Here is some general information about the new WordPress 3.0 features, and what they mean: tutsplus.

Some people like to read, but you also have the option of viewing the following videos: WordPressVideos. These cover some interesting topics, from how to use the admin features to how to use the menu manager. You can also use the videos to give clients a very good idea of what WordPress can do.

Happy blogging.

However, I prayerfully continue to get up in the morning and go to work. I make it through. Living with cardiomyopathy is not always a picnic, but one has to live in hope.

This brings me to some of the new developments with one of my favourite projects, DB4O. I am stealing the time it takes to write this; therefore, I will not say much myself. Read this, and get involved: Carl Rosenberger elicits support for a LINQ for Java project.

I have been telling clients and coworkers about open source for a while. Now, I SHOW them. I have a preconfigured version of Ubuntu in a virtual machine containing open source equivilants of all of the tools we use. I use these tools every day, and I willingly give anybody who asks a copy of this virtual machine to run on their own computer.

This represents a small commitment for them. They need to download the free VMWare Player, and then they can run a copy of Linux under windows without giving anything up.

My virtual machine has the full lamp stack – python, PHP, MYSql, PHPMyAdmin, and Apache. In addition, I provide NetBeans with Tomcat, a fully loaded version of Eclipse including pyDev, Aptana and PHPEclipse, and the Mono stack as well. Lastly, I provide Open Office, and a few other basic tools.

It is important to evangelise and to share both knowledge and tools.

 

Eclipse is my IDE of choice. I will not argue that it is the best IDE for each of the tasks I use it for – that is not the point. I like Eclipse because it represents a one-stop-shop – I use it to edit web pages, style sheets, JavaScript, Python, PHP and Java. Eclipse also gives me access to my code repository using Subversion.

Lately, I have also been using Aptana, an Eclipse plug-in that helps me create JavaScript. It also makes some of the latest Web 2.0 cool effects available to me by helping me integrate various JavaScript libraries with my code.

Today, I discovered that the Aptana site provides some high quality help for web developers. I do not specialize in front-end development; therrefore, I find this page very useful. I am currently promoting the use of AJAX at a client site – these resources will be very useful. So will Aptana. Give it a try.

I had a chance to use the beta of the next version of db4o – it is fast. Using an index slows things down in 6.1 on inserts – or, it seemed to – but 6.2 is amzingly fast.

Every language has a killer app, an application that catapults a language to popularity. DB4O is my killer app – it is the tool that draws me to Java. Other than that, I am often impatient with Java because everything seems more complicated than it should be. I have been trying to learn about AspectJ – I understand the concept very well, but many of the documents I read make it seem so complicated.

In any case, db40 is a breeze. When I learn to leaverage AspectJ, I look forward to making it even easier for myself. I may write about my AspectJ experience later.

As I reported a couple of days ago, I was having a problem with a DB4O experiment I was working on. Basically, after about a million records, my application would raise an error saying that I had run out of heap space. I could increase the heap space, but I was unhappy with that solution – it produced only margin improvements, and then I ran out of heap space again.

German Viscuso, who seems to read my blog, suggested that I post my problem to the db4o user forum. I visited the forum, and I found several possible solutions, but I found one that worked.

Early on in my code experiment, I was using an index, but I commented that line out to see how that changed performance – then, I am embarrassed to admit, I forgot to uncomment the line. Users of db4o, please note, the memory requirements and performance of db4o change dramatically if you do not use indexes. Use an index. My problems went away the moment I uncommented the line that maintains an index.

I am sorry to have written a post that suggested that there may be a problem with db4o – the problem was mine. Everybody who uses db4o needs to know: use an index. In a relational database, this affects performance only. With a db4o object cache, it can result in a fatal error.

In my last post, I mentioned that I had some code to ensure that my objects were unique, but it tended to be slow. I was looking forward to getting a chance to use version 6.2, which supports unique constraints. As it turns out, using an index speeds up my inserts as well – it is now both fast, and the repository does not allow duplicates.

In closing, conserve resources, use an index. That’s the ticket. The code to use an index looks like this:
Db4o.configure().objectClass(Person.class).objectField(“firstName”).indexed(true);

I use VMware at home. The benefits are huge. I have a virtual machine that acts as a file server, which I mirror to another server on my network. I also backup files to an external storgae device.

The biggest change for me is that my fully configured virtual machines are throw away appliances. I find this especially useful for the instance of Windows that I run. I have a snapshot of the VM in perfect working order. If I get a virus, or my registry becomes corrupt, I just roll back to the previous state. Since I do not use this instance to store files, I can do this with impunity.

I especially like being able to set up a web application with a separate database server and a separate apache instance to handle images. VMWARE let’s me plan how I am going to scale an application.

However, I still have a small problem. I still have to configure my VMs myself and install the software I need. You can solve this problem by downloading a preconfigured VM that can be used right out of the box. VMware provides some of these that can be downloaded out of the box, which is fine if you use VMware.

A Canadian company provides useful Virtual Appliances in multiple flavours. For example, you can download a server that runs an installed instance of PostgresSQL that runs under VMWARE, XEN or Microsoft Virtual PC. The copany is called Virtual Appliances, and their head office is in Uxbridge, Ontario. Their VMware appliances are certified by VMware, which means that they comply with best practice, they provide a safe computing environment and they have complete documentation. Give them a try. I found the TomCat VM very useful.

I have recently been working for a client that mandates the exclusive use of Internet Explorer. What makes it worse for me is that my desktop runs Windows 2000, which does not permit the use of IE 7. Sure, I missed tabbed browsing, but I missed some other features that surprised me. I especially missed the way Firefox and Google work together.

For example, let’s imagine that I am reading an article at Wired magazine that mentions something called a “Flickr account”. If I am unfamiliar with the term, I can highlight the term and right click my mouse. A menu pops up that gives me the option of running a Google search in another tab to help me understand the term before I continue. Isn’t that useful?You will also notice that the popup is aware of some of the Firefox plugins I have installed. I find this useful, too. Also, the popup is aware of the fact that I have used the Google notebook, and it gives me the option of making a note about Flickr and storing it using my Google Account.

At lunch, I sometimes make a blog entry, but I seem to have problems thinking and spelling at the same time. Firefox comes with a spell checker that runs in my browser as I type – it also feeds me some possible corrections if I spell something wrong. Firefox also allows me to save new words in a dictionary for later use. That is useful, too.

I know that IE 7 supports tabbed browsing, and I am sure that it has cool features I know nothing about. But, I am already happy with Firefox. I will get around to checking those new features out some day soon because I am prone to curiosity, but so many people are not.

I recently read an article that quotes Steve Balmer, of Microsoft, saying that his kids have been trained not to use Google, and not to use iPods. How cruel. How sad. And, how narrow. Still, they do not called them the browser wars for nothing. Microsoft intends to take no prisoners.

In a previous entry, I mentioned that I am working on a personal project that uses REST style urls and microformats to server data to my web application from Cherrypy. Since then, I have noticed that REST is becoming the flavour of the month. We love new things, don’t we?

I have also discovered that the Ruby on Rails people have been getting excited about REST as well. And, there is also a new Java project that I found out about: the Restlet project. I have not noticed as much discussion coming from the PHP camp about REST, but I may simply be missing it.

REST is a style, or a way of constructing URLS, but it is not a technology. I write this for older developers, like me: take note of REST. For a while, everything new seemed to be an MVC framework. Even PHP has CakePHP, an MVC based framework. Everything was trying to compete with Ruby on Rails. That trend is now entrenched. Even the next version of Joomla will be based on the MVC pattern.

Choosing to write code for a living will expose you to never-ending change. What was hot yesterday, will not be tomorrow. In fact, what was hot yesterday is often violently discarded. The older you get, the more you want to keep doing what works. You become good at what you do, and it seems like an insult that younger developers are not interested in learning what you know.

I am here to say to older developers that you DO have knowledge that can benefit young up-and-comers, but you are going to have to understand the new things to ensure that you have credibility. It is a characteristic of the young to dismiss an older developer the moment he or she is not familiar with something new, like Ruby on Rails, for instance. It has always been so. We owe it to the younger generation to try to keep up, especially if being conversant with new things makes it easier for us to share our real wisdom and experience.

So, oldsters, take nore of REST. Besides, learning can be fun.

Once, I was in charge of designing a content management solution, and the company wanted to develop and sell it. I asked for a product manager to help on the creative side, and I wanted to concentrate on the technical side of things. But I wanted us to work together. That is not what I got! The product manager resisted and impeded my progress, and I had to throw up my hands in disgust and leave.

One of the things I was saying was that managing content was not enough. You had to manage the process of creating content, and you might even have to manage relationships between content creators and content purchaser/users. I even imagined that the tools to sell things had to come with tools to help you market or buy things etc. For example, if I give you the tools to manage content translation, I could also help you contract with and pay translators. Not everybody has an in-house translator.

Now, I am seeing people who not only provide the tools you need, but they also provide the tools for you to bring your services to the world. For example, Amazon has a co-marketing program. In my previous entry, I provided a link to this program that provides the means to market and sell applications for hand held devices. These programs free you to concentrate on development work. I am going to find more of these programs.