Author Archives: Per Henrik Lausten

The SOA Magazine

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A new online magazine on Service Oriented Architecture has just launched: The SOA Magazine.

From the “About this magazine”:

The SOA Magazine is a bi-monthly online publication provided by SOA Systems Inc. and Prentice Hall/PearsonPTR and is officially associated with the “Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl.”

The SOA Magazine is dedicated to publishing specialized SOA articles, case studies, and papers by industry experts. The common criteria for contributions is that each explore a distinct aspect of service-oriented computing.

[Via Architects Linkblog]

I have recently blogged about two online architecture journals that might be of interest to you also.

getItemValueString and Domino 6.5.5 and 7.0 (Show’n Tell Thursday)

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The return value of the Java method getItemValueString has been changed in Lotus Domino 6.5.5, Lotus Domino 7.0 and later releases. Before 6.5.5 the method getItemValueString returns null if the item is empty or if the item does not exist. In 6.5.5, 7.0 and later releases getItemValueString returns the empty string (“”) instead.

I upgraded three servers from 6.5.4 to 6.5.5 and found out the hard way when the application didn’t work as expected. Conditions checking getItemValueString for null values were never met so lots of logic was skipped.

So if you plan to upgrade to 6.5.5 og 7.0 or later then check your Java code for the use of getItemValueString.

Update: I have added this post to the Lotus Notes and Domino Blogging Community Show’n Tell Thursday series.

Open Source Windows OS

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ReactOS is a free open source operating system based on the Microsoft Windows architecture. ReactOS 0.3 was released yesterday.

A very interesting project that tries to be an open source alternative for Windows users that does not want to switch to a new operating system such as Linux.

The ReactOS homepage has links to reviews of the operating system if you are interested.

If you want to try it out in an easy way then download the VMware image of ReactOS 0.3 and try it out using the free VMware Player.

Happy 25

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Today the IBM PC turns 25 years.

“Computer firm IBM made technological history on 12 August 1981 with the announcement of a personal computer – the IBM 5150” – more at BBC.

“August 12, 1981 marks the birth of the IBM PC, the computer that single-handedly turned personal computing to the business market” – more at Low End Mac with comments on OSNews and Slashdot.

I had my first PC in 1993 (running Windows 3.1 and OS/2 Warp when it was released in 1994).

The IBM Archives has more on the IBM 5150 and the first ten years of personal computing from 1981 to 1991.

Free "SOA for Dummies" book!

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IBM is was giving away a free copy of “SOA for Dummies“. Go ahead and order your copy.

Aug. 9 update from Bobby Woolf: “The IBM offering is not the full book, it’s a subset aimed at businesspeople. The full book is 384 pages; the free IBM version is 66 pages, focusing on the business aspects and fundamentals of the architecture but not the technology details”

Sept. 21 update: The offer has expired. Due to the overwhelming success of the ordering of the free SOA for Dummies books, IBM has run out of supply. IBM has shipped 10,000 books around the world.

[Via Bobby Woolf]

Aptana: The Web IDE

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Have a look at Aptana: The Web IDE. Aptana is a robust, JavaScript-focused IDE for building dynamic web applications. Highlights include the following features:

  • Code Assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, including your own JavaScript functions
  • Outliner that gives a snapshot view of your JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code structure
  • Error and warning notification for your code
  • Support for Aptana UI customization and extensions
  • Cross-platform support
  • Free and open source

Please notice that the Aptana code assist feature has support for different popular AJAX Javascript libraries such as Dojo and Prototype.

The alpha version was released in March 2006 and Aptana is now in beta with the current version being 0.31. You can either download Aptana as a stand alone client or as a plugin for Eclipse.

I’ve tried the stand alone client and I really like the code assist and the integrated JavaScript and DOM documentation.

Hannover by Jeff Eisen

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Jeff Eisen has posted a great technical introduction to the next major release of Lotus Notes (code name “Hannover”).

To summarize, here are the main points from the introduction:

  • Hannover refers to the Notes client. The Domino server that will be released with Hannover is code-named “Domino Next”.
  • Hannover will most certainly be known as Lotus Notes 8.0 when officially released.
  • Hannover is based on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform – more precisely on a common platform titled Lotus Expeditor. The Lotus Expeditor platform is also being used for the new Lotus Sametime 7.5.
  • Being based on Eclipse means that Eclipse developers can build Notes applications
  • And finally, there will still be a “traditional” technology non-Eclipse version of the Notes client delivered as part of the Hannover release.

You have probably heard all of this before but it is new to me that the Hannover release will include a standard Notes client (i.e. not based on Eclipse).

My previous posts on Hannover: