kontrawize

Addison-Wesley at Safari

I just recently signed up for O'Reilly's "Safari" on-line bookshelf. I needed to learn more about Linux networking (more than I wanted to know, really, but que sera). I was pleasantly surprised to find that Safari now has Addison-Wesley books available as well as O'Reilly books (and I have no idea how long this has been the case). That really makes the service much more interesting.

O'Reilly publishes a lot of good books, but it has its niches, and they aren't always the niches I'm interested in. For example, they have books on Linux networking, but if you want something about EMF (the Eclipse Modelling Framework), you're out of luck. Addison-Wesley have one, though, and that book ("Eclipse Modelling Framework: A Developer's Guide) is available on Safari.

Two publishers are definitely better than one.

Time to review UBL 2

Version 2.0 of UBL, the Universal Business Language, is now available for public review. UBL's purpose is to provide a standard set of general business XML messages (e.g. purchase orders, invoices) which can eventually replace older standards like EDIFACT which tend to be much more expensive to implement. In particular, with EDIFACT, the tendency has been for large corporations (typically Fortune 500) to use it to set up different bilateral messages for use with their different trading partners. Small business just couldn't afford that, having different messages for each and every company they do business with.

UBL 2.0 uses (in a non-normative fashion) the genericode XML format that I proposed for code lists, which is now one of the key inputs for the new OASIS Code List Representation Technical Committee.

If you are interested in (general) business automation, you should have a look at UBL 2.0. Now is the time when you can provide your feedback, before 2.0 is signed off.

Have a laugh at Hitler's expense

If you like animations like "Wallace & Gromit", have a look at this satirical animation about Hitler's last days in his bunker (courtesy of The Register). It's extremely well done.

XQuery for Java Objects - C24 IO

Century 24 Solutions (C24) is a London-based company whose software I have been using for a few years now. Integration Objects (IO) is a very complete Java-based program for data modelling and transformation. I started using it because I needed to produce hundreds of Schemas with shared definitions for a client, and Schema "includes" would have been too hard to manage. I wanted a repository-style tool that would just let me select which types are required in which Schemas, and then generate the Schemas without includes. [As a bonus, IO also generated Java representations of the Schemas and binding code to read/write XML to/from Java.]

The truth is, there are very few repository-style tools out there that can do this, and the only one that was sufficiently close to getting it right, in my opinion, was C24 IO. The fact that I had a lot of input into the addition of XML Schema support to the tool may have something to do with that. They produced the tool that I needed to do the job.

C24 IO has been able to do XPath on Java objects for years now, but what is new is that recently they brought in Mike Kay (a fellow member of the XML Guild) to implement XQuery for Java objects. I'm pretty sure C24 are right when they say that this is the first ever implementation of XQuery for Java objects. It will certainly be a very useful addition to the tool. XPaths are very useful, but there is still a limit to what they can do. XQuery can do so much more, and the syntax is pretty familiar for anyone who has a basic working knowledge of SQL and XML.

This isn't just a solution looking for a problem, by the way. I know the guys at C24 well enough that I know they added XQuery support because one of their biggest customers wanted the ability to do XQueries on in-memory Java objects (after all, it makes no sense to have to serialise all of your Java objects to XML just to be able to run a query).

C24 IO is very cool piece of software, it's worth your time to download a copy of the Open Edition to have a play with. There's a bit of a learning curve at the start, because you've probably never used a tool quite like it. However, there's a lot you can get out of it - like XQuery.

XML 2006 Conference - Boston, December

Just a reminder to make a place in your travel schedule for the XML 2006 conference in Boston (USA) from 5-7 December. The XML 200x conferences are always a great learning and networking experience; I've been to all but one since XML 2000.

This year, I'm speaking in the panel session on Agile XML Development on Tuesday 5 December. I'm not doing the "agile" part of the session per se. What I will be talking about are techniques and technologies that I've found useful in setting up XML build/release systems, akin to the build/release systems that are used for programming language sources/libraries.

If you can make it, come and say hi! It should definitely be an interesting session for anyone who has to manage releases of schemas or other XML assets, as well as for anyone who has to integrate XML assets into their generic software build/release process.

Zimbra 4.0.0, SUSE Linux 10.1, and VMware Server 1.0.1, part 3

[ part 1, part 2 ]

There is a problem with the way Zimbra installs logging under SUSE 10.1. However, it can be fixed. There is a Zimbra forum post that described how to fix the logging problem, but make sure you read the thread right to the end.

Also, it is necessary to ensure that "sendmail" and "postfix" are disabled on your system before installing Zimbra.

Zimbra 4.0.0, SUSE Linux 10.1, and VMware Server 1.0.1, part 2

The Zimbra install process tells you about missing packages, but it doesn't tell you about all of them. After you install Zimbra, best thing is to login as "zimbra" (or do "su zimbra") and then do

zmcontrol stop

zmcontrol start

When Zimbra restarts you should see error messages if there are any packages still missing. In my case, I found that I still had to install a curl compatibility package, and created a symbolic link so that "libexpat.so.0" resolved to my "libexpat" library.

Zimbra 4.0.0, SUSE Linux 10.1, and VMware Server 1.0.1

In my role as one of the senior partners at Miley Watts LLP, I've been looking at email/calendaring servers, since we need to move on from the simple email-only setup that we have been using.

I wanted a server that runs under Linux/Unix (SUSE Linux if possible, to make life easiest for me). There are a lot of mail server options for Windows, but security worries me. I know that Windows servers can be secured, I've known people who are very good at it, but I'm not one of them. I feel much happier with the out-of-the-box security that (SUSE) Linux comes with (but feel free to educate me if you think I'm wrong on this).

Of the servers available for Linux, the ones that seemed to match our needs at the brochure-ware level were Novell GroupWise and Zimbra Collaboration Suite. However, the things I've heard from GroupWise users haven't been so complimentary, so we've decided to try out Zimbra first.

My plan is to run Zimbra in a VMware Server virtual session that runs SUSE Linux 10.1. Zimbra's only SUSE release is for SUSE Enterprise Linux 9, but the good news is that it installs without any particular problems under 10.1. You have to make sure you have a couple of packages installed beforehand (as noted in the installation documentation), and otherwise it's pretty smooth. It does help a bit if you already have the mail server configured in your DNS, since Zimbra checks the DNS setup during installation.

After you set the configuration parameters, the installation fails. That's not a big problem, thankfully. Zimbra prints a message to the command line that asks you to correct the problem, and tells you what command to use to restart the installation from where it failed. When you check the log file ("/tmp/zmsetup.log.*"), you see that "/etc/sudoers" has the wrong permissions (440 instead of 640). So, I change the permissions, restart the build, and it completes (I did this a few times as I was playing around).

I really like the fact that when something does go wrong, Zimbra gives a clear indication of what the problem was, and what to do next.

A virtual server looks like a good choice for running Zimbra, because Zimbra wants to be the only application running on the server. We aren't that big a partnership, so it would be wasteful of us to allocate a whole physical server to Zimbra. I'm currently testing Zimbra in a virtual server with 256M of RAM allocated to it (as opposed to the 1G that Zimbra recommend). I can always expand that later as required (the physical server has 4G, or which 3.5G are available for use by VMware virtual sessions).

So far I have established that I can install Zimbra. I've installed it into a virtual session on my development server. Next, I will move that virtual session to our production server, so we can test how it works in practice. I'll let you know how it goes.

VMware for the Mac

This news is about a month old now, but was news to me - VMware has announced that it will be producing a virtualisation product that runs on Mac OS X. Lack of VMware support is the major thing that has stopped me from considering Macs for my own use. So, when the VMware product arrives later this year, I will have to reconsider my options.

VMware aren't the first to provide virtualisation for the Mac, though. Parallels Workstation already has that honour, with software that is shipping now. In you don't have a legacy of virtual machines to support, you might want to try it out. For me personally, it's less work if I can stick to VMware, since virtual machines aren't completely portable between virtualisation packages.

There is a caveat to both these tools, however - they let you run PC operating systems (Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc.) in virtual sessions, but not Mac OS X. That is a big limitation for me, because I prefer to do all my real work in a virtual session which can easily be moved from one machine to another. That means even if I had a Mac, I would still be doing all my real work in a Linux or Windows session on that Mac, which would be curious to say the least.

I hope someone can come to some agreement with Apple about being able to run virtualised copies of OS X. That would make it possible to do real work in OS X, and I would like to have that choice.

Severence

Last night I went to the local cinema to see the new British horror comedy Severence, which is currently playing in the UK. It's about what happens to a sales team from an armaments company who are at a bonding weekend in Eastern Europe. The poster shows a picture of somebody whose head has been cut off. I won't say more than that.

If you like a bit of horror and you like dark comedy, you'll like this film. If you have a weak stomach, you might not like it so much. It's definitely a film to see at the cinema, because the audio track is an important part of the overall effect. Highly recommended.

Is it a "first date" film? Yes, if your date doesn't mind horror films.