Angelos Italianknows Blog

Monday, 10 October 2011

There are more touchpad apps than Honeycomb apps

 

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/20-good-apps-for-the-hp-touchpad/4907

Gosh, since I’ve received my touchpad, i’ve been quite impressed with it.. OK its gotta lotta rough edges, the browser is a bit shoddy, email is ok.. no scroll bars, and adobe acrobot needs a search button! but overall its actually quite , very good..

If only HP had come out with it a little cheaper (say £250), they would have sold LOADS.. Who knows maybe Meg@Hp is thinking this… Therefore the touchpad becomes a loss leader to create a new market… guerrilla style..

 

My current favourite apps  are

- SpazHD
- Facebook app (its really good)
- TuneIn
- Kindle

And soon Zinio will be my top favourite app

Tuesday, 28 June 2011

Android 2.2.2 for the Joggler

 

Oh well the android hacking on the joggler continues.. I’ve documented, and the community has tested, the latest version of the Joggler Android build (2.2.2-Mijuu 1.2.3)

http://www.jogglerwiki.com/wiki/Mijuu_Release_1.2.3/Android_2.2.2

Give it a go, personally I think Android is the best OS for the joggler if u want a finger controlled device.. If your after a little mini-desktop, and ok to add a mouse+keyboard then Ubuntu rocks.

Thursday, 16 June 2011

Gadgets Gadgets–O2 Joggler Android and alternative OS’s

 

All, as you know I love the chase, especially when it comes to hacking,modding gadgets..

Last year I bought a couple of o2 joggers, ok these things run Ubuntu natively with a custom flash UI, but the software they provide is basic to say the least.. As the device is a Intel Atom based device with a EFI BIOS its quite straightforward to replace the OS and boot from a memory stick…

So time to replace it.. So far I’ve found three alterntives

1. Leave the Stock OS, simply Pimp it, using Plug-n-Pimp (forum link)

2. Install Ubuntu 10.x or 11.x, (forum link)

3. Install Joli OS (forum link)

4. Install Android (forum link)

 

Now , I have two jogglers, one is running the stock OS downstairs, works a treat but its mainly a “Clock” with weather features Smile

The one in the office is my testbed joggler.. So far my views are

Ubuntu

Way more powerful and flexible than all the other OS’s however unless you put a mouse & keyboard it is really hard to use.. Also I’ve heard to run it properly you need to install the OS onto a harddrive.. bit much for little 7” toy.

Joli OS

Not really my cuppa tea

Android 2.2

Now there we’re talking.. touch os, runs lightning fast on the device Smile However it does have its niggles. Lots of programs wont work, mainly because they use the NDK (Arm not x86) and some also go into portrait mode.. not so good.. But theres lots that work really really well , like skynews, pulse, googlemaps etc ..

 

So for now Android is my OS of choice.. however Meego is also being ported and looks really good, a touchOS with Linux compatibility!

 

Here’s some screenshots (sorry for the dodgy colors my screen capture program .. is weird.. ) I’ll update them when I find a screen capture program which works on Android x86

20110616192842

20110616193200

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Android on the Joggler

 

Gosh the amount of Android and Linux distributions operating in my household is increasing crazyly!

 

My latest distro is putting Android 2.2.1 (Froyo) on my beloved Joggler.. Now the Joggler did have an Android build earlier this year but alas.. without soft buttons it didnt work well… but now thanks to some chaps in China we have Android 2.2.1 with soft buttons…

Works a champ.. actually if O2 saw this running Id betcha they’d grab all the jogglers they could find , stick android on them and flog them like hot cakes!

See my postings at http://www.jogglerwiki.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=122

Thursday, 21 April 2011

Windows 7 & CMD Line here?

 

Hey all , in the past I used to use a windows XP extension to open a command line in a particular directory from windows explorer.

I was just looking for this in windows 7 and apparently its “baked” in!

 

Simply find the directory using windows 7 explorer and the use “Shift+RightMouseClick” and hey presto a “open command window here” option appears!

 

image

Saturday, 9 April 2011

opensource drivers for Airlink webcams now available!

Hey all,

if your like me, and never happy with the drivers/firmware which resides in webcams, well rejoice! Airlink have decided to opensource all their drivers!!!!

I've just downloaded the one for the aic500, but alas its been ages since I coded at that level..
http://www.airlink101.com/gpl/aicn500w/

Friday, 1 April 2011

Two useful links (Continuous Integration for SOA and Custom BPM11g Worklists)

 

Every now and again I see some useful links which I think is worth sharing..

 

1. How to do continuous integration  (Hudson,CruiseControl + Ant etc) for SOA , link

and

2. How to create custom worklist pages, for the BPM11g product. link

 

both certainly worth looking at.

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

SOASuite 11.1.1.4 : Error Logging into BPM11g Composer?

Hey all, I’ve just installed SOA Suite 11.1.1.4 and noticed a few funnies which people might hit, thankfully each of them have an easy solution.

 

1. Some applications are installed but dont appear to work?

If when you install SOASuite you may notice that the following applications dont appear to work, however they do appear as deployments in Weblogic Server Console

e.g.  SOA Composer (composer), FMW Welcome Page Application (11.1.0.0.0) and some of the adaptors.

If they appear in the deployments list state as “installed” and not Active, then its likely that they haven't been targeted to a specific server.

image

 

The solution is to target the application the desired managed server , e.g. AdminServer in a development environment.

This is done by selecting the application, tab “Targets”, select all components, Button[change Targets] and select the appropriate server.

This change can be done without restarting the Weblogic Server

2. You might find that when you try to log into the BPM Composer at http://machine:7001/bpm/composer , the login screen will appear but you cant log in.

The error log might mention the following

image

 

The solution to this is two fold,

a) When creating the domain, avoid using 127.0.0.1 as the Listener address, or “Any Addresses”, if this is a development machine create an alias in your /etc/hosts file and then use this alias in the domain creation wizard.

e.g.   my host file contains an entry    

mypc     127.0.0.1

 

And in the Fusion middleware Configuration wizard

image

 

Twill then work!

 

if it still doesnt you can try setting the ServerURL attribute to http://mypc in the SoaInfraMBean instead of blank.

This is accomplished by using Enterprise Manager. Use the System MBean Browser to navigate to Application Defined MBeans->oracle.as.soainfra.config->[ server]->SoaInfraConfig->soa-infra.

Then changing the value of 'ServerURL' to http://mypc

 

Failing that give support a call….

Weblogic 10.3.4 (PS3) nodemanager wont start?

Hi all, well Im back from Australia and one of the things which happened was Oracle announced the PS3 release of oracles SOA & Webcenter products have been released. Now I normally use pre-installed images but I always like to install the products at least once that way I get to see its installation caveats..

Here’s one.

Installation on Windows 7 64bit, 64bit JVM, generic weblogic Server installer.

All worked fine, EXCEPT I cant start the node manager, I get the following error

<08-Feb-2011 17:16:48> <INFO> <Loading domains file: D:\products\wls1034\WLSERV~1.3\common\NODEMA~1\nodemanager.domains>
<08-Feb-2011 17:16:48> <SEVERE> <Fatal error in node manager server>
weblogic.nodemanager.common.ConfigException: Native version is enabled but nodemanager native library could not be loaded
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServerConfig.initProcessControl(NMServerConfig.java:249)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServerConfig.<init>(NMServerConfig.java:190)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServer.init(NMServer.java:182)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServer.<init>(NMServer.java:148)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServer.main(NMServer.java:390)
    at weblogic.NodeManager.main(NodeManager.java:31)
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: D:\products\wls1034\wlserver_10.3\server\native\win\32\nodemanager.dll: Can't load IA 32-bit .dll on a AMD 64-bit platform
    at java.lang.ClassLoader$NativeLibrary.load(Native Method)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1803)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1728)
    at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:823)
    at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1028)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.util.WindowsProcessControl.<init>(WindowsProcessControl.java:17)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.util.ProcessControlFactory.getProcessControl(ProcessControlFactory.java:24)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServerConfig.initProcessControl(NMServerConfig.java:247)
    ... 5 more

Ok it appears that the node manager has gotten confused and thinks this is a 32bit install of Weblogic Server whereas it is the 64bit install.. Might have been something I did, or didnt do, on installation (e.g. –d64 on the jvm command line), however the workaround is pretty easy.

 

1. Create a file called nodemanager.properties in %WL_HOME%\common\nodemanager

on my machine it was D:\products\wls1034\wlserver_10.3\common\nodemanager

2. Add the following line to it

NativeVersionEnabled=false

3. And start it up!, this will force it not to use .DLL files and use emulation/non native methods instead..

 

 

Wednesday, 12 January 2011

SOA Composite Sensors : Good Practice

 

I was discussing a interesting design problem with a colleague of mine Niall (his blog) on the topic of how to cancel an inflight SOA Composite process.  Obviously one way to do this is to cancel the process from enterprise Manager ( http://hostSmile with tongue outort/em ) , however we were thinking this isnt a “user friendly” way of doing this..

If you look at Nialls blog you’ll see he’s highlighted a number of different APIs which enable you the ability to manipulate the SCA instance, e.g.

  • Code Snippet to purge (delete) an instance
  • How to determine the instanceId from a composite_sensor_value using the “composite_sensor_value” table
  • How to determine a BPEL Process status using the cube_instance table

Now all of these require that you know the instanceId of your SOA Composite, how does one find this out? Well the easiest way of doing this is to create a composite sensor on the SCA component. A composite sensor is simply a way of publishing a piece of business data as part of your composite. The magic here is that you can later query composites based on this value.

So a good best practice is that for any composites you create consider publishing a composite sensor value using a primary key of some sort , e.g. orderId, that way if you need to manipulate/query composites you can easily look up the instanceId using the sensorid.

For information on how to create a composite Sensor id see this documentation link

Tuesday, 11 January 2011

Pimping your joggler

A mate of mine , Bruno, recently asked me about upgrading his O2 Joggler to include extra toys.. well in the past you had to do it the hard way.. or should i say manual way..

My current prefered approach is to use "Plug-n-Pimp", available from http://www.gforums.de/juggler/ , also there is a support thread on http://www.joggler.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1155

Note this is different to "PMJ - Pimp My Joggler", does similar things but PNP appears to be updated more often

Angelo