Tuesday, July 27, 2010
WS-I dumped off at OASIS - The last stand for WS-*
All right that's push the drama a bit. WS-I has seemed to dead for quite some time and I still think there's a need for it, IF you're into the WS-* stack. I actually thought that it had already gone somewhere else but found this piece of news from OASIS: WS-I Transitions to OASIS. The dear Mr. Liscia has to believe in revitalization, though I'm not so optimistic on that point.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Picky Tomcat parsing of function taglib descriptor element 'function-signature'
After spending way way to much time figuring out what kind of an error I had introduced into my webapp it turned out the Tomcat/Jasper does what seems to be as a very non-xml'ish parsing of the tld. Here's to those of you out there that stumble upon these error messages. The heart of my learning is that the element defining the function-signature should be on one line!
This example is bad:
<function> <description>.....</description> <name>myTagLibFunction</name> <function-class>my.package.taglib.functionClass</function-class> <function-signature>my.package.returnValue[] myTagLibFunction(java.lang.String,java.util.Calendar)</function-signature> <example>.....</example> </function>
and this one should be fine:
<function> <description>.....</description> <name>myTagLibFunction</name> <function-class>my.package.taglib.functionClass</function-class> <function-signature>my.package.returnValue[] myTagLibFunction(java.lang.String,java.util.Calendar)</function-signature> <example>.....</example> </function>
It was my pretty formatting the ruined it for me. Here's first an error message that at least make sense (contrary to the next one):
Exception: org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Invalid syntax for function signature in TLD. Tag Library: myChoosePrefix, Function: myTagLibFunction
and the complete stacktrace:
org.apache.jasper.compiler.DefaultErrorHandler.jspError(DefaultErrorHandler.java:51) org.apache.jasper.compiler.ErrorDispatcher.dispatch(ErrorDispatcher.java:409) org.apache.jasper.compiler.ErrorDispatcher.jspError(ErrorDispatcher.java:164) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.getMethod(Validator.java:1536) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.processSignature(Validator.java:1523) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.access$400(Validator.java:411) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor$1FVVisitor.visit(Validator.java:1499) org.apache.jasper.compiler.ELNode$Function.accept(ELNode.java:129) org.apache.jasper.compiler.ELNode$Nodes.visit(ELNode.java:200) org.apache.jasper.compiler.ELNode$Visitor.visit(ELNode.java:242) org.apache.jasper.compiler.ELNode$Root.accept(ELNode.java:56) org.apache.jasper.compiler.ELNode$Nodes.visit(ELNode.java:200) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.validateFunctions(Validator.java:1503) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.checkXmlAttributes(Validator.java:1139) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.visit(Validator.java:819) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$CustomTag.accept(Node.java:1512) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Nodes.visit(Node.java:2343) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Visitor.visitBody(Node.java:2393) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.visit(Validator.java:515) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$JspRoot.accept(Node.java:566) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Nodes.visit(Node.java:2343) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Visitor.visitBody(Node.java:2393) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Visitor.visit(Node.java:2399) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Root.accept(Node.java:489) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Nodes.visit(Node.java:2343) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator.validate(Validator.java:1737) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.generateJava(Compiler.java:165) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:314) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:294) org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:281) org.apache.jasper.JspCompilationContext.compile(JspCompilationContext.java:566) org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:317) org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:337) org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:266) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:630) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:436) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doForward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:374) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:302) org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.renderMergedOutputModel(InternalResourceView.java:240) org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:258) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1174) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:901) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:809) org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:571) org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:501) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:690) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206) org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:233) org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:175) org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:128) org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102) org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109) org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:286) org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:844) org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583) org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:447) java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
The cryptic one had me doing all kinds of odd stuff for trying to isolate the problem. Unfortunately I've deleted the local logfiles but it said something with substring indexoutofbounds -19
Currently I'm just happy to have found the it's Tomcat/Jasper that's picky (during compilation) but I haven't looked at neither specification nor code.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
An example on Common Look and Feel - The University of British Columbia
I've for some time been intrigued to figuring out what (Common) Look & Feel can be defined as. In this post I'll have a look at an real life example from University of British Columbia. Here's first their own definition of it:
The UBC CLF, or "common look and feel", is a web design framework that supports the visual identity and online reputation of the University of British Columbia by providing a common look, feel and functionality to UBC websites.
with the stated goal to:
- Create a predictable user experience across the web at UBC (e.g. allow users to easily navigate from one UBC site to another, provide some consistency in user interface elements across UBC sites)
- Provide easy access to high-frequency-use UBC web tools (e.g. Search, Directories) and key UBC web properties
- Ensure that UBC websites consistently support the visual identity of the university.
These goals are achieved through standardization of university-wide website elements in terms of:
- content
- visual appearance
- interaction behaviour
I like this definition as it is clear and understandable. It would not be fair to start dissecting it before having a closer look at how it's defined in practice, in the Design Specifications of the CLF.
The CLF Framework is devided into Primary- and Secondary-CLF Elements.
The Primary-CLF Elements are:
- Required content, design, links and functionality that
- Warrant placement in every UBC website across the university due to their high level of use or their strategic value from a web communications perspective, and
- Are relevant to all campus locations.
- Optional content, links and functionality that adhere to a university-wide standard.
- Reserved space for these required and optional university-wide elements.
The Secondary-CLF Elements are:
- Required content, design, links and functionality to mark campus location where appropriate.
- Site-specific content, design, links, and functionality that can be customized on a site-by-site basis to accommodate localization of unit-level needs (e.g. Campus location, Faculty / Departmental-specific information etc.).
- Reserved space for these site-specific elements.
Honestly I don't really understand what this distinction is except the difference between global and site specific elements. Anyway they have defined two levels of compliance. First the Minimum CLF require the following elements:
- UBC CLF Background
- Global Utility Header
- Visual Identity Header
- Visual Identity Footer
- Global Utility Footer
and it's visualized in this graphic where the required elements are highlighted in green:
The Full CLF requires the following elements:
- UBC CLF Background (Minimum CLF Element)
- Global Utility Header (Minimum CLF Element)
- Visual Identity Header (Minimum CLF Element)
- UBC CLF Primary Navigation
- UBC CLF Secondary Navigation
- UBC CLF Content Space
- Sub Footer
- Visual Identity Footer (Minimum CLF Element)
- Global Utility Footer (Minimum CLF Element)
The difference is explained as:
The Full CLF consists of the Minimum CLF elements and the optional content areas of the templates including CSS styles and layouts. The area highlighted in red in the graphic image below indicates the optional content areas which together with the green areas make up the Full CLF.
UBC has a list of complying websites: websites have completed CLF implementation. I've picked some of these sites to have a closer look for one to see the variation and to ensure that it actually runs on different servers/setups.
Board of Governors
The Board of Governors has the URL: http://www.bog.ubc.ca/. Fetching the index pages gives the following headers:
$ wget -S http://www.bog.ubc.ca/
--15:08:57-- http://www.bog.ubc.ca/
=> `index.html.1'
Resolving www.bog.ubc.ca... 137.82.105.5
Connecting to www.bog.ubc.ca|137.82.105.5|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: keep-alive
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:14:38 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Content-Length: 361
ETag: "baf57961e646ca1:663"
Last-Modified: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:37:42 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Length: 361 [text/html]
and the page looks like:
Engineering
Engineering has the URL http://www.engineering.ubc.ca/. The sites respond with the headers:
$ wget -S http://www.engineering.ubc.ca/
--15:10:40-- http://www.engineering.ubc.ca/
=> `index.html.2'
Resolving www.engineering.ubc.ca... 142.103.119.227
Connecting to www.engineering.ubc.ca|142.103.119.227|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:12:16 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.9 (Debian) PHP/5.2.6-1+lenny4 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.9 OpenSSL/0.9.8g
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.6-1+lenny4
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Language: en-US
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Ombudsperson for Students, Office of the
Office of the Ombudsperson for Students has the URL http://www.ombudsoffice.ubc.ca/.
$ wget -S http://www.ombudsoffice.ubc.ca/
--15:12:49-- http://www.ombudsoffice.ubc.ca/
=> `index.html.3'
Resolving www.ombudsoffice.ubc.ca... 67.220.228.80
Connecting to www.ombudsoffice.ubc.ca|67.220.228.80|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:18:31 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.11
X-Pingback: http://www.ombudsoffice.ubc.ca/xmlrpc.php
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=9da99fe72307b2b27fd6d5fb3d515af8; path=/
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Length: unspecified [text/html]
President's Office
The President's Office has the URL http://www.president.ubc.ca/
$ wget -S http://www.president.ubc.ca/
--15:14:30-- http://www.president.ubc.ca/
=> `index.html.4'
Resolving www.president.ubc.ca... 137.82.105.16
Connecting to www.president.ubc.ca|137.82.105.16|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 15234
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Location: http://www.president.ubc.ca/index.html
Last-Modified: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:23:45 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
ETag: "10007995ca1:663"
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:20:12 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
Length: 15,234 (15K) [text/html]
Wayfinding at UBC
Wayfinding at UBC has the URL http://www.maps.ubc.ca/
wget -S http://www.maps.ubc.ca/
--15:16:18-- http://www.maps.ubc.ca/
=> `index.html.5'
Resolving www.maps.ubc.ca... 199.175.106.55, 199.175.106.53, 199.175.106.54, ...
Connecting to www.maps.ubc.ca|199.175.106.55|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:22:01 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.4
Location: /PROD/index.php
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
Location: /PROD/index.php [following]
--15:16:19-- http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index.php
=> `index.php'
Connecting to www.maps.ubc.ca|199.175.106.55|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:22:01 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.4
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Conclusion
I certainly found it interesting to investigate the UBC CLF a little. It's evident that it's implemented on different sites, servers and platforms. At a glance it looks like the look part and common navigation is common. I haven't got into whether the sites actually comply with the minimum or full profile, but some of the site specific color schemes does make them stick out. What would be very interesting to know is whether UBC had gotten to collect and analyse the effects in terms of user feedback, changed use behavior etc. Not often this information is picked up systematically nor made available online, so it's no surprise I didn't find it.
Without knowing the effect or cost I still want to congratulate UBC for their work and making the material availble online.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Literature for the "Business IT Alignment" Course, ITU spring semester 2009
In the spring semester of 2009 I've taken the course "Business IT Alignment". My preparation has been quite crippled by what seems to be a continuous stream of influenza that I've picked up since the day before new year (I've coined it The ultra-flu). In my effort to prepare for the exam I've several times found my self searching for the right articles and the related course slides, so here I've decided to create a post to build up that information (probably only of real interest for myself).
The Course seems to have run at least since 2005, with Lars Andersen taking part in 4 consecutive years. This semester with a completely new duo of teachers. The base reference is the course program [PDF]. Supplemented with the course homepage/slides from this and the previous semester:
- Spring 2009. Benjamin W. Funder and Randi Markussen
- Spring 2008. Lars Andersen and Thomas Hammer-Jakobsen.
- Spring 2007. Lars Andersen and Thomas Hammer-Jakobsen.
- Spring 2006. Lars Andersen and Eva Trosborg
- Spring 2005. Lars Andersen and Jan Pries-Heje.
Books
IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results
Spring 2009
- Chapter 1 & 2[PPT]
- Chapter 3 & 4[PPT]
- Chapter 5 & 6[PPT]
- Chapter 5 & 6[PPT]
- Chapter 8[PPT]
- Reptition: Governance design framework[PPT]
Spring 2008
- Definitioner og styringsområder[PDF]
- Recap, structures and mechanisms (Chapter 3 & 4) [PDF]
- Implementing (Chapter 5 & 6) [PDF]
- Recap [PDF]
- Chapter 8 and innovation governance [PDF]
Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want
Spring 2009
- Innovation definition, Value Creation (NABC), Innovation Plan[PPT]
- Innovation Management: Champions and Innovation teams[PPT]
- Innovation teams, Organizational Alignment, CVC, the five diciplines, waterhole[PPT]
Spring 2009
- Value Creation (NABC) [PDF]
- Innovations ledelse, Champions and teams [PDF]
- Innovation plan, organizational alignment [PDF]
The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
Slides
- Spring 2009: Complete book [PPT]
- Spring 2008: few central figures [PDF]
Articles
Strategies for Information Technology Governance
Chapter II - Integration Strategies and Tactics for Information Technology Governance (pages 37-74).
- Access through Google books
- Scanned version: Part 1 and Part 2. Bad scan quality, needs double turning i Acrobat Reader (or else page order is wront)
Slides
- Spring 2009: Complete article[PPT]
- Spring 2008: Hvorfor ITG?[PDF]
"Linking the IT Balanced Scorecard to the Business Objectives at a Major Canadian Financial group" [PDF] Wim Van Grembergen, University of Antwerp (UFSIA),Ronald Saull, Information Services Divisions of Great-West Life, London Life, Investors Group
Steven De Haes, University of Antwerp Management School (UAMS)
Spring 2009
- Complete article[PPT]
Cultures of Technology And the Quest for Innovation.
The Introduction [PDF] (pages 1-23).
Spring 2009
- Complete article[PPT]
Xtras for the eager pupil
"Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System" [PDF], Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Resolving the XHTML1 DTD locally - avoiding problems with the W3C 503 access blocking
Currently I'm doing a project that need some simple web scraping where I'm using CyberNeko HTML Parser (nekoHTML) which relies on Xerces. As I was running my first simple spike I encountered:
Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 503 for URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd
Whaoo, my first guess was that the URL was wrong, but it turned out to be okay. After a quick search I found the reason to be a deliberate move as can be read on W3C Systems Team Blog post "W3C's Excessive DTD Traffic". The essence of the problem is:
..In particular, software does not usually need to fetch these resources, and certainly does not need to fetch the same one over and over! Yet we receive a surprisingly large number of requests for such resources: up to 130 million requests per day, with periods of sustained bandwidth usage of 350Mbps, for resources that haven't changed in years.
Oouch, that's a lot of bandwidth. I've heard of a simliar problem, though of much smaller scale, with Schemas for OIOUBL Invoice version 0.7 from the former ISBs (Info Structure Base) repository.
Solution
Lucklily it is quite easy to do right yourself with XML Catalogs, pulling from a local repository. cbowditchs guide "Resolving DTD system URI with XMLCatalogResolver" helped me a lot and I didn't have any problems with it like he had. First you'll need to fetch the DTD and it's depencies:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml-lat1.ent
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml-symbol.ent
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml-special.ent
create a catalog file:
1 <?xml version="1.0"?> 2 <catalog xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog"> 3 <public publicId="-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 4 uri="xhtml1-transitional.dtd"/> 5 </catalog>
and adding it's use to the code like:
..
XMLCatalogResolver resolver = new XMLCatalogResolver();
resolver.setCatalogList(new String[] {"etc/dtd/xhtml1-catalog.xml"});
DOMParser parser = new DOMParser();
parser.setProperty("http://apache.org/xml/properties/internal/entity-resolver", resolver);
..
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
