I’ve been a user of MyEclipse for my Java development needs for quite some time now. It is a fully fledged J2EE development environment on a par with Rational or any of the other tools but it only costs $53 per year to run. What I didn’t know is that it also includes a fully fledged Javascript Debugger which knocks anything else I’ve tried, including Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar into a cocked hat.
If you’re a Java or web developer you owe it to yourself to check MyEclipse out.
I’m in the process of putting together a new web form and have picked up a few bits and pieces which you may find useful:
The really easy field validation with Prototype script by Andrew Tetlaw is, indeed really easy to implement. But beyond that it’s also simple to extend to add your own validation rules, be they simple or complex. I think this is going to become my default front-end validation script until I find a better one.
One of the changes I needed to make to the script was to add a test for a specific number format, to allow comma separation at thousands but disallow decimal points (and vice versa for European users). Now I really don’t understand Regex very well at all. But I did manage to find an OS X Widget devoted to testing Regex expressions, I recommend it heartily. And it allowed me to write this expression to do my validation:
/^[0-9\,\-\+\(\)\ ]+$/
I’ve been working at home today waiting for a broadband engineer to come out as my slow broadband problems of a couple of weeks ago have resurfaced. The engineer was almost 3 hours late, but I’d anticipated that and so had enough work at home to take me through the whole day.
When he arrived he went through all of the tests on his laptop and all seemed fine with his router and microfilter so his immediate answer was to say I had a faulty router / microfilter / whatever, and not having any evidence to the contrary I had to let him go on his way. So off to PC World (I know, I know) to pick up a new ADSL modem / router / WAP. Plugged in the new box and no luck, it’s still slow (like 900kb when it should be 5.5mb) so I’m back on the phone with BT. Unfortunately the BT helpdesk is run out of India and I genuinely can’t understand more than one word in three of the people I’m talking to. For all I know they could be the best tech support in the world but I can’t tell. This really is getting rather annoying.
So the next step is to wait until tomorrow when I know that calls to a certain number I’ve managed to get a hold of are routed to the UK helpdesk where I’ll be able to get to the 3rd line support team without too much hassle.
I’ve never done any development for Sametime before, but I am having to make some changes to an application at the moment. It basically allows people to walk into the building reception and book an appointment, the individual being booked gets sent a message telling them that someone is waiting. It’s all very neat and everything but the problem I’m having is finding all the Sametime developers documentation? I’ve got the JavaDoc and PDFs from the Sametime downloads but they are just basic APIs, no descriptions of how the code actually works.
The code I’ve inherited is using AnnouncementService.sendAnnouncement, I need to change the message to include, in Notes terms, a link hotspot, or a URL link. I’ve tried everything I can think of to make the string which is being announced into HTML but nothing seems to work. So over to you Sametime gurus, where is the documentation and is what I’m trying to do even possible? I found an old Red Book written by (amongst others Carl Tyler and Rob Novak) which implies what I’m trying to do is only available through the web interface rather than the Connect client, but that’s not explicitly stated.
As you may have read, I migrated my mail over to the new Google Apps for your domain during the week. A totally painless procedure all in all but I thought I’d just mention a little more about what you get for your $50 subscription per user.
The main benefits of the mail upgrade are two-fold. Firstly it means mail is sent and delivered directly from and to my “proper” email address without having to set up any forwarding or masking of email addresses. And secondly my mailbox has now increased in size to 10gb. I haven’t got anywhere near that volume of mail but it’s nice to know that the capacity is there if needed.
In addition to the mail, you get the other Google Apps which can be accessed by anyone with a Gmail account… the word processor and spreadsheet tools. I’ve tried to use these in the past and they’re not really much use to me, but I guess some companies may benefit from the document sharing capabilities provided by the tools. The app which is useful is the Calendar, this is now my main calendar interface and when used in conjunction with Spanning Sync to share the Google Calendar with iCal and my mobile phone it provides an excellent service.
Google Apps also provides a simple website editing tool, so now if you go to my company site, you’l find it has migrated across as well. For the internal company users (well me in this case) you also have the ability to set up the “start” page, which can be thought of as an intranet style portal which integrates mail, calendar and other content decided by the domain administrator(s).
And all of this can be easily accessed just by setting up some subdomains with your domain hosting company. So, for example you can set up mail.mydomain.com or calendar.mydomain.com. All very well thought out.
The only downside which I’ve encountered so far is that the old mobile Gmail client which runs on pretty much any J2ME enabled phone doesn’t work with the Gmail for your domain account. This seems round the wrong way to me, the people paying a premium should get the premium service but I’m assured that this is being worked on as I type. I hope so, as the client on my mobile phone was really useful.
Overall though, if you run a small business, or even a medium sized business with standard communication needs then you’d be crazy not to have a look at the Google Apps site.
I know it’s silly but the single biggest annoyance for me in the new Notes 8 client is the missing option to “Open in Designer” when you right click a database tab. It’s just muscle memory in the end and I’m sure I’ll get over it but until I do I’ve created a Smart Icon which has this simple formula in:
@Command( [DesignForms] )
I think it’s pretty obvious what it does but I had forgotten about this particular @Command so thought it may prove useful to other people with a similar problem.
Now this is great news. Bob Balaban is looking for input on how to make Notes and Domino a “kick-ass appdev platform again”. I think all of us who are developers have a list as long as your arm of things we want added. Well this is the time to act, get over to the blog entry and add your wish list. Now.
It was a pretty good turnout of people at the Market Porter in London last night. A mixture of familiar faces from Lotusphere’s past and new people (for some) from previous and current work engagements. Everyone had a few beers (obviously) and there was a lot of good talk about setting up a UK User Group gathering. I think we all agreed that there is definitely a desire for something to happen. It’s just a matter of setting it up now!
Anyway, that’s something for future postings. In the meantime, it’s just a big thankyou to the people who came along. Hopefully at the next gathering it will grow in size again.
I’ve decided to move my email hosting to Google Apps, my address won’t be changing but over the next couple of days DNS changes will be rolling out over the internet so if your mail is important, please make sure you cc my personal Gmail account: whitemx@gmail.com.
Update: Well the whole move seems to be going very smoothly. DNS changes are now filtering out, the US seems to have updated already. Either way my mail configuration is such that you can go back to using my proper address with no worries of delivery failures now.
I have to say that the Google Apps product is very impressive, what they are offering for $50 per annum would be difficult to match on any other hosting arrangement. Definitely worth a look.