Vacation Planning / Process Modeling

This summer I'm attending the wedding of two friends in Victoria, BC. So, since we're travelling across the country anyway, we're going to take some time to explore Vancouver Island a little.

And because I'm a total Eclipse fanboy (despite the fact that certain people tell me Eclipse is dead), I thought it was time to play with the BPMN Modeler again. Version 1.0.2 (for Eclipse 3.4 / Ganymede) just came out today (update site).

So here's me planning the trip:

Aside: Wondering what's in Telegraph Cove? Check this out.

It may not have the same graphical wow factor as, say, Google Maps' "My Maps" feature...

... but it does clearly show two things:

a) the BPMN Modeler is stable and works great for modeling my workflows, regardless of whether I intend to do anything programmatic w/ the resulting diagram, and

b) air fare and car rentals cost too much. :)

I also tried out the in-progress BPMN Modeler 1.1M6, and while it adds some cool features to help align items in your swimlanes, it's also not quite ready for prime-time use. Looking forward to 1.1M7 next month.

Who says modeling can't be fun?

HOWTO Create a Seam Web Project with JBoss Tools 2.0.0.CR2 or Developer Studio 3.0.0.CR2

As Max announced earlier today, JBoss Tools (JBT) 3.0.0.CR2 is now available.

In my continuing effort to automate - or at least document! - everything I do, here's a quick slideshow showing how to install and run JBoss Developer Studio (JBDS) 2.0.0.CR2 to quickly create a Seam Web Project. JBDS includes most of JBT, plus a few extra goodies.

view larger images

What else can you do with JBoss Developer Studio or JBoss Tools? Lots. Here's a list of the individual plugins, and the reference guides. There's even a jBPM/BPMN diagram editor, which I used recently to sketch out my Blackberry data sync flows:

click to enlarge

JBDS is available for Linux (gtk x86_32 and x86_64), Mac OS X (carbon), and Windows (32-bit). JBT is available for any platform that can run Eclipse 3.4.x. On Fedora, JBDS and JBT both run great with IcedTea (OpenJDK 6) and Fedora Eclipse 3.4.1.

If you're curious, the software involved here is: Virtual Box 2.1.0 running in Fedora 10, hosting a Windows XP Home guest, HyperSnap 6 to grab snapshots (works in Windows guest and through WINE - though not as well - in Linux host), Sun Java 6.0 to run JBDS (or Eclipse + JBoss Tools), Picasa 3 For Linux to crop, resize and upload images, then create the slideshow.

Blackberry Linux Calendar & Contact Sync

Ugh, what a nightmare. Skip to solution. See also Part 2.

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PocketMac for Blackberry, Linux Edition

Unfortunately, I missed the deadline to be a beta tester for this new app. Comes highly recommended by a Macolyte friend of mine; unfortunately until it's released I won't be able to come anywhere near it. :(

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Blackberry Desktop Manager in VirtualBox

First, I tried to install Blackberry Desktop Manager into a VirtualBox 2.1 Win XP Home guest OS, running on xubuntu 8.04. Problem there was that OOTB the VB guest couldn't see my USB devices (ie., the mounted Blackberry). Solved [1], [2].

Unfortunately, while the Windows guest could see the Blackberry, it couldn't sync with it. I keep getting prompted for my password to enter "mass storage mode", then ultimately the backup failed, as the connection was dropped midway through.

Hoping that the story would be better on my newer x200 Thinkpad, I tried again -- same result. Additionally, though the VirtualBox Windows guest found my bluetooth adapter, I couldn't make it work under Windows to connect to the BB.

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barry

I tried installing barry, the Blackberry Desktop For Linux project. I installed 0.14-4.fc10 and 0.14-6.fc11, but it didn't work - perhaps the Bold is too new?

(-1, error sending control message: Operation
not permitted): Probe: GetConfiguration failed

So, for now, the only way to backup/restore is via my wife's WinXP laptop.

UPDATE, 2009/01/05: Turns out you have to run barry w/ root privileges. I can now backup on linux. W00t!

But surely there's another way to sync?

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OpenSync

Next, I tried OpenSync. This didn't work either. I tried 0.22 on xubuntu 8.04, with KitchenSync 0.1, but it couldn't connect to the device. Then I tried 0.36 on the x200 Fedora 10 box with msynctool, but it too couldn't connect to the device (even though I'd already paired the BB with the Thinkpad over bluetooth), perhaps because my settings were incorrect? Either way, both front ends left a lot to be desired for a total noob user. XML config files are fine, but better in-file documentation would be nice.

msynctool 
msynctool --listplugins
msynctool --addgroup BB
msynctool --enable-objtype BB syncml-obex-client
msynctool --addmember BB syncml-obex-client
msynctool --enable-objtype BB google-calendar
msynctool --addmember BB google-calendar
msynctool --enable-objtype BB file-sync
msynctool --addmember BB file-sync
msynctool --showgroup BB
msynctool --configure BB 1
msynctool --configure BB 2
msynctool --configure BB 3
msynctool --sync BB

... still failed to connect to device :(

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Funambol

Then I discovered the Funambol web-based sync option, and signed up. This worked, and I now have my contacts and BB calendar synched with their server. OK, that's great, but what I really wanted was to sync w/ my desktop apps and/or with Google Calendar. So, I tried the Funambol Mozilla Plugin 0.8 for synching contacts and calendar with Sunbird 0.9 (or Thunderbird 2.0 with Lightning 0.9). It worked on my home xubuntu 8.04 machine (one email address, no calendars) but failed to install on my work Fedora 10 machine (two email addresses, two calendars, RSS feeds & newgroup subscriptions). Bummer.

UPDATE, 2009/01/05: My Thunderbird profile had been corrupted. Creating a new one, importing from the old one, and reinstalling all extensions fixed this problem. But because I can use Google Sync for Contacts and Calendar, I'm only using Funambol for Tasks now. Details here.

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Google Sync

Finally, checking my Google Calendar online I noticed a new "Sync" link in the top right. I found that Google has released an early Xmas present: Google Sync for your BlackBerry. Finally, a solution!

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BBToday

If you would like to have a snapshot of your mail, calendar, tasks, calls and optionally, battery status & weather in one convenient portal page, try BBToday 1.6.

Captured with CaptureIt

UPDATE, 2009/01/29: I've found a better Today screen, but it's not free. BOLD CrossBar Plus Xtreme - BOLD OS 4.6 by JC Designs / Gadgetbean. Combine this with WeatherEye from The Weather Network, and you've got weather, mail, messages, calendar... all on one attractive screen! Best. Seven Bucks. Ever.

Continued in Part 2...

Blackberry Bold + MidpSSH + Mutt = Mail Over VPN

Got a new Blackberry Bold 9000 for Xmas. Typical of Rogers, I was overcharged for it, and all the freebies I had quoted to me on the phone have yet to arrive. I'm told I'll be credited back the surcharge, but I won't see that until February.

Anyway, customer service infractions aside, setting up Gmail, TwitterBerry, Facebook, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and of course Blackberry Messenger was a snap. Tried to use the internal mail client for Gmail but it doesn't respect my filters so I get the flashing light notification for every bit of spam, rather than just the interesting mail I want to see.

Setting up IRC was a little tricky, but thanks to Opera Mini and mibbit.com, I can more or less check Freenode channels on the go. Not ideal, but tolerable.

But the real challenge was getting access to my corporate mail, since we're not running a BES server, and thanks to all the supported options, there are over 5,000 possible ways to configure Cisco VPN access on a Blackberry. I'm not that patient.

Instead, I decided to try using MidpSSH 1.7.3 to connect into my laptop (which is already connected to the VPN), then use Mutt 1.5.18 to connect over IMAP to the mail server. Because I'm connecting to a local IP within my home LAN, I set the SSH session's Connection Type to WiFi, rather than Default, BES, or TCP/IP. In order to avoid having to key in a password every time I connect to the laptop, I set up an SSH key and shared that with my laptop.

If I want to have this solution work when I'm not at home, I'll have to expose my laptop to the outside world, and connect using Connection Type = Default to that public IP address instead of my more secure internal one. Still, it's a step in the right direction.

Incidentally, this tip might help, if you're having network access problems:

Options > Advanced Options > TCP > APN: "internet.com" (no username or password) [1], [2]

Now I just have to teach myself all the keyboard commands for Mutt. I tried using MidpSSH on my previous phone, a SonyEricsson W810i, but it's nearly impossible to do anything without a full keyboard.

If you're thinking of doing something like this, here are some handy links for setting up Mutt to connect to IMAP and to send mail via SMTP.

Is there a better way to VPN over BIS for IMAP mail? If so, feel free to share your solution here or via email with nickboldt(at)rogers(dot)blackberry(dot)net.

If you type Google into Google you will break the internet...

While that may not be true, searching for a blog search with Google can yield rather loud effects:

Query for divbyzero.com/search/labels/w810i

50,000 Zips

Since turning on Google Analytics for tracking Modeling project zips on September 15, we've gotten over 50,000 pageviews (33,000 unique) of the download tracker. While this doesn't necessarily mean every one of those hits resulted in a download, it certainly shows a lot of interest in downloading EMF, UML2, UML2 Tools, GMF, Query, OCL, and XSD, to name but a few of the more than two dozen Modeling Project components.

Unfortunately, this only scratches the surface -- most of our downloads come from EPP bundles and update sites. But thanks to bug 239668, we will one day be able to track downloads done via p2. If download stats interest you, please vote for bug 239668.

And the plan said...

With everyone's standardized project plans due next week, I've been tasked to draft a consistent workflow for the Modeling projects. And because we're such Model Citizens, I'd like to share it with others, in case this approach works for your project too. See details here.

On that note...

And the plan said usability, motherhood, apple pie
So I shined up my Chrome
Logged into the Bugz and I went in to run a query
It came back with a list of items, too many to possibly do
So I flagged a few, set milestones, and voom!
A plan came into view

woah!

(Chorus)
Plan, plan everywhere a plan
Charting out development, done for The Man
Do this, can't do that, did you read the plan?

And the plan said a lot of these
Have been deferred outta sight
So I looked at those bugs and thought to myself,
Hey! I'll submit a patch tonight
To contribute to this project or to get some new feature in
If God was here, he'd tell you to your face,
Thanks, man you're some kinda winner

Chorus

Now, hey you Mister! Can't you read?
You ain't got to be a committer to get a seat
You can write a patch, or build a new feature,
Ain't supposed to be hard
Plan says anyone can contribute,
Just look for the 'helpwanted' keyword!

And the plan said everybody welcome
Come in, site down and code
But when they passed around the hat
At the end of it all,
I didn't have a buck to unload
So I got me an account with Blogger
And I made up my own little site
I said thank you Eclipse for thinking about me,
I'm alive and you're alright

Chorus x 2

Five Man Electrical Band - Signs

Incidentally, there are over 2500 open 'helpwanted' bugs, with over 1100 closed. Thanks to everyone who's contributed over the years!

Where in the world is Modeling Sandiego?

A couple days ago, I pointed out some stats about Popular Eclipse Projects.

Today, let's look at some more detailed stats about the Modeling Project itself, thanks to Google Analytics, which has been installed at on www.eclipse.org since July 19, 2008.

In just under two months since we turned on stat tracking, we've gotten over 90,000 Visits & 300,000 Pageviews from over 40,000 Visitors hailing from over 150 Countries!

View larger images

Not included in the screenshots above are some interesting stats about user agents -- what people are using to visit the Modeling Project's site. As you'd probably expect, it's mostly Firefox, IE, and Opera. But would you believe five Playstation hits? Would you believe a Nokia N80, two SonyEricsson phones, but no shoe phones? How about over 1000 hits from Google Chrome users? (I'm so jealous there's no Chrome for Linux yet!) Here's the complete list:

Rank   User-Agent   Hits   (%)
1.  Firefox  56,037  (59.17%)
2.  Internet Explr 30,649  (32.36%)
3.  Opera  2,745  (2.90%)  
4.  Safari  2,297  (2.43%)  
5.  Mozilla  1,373  (1.45%)  
6.  Chrome  1,174 (1.24%)  Already in the #6 spot!
7.  Konqueror 319  (0.34%)  
8.  SeaMonkey 29  (0.03%)  
9.  (not set) 18  (0.02%)  
10.  Mozilla Compatible Agent 12  (0.01%)  
11.  Netscape 12  (0.01%)
12.  Camino  8  (0.01%)
13.  Galeon  8  (0.01%)
14.  Playstation 3 4
15.  Googlebot 2
16.  MyBrowser; MyWindows 2
17.  NetFront 2
18.  SmallProxy 3.4.1 Free 2
19.  Axis2 1
20.  DoCoMo 1
21.  Jakarta Commons-HttpClient 1
22.  MSIE 7.0 1
23.  NETSCAPE FOREVER 1
24.  NokiaN80 1
25.  OpenWave 1
26.  Playstation Portable 1
27.  SonyEricssonW910i 1
28.  X-Browser 1
29.  aaa 1
30.  iexplorer 7.0 WebWasher 3.4 1
31.  openwave 1
32.  preview 1
33.  sonyericssonk750i 1

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Wondering how you can track your eclipse.org site's stats using your own Google Analytics account? Here's how:

  # see http://wiki.eclipse.org/Using_Phoenix#Google_Analytics
  $App->SetGoogleAnalyticsTrackingCode("UA-2345678-9"); # use your UA account

Team Effort

Digging through my email backlog, I found this post on the google-summer-of-code-announce list, which reminds us that it's time for the Google-O'Reilly Open Source Awards for 2008 (nominations due by May 15).

Then I saw this... ;)

Ubuntu has done more to promote a desktop Linux than any other distro before.

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And yet as a company contributes so little development resources.

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You clearly do not understand open source. Like someone said the other day, all companies work together in the Linux desktop: Red Hat fixes the kernel, Novell fixes the applications, and Canonical takes the credit.

It's all a team effort.

Anyway, while successes at Eclipse are *also* the result of team effort, these awards are for individuals (the good kind, not the Teflon kind), and you can invent your own award titles. Enjoy!

EclipseCON 2008: News from the collective

In no particular order, here's what I've learned from this year's con:

• p2 is going to rock (though it's unfortunate that Pascal's slides aren't online yet -- hint, hint!). While my first view of it was a bit disappointing, the new story -- including backwards compatibility for existing Update Manager sites, the ability to generate the new metadata from the old stuff & shared bundle pools (akin to C:\Program Files\Common Files or /usr/share/) to improve the functional-but-hackish alternatives -- promises to make things not just different, but better.

• Modeling is not just alive and well, it's everywhere!

• While some people have Planet-blog-photo-angst, it's not enough to stop the onslaught diversity. :)

• ant4eclipse looks like a possible stripped-down approach to pde/basebuilder, for tiny projects like the microcomponents planned for Nexus or the stuff on Eclipse Spaces. Something to explore, anyway.

• The Modeling build has lots of room for improvement -- some great suggestions have been logged and added to my list, including the use of JET to templatize and wizardize creation of new .releng projects. The same should be said about my tutorial, which I think would have benefited from a more overarching introduction before the hands-on work began.

• The Google Summer of Code 2008 is just around the corner. Have a great idea you want to see built at Eclipse, but don't have time to do it yourself? Suggest it and mentor a student instead!

• Martin Taal has some great new web-based form UI functionality that I'd love to use for the UIs I do (eg., for builds or for Dash).

• I'd also like to start playing with BIRT in Dash, and not just to earn an animated t-shirt, since I think that ship has, sadly, already sailed.

• TaskTop, or Mylyn on steroids, is pretty damn cool as a way of integrating everything I do into one UI. Because of networking issues w/ linux this week, I've only been able to test it with Windows... which means, sadly, the embedded browser experience sucks a little because it's IE, not Firefox. Still, the idea of having a context for web and local files I'm working on all in one trackable, toggleable interface, with connections to GMail and Google Calendar makes the whole thing very slick. If the linux experience is as good or better, it's only a matter of time before I buy a copy. $60 is pretty reasonable for something that will, ultimately, support Mylyn's continued growth. (Though you don't get a "Friends of Mylyn" logo.)

• WinXP + Eclipse + Flock + Pidgin + Cisco VPN client = BSOD, even though Windows Loves Java, apparently. (To be fair, this one was the Cisco VPN client's fault.)

• I want an IBM Access Connections for Linux. Switching between the Hyatt wifi network and the Eclipsecon network via text file updates and shell scripts sucks elephant balls compared to just magically switching networks with no effort. Am I missing something? Is there some better x-, k-, or gnu-based app I could be using?

• I should be using Platform Releng Packager instead of custom-packing zips after signing them. I recall vaguely hearing about this last year, but haven't had a use for it until now, with Master Features and signed builds.

• It's possible to generate test coverage documentation from JUnit using Bumblebee.

• If your project doesn't already define a How To Contribute document, it should.

• Using the Autopin tweaklet with Mylyn is probably a bad idea, as it introduces a lot of manual labour (pinning tabs by hand). This has been preventing me from getting the most out of Mylyn.

• Denis & Karl have outed me as being not one person but an array of clones. I'm just not sure how to define the syntax for identifying which clone is which... suggestions? (This is clone #1, or $nick[0], nick:0.) The process is still imperfect, but I hope to be able to open source it one day. If you're curious about how it's done, all I can say is that it involves division by zero.

Thanks to everyone at this year's con -- planners & attendees alike. We[] had a blast.

I never meta data I didn't like

In my collection of web-based errata (ever wondered why this site is called Division By Zero?), I've snagged a lot of Google snafus. Here's my first Google-IBM composite snafu -- an Adsense ad from IBM sitting next to my Gmail:

NEED META TAG DESCRIPTION HERE
-- Yes, quite.

Then, clicking on the link for 'More related pages >>' yielded this:

Temporary Error (502)
-- Does that mean "502 (Bad Gateway). When a server acts
as a go-between it may receive an invalid request. This code is
returned when that happens" [1]? Or is it more like this 502? ;-)

We're sorry, the Gmail you have reached is not in service.

Not GMail too?!?

Yes, I collect error messages. Why? Too many years of testing, I guess.

Blogger + Linux = suck

Blogging with Konqueror doesn't work at all (all blog contents are lost when you hit Publish!), and the Preview option with Firefox 1.5 doesn't apply the CSS of the actual blog, making it less than useful as a preview tool. I wonder if there's something screwy in my .css, or if blogger just sucks for Linux folks. Anyone else have these problems? Should I upgrade to FF 2.0?

Another Google outage

It's 2:13am, and YouTube is down for the count. Ah, well, who wants 100% reliability? BSODs, coredumps and software crashes are about the only way I ever manage to shuffle off to bed these days. Night, all.

News from Google

Two items to report:

• Google Personalized Homepage now includes tabs and collapsable modules (though there seems to be a bit of a caching bug)...
• Just found the blog Google Operating System which is awash with tips, tricks, and insights from the world of Google's APIs and toys. A must read for the Google-obsessed.

Picasa rocks!

I've recovered most of the photos that were online before I was hacked last fall, and posted them here. (Note the new sidebar item too.)

Testing out Picasa2 for Linux

  Still looking for a simple solution to publish pics online (instead of my old technique of running Photoshop macros and a bit of manually updated PHP). Testing, testing, one-two... 

(BTW, this is a shot of Lynn Canyon taken in March 2006.)

Blogger is busted

Went to check my blog tonight and found this instead. Ah, well, could have been worse, much worse... however, after a few minutes worth of 'trying again in 30 seconds' it became clear that something was serious foobared here.