SourceLabs on SWiK

Self-Support Search for XMLRPC + Ajax

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:21:28 -0700

SWiK

Tue, 31 May 2005 21:15:27 -0700

SWiK.net is a SourceLabs project to help people collaboratively document open-source software.

SWiK is visited by tens of thousands of people daily, it’s a place to make notes and publish articles on software development and open source projects, tag projects to help organize the world of open source, or just browse around and find interesting stuff.

This wiki is community run and completely open – it depends on editors like you to help build pages with useful information about using open source software and developing applications. The wiki engine is written from scratch by SourceLabs.

You Can Help

Editing pages is easy, just go to the page you want to edit and click the edit button in the top right. Be bold, if you see something wrong or something missing: just fix it.

You can also syndicate RSS feeds into SWiK. This is useful in cases such as a project news feed, or a tips and tricks blog. Every registered user of SWiK also has a set of personal pages, and you might want to syndicate your personal feeds into SWiK as well – such as your del.icio.us bookmarks or your blog.

For more on this, check out Getting Started on the links in the “SWiK Wiki Pages” Menu.

Links

Sandbox

Tech Details

SWiK uses Ajax/JavaScript to make editing easier and faster; you can try playing around with the editing capabilities in sandbox.

To make editing easier, SWiK also uses the Textile markup language, which is simpler and faster to write than raw HTML. With Textile, you don’t have to type <strong>words</strong> if you want to make something strong. Instead you can just type *strong*, which is much more convenient.

To cross reference various pages in SWiK, you can use either tags, or you can use wiki links: [[this is the wiki link format]].

In June, 2008 SourceLabs launched an early version of books.swik.net bringing the power of the Swik platform to the world of books, book collecting, and reading.

Welcome to the SourceLabs RSS Feed for Press Releases

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:16:11 -0700

This is where you can get the latest information on SourceLabs news as it happens.

SourceLabs RSS Feed for Press Releases

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:10:31 -0700

SourceLabs News

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:35:13 -0700

SourceLabs Debuts New Class of Tools for Open Source Linux and Java (Press Release) – (March 18, 2008)

CNET News – “Open-source support company SourceLabs on Tuesday launched a subscription service aimed at Linux developers and IT administrators who do their own support.”
(March 18, 2008)

O’Reilly Open Source – “Developers and open source system users will be particularly interested in a SourceLabs announcement of a service called Self-Support Suites that has been in beta since December.”
(March 18, 2008)

eWeek’s Linux-Watch – “A small start-up based in Seattle has started selling a ‘self-support’ tool for developers working with Java and/or Linux.”
(March 19, 2008)

SourceLabs is covered in the largest German IT publication – “Mit den “Self-Support Tools” will SourceLabs eine Alternative zu klassischen Supportverträgen bieten.”
(March 20, 2008)

SourceLabs builds momentum in Japan
(March 18, 2008)

Linux Magazine (Brazil) – “A SourceLabs pretende oferecer, através de ferramentas de self support , uma alternativa ao sistema clássico de suporte atualmente adotado pelo mercado corporativo.”
(March 22, 2008)

IT Jungle – “If you are a developer working at a major corporation or a small company and you want to use Linux and open source tools to create Java applications, there is very little possibility that your company is going to let you do that without getting tech support for the Linux and tools that you use.”
(March 18, 2008)

Seattle Times – “I keep waiting for a big tech company to buy SourceLabs, an open-source software and tools developer in Pioneer Square. Maybe the new product it’s launching today, SourceLabs’ Self-Support Suite, will speed the process.”
(March 18, 2008)

LinuxDevices.com – “A small start-up based in Seattle has started selling a ‘self-support’ tool for developers working with Java and/or Linux.”
(March 18, 2008)

GigaOm: Ostatic – “Could automated software support solutions come to the rescue? The jury’s still out on that, but I was interested in today’s announcement from SourceLabs regarding new Linux and Java self-support tools.”
(March 18, 2008)

Northwest Innovation – “Seattle-based SourceLabs said Tuesday that it has rolled out new tools to help support open source Java and Linux software.”
(March 18, 2008)

SysCon Media – “SourceLabs announced the availability of SASH 2 complete with a major new milestone – integrated support for Apache Tomcat.”
(Sep 9, 2007)

Support-Andgebot (DE)

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:46:32 -0700

News about SourceLabs

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:46:11 -0700

Using Syslog information with SourceLabs Linux Self-Support

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:31:39 -0700

Below is documentation for using SourceLabs Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java to gather, organize, and search Syslog messages.

You can setup syslog to connect to the relay. In this release, we only support syslog over UDP. To set this up, you need to modify your syslogd config file. Often this is in /etc/syslog.conf

To get started, you can add

. @relayMachineName:4657

This will send all your syslog messages to a machine named relayMachineName over port 4657. Port 4657 is the default port the relay listens to for Syslog UDP messages. You can change this in the relay’s property file. This properties file is located in the ‘conf’ directory of your relay installation (e.g. /opt/sourcelabs/relay/conf).

To filter the syslog messages sent to the relay, please read the syslog documentation or man pages for more information.

Syslog-ng:

You can also setup syslog-ng to use the relay. For the current version of the relay, you will need to use UDP logging to the relay instead of TCP. To set this up, you need to modify your syslog-ng config file. Often this is in /etc/syslog-ng.conf

To get started, you can add


destination d_relay { udp("relayMachineName ", port(4657)); };
log { source(s_sys); destination(d_relay); };

Assuming that you are using a default syslog-ng configuration where source ‘s_sys’ represents all syslog messages (modify source as necessary for your configuration),this will send all your syslog messages to a machine named relayMachineName over port 4657. Port 4657 is the default port the relay listens to for Syslog UDP messages. You can change this in the relay’s property file. This properties file is located in the ‘conf’ directory of your relay installation (e.g. /opt/sourcelabs/relay/conf).

To filter the syslog messages sent to the relay, please read the syslog documentation or man pages for more information.

Find more information about SourceLabs Self-Support Suite for LInux and Open Source Java

Ubuntu

Wed, 25 May 2005 12:15:46 -0700

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution growing in popularity and based on Debian that focuses on desktop Linux. It is included in Sourcelabs’ Self-Support Offering for Linux

Ubuntu has one of the largest, if not the largest and most active user communities of any Linux distribution. Ubuntu is also one of if not the most popular Linux distributions for desktop Linux use.

Notable included packages

Ubuntu packages the GNOME project as its window manager, however side projects Kubuntu and Xubuntu also package the KDE and XFCE desktop environments as well. Ubuntu releases are timed to follow GNOME releases by roughly 1 month, and Ubunut shoots for 2 releases a year.

Like its source distribution Debian, Ubuntu uses Apt for package management, and deb packages—however Ubuntu is not always compatible with Debian deb packages. Synaptic serves as a graphical front end to the Apt package manager.

Other notable projects Ubuntu includes in the distribution are Firefox and OpenOffice.

General design

Ubuntu focuses on being usable and being up-to-date, both with new Linux kernels and new versions of GNOME. Ubuntu follows in the sudo security model used by OSX and others, users are strongly discouraged from running as root.

Ubuntu features a very smooth upgrade process from release to release that is built on the apt package management. All that is required to maintain a current version of Ubuntu is to stay up to date on packages via Apt/Synaptic. Ubuntu can be switched to Kubuntu as well through package management as well.

Ubuntu’s design theme is centered around ‘people’ – flesh tones or dark orange and iconographic pictures of humans characterize the style of the distribution.

Derivatives of Ubuntu

The Ubuntu project encourages changes and customizations of Ubuntu, such as:

Ebuntu – Enlightenment window manager
Edubuntu – aimed at education
Fluxbuntu – Fluxbox window manager
gNewSense – Fully Free Libre FSF GNU Open version of Ubuntu
Kubuntu KDE (instead of GNOME) window manager
nUbuntu – network and security
Xubuntu – XFCE (instead of GNOME) window manager

Bug Database: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ is on Launchpad.

IRC Support: #ubuntu on irc.freenode.net

Search SourceLabs’ repository for Ubuntu-related issues

Web Support forums: http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/webforums

Additional web forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/

Mailing Lists: https://lists.ubuntu.com/

Jakarta-Commons

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 11:39:58 -0700

The Jakarta Commons components are a group of Java components that implement common functionality. They are a great place to start looking when you need a utility function that you know a million other people must have written before, and you’d really like to not re-write it.

A few examples of the ones that are pretty popular are:

Collections—This is a set of many common/useful collection classes that are not included in the JDK
Lang—Contains a lot of classes for extending the Core Java Library. This includes things like utilites for HTML escaping a string, or creating a mutable integer object.
Logging—Contains a wrapper around most of the common logging models

But there are tons more dealing with topics from Database access to parsing XML configuration files to uploading files via HTTP.

In addition to the released projects there is also a sandbox area where more experimental components live.

All the Jakarta Commons projects are covered in SourceLabs Self-support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

ehcache

Fri, 13 May 2005 11:56:00 -0700

Ehcache is a widely used Java distributed cache for general purpose caching, J2EE and light-weight containers such as Spring and Hibernate.

It features memory and disk stores, replicate by copy and invalidate, listeners, a gzip caching servlet filter and much more…

Ehcache is available under an Apache open source license and is actively developed, maintained and supported.

More related information of Ehcache

Ehcache is covered in SourceLabs Self-support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

Hibernate

Fri, 13 May 2005 11:55:36 -0700

Hibernate is a powerful, high performance object/relational persistence and query service for Java. NHibernate is a version of Hibernate for .NET.

More about Hibernate: Hibernate FAQs.

Hibernate lets you develop persistent objects following common Java idiom, including composition, association, inheritance, polymorphism, and the Java collections framework.

Hibernate is supported by JBoss/Redhat and SourceLabs. Hibernate is part of SourceLabs SASH distribution.

Hibernate is covered in SourceLabs Self-support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

Hibernate code churn statistics are available here

commons-codec

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:48:07 -0700

Commons Codec contains some general encoding/decoding algorithms, including phonetic encoders, Hex and Base64 encoders, and a URL encoder. The phonetic encoders are language encoders, which are useful in applications such as search engines, spell-check functions, and digital dictionaries. Hex and Base64 encoders are useful in applications that use characters to represent binary data. The URL encoder comes with more features and is considered a replacement for the JDK classes URLEncoder and URLDecoder.

SourceLabs covers Codec in its Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

commons-daemon

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:17:50 -0700

An API that can be used to run executables or java applications as Windows service or UNIX daemon.

SourceLabs covers Commons-Daemon as part of its Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

log4j

Mon, 30 May 2005 18:51:35 -0700

Log4j is a logging package written in Java. This is now part of the Apache Logging Services.

SourceLabs includes the ability to capture, search, sort and correlate Log4J messages with millions of datapoints as part of its Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

syslog

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 06:29:00 -0700

Syslog is a protocol for sending log messags over an IP network. It has been standardized by the IETF (documents here)

Originally developed as part of Sendmail, SysLog became the defacto standard for Unix and Linux systems.

A “syslog server” or “syslog daemon” is typically the recipient of syslog messages.

SourceLabs includes the ability to capture, sort, search and correlate Syslog messages with millions of records as part of its Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

Forums

Tools

How-to

dom4j

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:09:56 -0800

dom4j is an easy to use, open source library for working with XML, XPath, and XSLT on the Java platform, using the Java Collections Framework, and with full support for DOM, SAX, and JAXP.

SourceLabs covers Dom4J in its Self Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

ext2

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:02:17 -0700

The second extended file system for Linux. Ext3 has replaced it in many distributions.

SourceLabs includes ext2 in its Self Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

commons-dbcp

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:46:11 -0700

A framework for database connection pooling, a technique to help database-intensive applications scale and run faster by sharing database connections.

SourceLabs includes DBCP in its Self Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

CUPS

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 12:24:07 -0700

CUPS provides a portable printing layer for Unix®-based operating systems.

SourceLabs covers CUPS as part of its Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

openslp

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:48:11 -0700

An implementation of the IETF standard “Service Location Protocol.”

SourceLabs includes OpenSLP in its Self-support suite for open source Java and LInux

dhcp

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:42:08 -0700

DHCP stands for “Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol”. It is used by clients on an IP network to obtain an IP address.

The Linux DHCP capability is covered by SourceLabs Self-Support Suite for LInux and Open Source Java

JackRabbit

Tue, 31 May 2005 23:32:57 -0700

The Jackrabbit Project has been formed to develop an open source implementation of the Content Repository for Java Technology API (JCR), specified within the Java Community Process as JSR-170.

On April 8, 2006, The Jackrabbit project released Jackrabbit 1.0.

SourceLabs covers Jackrabbit as part of its Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

Spring

Thu, 12 May 2005 12:11:51 -0700

Spring is a Java/J2EE application framework that assembles components via configuration files. Spring is an open source project but is developed by engineers with Interface 21, and Spring Framework is a trademark of Interface 21. Spring is supported by a number of companies including Interface21 and SourceLabs, and is covered in SourceLabs Self-support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java

Spring’s core technical selling point has been the Inversion of Control design idea, where programming is focused on interfaces rather than classes. Spring’s design comes from the book Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development by Rod Johnson.

Mission

Spring’s mission statement as articulated by Interface21 includes these points:

J2EE should be easier
Interfaces > Classes
JavaBeans are good for configuration
OOP > implementation technology (J2EE)
Testability is important and should be easier
Frameworks shouldn’t force recoverable exception catching

And these direct points about Spring

Spring should be a pleasure to use
Spring APIs should not be a dependency
Spring should not compete with good existing solutions like JDO and Hibernate.

External Links

Spring tutorial

Spring FAQs

Introduction to Spring Web Flow

Spring – iBatis integration tutorial

Spring 1.1 locations of jar files in Spring that potentially cause classpath problems

From Rod Johnson

Reviews of Spring

Critiques of Spring

beanutils

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:48:11 -0700

Part of the Apache Commons project, BeanUtils provides wrappers around Java APIs for introspection and reflection.

SourceLabs covers BeanUtils as part of its Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java offering.

PHP

Thu, 12 May 2005 11:55:55 -0700

PHP is one of the most popular scripting languages, designed specifically for Web application development.

PHP’s eclectic syntax draws upon C, Java, and Perl, and it is quite easy to learn and deploy. SourceLabs includes PHP in its Self Support for Linux and Open Source Java offering.

PHP or LAMP based applications are also considered to be extremely scalable, as the language discourages sharing state – to scale PHP applications often all that is needed is more server capacity.

PHP was originally invented as a set of Perl scripts released by Rasmus Lerdorf. Over the years the project evolved was eventually essentially taken over by Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, who completely rewrote the engine behind PHP and later formed a company, Zend, that currently leads the development of said engine.

PHP is an extremely lax and loose scripting language, which has triggered a great deal of criticism from developers who fault it for its loose typing and inconsistent naming conventions. Other issues with the language include issues with legacy features that are now recommended to be turned off, such as ‘register globals’, and a lack of native unicode support.

PHP5

PHP has progressed a great deal since its inception, and the newest version, PHP5, currently offers object oriented programming features as well as XML and SOAP support. PHP5 represents a large step forward for PHP, however it is not completely backwards compatible with PHP4 and many web hosting companies do not support it.

For more on object oriented programming, see Object Oriented PHP.

MySQL

Fri, 13 May 2005 12:14:00 -0700

MySQL is a widely used and fast SQL database server. It is a client/server implementation that consists of a server daemon (mysqld) and many different client programs/libraries. It has a pluggable data store architecture.

SourceLabs includes MySQL in its Self Support for Linux and Open Source Java offering.

OpenLDAP

Fri, 27 May 2005 16:50:49 -0700

OpenLDAP is a project to implement an LDAP server.

Versions for common linux distributions have been released, as well as versions for BSD distributions and OSX, Windows and various Unixes.

OpenLDAP consists of 4 pieces: an LDAP server daemon, an LDAP replication daemon, development libraries, and miscellaneous tools and utilities for working with LDAP and OpenLDAP.

SourceLabs covers OpenLDAP in its Self Support for Linux and Open Source Java offering.

External Links

Anonymous CVS Access

yast

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:29:11 -0700

YAST is an installation and system management tool for Linux and is explicitly part of OpenSuse.

Tips and Tricks including hotkeys.

SourceLabs covers YAST as part of its Self-Support for Linux and Open Source Java Suite

XMLbeans

Sat, 04 Jun 2005 09:43:22 -0700

XMLBeans is a technology for accessing XML by binding it to Java types. It provides full XML schema support and full XML infoset fidelity.

SourceLabs includes XMLBeans in its Self Support for Linux and Open Source Java Suite