I code by the sea.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Book Launch at St John's Common Grounds

Presenting the story of how the OSGi Starter book came to be.
The empty warehouse is the future home of Common Grounds.

I recently had the opportunity to talk about the release of my & Johan Edstrom's book OSGi Starter at Startup St John's / Common Grounds.

My talk included some back ground on my involvement with Open Source, my work with Savoir Technologies, and how the opportunity to write a book with Johan came to be (as described here).

Following the back story I provided a brief overview of what we use OSGi for, and then talked about what readers will find amongst the book's pages.

Before the close of the meeting night five copies of OSGi Starter were given away through door prize draws.

I'd like to thank StartUpNL and Common Grounds for the opportunity to show case Johan and my book before an awesomely engaging audience. I've copied in below some back ground information on these two organizations - they're really helping to shine a light on all of the neat things happening in the city.

About StartUpNL:

We are a community group of like minded tech entrepreneurs who want to share ideas and help each other grow. Our goal is to help you build your business; to help get your idea commercialized. This group is for both experienced entrepreneurs and new entrants. We will share knowledge, provide advice, find investment & the resources your business requires. The group will use our collective experience and expertise to build great enterprises. If you have a technology start up or are about to start one, we look forward to meeting you. Post on our contact group by emailing contact@startupnl.com or join our MeetUp group today!

Startup NL / Common Grounds giving entrepreneurs
opportunities to share ideas.

About Common Grounds:

Common Ground’s goal is to help unify the entrepreneurial community in St. John’s by opening the city’s first coworking space. We believe that the traditional way businesses work is broken, and we intend to change it. We want to help local entrepreneurs run their business, meet like-minded people, and find opportunities. We believe that communities empower and motivate individuals to achieve truly remarkable things. Right now, Common Ground is still just an idea and we need your help to make it a reality. If you want to change the way we work in St. John’s, join our community and get involved.

Apache Karaf update May 5 - 11, 2013

In this Apache Karaf update report you'll find notes on development progress towards Apache Karaf 2.2.12, 2.3.2, 2.4.0, and 3.0.0 as up coming releases. All of the information here is collected from following Karaf's issues mailing list, and cross referencing with the community's issue tracker. The summary form is presented here courtesy of Savoir Technologies to help make keeping up with the community's fast pace a little easier.

Apache Karaf 2.2.12:

New Issues:
N/A

Updated Issues:
Karaf-1545 Jar files in lib directory require "karaf-" prefix in order to be loaded

Resolved Issues:
N/A

Apache Karaf 2.3.2:

New Issues:
N/A

Updated Issues:
Karaf-2062 Add a spring3.2 feature
Karaf-1545 Jar files in lib directory require "karaf-" prefix in order to be loaded

Resolved Issues:
Karaf-2164 Create shell:wc command
Karaf-2306 BootClasspathLibraries should be copied before Karaf classpath settings in pax-exam container

Apache Karaf 2.4.0:

Apache Karaf 3.0.0:

New Issues:
Karaf-2307 ActiveMQ Karaf commands do not work with Karaf 3

Updated Issues:
Karaf-2003 Interrupt a running command in shell
Karaf-2062 Add a spring3.2 feature
Karaf-1545 Jar files in lib directory require "karaf-" prefix in order to be loaded

Resolved Issues:
Karaf-2164 Create shell:wc command
Karaf-2304 Karaf 3.0.0 build has some property substitution issues
Karaf-2306 BootClasspathLibraries should be copied before Karaf classpath settings in pax-exam container
Karaf-1017 Use the Pax Web features.xml for Pax Web 2.0 and further

Un-versioned Issues:

Karaf-2308 404 link in latest karaf documentation
Karaf-2302 Karaf cwiki doesn't render images/css due to incorrect resource paths
Karaf-2300 log command to list all the logging levels currently been set
Karaf-1074 features-maven-plugin collects wrong artifacts
Karaf-1799 JAVA_HOME autodiscovery not working on Windows 7 (karaf.bat)

Thursday, May 9, 2013

A little bit of Newfoundland

When ever I'm on the road I end up talking a lot about the province, and from time to time I'll post here some NL tourism videos.. this is another one of those posts - enjoy!

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Apache Karaf update April 28 - May 4, 2013

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Apache Karaf 2.2.11 Released!

The Apache Karaf team is pleased to announce the availability of Apache Karaf 2.2.11.

This release of Apache Karaf is based off of the 2.2.x series branch, representing an update to Apache Karaf 2.2.10. It contains bug fixes identified in the prior release, and introduces improvements including; repaired command history, allowing LDAP login module to properly pick up keystore and/or truststore, and a fix for when Karaf scripts contain spaces in paths.

To help make the transition from previous Apache Karaf 2.2.x releases to 2.2.11 easier we've put together a table of changed dependencies which you can view here. For more information please see the release notes.

For those whom have been keeping track, this Karaf release's wine was Bersano Costalunga Barbera D'asti 2008. Which I've not been able to taste as I'm currently on the road on client site. Upon my return I believe that bottle will find itself being served promptly. As to music I enjoyed listening to Rush albums - they're finally inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame!

Now that this patch release is out, I can't wait for the up coming 2.3.2, 2.4.0, and 3.0.0 kits - so much OSGi goodness!

Happy developing!

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Apache Karaf update April 14 - 20, 2013

In this Apache Karaf update report you'll find notes on development progress towards Apache Karaf 2.2.11, 2.3.2, 2.4.0, and 3.0.0 as up coming releases. All of the information here is collected from following Karaf's issues mailing list, and cross referencing with the community's issue tracker. The summary form is presented here courtesy of Savoir Technologies to help make keeping up with the community's fast pace a little easier.

Note: These past two weeks there has been concentrated efforts on Karaf Cellar and EIK projects - this weekly update tracks core issues.

Apache Karaf 2.2.11:

New Issues:
N/A

Updated Issues:
N/A

Resolved Issues:
N/A

Apache Karaf 2.3.2:

New Issues:
Karaf-2270 Service wrapper assumes java is on system path
Karaf-2276 SSH public key authentication missing in Karaf 2.3.X

Updated Issues:
N/A

Resolved Issues:
Karaf-2269 Servicemix Specs Activator/OsgiLocator Broken due to KARAF-2136
Karaf-2273 Turn blueprint as synchronous by default

Apache Karaf 2.4.0:

New Issues:
Karaf-2270 Service wrapper assumes java is on system path

Updated Issues:
N/A

Resolved Issues:
Karaf-2269 Servicemix Specs Activator/OsgiLocator Broken due to KARAF-2136
Karaf-2273 Turn blueprint as synchronous by default

Apache Karaf 3.0.0:

New Issues:
Karaf-2270 Service wrapper assumes java is on system path
Karaf-2279 Upgrade to OSGi Core 5.0.0

Updated Issues:
Karaf-2266 Warn and override when feature can not install files
Karaf-2177 Upgrade to Felix Framework 4.2.1
Karaf-576 introduce start-level attribute for feature element in features.xml
Karaf-2247 Upgrade to Equinox 3.8.2.v20130124-134944
Karaf-2240 Incompatible Equinox version

Resolved Issues:
Karaf-2269 Servicemix Specs Activator/OsgiLocator Broken due to KARAF-2136
Karaf-2273 Turn blueprint as synchronous by default

Un-versioned Issues:

Karaf-2265 org.apache.felix.fileinstall logs to data\cache\.log

Karaf-2267 Error creating project when standard-features.xml is not find

Karaf-2275 ConcurrentModificationException from FeaturesService#listFeatures()

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Learning Apache Karaf

One of the most common challenges I encounter when working with the Apache SOA stack is introducing developers to Apache Karaf and its OSGi underpinnings. Many developers are already familiar with Apache Maven based build systems, and Spring for IoC but trip up when learning about Bundles, Blueprint, Pax Exam, JPA/JTA, modularity and the complexity of dynamic life cycles and their dependencies. To conquer these challenges and help promote confidence in development teams' use of these technologies I'll often spend many hours white boarding samples, and walking through demo code.

These routine sessions prompted Johan Edstrom and I to develop our Instant OSGi Starter book to assist developers pick up the required technologies and methodologies. The book however could only cover so much material, so we embarked upon developing a formal training program to help guide teams through the foundation concepts up to best practices for developing and deploying production systems on Apache Karaf.

Our vision for the training was to provide a hands on environment in which we'd present concepts and immediately follow up with targeted laboratory units designed to re-enforce learning, cementing skills. A full details of the training program can be found here, but for the curious here is an outline of the topics we cover:

Day 1

1) Introduction to OSGi.
2) Lab – Install and configure Apache Felix.
3) OSGi Bundles, the base unit of OSGi modularity.
4) Lab – Bundles.
5) OSGi Life Cycle, fine grain control of software life.
6) Lab – Life Cycle.
7) OSGi Services, inter-bundle services sometimes referred to as “SOA in a JVM”.
8) Lab – Services.
9) Core Services Review.
10) Lab – Core Services.

Day 2

1) Compendium Services Review.
2) Lab – Compendium Services.
3) Whiteboard and Extender Patterns.
4) Lab: Extender Pattern.
5) Bundle Host/Fragment.
6) Lab: Build Bundle Host and Fragment.
7) Aries JPA/JTA.
8) Lab: JPA/JTA.
9) Bundle Testing.
10) Lab: Pax Exam.

Day 3

1) Introduction to Apache Karaf.
2) Lab – Install and configure Apache Karaf.
3) Karaf Consoles.
4) Lab – Console familiarity.
5) Application Logging.
6) Lab – Logging.
7) Provisioning Applications.
8) Lab – Karaf Feature based project.
9) Deploying Applications.
10) Lab – Karaf Deployer.

For more details please feel free to contact us, we're happy to share our years of expertise with your team.