2.0

For a more complete list of the features, visit the Java SE 6 website.

Rational Software Development Platform v7.0

IBM has announced the release of the Rational software delivery platform version 7.0. The platform includes the following products:

• Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software
• Rational Software Architect
• Rational Software Modeler
• Rational Systems Developer
• Rational Functional Tester
• Rational Manual Tester

Among the notable features:

• Extends Eclipse 3.2
• support for J2EE 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 specifications (no Java EE 5)
• WebSphere Application Server v5.1, v6.0, v6.1: WebSphere Application Server v5.1, v6.0, v6.1. WebSphere Portal Server v5.0 and v6.0
• Java Server Faces reference implementation, JSF components and visual tools
• Install only the features you need through flexible, granular installation options
• No support for Microsoft Windows Visa

For more information visit:

• Complete list of features for Rational Application Developer
• Bobby Woolf's Wiki entry.
• IBM Release announcement

Download Oracle technology network's CD

OTN's "Greatest Hits" CD is a compilation of the most popular technical articles, software downloads, podcasts, sample code, and documentation published on OTN in 2006. Available in Zip and ISO formats.

Google co-op search

I put up a new google co-op search box on top of the blog. I am trying to build a Java search service using Google co-op. I left the custom search engine open to modification. Please feel free to add to it at the Java search homepage.

Opensourcing Java

Java is going to be released in full under the GPL v2. The components of the Java SE implementation that Sun is releasing initially are the Java programming-language compiler (javac) and the Java HotSpot virtual machine. In 2007, Sun will release all unencumbered source-code modules of JDK 6 and JDK 7, along with full build scripts; a few encumbered modules will be released as binary plugins. The code will be available under the GPL v2 license plus the ClassPath Exception. The Java specification will remain under the control of the JCP.

Resources:

1. James Gosling's blog post open sourcing
2. The Java source code on java.net
3. Source Java ME
4. Java EE source at the Glassfish project

Java EE application on Multi-Core processor based servers

In a new article on onjava.com, titled "Scaling Enterprise Java on 64-bit Multi-Core X86-Based Servers" Michael Juntao Yuan and Dave Jaffe discuss the process of scaling enterprise Java applications on 64-bit multi-core x86 servers. Application developers are playing catch-up with the chip makers such as AMD and Intel as they transition from faster chips to more cores per processor. In the new article, mention that servers such as Dell's PowerEdge 1955 blade which supports up to two 64-bit dual core processors in a blade configuration. The article points out that to take advantage of such systems applications must not only support multiple concurrent threads of execution but also be able to manage the large amounts of memory available to 64-bit processors. The article provides a few useful tips for application developers about to write applications on these machines:

• Tuning the JVM with Heap and Garbage Collection Arguments that Reflect The Amount of Memory Available.
• Leveraging Java 5.0 Concurrency Utils to Support Multiple Threads Easier
• Using new platform APIs such as NIO to Reduce I/O Blocking and the new Logging API (from 1.4)

Apart from these, they also suggest some performance optimizations such as

• Collapse the tiers which your application runs on. Larger capacity machines may be able to handle both database and appserver tasks for instance reducing items such as network load that would be present with multiple machines.
• Virtualizing the hardware can also allow administrators to run several JEE application servers in contained environments on the same hardware thus using it more effectively.

Celebrate Eclipse's 5th Birthday

More details at eclipse.org

Strecks 1.0 released

Strecks a set of Java 5-specific extensions Struts framework, was released from beta on friday. Strecks, is annotation based and adds a number of modern features to Struts-based applications, including POJO actions, dependency injection, declarative validation and data binding, interceptors, pluggable views, as well as seamless Spring integration. It is also highly extensible and amenable to test driven development. The following is a brief list of features available in Strecks 1.0:

• Pure POJO action beans with zero framework dependencies
• Annotation-based dependency injection (typed request parameters, session attributes, Spring beans, and many others)
• Converters and validators type-parameterized using Java 5 generics
• Mechanisms for facilitating use of redirect after post pattern
• Support for rendering using Spring MVC Views and View Resolvers
• Pre- and post- action interceptors, with access to dependency resolved action beans as well as full runtime context
• Works on the unchanged Struts 1.2.x and 1.3.x code bases.
  
• Actions, form validation and data conversion easily testable with plain unit tests, with no additional test libraries required.

Firefox 2.0 released

Last week, Microsoft released the new Internet Explorer 7.0. Today it is the release of Mozilla Firefox 2.0. Which one to choose? Well, for me it's Firefox for sure. For one thing, I still run windows 2000 at work.(IE 7 does not support windows 2000). More importantly, IE 7 introduces many security enhancements in the new product, which I will be among the last to try, given Microsoft's record on security. Coming to Firefox 2, there are no big changes that you were not available as addons in the earlier version. I still hate the fact that it uses up so much memory. Agreed that I have a few addons (greasemonkey, NoScript, Firebug, and web developer toolbar), but still the startup memory consumption in firefox is 25MB without addons and about 35MB with addons. As you can see in the picture below, my regular usage goes up to 246MB regularly. I never saw anything like that with IE 6, even with over over 10 windows open at a time (about the same number of tabs were open in firefox when I took the snapshot.
In any case, I am sticking to Firefox for now (so used to it!).

Hibernate 3.2

The Hibernate developer team released Hibernate 3.2.0 GA, this release is certified compliant with the Java Persistence API. In addition to JPA compliance, hibernate adds new query capabilities, declarative data filters, Hibernate Annotations, Hibernate EntityManager and optimistic locking in a cluster with JBoss Cache. The Hibernate Java Persistence provider has been certified with the Sun TCKThe Hibernate 3.2 release includes:

• Natural programming model - Hibernate supports natural OO idiom; inheritance, polymorphism, composition and the Java collections framework
• Support for fine-grained object models - a rich variety of mappings for collections and dependent objects
• No build-time bytecode enhancement - there's no extra code generation or bytecode processing steps in your build procedure
• Extreme scalability - Hibernate is extremely performant, has a dual-layer cache architecture, and may be used in a cluster
• The query options - Hibernate addresses both sides of the problem; not only how to get objects into the database, but also how to get them out again
• Support for "conversations" - Hibernate supports both long-lived persistence contexts, detach/reattach of objects, and takes care of optimistic locking automatically
• Free/open source - Hibernate is licensed under the LGPL (Lesser GNU Public License)
• EJB 3.0 - Hibernate implements the Java Persistence management API and object/relational mapping options, two members of the Hibernate team are active in the expert group
• Hibernate Annotations offers several packages of JDK 5.0 code annotations that developers can use to map classes, as a replacement or in addition to XML metadata.

Firefox Javascript Vulnerability?

Apparently, the vulnerability reported in the handling of Javascript in firefox is a hoax. See

• Mozilla - Update: Possible Vulnerability Reported at Toorcon
• SecurityFocus - RETIRED: Mozilla Firefox Multiple Unspecified Javascript Vulnerabilities

Migrating to Java 5

This JavaOne 2006 presentation looks at the benefits and issues of migrating to Java 1.5.
The presentation also looks at how to take advantage of the superior VM performance, security enhancements, XML support, JMX and JDBC enhancements and deployment improvements.