Sun Java System Identity Manager(With Passion) free online course

The 1st session of free "Sun Java System Identity Manager
(with Passion!)" free online course will start on September
17thd, 2007. The course contents are created based in the
latest IDM version (7.1), providing the basis for
the administration and development activities. This
course is being taught by Gabriel Magarino.

Each topic has a hands-on lab which contains "ready to open
and build" NetBeans projects. For more information, please
go to the course websites below.

Course topics: http://www.javapassion.com/idm/#Topics
Course website: http://www.javapassion.com/idm
Course FAQ: http://www.javapassion.com/idm/coursefaq.html

This course runs very much like a regular college course in
which the students are expected to do weekly homework after
studying the presentation material and doing the hands-on
lab but it is free and can be taken online. There is also
class email alias where students can ask/answer questions.

---------------------------------
Sang Shin, sang.shin@sun.com
http://www.javapassion.com/SangSchedule.html#Bio
http://www.javapassion.com/SangSchedule.html
(Life is worth living... with Passion!)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sun Tech Days Developer Conference: Boston
Sep.12th 2007: Sun Tech Day
Sep.11th,2007: NetBeans Day, OpenSolaris Day
http://developers.sun.com/events/techdays/
---------------------------------------------------------------

www.mpmag.com.kh: What font?

I installed Limons, ABC, Siemreap, Ekreach and other Khmer fonts, but the text on www.mpmag.com.kh doesn't look right.

Do you know what font does the site use?

Netbeans 6M10 & Vista:Workaround

I finally managed to make Netbeans 6 shake hands with Vista.
Here is how I do:

I Right clicked on the setup file and chose Properties.
On the Compatibility tab I ticked the options as shown in the figure on the left.

Netbeans 6M10 & Vista:Disappointment

As my Acer 5630 crashes on XP, I try my luck on Vista.
While Netbeans 6 Milestone 10 runs smoothly on XP, it refuses to play nice on Vista.
When I try to make new project, there's nothing for me to select on the project category list!

I use Java SE 1.6 Beta 2-b86. I guess it's the problem.
I'm going to give Java 1.6 Update 2 a shot.

MS Access Unicode & Java JDBC

It's been a nightmare migrating data from MS Access full of unicode data to java database Derby.
Since the JDBC-ODBC bridge driver doesn't support UTF-16, you'll end up with ???????? when it should be កខគឃង.

Fortunately, there are alternative drivers. I've tried HXTT Access which support unicode.
The trial version limits 1000 transactions; enough for my 3225 records with 4 times execution.

After importing the data to Derby.
I'm ready to go to next step. :)

I've got the certificate!

It's my first online course and I'm so excited to get the certificate!

Java Worst Practices

http://softarc.blogspot.com/2007/07/java-worst-practices.html

by Frank

Free "Web Services and SOA Programming" online course

The 3rd session of the "Web Services and SOA Programming" online course
starts from August 24th. The topics of the course can be seen from the
following link:

http://www.javapassion.com/webservices/index.html#Topics

This new session will have heavy emphasis on the following 4 technology
areas.

* New Java APIs for Web Services (JAX-WS, JAXB, REST)
* WSIT (Project Tango)
* SOA Technologies (BPEL, JBI, Open ESB)
* GlassFish (Java EE 5, JBI runtime, Service Engines)

For the Hands-on labs, the "out of the box" support of above
technologies by NetBeans 6.0
(both in terms of designer tool and runtime) will be heavily leveraged.

* XML Schema editor
* WSDL editor
* BPEL designer
* CASA

If you know anybody who might be interested in taking this free course,
please let them know. In order to register for this course, all you
have to do
is sending a blank email to the following course subscription alias.

webservicesprogramming-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Minimart project: Lessons learnt

After doing the minimart project, I've compiled lessons learnt:

-Be precise about the scope of the project.
Make sure the customer understand what will the result of the project. This serve as the checklist to determine that you have completed the project. If you miss this, customers can suggest more features and your project grows. You will feel that the project has no end.

-Use prototype
What you have done especially user interfaces may be different from what customers expected. Making prototypes for customers to review can reveal the different and can save you lots of time. You can further understand customers' need or capture details customers missed at analysis phase. It can also satisfy customers to a larger extend.

-Backing up
Before making changes, make sure you have backed up everything including database.

-Fixing bugs
When customers find bugs in your program, they will call you. Instead of fixing it at customers' place, note down bugs' information, go back to the company and analyze the dependency of what you change. This is to ensure that what you change will not break other codes. If you have used Unit Test in your program, it'll tell you whether your change will break other codes.

The pain of a wrong decision

Here I'm proudly present to you my pain of a wrong decision, MS.Access.

It's the "Focus"!
Most VB or Access programmers would know what I mean here. If you use Got_Focus and Lost_Focus a lot, you will end up losing control of the flow as the code grows larger. The most painful headache we had was in the receipt form where we were trying to sync between Riel and US Dollar.

No OO.
If you are happy with the benefit of Object Oriented, you will cry with Access(2003). No encapsulation, no code reduce, no inheritance, no polymorphisms, and the list goes on. When our project grows to a certain point, we started to feel the beginning of the hell where code disorders is the curse.

We wished we had chosen the OO language such as VB.Net or Java.