Jitterbit/Thomas Nelson ETL Case Study

In today’s complex technology environment, having the right ETL (Extract Transform Load) tool is a top priority for many enterprises. In the past, my team has built its own ETL tools. While they have worked well for us, maintenance and support in a rapidly changing world has become somewhat of a nightmare.

Having Trouble with Java on Your Mac?

I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly playing with (read messing up) my Mac loading new software, trying different things, etc. I spend a lot of time poking around in the BSD shell. After some recent mods, I began experiencing problems with Java…specifically related to Eclipse. I couldn’t get it to run. Instead, it returned “Cannot find executable for CFBundle … (not loaded)”.

After some fruitless searching and reinstalling Java, I found the problem. Somewhere along the way the symbolic folder “Current” (found under /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions) was corrupted. Current should be pointing to the “A” folder (located in the same folder as Current). I used the following command to correct the problem:

sudo ln -fhsv A Current

If you find yourself in a similar situation, and according to my own internet searches many of you have, check the symbolic folders “Current” and CurrentJDK. Chances are your problem is there.

MyEclipse Tips: Using Tomcat

If you’re like me and you use Eclipse for Java development (I also use it for PHP), you should take a look at the MyEclipse plugin. Prior to using  MyEclipse, I’d tried other Tomcat plugins for Eclipse with varying success. In the end, I deployed a standalone Tomcat for my JSP, etc. development. Now that I’m using MyEclipse, I’ve been using its Tomcat deployment instead. At first I was a little skeptical, but now I really like it.

Once you’ve installed MyEclipse, it’s a really simple process to use the internal Tomcat deployment for testing java web apps.

Here’s the approach I use:

From the menu bar, select “Window”, “Show View”, “Other”.  In the “Show View” window, open the “MyEclipse Java Enterprise” folder and select “Servers”.

This will show display a Server tab within the IDE. This tab gives you control over running Tomcat.

Next, in the Project Explorer, right click on the project you want to run with Tomcat. Select “Run As”, “Run Configurations”

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Select “MyEclipse Server Application” and you can create a new configuration for running your project within Tomcat.

Now you’re ready to run your java web apps within MyEclipse.

Engadget Interview with Jonathan Schwartz

Just read the Engadget interview with Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s CEO, on porting Java to the Google Android platform, and mobile platforms in general. According to Mr. Schwartz, not only is he using an iPhone, Sun’s committed to delivering Java for the device. When asked about Google’s Android platform, Schwartz turned attention to the upcoming JavaOne conference. Anyone who’s used some of Google’s developer products (GWT for example) already knows that Sun is working very closely with Google.

I have an iPhone also. I’ve been playing with the iPhone SDK, developing a couple of test apps. While I like the phone, I’m less excited about developing applications for the iPhone than I am about it having a Safari browser. I’d much rather use GWT to develop Ajax applications that can be run on IE, Firefox, Safari, Mozilla, and Opera browsers.

Think about it, developing rich client programs for browsers opens up a world of web enabled devices to you.

JavaFX Tricks: LookAndFeel

Yes I know, it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. Over the last few months I’ve been working on some swing apps, installing ubuntu on a server at my house, and testing open source network monitoring software.

During my time away, I’ve also been working with JavaFX…I’ll blog more on this later. For now I want to leave you with a FX tip that I couldn’t find on-line. To change the look and feel of your FX script from the system default to one of the other Java look and feels do the following:

import javafx.ui.*;

Frame {
      lookAndFeel: "javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel"
      title: "Metal Look and Feel"
      height: 400
      width: 600
      content: Label {
                text: "Metal Look And Feel"
              }
      visible: true
};

As you can see from the example, the lookAndFeel attribute string needs to be set to the java look and feel class that you want to use.