February 28, 2002
sunRise Tutorial If you are
sunRise Tutorial
If you are interested in using the sunRise authentication components that are now in Cocoon, you may like to read this tutorial in addition to the documentation contained in the distribution.
Posted by Matthew at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)
User Authentication in Cocoon I
User Authentication in Cocoon
I am preparing a tutorial that will help get started with the sunRise authentication components we donated last week. Should be up here sometime later today.
Posted by Matthew at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2002
The Death of HTTP Replying
The Death of HTTP
Replying to the article on Don Box's view of HTTP - Dave writes:
Dave Winer's Scripting News Weblog: "On the other hand, the fear such a bold idea evokes is quite reasonable too. Any change in the way the Web behaves, authored by Microsoft, the owner of the dominant browser, could remove any possibility of competition with them in this vital space."
Imagine Microsoft bringing out Internet Explorer 8.0 and IIS 8.0 without HTTP support. The new IE version will connect to IIS 8.0 using MS SWCP 1.0 (Secure WebService Communications Protocol). "Its better because its secure. We don't use port 80 because that's just insecure!". Those hands are just getting bloodier.
Posted by Matthew at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
Growing Up Christopher (7) finds
Growing Up
Christopher (7) finds out that the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and all those other figures you may think were created by Coca Cola, do not really exist. Now he wants to tell his younger brother and sister..
Just wait till he finds out about Pokemons and Harry Potter. Does Bill Gates actually exist?
Interop
Well another round or soapbuilders Interop starts. I bet it's a fun place to be - although too far out for me. Anyway it would be great to attend as a lurker and just absorb what goes on. Or do they spend the time playiing some advanced network game.....no...of course not.
Posted by Matthew at 09:11 AM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2002
Sam Ruby's Radio Weblog: "Dave
Sam Ruby's Radio Weblog: "Dave notices the provacatively titled crushing userland thread on cocoon-dev, and comments: Heh. I know how much work they have to do to do that. BWT, we use Apache in our system. He may use Apache's httpd, but there is so much more to Apache: Axis, Cocoon, Xindice, etc. I personally believe that from a technology perspective, the code is there. On the other hand, what I believe that Stefano grossly underestimates is the effort required to bootstrap a weblog community"
I think this is absolutely correct. Blogger and Radio have a terrific user base and community. So why want to crush them? And what a term anyway. Nope that is definately not the way to go - but integration is a totally different story! So, can we at least get xml-rpc into Cocoo? And then SOAP - Please???
Posted by Matthew at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)
Cocoon and web services The
Cocoon and web services
The debate hots up and I will be kicked off the list soon. Well maybe. On the other hand we will be getting into this "for real" as of next week, so we should have some results before too long - if it kills me. But pleasssseeee - let's start banging out some sort of design and then get implementing.
Posted by Matthew at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2002
Chainsaw massacre Carsten tryed to copy
Chainsaw massacre
Carsten tryed to copy this guy at the weekend. However, he should have read this first. Luckily only his fingers suffered slightly - as opposed to what could have happened.
Posted by Matthew at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2002
Friday wrap-up Looking out the
Friday wrap-up
Looking out the window here in Paderborn, Germany and it is a wet and grey late afternoon. Cocoon bookwise - we are now into the last chapters which we hope to finish up by Friday. That means we then just have a couple of appendixes left and the front matter.
Meanwhile I may be tech-editing another book from New Riders on an extremely interesting subject. A great chance to sit on the other side and see what other authors write...More to follow.
Posted by Matthew at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)
Thought for the day Dave
Thought for the day
Dave Winer's Scripting News Weblog: "Because if Bill Gates woke up one morning and decided to kill the browser, he could do it. He could even do it slowly so no one notices. "
No Dave I think you are dead wrong on this one. I am sure his hands are already covered in blood (browser blood - that is.)
Posted by Matthew at 09:11 AM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2002
Chapter 3 - Getting started
Chapter 3 - Getting started with Cocoon
The third chapter shows how to install Cocoon into an Apache Tomcat environment and describes the samples that are already included in the distribution. Everything required will be on a companion CD.
Posted by Matthew at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)
Comments anyone? Ok - so
Comments anyone?
Ok - so I added it.You can now comment on a posting. Thanks Radio!
Posted by Matthew at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2002
Deja... "The computer software can
Deja...
"The computer software can automatically handle locating the resource and transferring information to and from the resource. In other words, access to resources on the network can be transparent,...".
A new Web service book.....? Nope - The Art of Distributed Applications (Corbin, 1991) - just found it on my bookshelf - right next to Enterprise CORBA.
Posted by Matthew at 06:28 PM | Comments (0)
What - no comments? It
What - no comments?
It would be great to have a comments link like this. Then people can leave their comments to the little bits and pieces that appear here. And I think the good folks over at Radio are working on it. But get this: What if no-one leaves a comment? That would mean no-one is interested...not sure if I need to know that......yet.
Posted by Matthew at 06:19 PM | Comments (0)
Cocoon book cover Yeah -
Cocoon book cover
Yeah - at last we have a cover.
Posted by Matthew at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)
Portal components donated to Cocoon [official]
Portal components donated to Cocoon [official]
Here is a link to the official announcement that S&N donated the portal components to the Apache Cocoon project. You can use the fish to get the English version. But of course you read it here first.
Posted by Matthew at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
Mail Web Service to Radio
Mail Web Service to Radio Weblog
It is a pain in the b**t not to be able to maintain the web log from home. The only current method available is via Mail to Weblog. However I cannot use that because my company blocks outgoing POP calls. So Radio cannot fetch the mail. What we need is an EMail service that provides access via a simple SMTP Web Service. Then that could be hooked into Radio and everything would be +1. Any ideas?
Posted by Matthew at 08:50 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2002
XML Google - not! We
XML Google - not!
We had been thinking about adding the XML interface to Google as part of the news portal we are building in our Cocoon book. But now I think this might not be so easy. Hey Google - wake up!
Posted by Matthew at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2002
Only a weblog People are
Only a weblog
People are starting to confuse my weblog with a company. Interesting. However I do not work for a company called need-a-cake (I mean think about it pllleeeasssee). I work here and they pay me so they get all the credit for letting me work on open source stuff like Cocoon (for example).
Posted by Matthew at 05:45 PM | Comments (0)
Sam provides us with a
Sam provides us with a very local path here. Proving that I am not as stupid as Carsten pointed out on Friday when I linked this story to my local copy. This seems to be a common problem - can we fix it - yes we can (hopefully)! (Ok, my younger son is in to Bob the Builder - sorry :-))
Posted by Matthew at 01:44 PM | Comments (0)
Chapter 2 - Building the
Chapter 2 - Building the Machine Web with XML
The second chapter describes the drawbacks of HTML based architectures and introduces XML and XSL as a way of meeting the challenges layed out in the first chapter. Using available XML components is described and of course Cocoon is introduced.
Posted by Matthew at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
Licenced! I now have a
Licenced!
I now have a Radio licence (and you should too!). No more "14 days left" for me.
Posted by Matthew at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
Portals with Cocoon We announce
Portals with Cocoon
We announce donating the portal and authentication components to the Cocoon project. If you are interested in building XML based portals with Cocoon then you should really take a look and read this.
Posted by Matthew at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2002
Weblogging in corporations I would
Weblogging in corporations
I would be very interested in hearing about companies that have introduced weblogging as a form of "thought space" management (I hate the term "knowledge management"). How has weblogging changed the company culture?
Posted by Matthew at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
Emerging technologies move in I
Emerging technologies move in
I wrote some thoughts down on how the speed at which emerging technologies are adopted by companies or corporations is increasing and what emerging technology might be next.
Posted by Matthew at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2002
Friday wrap-up Sam writes a
Friday wrap-up
Sam writes a very readable guide to WSDL - just right for a Friday afternoon.
Kimbro picks up on Guido's presentation at Jax2002. Hehe - I showed this to Guido and now he is worried Kimbro is going to come :-). Anyway we have been doing quite a bit of work integrating SAG Tamino XML database into the Cocoon based stuff we do (actually we are using it as storage for a simple (!) Cocoon based CMS that is part of a product "sunShine" we offer). After we had completed that we thought we would do the same for Xindice, which gave us a good chance to compare the two. So basically you can now install sunShine and then decide whether you want CMS storage in files (default), Tamino or Xindice.
Actually it is a pity the Jax2002 is the same week as this. Ah well.
Posted by Matthew at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
Blogging with Cocoon Posted a
Blogging with Cocoon
Posted a story explaining how to hack up something into Cocoon that is capable of accepting incoming XML-RPC based commands from blogging clients such as blogBuddy. This is real simple and only shows a single function. I needed it to do a demonstration later today. But it shows that this type of thing can be done with Cocoon.
Posted by Matthew at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2002
Come to Jax2002 We have
Come to Jax2002
We have two presentations set up for the Java Apache XML conference (Jax2002). One will be on integrating XML databases and the second on building portals with Cocoon. Hope to see you all there in May.
Posted by Matthew at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)
Cocoon and Axis Sam helps
Cocoon and Axis
Sam helps me light some fires over on the Cocoon list - and I add some fuel.
Posted by Matthew at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
Cocoon portal Here is a
Cocoon portal
Here is a short article on the "coming real soon now" Cocoon components for portal and authentication.
Posted by Matthew at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
Another Cocoon article Stefano (the
Another Cocoon article
Stefano (the Cocoon project founder) writes about Cocoon on xml.com.
Posted by Matthew at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2002
Greetings! Steven Noels has a
Greetings!
Steven Noels has a Radio Weblog. Sure to be interesting information from the guys at outerthought over there.
Posted by Matthew at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)
Cocoon blogging Beebs Blog runs
Cocoon blogging
Beebs Blog runs on Cocoon and Xindice. Cool (and yes I know I am the last person to link to him here) :-). Anyway can't we turn Cocoon into a blogging server by adding a couple of components here and there?
Posted by Matthew at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)
Documentation On Demand We have
Documentation On Demand
We have written quite a bit of documentation to go with the work we do - all nicely done in XML and then generated into HTML or PDF - using Cocoon (of course). BUT NO ONE READS IT! That's the sad truth (and probably the same everywhere).
- If you have no documentation - everyone complains
- If you have documentation - no one reads it
So what is the answer? Documentation On Demand. If no-one has had that idea yet - it's mine.
What is DoD? Well basically it is product documentation that knows when to present itself. The user does not have to go looking for documentation (he won't) - the documentation comes looking for him. Simple. When the user runs into a problem the documentation sub-system (The RTFM Agent to you and me) automatically recognizes this and calls up the documentation to do with this point. This is then highlighted and brought to the users attention with a blaring fanfare (thou shalt read this! - You fool).
What do you mean the Microsoft paper-clip assistant is long dead?
Posted by Matthew at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
Cocoon Book As promised yesterday
Cocoon Book
As promised yesterday I have started writing a one paragraph synopsis of each chapter that I will publish day by day over in the Cocoon Book category (link on the left). Yes I know the description is brief - but we want you all to go out and buy the book when it comes out after all. And our publisher thinks this is a good idea as well :-).
Posted by Matthew at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
Cocoon: Building XML Applications Chapter
Cocoon: Building XML Applications
Chapter 1 - Building Internet Applications
The first chapter is an introduction to the way Internet applications have been built over the past years, the different architectures that have been used and why these architectures have difficulty meeting the many challenges facing modern solutions.
Posted by Matthew at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2002
SOAP implementations Sam comments on
SOAP implementations
Sam comments on my note about there being over 80 different SOAP implementations. Obviously there are far less that are actually being used. And Interop is a great thing and necessary to make sure the different implementations all work together. One of the most interesting things I did last year was write a Cocoon frontend for the Las Vegas interop example. Gave me a chance to hang out on the soapbuilders list on Yahoo - which provided great insight.
The thing I fear as web services make it into corporate heads and networks is that it is still not clear enough what web services actually are and what it means to implement them. Decision makers are running around (slowly getting up to speed) and demanding web services. Not that they really understand much about Interop or anything else (after all why should they). On the other hand they are being led to believe that "there are no problems" (see my earlier posting today).
Posted by Matthew at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)
Cocoon makes the press Great
Cocoon makes the press
Great (even if I do say so myself :-)) Cocoon article in the new issue of the published version of the German magazine Javamagazin (7 pages!). And that is only part 1. That makes 2 Cocoon articles this week (and it's only Tuesday).
Posted by Matthew at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)
Way back when Frank points
Way back when
Frank points me to this. Ah I remember it well. Back in those days we used to get on a train and go to the nearest larger town just to buy one of these mags. Then we would spend forever typing the listings into our VIC 20, Sinclar.. Now those were the days. How come I find it funny that my son wants an XBox? How come he doesn't have to debug those endless lines of DATA?
Posted by Matthew at 04:10 PM | Comments (0)
Axis and Cocoon Sam finds
Axis and Cocoon
Sam finds a Cocoon based blog. Sam - how about kicking some *ss in the Cocoon list and hitting them on the head to get Axis integrated? Somehow I think I am alone thinking we should be using Axis to turn Cocoon pipelines (or collections of pipelines) into web services (complete with WSDL etc.) and using Axis to dispatch the calls into the relevant pipeline. But then again - perhaps I am wrong :-).
Posted by Matthew at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)
Although it may seem that
Although it may seem that I am being rather cynical on web services - that is really not the case. They will take over the world - well at least the technology will. Well actually it is already here - right? The problem is that most popular articles written on the subject (and hey - those are the ones read by people making at least some of the decisions) seem to suggest that WS are something like the philosopher's stone (or sorcerer - depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on). As an example - check out this article. It is in German so I will just translate 3 extracts - and you'll get the idea:
"Da alle Webservices, die auf diesen Plattformen entwickelt werden per se interoperabel sind, ist die Plattform-Entscheidung nicht mehr erfolgskritisch."
Because all web services that are developed on these platforms [meaning Microsoft .Net, Sun One, IBM Webservices, Oracle 9i, HP] can interoperate with each other, the decision for a particular platform is no longer relevant to success.
" Zu den zwei wichtigsten Anwendungsgebieten zählen auf der einen Seite Mitarbeiter-Portale "
One of the two most important application areas [for web services] is that of employee portals...
"In einem Projekt lassen sich also problemlos Lösungen miteinander integrieren, die auf ganz unterschiedlichen Plattformen aufsetzen"
Project solutions developed [as web services] on different platforms can be integrated together without any problems.
Hmm......so now you know :-).
Posted by Matthew at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)
Welcome to the category for
Welcome to the category for Cocoon: Building XML Applications.
Posted by Matthew at 01:44 PM | Comments (0)
I have created a new
I have created a new category for the Cocoon book. Check out the link on the left to go there directly. I will be posting book stuff there.
Posted by Matthew at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)
Test
Test
Posted by Matthew at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)
test
test
Posted by Matthew at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)
ddd
ddd
Posted by Matthew at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
Test for new category
Test for new category
Posted by Matthew at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
Test
Test
Posted by Matthew at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)
Now just over a week
Now just over a week into using Radio to do my weblogging (and just over a week of weblogging for that matter) - time for a short status report.
Well the radio program is really neat and offers lots of potential. On the one side a clean easy to use interface for simple "blogging" and on the other side the ability to do lots more - like access web services via macros. And you can probably do a whole lots more.....sometime maybe I will find out.
On the downside I was not able to get it to run properly on an iBook that is not always connected to the net. It seems as though that is what you really need (a permanent connection that is). Licencing is also slightly negative - because I want to maintain the same "cloud" from home and from work - I would need 2 licences. Or use the mail to log capability which I have not tried yet.
All in all I am just starting to get my head around this new area and really think there is great potential for using web logs etc. in more collaborative scenarios (i.e. inside a company as a "thought-board"). Hey I like that term - has it been used?
Posted by Matthew at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
If SOAP is a standard
If SOAP is a standard - then why do we need this? At last count there are over 80 different SOAP implementations (probably not all being maintained). Why?
Posted by Matthew at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
Ok, time for some updates
Ok, time for some updates on the book. Well first of all it is about Cocoon 2.0 and not the previous version. In total it has 17 chapters (or elements as our publisher likes to say) and all together we will land with around 500 pages. About 100 pages of that are reference material. What I thought I would do is write about each chapter day by day to give you some idea of what the book will look like. I will start that tomorrow (hopefully). For now it is worth pointing out that the book is aimed at a wide audience, so it is not a "developers handbook" nor is it a "how do I explain XML to my boss" type of book. We like to think that it offers something for everyone whether you are starting out with XML applications, interested in getting up and running with Cocoon or even somewhat of a Cocoon guru.
Posted by Matthew at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2002
Carsten and I announce our
Carsten and I announce our Cocoon book. Watch this space for more updates as we get closer to publication day.
Posted by Matthew at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)
If web services are supposed
If web services are supposed to allow software and organisations to communicate in an open and cross-platform fashion - then why do we need this. I'm missing something - right? Their first "Profile" states that Basic Web Services consist of:
¡¡SOAP 1.1
¡WSDL 1.1
¡UDDI 1.0
Posted by Matthew at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)
Below is the result of
Below is the result of calling an xmethods SOAP service via a Radio macro:
Posted by Matthew at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)
<% ["soap://services.xmethods.net:80/soap/servlet/rpcrouter?ns=urn:xmethods-Temperature"].TemperatureService.getTemp ( "90020" ) %>
Posted by Matthew at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)
Carsten and I get our
Carsten and I get our Cocoon article into the paper version of the German IT weekly, Computerwoche. As far as I can tell it is not available online and of course - it is only in German.
Posted by Matthew at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2002
This seems to be interesting.....
This seems to be interesting..... :-)
Posted by Matthew at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2002
Paul Prescod writes an interesting
Paul Prescod writes an interesting article on why SOAP and UDDI may not really be necessary after all. Damn just when we are playing around with integration Axis into cocoon too. You mean this all for nothing - Paul? REST easy.
Posted by Matthew at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2002
Ok, now after trying that
Ok, now after trying that out: Radio now allows you to call published XML-RPC services (with SOAP to follow) from your Web Log. For example - entering: <%["xmlrpc://time.xmlrpc.com/RPC2"].currentTime.getCurrentTime ()%>
returns the time as shown below.
Posted by Matthew at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)
And I can do this:
And I can do this:<%["xmlrpc://time.xmlrpc.com/RPC2"].currentTime.getCurrentTime ()%>
Posted by Matthew at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)
Radio 8.0.4 now supports this:
Radio 8.0.4 now supports this: <%["xmlrpc://betty.userland.com/RPC2"].examples.getStateName (random (1, 50))%>
Posted by Matthew at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
Ok, time to find out
Ok, time to find out how we can extend cocoon to become a SOAP server. Any suggestions?
Posted by Matthew at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
John Udell writes about Radio
John Udell writes about Radio Userland 8 - much more interesting to read.
Posted by Matthew at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)
Sam Ruby is looking into
Sam Ruby is looking into using Axis to call Web Services in Radio. That looks pretty neat.
On a side note we are currently using Axis to generate custom components for sunShine for us. Neato. Keep up the good work Sam (and the other Axis developers)!
Posted by Matthew at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
John Dvorak over at PC
John Dvorak over at PC mag online writes a pretty pathetic article on Web logs. You want to read it - well go here if you must. Does he get paid for trivia like this?
Posted by Matthew at 08:59 AM | Comments (0)
Ok, just can't get the
Ok, just can't get the Web Services to work. Keep getting the error that the XML is wrongly formatted. I have no idea what's causing this. The new app 8.0.3 is installed, everything restarted etc. and still the error. I give up - for now.
Posted by Matthew at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2002
Showing Frank how this works....
Showing Frank how this works....
Posted by Matthew at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2002
Cocoon 2.0.1 makes it onto
Cocoon 2.0.1 makes it onto xmlhack.com
Posted by Matthew at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
Showing Carsten how this works.
Showing Carsten how this works.
Posted by Matthew at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
Ok, solved. I added an
Ok, solved. I added an upstream.xml to the images directory. Works fine now.
Posted by Matthew at 01:42 PM | Comments (0)
Ok not quite, no graphics.
Ok not quite, no graphics.
Posted by Matthew at 12:54 PM | Comments (6)
Just moved everything over to
Just moved everything over to one of my domains: need-a-cake.com. Wow and it works. Unbelievable.
Posted by Matthew at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)
Ok, quick catch up of
Ok, quick catch up of past events:
Carsten released a new version of Cocoon last week. Now at version 2.0.1 it just gets better....
S&N announces donating several of the sunShine components back to the Cocoon project. This will allow you to use Cocoon to build XML based portals and authenticate the users.
Posted by Matthew at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)
February 01, 2002
Ok, first posting on my
Ok, first posting on my Radio Weblog. What am I going to use if for - no idea at the moment. Lots of mumblings about this and that. We'll see.
Posted by Matthew at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)