JamesBranam's Blog

Last Day at Sun Microsystems

Hi all,

This is blog entry number 517. It is also my last for my Sun blog. Today is my last day at Sun Microsystems.

The past four years have been fantastic. Sun is a wonderful place to work: a great atmosphere and even greater colleagues. I will miss it very much. To leave Sun was a tough decision to make.

It's now time for me to move on. If you've been reading my blog over the years and still want to, you can. I have a personal blog at http://blog.jambra.net/bc/. I hope to see you there.

So, goodbye for now. See you around, wherever that may be.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 05:29PM Nov 13, 2009 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[2]

Last Week at Sun

Hi all,

My last week at Sun starts today. On Friday I'll be turning in my equipment and leaving the building for the last time (as an employee). The past four years have been great, and leaving isn't easy.

While at Sun, I had the opportunity to be part of the NetBeans writing team, one of the best teams I've ever encountered. Other members of the team taught me a lot and made me a better technical writer. I'm very grateful to have had such a wonderful opportunity.

And I can't forget the people I've worked with who are no longer at Sun. I owe them a lot as well.

And having worked on NetBeans for four years, I'll always be following the IDE, checking out new builds. I also hope to be an active member of the NetBeans community. Maybe I'll even write a doc or two for the NB Community Docs program.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 04:15PM Nov 09, 2009 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[0]

Four Years at Sun

Hi all,

It's been four years today since I first started working at Sun Microsystems. It has been great working for Sun. I've been involved in a lot of fantastic projects, and I've learned a great deal. Here's a quick list of what I've been involved with at Sun:

• Sun Java Studio Creator Project: Versions 2.0 and 2.1
• NetBeans IDE: versions 5.5, 5.5.1, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.1, 6.5, 6.5.1, 6.7, and 6.8. (I started just before NetBeans 5.0 went out the door)
• Visual Web Pack 5.5
• Woodstock 1.0 and 2.0
• Integrating MySQL into NetBeans
• NetBeans Proficiency Exam preparation
• NetBeans Community Docs program
• Cloud Training Courses
• Sun Tech Days in London, Prague, and St. Petersburg (Russia)
• Blogging for Sun
• Python in NetBeans
• JavaScript in NetBeans
• Web Applications in NetBeans
• Database functionality in NetBeans
• Ajax in NetBeans

This anniversary is a little bittersweet for me in that this will be my last anniversary. I'll be leaving Sun Microsystems on November 13 for other employment. This means that I'll be blogging for two more weeks. I'll certainly continue blogging on my private blog.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 10:53AM Nov 01, 2009 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[5]

Sunday Blowout

What a game. The Indianapolis Colts blew out the St. Louis Rams 42-6. We're already of of Daylight Savings Time over here, so I was able to watch the game starting at 6 p.m. Sweet!

Let's see if the Colts can keep the ball rolling.

Cheers!

-James

Posted at 01:02PM Oct 26, 2009 by branajam in Personal  |  Comments[0]

A New American

My 7-month-old son got his American citizenship a week ago. He was born in March, and we had to register his birth at the U.S. Embassy in Prague. It was a very smooth process. We were also able to apply for his Social Security card and his passport. I pick up the passport tomorrow morning. (You can see his passport photo at the top of this blog entry).

So, my son now has dual citizenship: Czech and American. He'll be able to choose which one he keeps when he is older.

I think that this is a good thing.

My days at Sun are winding down. I'll be making a big announcement in November.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 06:46PM Oct 20, 2009 by branajam in Personal  | 

VirtualBox Rocks!

VirtualBox rocks!

As you know, I've been designing a training course for Cloud Computing and I've been playing around with hypervisors. My favorite type 2 hypervisor is Sun's VirtualBox. It's free and easy to use.

Look at the screenshot above. I have six operating systems installed as guest operating systems on VirtualBox. No disk partitioning was required to do this. Each operating system has its own virtual hard disk image. The image is expandable too.

If you haven't had the chance to check out VirtualBox, be sure to do so. You will like what you see.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 11:13AM Oct 17, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Colts 5-0

Hi all,

A person blog entry today. The Indianapolis Colts are 5-0 after the first five weeks of the season. Could be a Superbowl season.

I've been watching the games on NFL Gamepass. And when the Colts play early in the morning my time, I watch the game with my 7-month-old son the next morning. No interruptions. Cool.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 01:16PM Oct 13, 2009 by branajam in Personal  | 

Rainy Days and Wednesdays

Hi all,

This is the last blog entry for September. September has not been a good month for blogging (for me anyway). A lot has been going, both at work and at home. I'll be writing more about the work part later. Here are some random comments:

• A few days ago I posted a video advocated health care for all. Then I received the comments. The comments I'm talking about are spam in the form of arguments against health care. At first I approved them. Then I discovered that several people had submitted the very same comment to other blogs. What losers. I'm fortunate to live in country where health care is available to all. The system works, and if someone says it doesn't, they are either lying to you or stupid to know.
• I've been finishing up my cloud training course with my colleagues. It's looking really good.
• NetBeans 6.8 Beta should be out very soon.
• My son is growing fast! He is getting his first tooth now.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 11:14AM Sep 30, 2009 by branajam in Personal  | 

AWS Experience Part 14: Cloud Watch in AWS Management Console

Hi all,

This is another episode in the Amazon Web Services series. This time I'll talk about Cloud Watch. You say you don't know what Cloud Watch is? This is what Amazon has to say about its new product:

Amazon CloudWatch is a web service that provides monitoring for AWS cloud resources, starting with Amazon EC2. It provides you with visibility into resource utilization, operational performance, and overall demand patterns—including metrics such as CPU utilization, disk reads and writes, and network traffic. To use Amazon CloudWatch, simply select the Amazon EC2 instances that you’d like to monitor; within minutes, Amazon CloudWatch will begin aggregating and storing monitoring data that can be accessed using web service APIs or Command Line Tools.

Those of you who are used to using AWS will notice that there is a new column for images: Monitoring. The default is set to disable, and to enable monitoring via Cloud Watch, right-click the image and choose Enable Monitoring, as seen in the following image:

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 01:42PM Sep 24, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

The Real Victims of Health Care Reform

Hi all,

The U.S. is the only civilized country in the world without a health care system that does not at least attempt to cover all of its citizens. Barack Obama has been trying to change this. The Republican party has been doing its best to drum up opposition to these reforms, and thousands of people are showing up at protests, many of them with no idea of what they are protesting and that they are the ones who will benefit the most from the reforms. Add to this the health insurance companies doing everything they can to preserve the status quo, to protect their huge profits.

This video takes an interesting angle to all of this.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 03:31PM Sep 23, 2009 by branajam in Personal  | 

Tuesday Update

Hi all,

A Tuesday update of what's going on in my job and life.

• I've been making some final tweaks to the Cloud training course I've been working on. We're really close now. This has been a great opportunity for me to dive deeper into cloud computing.
• I'm anxiously awaiting the Beta release of NetBeans IDE 6.8. I can't wait to take it for a drive.
• The family is back at home after summer in the country. It's great to have my wife and son back at home.
• I'm looking forward to getting started on the new course I'll be working on. It's another cloud course, similar to the one mentioned above, but much more in detail.
• I've also been enjoying the return of American football season. My team, the Indianapolis Colts, won their opener with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 02:29PM Sep 15, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

6 Months Today

Hi all,

Today we're celebrating my son's first six months of life.

It has gone by so fast. He has been eating baby food for about two weeks now and loves it.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 04:02PM Sep 10, 2009 by branajam in Personal  | 

NB Community Docs: Stepping Down

Hi all,

I have a big announcement to make in this blog entry, and I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

After two and a half years of managing the NetBeans Community Docs program, I've decided to step down. As a technical writer, I've been assigned duties other than NetBeans (Cloud Computing training courses), and it only makes sense to let another writer who is still writing for NetBeans take over.

There. I've said it. It's been a wonderful ride as NetBeans Community Docs Manager. I've met lots of great people, and I've made some friends for life, but it is time to pass the torch.

328 contributions from the community. You should all be very proud of what you've done, and how you've made the program such a success.

As of tomorrow, the new NetBeans Community Docs Manager will be Jeff Rubinoff. Also a blogger, I wish Jeff all the best in his tenure as manager. I wish him all the great cooperation I experienced during my time as manager.

Please join me in welcoming Jeff to the position.

So, I say goodbye to you one last time as manager of the program. Working with you has been one of the best experiences I've ever had.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 06:00PM Aug 31, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans  | 

NB Community Docs: Big Change Coming

Hi all,

I wrote about a month ago about a big announcement that was coming for the NetBeans Community Docs program. Well, for a couple of reasons, the change didn't come as I had expected, but it is is coming. I'll be making the announcement in tomorrow's blog entry. So tune in.

No need to worry: The program will continue to provide high quality documentation for the NetBeans Community.

See you tomorrow.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 05:40PM Aug 30, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans  | 

Vacation Time

Hi all,

Today I'm blogging from Eastern Bohemia. My Vacation starts on Monday, and I drove here to today to get a head start. Originally I had planned to do some hiking and biking with my wife, but due to a recent knee injury I won't be doing much of either. The knee should be fine in a couple of weeks. It's starting to feel a little better but can still be a little bothersome at times.

See you tomorrow.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 08:15PM Aug 29, 2009 by branajam in Personal  | 

Connection Pool Problems for MySQL/GlassFish/OpenSolaris

Hi all,

Last night I spent some time setting up a connection pool in GlassFish's admin console. Here's the backstory: I'm working on a training course for cloud computing, and as part of my module on assembling a virtual data center I ran into a few problems. I have two virtual servers running. One is running OpenSolaris and has GlassFish application server installed on it. The other is running Fedora Linux and has my MySQL database on it. The problems occurred when I tried to ping the database server from GlassFish. I got some strange messages. When a colleague of mine googled the problem, he found out that the problem was OpenSolaris specific. After downloading several .jar files the error message said weren't there, I stumbled upon the solution:

1. The solution was to copy my regular MySQL driver .jar file from my local machine to the glassfish-install/domains/domain1/lib/ext/ directory on my virtual server.
2. I typed this: scp -i mykeypair.pem ~/location/of/my.jar root@my-aws-public-dns:/glasssfish/domains/domain1/lib/ext/.
3. I then restarted GlassFish and the connection pool worked: I was able to ping my database server.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 08:20PM Aug 28, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans  | 

Accessing a Remote MySQL Database from NetBeans

Hi all,

The past few months, I've been developing a course on the concepts of cloud computing and virtualization. It's coming along very well, and this week I've been working on a demo for an application in the cloud that uses a database located elsewhere in the cloud (i.e. on another virtual server). I'd thought I share the steps with you. I used MySQL, but the steps should be similar for other databases.

1. Install MySQL on the server.
2. Create a new user for MySQL: create user USERNAME identified by 'PASSWORD';
3. Grant the user access to the database: grant all privileges on DATABASE.* to USERNAME identified by 'PASSWORD';
4. Then I started up the IDE and went to the Services window, where I connected to my local MySQL database.
5. After connecting, I right-clicked the MySQL driver node and chose Connect Using.
   The New Database Connection dialog box opens.
   

   

6. Fill in the requested information and click OK.
   

   
   The database connection will appear in the Services window.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 06:36PM Aug 27, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans  | 

Sun Blog Entry Number 500

Hi all,

Today I've reached an important blogging milestone: This is the 500th entry for JamesBranam's Blog. I first started this blog back in December of 2005, after talking to my colleague Geertjan. Today I have to say that it was great advice from the blogging master.

I blog about lots of things, mostly IT-related, sometimes personal. I've enjoyed blogging, and have even expanded to more blogs.

Thanks to everyone for reading this blog, and thanks for the fantastic interaction. You have made it well worth the while.

Cheers!

-James

Posted at 09:00AM Aug 16, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Friends from Oregon

1 blog entry until number 500

Hi all,

Some friends from Corvallis, Oregon arrived in town last night. I met them at about 10 pm and we headed for the Old Town via Charles Bridge. It was their first time in Prague, and they were stunned by its beauty.

They even brought me an Oregon State Beavers baseball cap with the new OS logo.

I'm meeting them again this evening before they embark on another fun-filled night in Prague. And I'll be heading back home to work some more on my Cloud Concepts training course.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 03:17PM Aug 13, 2009 by branajam in Personal  | 

Setting Location of Java DB Database in NetBeans 6.7

2 blog entries until number 500

Hi all,

I have several versions of the NetBeans IDE installed on my Mac. Occasionally, I'll update to a newer version of the GlassFish application server as well. Because both NetBeans and GlassFish are constantly undergoing improvements, sometimes directories get renamed, and pesky little warning messages pop up. A couple of days ago, I got such a message, politely letting me know that the location of my Java DB database server was set incorrectly: This is what I did to correct this:

1. I went to the Services window and expanded the Databases node.
2. I right-clicked the Java DB node and chose Properties, as seen in the following image.
   
   The Java DB Properties dialog box opens.
In the dialog box, I browsed for the location of Java DB. I found it in my SUNWappserver directory.

3. I clicked OK, and then I was able to start the database server by right-clicking the Java DB node again and choosing Start Server.
   

--James

Posted at 10:56AM Aug 11, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans  | 

My Blogging Assistant

3 blog entries until number 500

Hi all,

I have a new blogging assistant: my five-month-old son. He likes hanging out with me in front of the computer.

It makes blogging even more fun.

Have a nice Sunday.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 10:03AM Aug 09, 2009 by branajam in Personal  | 

AWS Experience Part 13: Deploying to GlassFish in the Cloud

4 blog entries until number 500

Hi all,

I just got a simple web application running on GlassFish on my OpenSolaris AMI. You can check it out at http://174.129.6.161:8080/HelloWeb/

Here's what I did to get there:

1. I took an existing AMI and installed Apache, JDK, Ant, and GlassFish
2. I altered the var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/index.html file by editing the text and adding a photograph. You can see it at http://174.129.6.161.
3. I opened GlassFish's Admin Console and deployed the web application. (The web app was created using NetBeans IDE 6.7.)

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:38AM Aug 08, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans  | 

Getting Old

5 entries till my 500th blog entry.

Hi all,

These past few years, I've spent so much time in front of my computers it was bound to happen. I've been having problems reading small print. Not only on my monitor, but also in other places (books, magazines). So today I went out and bought me some reading glasses.

I've been told by a lot of people that this is completely normal, and it just proves that I'm getting older.

Yuck!

Oh well, I needed to do something, and I did. I see better, that's the main thing.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 11:15AM Aug 06, 2009 by branajam in Personal  |  Comments[3]

More About NB 6.8 M1

Hi all,

Since I blogged yesterday about NetBeans 6.8 Milestone 1 being available, the official press release has surfaced. Here it is:

The NetBeans team is pleased to announce that NetBeans IDE 6.8 Milestone 1 is now available for download.

Download NetBeans IDE 6.8 Milestone 1

Highlights of this stabilized development build include:

• Embedded Browser
• Java EE v6 support
• PHP
  • PHP 5.3.0 support
• Maven
  • Improved support for Groovy and Scala
• C/C++
  • Remote development
  • Code Assistance
• Ruby
  • JRuby bundle upgraded to 1.3.1
  • RSpec 1.2.7 support
• Jira support in Issue Tracking

Visit the NetBeans 6.8 New and Noteworthy page to learn more about all the new features and enhancements available in this milestone release. The final release of NetBeans IDE 6.8 is planned for Fall 2009.

As always, tell us what you think about the NetBeans IDE! Share your thoughts on NetBeans' mailing lists and forums. If you blog about NetBeans add your blog to Planet NetBeans. Follow NetBeans on Twitter for updates from the NetBeans team.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM Aug 05, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans  |  Comments[1]

NetBeans 6.8 Milestone 1 Is Available

Hi all,

NetBeans 6.8 Milestone 1 is now available.

You can get it here.

Cheers!

Posted at 09:16AM Aug 04, 2009 by branajam in NetBeans  |  Comments[1]