Messaging 101 with JMS: Async without Fear. I have been bouncing between web apps stuffed with AJAX and talks about services all week, and a theme keeps coming up in teams I visit: async is scary. People picture threads, stuck sockets, and mystery bugs at 2 AM. It does not…
Year: 2006
Polishing Desktop UIs: Look and Feel that Respects Users
Polishing Desktop UIs is not about eye candy. It is about respect. The more your app respects the user, the more the user respects your app. A small story about a big button Last week I watched a support rep try to save a customer from a crash. Two apps…
FreeMarker in Email and PDFs
\n I spent last night chasing a weird email bug. A JSP based template was adding a rogue space in the invoice total. Outlook showed 12 345.67 while Gmail showed 12345.67. I finally moved the email to FreeMarker, gave the numbers a proper format, and the ghost space vanished. Same…
Multipart Uploads: Handling Files without Regret
Multipart uploads sound simple. Then you hit production and you get support tickets, full disks, broken sessions, and that one browser that thinks the spec is a suggestion. This is a field guide from the servlet trenches so you can ship file uploads without regret. Problem framing Right now everyone…
Alfresco as a Document Hub
What if your files stopped living in email threads and started living in one place people can reach from Windows Explorer, a browser, or even a WebDAV mount? What if that place spoke plain file share, tracked versions without drama, searched like a pro, and did not lock you into…
Choosing a Java IDE: Eclipse, NetBeans, IntelliJ
\n \n\n\n\n Pick the tool that makes you faster on a Tuesday afternoon when the bug list is longer than your coffee is hot. \n\n\n\n At the keyboard with three contenders \n\n\n\n I have three icons on my desktop right now. Eclipse. NetBeans. IntelliJ IDEA. All three open a project…