Author Archives: Didier

Twhirl v0.9 is out!

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The new version of Twhirl is out after a good organized and dynamic private beta phase. You can download it here.

This version is very stable, no problem to attend on this side.

I’m quite a fan for a while of Twhirl as a Twitter client. Now, it allows also to broadcast your messages to Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. through the ping.fm service.

By the way, do you know this ping.fm service? Really great! It allows to publish centrally and to push your messages to the different “status” services of the main social networking websites. Worth a try, it’s free!

twhirl

Below, some information about Twhirl.

Twhirl features

  • multiple Twitter, laconica, Friendfeed and Seesmic account support
  • runs on Windows and Mac OSX (and Linux)
  • notifications of new messages across all of your accounts
  • shorten long urls easily (using snurl, twurl or isgd)
  • post images to TwitPic
  • search tweets using Twitter Search and Tweetscan
  • timeline filtering
  • groovy color schemes to personalize your experience
  • automatically checks for new versions

What’s new in Twhirl v0.9

  • spellchecker (currently English only, can be deactivated in settings if you use Twhirl in other languages)
  • your Twitter @replies will display even if you are mentioned in the middle of a tweet – don’t miss anyone quoting your name
  • share all your updates to all your favorite social software via Ping.FM support: Twhirl now posts to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more
  • follow any topic in near-realtime: searching for a term or a brand and then activating it as a saved search it will bring all future mentions of it into your timeline
  • record a video and post it straight to Twitter, then get your Seesmic video replies and follow the video conversation
  • get new Seesmic replies and videos in realtime thanks to XMPP support
  • support for bitly url shortnener with stats and history
  • support for direct messages and favorites on laconica/identica

Actually, I’m using Twhirl as micro-blogging client, without being a seesmic user ;-)

Have a look also at the video from Loic, showing how Twhirl is working.

4th HD video from Saint Barth – Some sunsets

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Some of the fantastic sunsets we have seen last year, from the villa Ella.

In about 10 days, we will there again, so I don’t know if I will publish new ones or not till then ;-)

Let’s see!

As usual, you should have a look at the high-res version here.

http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2008120101.swf

Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO, is to depart Sun

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via 451 CAOS Theory

It seems that SUN will not communicate on that, but Marten Mickos, the former MySql CEO, is leaving SUN, after about 1 year… I remember one of my post in February 2008 with some explanations about the “why” of this merge, directly from Marten. Outch. Something didn’t work as planed there.

Some more information below.

I just got news that Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO, is to depart Sun amid a reorganisation of its infrastructure and database business units. Don’t expect an announcement from Sun on this, but the news is confirmed.

[…] Marten will be transitioning out of Sun by the end of the company’s (current) third quarter.

Marten’s departure is a big loss for Sun and follows quickly after the departures of Monty Widenius and David Axmark.

[…] Matt Asay is right, Marten’s departure “is likely to lead to an exodus among MySQL’s deep talent pool”. This needn’t be a complete disaster – the same thing happened at JBoss and Red Hat has recovered from that, but this is going to be a serious test for Sun’s ability to maximize on the potential of MySQL and its other open source assets.

Matt also writes that “Mickos was the backbone of MySQL’s rising revenues, as an open-source pragmatist and visionary. He was the face of MySQL, but also of the rising open-source industry.” This is true, and for that reason I hope it’s not too long before we see him taking charge at another vendor.

Good luck to Marten, hope to see him asap in a new role!

What is a great software company

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via Judith Hurwitz

Judith is discussing the difference between a good and a great software company.

Interesting insights!

1. Great companies start with a predictable business model and turn the model upside down. They look three years ahead and experiment with innovation. They have to have a combination of intuition, risk, and innovation. These companies are willing to take enough risk to win big but smart enough to know the difference between great opportunities and pipe dreams.

2. Great companies find new areas to position themselves for leadership. This is very tough to pull off. The area has to be important enough for the market to pay attention to but not too big that they look silly.  Great companies never try to take a big existing market with established leaders and try to claim primacy.

3. Great companies build great relationships. Management at these companies builds an ecosystem of influencers including great customers who will talk about the value, press, analysts, and partners who together help the company create a persona of innovation and greatness while the company is still building.

Great software companies are complicated to build.   The software business a complicated and brutal with  lots of failures at every turn.  […] It isn’t easy. Great software companies are even more difficult and scary to build.

Gosh, 37 years old!

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Yes, today is my birthday. 37 years old.

Thanks to Laurent and Mathieu for their wishes via Twitter.

And thanks to Stephen, Thomas, Patrick, Robert, Géraldine for their nice words via Facebook.

And thanks to all my friends and colleagues who have sent me a mail, as Martine, Doris, Bruno, Manu, Olivier, Andreas, Salah.

And thanks to all, my friends and family, who has contacted me per telephone today.

And thanks to my wife and son, Laurence and Julien, for their surprise this morning :-)

Special thanks to Martinique for her Frangipani (picture taken in Senegal).

birthday

And to the Xing team for their virtual birthday cake ;-)

birthday

From an Innoveo CI/CD point of view, Andreas (our designer) won the price ;-)

birthday

A year more, but thanks to everybody, a nice and brilliant day!

PS: yesterday evening, we had a cool dinner at “La Table de Louise”. Very nice local, very friendly and professional service, great food, and … 3 birthdays to celebrate the same evening at 3 different tables :-)

3rd HD video from Saint Barth – Colombier beach

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After the short presentation of the the villa Ella, a third HD video about Saint Barth, this time concerning one of our preferred beach, Colombier. One of the must of the island and a marvelous location for snorkeling!

As usual, you should also have a look at the high-res version here.

http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2008120101.swf

And still not the last video.

The next one will be for Laurent.

Comparison of Open Source Application Servers

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openlogic

I have found – by accident really! – a very interesting presentation on SlideShare concerning the different leading Open Source Application Servers on the market.

This very solid evaluation is proposed by OpenLogic.

I have summarized parts of it below.

Goal of the presentation /

Help you choose which open source application servers to evaluate more thoroughly:

  • JBoss
  • GlassFish
  • dm Server
  • Geronimo
  • Tomcat

Which open source application servers are your using or considering using /

appserver

J2EE Didn’t Fill the Need /

  • EJB 2 is difficult to use
    • Many people consider it unnecessary difficult
    • Entity Beans were especially problematic
    • But even session beans earned bad reputations
  • The Open Source community responds
    • OSS packages mitigating the problem
      • Hibernate instead of Entity Beans
      • Spring as a component model
    • They were very successful in the marketplace
  • Many Spring/Hibernate applications
    • Required only Tomcat to run but also work in full app servers

When Tomcat Is Not Enough /

  • Tomcat doesn’t support
    • JMS
    • EJBs
    • Other…
  • Enterprises need integration
    • The more mature the app is, the more likely it is to be added
  • Add-ons
    • It was possible to add things that Tomcat was missing
    • But this became a “build your own Frankenstein” exercise

Java Enterprise Edition in the Meantime /

  • Weaknesses in EJB 2 model were recognized
  • Work on new specification was completed
    • J2EE → JEE 5
    • EJB 2 → EJB 3
      • Entity Beans → JPA
  • EJB 3
    • Simple annotation-based programming model
    • Not everybody adopted EJB 3
  • JEE 6 will embrace modularity
    • Profiles, including web profile

Choices in 2007 /

  • Use Spring
    • Start with full app server
    • Start with Tomcat, build from there
  • Use EJB 3
    • Requires full app servers
  • Full application server
    • Pros – everything you are likely to need, could use EJB
    • Cons – complexity, might use more resources then Tomcat
  • Tomcat
    • Pros – small, simple, low resource usage
    • Cons – you might need to build your own app server, no EJB

OSGi /

  • Started in 1999
    • Recently got a lot of exposure
    • In particular, R 4.1
      • JSR-294
  • OSGi brings
    • Dependency management and modularity
    • Ability to load only parts it needs
  • OSGi currently has a lot of mindshare

The central questions /

  • Decisions, decisions
    • EJB 3 or Spring
    • Spring on dm Server or on J2EE/JEE server?
    • OSGi or not OSGi
    • Do I need EJB 2 compatibility?
    • In addition, there are many “old” considerations
  • Servers are not “all inclusive”
    • EJB 3 apps won’t work on SpringSource dm Server or Tomcat

Assessment JBoss /

JBoss Thought Leadership

  • Complete ecosystem
    • Portal
    • ESB
    • BPM
  • JBoss has history of innovation
    • Pioneer of EJB 3
    • Seam Application Framework
    • Web Beans
  • OSGi
    • Support in JBoss 5

JBoss for Developers

  • Excellent customizability
    • JMX-based, don’t deploy what you don’t need
  • Seam is worth a look for developers
  • JDK 6 with 4.2.3 and 5.0 GA
    • JDK 5 compiled binaries work on both JDK 5 and JDK 6
  • JBoss IDE
    • Eclipse-based
    • JBoss Tools
      • Free version (RHDS is paid version)

JBoss in Production

  • Dependability
    • Excellent clustering and failover capability
    • Reliable in production
  • Monitoring and deployment capabilities
    • Not really oriented toward system administration out of the box
      • Command line/file edit flavor of configuration
      • GUI tools (Tomcat manager and JMX Console) are fairly basic
    • Excellent 3rd party tools available for monitoring
      • Hyperic
      • GroundWork IT
      • JON *

JBoss – Conclusions

  • Strengths
    • Mature, scalable and reliable
    • Good support for J2EE and EJB 3
    • Seam framework
  • Weaknesses
    • Limited GUI-based configuration in open source version
    • LGPL License may be a concern for ISV’s embedding app servers

Assessment SpringSource dm Server /

SpringSource dm Server

  • Newcomer
    • Released in April of 2008
    • GPL license
    • Incorporates many mature components
      • Spring Framework
      • Tomcat
      • Equinox
    • dm Server users are very early adopters
  • Different take on app server
    • OSGi support
    • No support for EJB
    • No JMS out of the box

dm Server for Developers

  • Server works well with Spring Framework
  • IDE
    • Spring IDE – IDE for Eclipse platform
    • Support for NetBeans and IntelliJ
  • OSGi support
    • Resolves “dependency hell”
    • But requires application migration to take advantage of it
  • Supports Java 5 and 6

dm Server Thought Leadership

  • OSGi-based
    • Good OSGi implementation
    • OSGi discussed a lot in their documentation
  • No support for EJB
    • No support for EJB 3 or old EJB 2 spec
  • Spring offers similar functionality to Seam
    • Which is somewhat more mature
    • Although some of the Seam ideas might be somewhat more powerful
      • Bijection

dm Server – Conclusions

  • Strengths
    • Support for Spring Framework
    • Support for OSGi
  • Weaknesses
    • Newcomer
    • No EJB
    • Limited experience among workforce

Assessment Tomcat /

Tomcat

  • First release (3.0.x) in 1999
    • Apache license
  • Servlet container
    • Lightweight server
  • Used in many other app servers
    • JBoss
    • dm Server
    • Geronimo

Tomcat – Conclusions

  • Strengths
    • Lightweight
    • Well known and tested

      • < li>Fast startup/deployment for development

  • Weaknesses
    • No support for EJB, JMS or almost anything else outside of “web side”
    		•

    Tomcat in Development and Production

    • Tomcat 6 supports
      • Clustering
      • Failover
    • Widely used for both development and production
    • Supported in most popular IDEs

    Conclusions /

    • App servers are not just about the JEE specs
    • Make some high-level decisions before evaluation
      • Do I need EJB 2 compatibility?
      • Do I intend to follow EJB 3 and other industry standards?
      • Do I need something fast, lightweight, and easy to use?
      • Do I have a need for lifecycle management of server components (through OSGi)?
      • Do I need support for dynamic languages like Groovy and JRuby?
      • Am I an early adopter of new technology?

    Recommendations /

    • “I’m using EJBs and I’m conservative”
      • JBoss, GlassFish
    • “I don’t need XA/JMS/EJB”
      • Tomcat, JBoss, GlassFish, dm Server
    • “I’m using Spring”
      • Conservative – JBoss, Tomcat, GlassFish
      • Leading edge – dm Server
    • “I need to embed an app server in my commercial code”
      • Tomcat, Geronimo
    • “I use Spring heavily and I need OSGi”
      • I need it today and don’t need EJBs – dm Server
      • I need it soon and/or need EJBs – GlassFish, JBoss
    • “I use Seam”
      • JBoss
    • “I want ActiveMQ/Spring/Hibernate preinstalled”
      • Geronimo
    • “I need dynamic language support”
      • Groovy/Grails – dm Server, JBoss, GlassFish
      • JRuby/Rails – GlassFish, Geronimo

    Innoveo Skye – Product strategy workshop

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    Yesterday and today, workshop with the Innoveo Management Team near Zurich for refining and documenting our Innoveo Skye™ (content, scope, roadmap) software solution for insurances (front-end and distribution).

    More information there about Skye™.

     

    2nd HD video from Saint Barth – Villa Ella

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    As mentioned in this post, I am publishing some HD video (720p, i.e. a 1280×720 resolution) on SmugMug.

    Below, the second one (embedded in DVD quality). Topic is still Saint Barth, this time, with some views of the villa we were in, and the fantastic panoramic views on the Saint Barth airport and the Saint Jean Bay.

    You should also have a look at the high-res version here.

    http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2008120101.swf

    Some other new HD videos to be published in the coming days!