After hours

windows utilities

2007-02-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

psexec is a useful tool to execute programs/commands on remote windows machines . psexec is part of a package called pstools that contains other useful tools.

In fact there are several useful utilities like tcpview similar to netstat but with a graphical interface, process explorer that is very useful to figure out which program has a particular file or directory open, hex2dec to convert hexadecimal to decimal and vice versa, and others.
For more information consult the microsoft Windows SysInternals webpage.

debuging tcp/ip applications with netstat

2007-02-12T17:52:00.000-08:00

When using the netstat command to debug tcp/ip applications is very useful to understand the behaviour of a TCP connection using the state diagram that displays the possible states and the transitions that happen between states since netstat displays current tcp/ip network connections and its states.

A reference to that diagram on line can be find following the link about Transmission Control Protocol
or rfc793.

depends.exe for Windows

2006-10-12T20:25:00.000-07:00

Depends.exe is a free utility that can be run on a Windows executable or dll and builds a tree of all the modules the paths where they can be found, base address, version numbers, machine type. It also shows what functions are exported by the module and which of those functions are being called.

Why or when do you want to run it?

If you need to troubleshoot errors related to loading and executing any module on Windows.
It detects missing modules dlls, circular dependency errors and other errors.

debugging tcp/ip applications tips

2006-09-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

Some programs, tools, tips that I found usefull to debug tcp/ip applications:

-netstat command to see the display active tcp/ip connections and ports in each the computer is listening. Some usefull options are /a and /n

-ethereal network analyzer software once you know what are the ips and the ports you can observe the messages being exchanged for active connections

-write either a client or server using Python to reproduce and test fixes

-vmware can help too

C++ must read books

2006-08-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

So many things happened in these months that I've been without writing...

I was busy with some training, had family and friends visiting and staying with us, changed job.

Anyway I am back with some more after hours thoughts to share about different things that I found either interesting or useful.

If you are looking for C++ must read books look at the following link by the famous Scott Meyers that contains information about the 5 top C++ books to read.

http://www.artima.com/cppsource/top_cpp_books.html

I have read 3 of them and have one on my reading list:

The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroup
Effective C++ by Scott Myers
Design Patterns by Erich Gamma and gang

The book on my reading list is:

Modern C++ Design by Andrei Alexandrescu

The C++ Programming Language is a great book for learning C++ and for having as a reference book.
The Effective C++ and More Effective C++ by Scott Meyers are fundamental books to understand the things you should not do when programming C++ and how it should be done
and why. It helps to master the C++ basics and to avoid common mistakes. The Design Patterns book is fundamental for every programmer. It teachs about a common problem/solution language talking about common problems and solutions and compromises.

This C++ site seems to be a great site for C++ developers. Check it out...

http://www.artima.com/cppsource

Another cool technical podcast

2006-04-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

Security Now is another cool technical podcast that I enjoy to listem from time to time.
Check it out.

VMware addiction

2006-04-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

I have been using VMware Workstation to run multiple operating systems in my PC without having to have 2 or 3 multiple boots to run different versions of Windows and Linux. It is easy to test multiple configurations. When I start working again and I turn on the PC I just go and recover my last system snapshot and everything is in the same state it was left. Also if I install something that messes up my system I just go and recover a previous snapshot and delete the messed up snapshot.

I am a big fan.

Tip:
If you are a developer like me increased the memory default settings (256MB) to 1024MB or 512MB and you will get better performance.

CSS Summary

2006-03-14T20:41:00.000-08:00

CSS (Cascading style sheets) are used to separate content from presentation. CSS describe the presentation of a document written most of the times in HTML. CSS is used to define colors, fonts and layout.

A style sheet file consists of a list of rules.
Each rule consists of:

-one or more comma-separated selectors
-declaration block (a list of semicolon-separated declarations in curly braces)

In CSS, selectors are used to declare which elements a style applies to, a kind of match expression. Here are some examples of selector syntax:

All elements: that is, using the * selector

By element name: e.g. for all p or h2 elements

Descendants: e.g. for a elements that are descendants of li elements (e.g links inside lists) the selector is li a

class or id attributes: e.g. .class and/or #id for elements with class="class" or id="id"

Adjacent elements: e.g. for all p elements preceded by h2 elements, the selector would be h2 + p

Direct child element: e.g. for all span elements inside p, but no span elements deeper within the hierarchy, the selector would be p > span

By attribute:e.g. for all <input type="text"> the selector would be input[type="text"]

Each declaration consists of a property, a colon : and a value.

Example:

p {

font-family: "Garamond", serif;

}

h2 {

font-size: 110%;

color: red;

background: white;
}

To use a CSS style sheet created a file with the sytle sheet file with the rules and link it or import it using:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="example.css" type="text/css" >
<style type="text/css"> @import "example.css"</style>

For more information on CSS follow the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets

HTML and Dynamic HTML

2006-03-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

HTML is a markup language used for the creation of web pages. HTML is used to structure information, define headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, etc.

Markup element types:

Structural (h1, h2)
Presentational bold (b)
Hypertex Wikipedia (href)

For more information on HTML elements see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_element.

The document type definition:

All html documents should start with a DocType declaration and Document Type Definition.

Dynamic HTML or DHTML is a way of creating interactive (non-static) web pages by using a combination of HTML static, client-side scripting language such as Java-Script, CSS (Cascading style sheets) and the DOM (Document Object Model). More information about Dynamic HTML can be find by following the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_HTML.

World Wide Web Basics

2006-03-14T17:58:00.000-08:00

Htpp is a protocol to transmit information in the world wide web. It is a request/response protocol between the client and the server. The client is most of the times a web browser that issues a request to a server connecting to a particular port (by default the port is 80).
The server issues a response that contains a status and a message.
The request message consists of a request line, a header, a empty line and a optional message body.

The request line contains information about the:

request method
resource identifier
protocol

The request method is one of the following:

GET
HEAD
POST
DELETE
OTHERS

The resource identifier is a path or a path and a filename.

The headers are pairs of key: value separated. An example is "Accept-Language: en" .

The protocol version can be specified by HTTP/1.0 or HTTP/1.1 (current version).

Example:

telnet www.example.com 80
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1

The reply:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
...
Server:...
Content-Type: text/html
And the message

More detailed information can be found at wikipedia.

Free encyclopedia online

2006-03-14T17:28:00.000-08:00

When you are looking for some word definition look in the wikipedia. It is a good place to start...

Some cool technical podcasts

2006-02-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

The Java Posse
JavaPolis
Software Engineering Radio
Zdot
Roumens's Weblog - NetBeans pod
Audible Ajax

Java Developer's Journal

2006-02-25T19:57:00.000-08:00

JDJ a magazine that has some interesting articles about Java and Java World. Keep an eye on it. It is worth checking.

Core Servlets ans Java Server Pages

2006-02-25T19:44:00.000-08:00

I am really enjoying the Core Servlets ans Java Server Pages .It's first edition is available online go check it.

JavaBlackBelt-Java Exams online

2006-02-12T19:30:00.000-08:00

JavaBlackBelt is a site with exams on line on Java topics. It may be worth to try it if you are learning Java or if you wan to learn more about Java and related topics or if you want to evaluate your current Java knowhow. I didn't try yet...

Another free Web Calendar

2006-02-12T18:42:00.000-08:00

Airset is another free web calendar that is worth to check. It seems to have a lot of features. I found it on Joel's on Software blog.

J2EE Programming online course

2006-02-07T21:39:00.001-08:00

Great J2EE Programming online course for free. It starts March 2nd, 2006. I started it already :-)

Web Developer browser

2006-01-26T18:49:00.000-08:00

Firefox seems to be the best browser for web development since it can be expanded with several develoment extensions and others. Here are some of the extensions that seem to be useful:

Web Developer
Live HTTP Headers
ColorZilla
LinkChecker
Modify Headers

Let me know if you use some other extensions that you find to be useful.

Processing XML in JAVA

2006-01-22T19:54:00.000-08:00

I am trying jdom to write xml files using Java.
I am using sax to parse the xml files using Java.

Is there something better? Any criteria or evaluation for picking them?

Web Bookmarks

2006-01-10T20:12:00.000-08:00

Organize and access your bookmarks on the web from any computer and share them with your friends, family and colleagues.
I am using del.icio.us for that purpose and I am finding it useful. Give it a try.

Understanding Ajax

2005-12-17T20:42:00.000-08:00

You can find a short techincal article that explains how Asynchronous JavaScript Technology and XML (AJAX) works. It is a good sumarized explanation worth to check.
Here is the link: http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2EE/AJAX/

Java Code Quality Tools

2005-12-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

Free PMD: Static analyzer tool for java code that scans Java code and looks for potential problems like possible bugs in the code.
Free JRewriter: Static analyzer tool for java code capable of refactoring source code to eliminate potential defects.
Free FindBugs: Static analyzer tool for finding bugs in Java code.
Free Jlint: Dynamic and Static Program checking to find bugs and inconsistencies in the Java code.

Testing tools

2005-12-06T19:53:00.000-08:00

Free WebTst: QA tool for functional web site testing by creating tests, recording them or running them in an automatic mode by Francisco Rosa(cool guy my husband :-) ) that can be used for regression testing.
Free Selenium: QA tool is a tool for testing web applications that can be used for regression testing.
Free HttpUnit: QA tool for automated testing of web applications.
Free TestGen4Web: QA tool for recording and replaying user actions on firefox.
Free jMock: A library for testing interactions between Java objects using mock objects.
Free EasyMock: "Provides Mock Objects for interfaces in JUnit tests by generating them on the fly using Java's proxy mechanism".

My favorite podcasts

2005-12-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

The Java Posse : a very interesting podcast for Java developers with news about Java, Java tools and intereviews.
Web 2.0 Show: a web cast about web business ideas, web technologies (Ajax, etc). Very entertaining and interesting interviews with Jeff Bar from amazon and Jason Calacanis from Weblogs inc.
Software As She's Developed: Very informative and good podcasts about Ajax and Java.
POLYMORPHICPODCAST: Good tips about software delevopment in general and also about Architectures and Frameworks like ASP.NET and Ajax. "Each show is concise bringing you practical examples of how to make you a better software development professional."
QA Podcast: Good information about Software Quality Assurance topics.
JBoss Labs: New about Jboss. Keep an eye on it.
Code Sermon: A podcast about good software development pratices. Interesting.
Ajax: About Ajax framework.

Web Calendar

2005-11-29T19:40:00.000-08:00

Calendar

If you are looking for a free web calendar check the Yahoo Calendar. It allows you to check and schedule meetings from everywhere and anytime, share your calendar with your co-workers and friends and it notifies you of important dates sending you reminders.
There are others but this one seems to do what I want.

Web development goodies, podcasts and more

2005-11-25T19:23:00.000-08:00

Web development

GreaseMonkey is a Firefox extension which adds you let bits of DHTML ("user scripts") to any web page to change its behavior. It can be used to for example improve the usability of a site that you frequent, route around common and annoying website bugs, etc.
MonkeyGrease is a very simple servlet filter that will allow a web developer to inject JavaScript, CSS or other elements within a web page.
I think this little text will help to understand the difference between the two:

"Monkeygrease serves the same purpose as Greasemonkey, however, instead of being a user-based, client-side solution, Monkeygrease is a proxy based, server-side solution. This allows all your users to benefit from enhancements you deploy to your site through Monkeygrease. You might be wondering, “why not enhance the underlying web page or web application?” Consider all of the packaged web applications you have deployed. Many of these web applications are not that easy to enhance. Some web applications are just not conducive to being customized. Also, some of these web applications are “black-boxed” or closed source products that just can’t be customized. Other products are just too complicated and require expert knowledge to carry out interface based customizations. "

Browser shots a service good for web designers so that they can see screenshots of their pages in different browsers, with different screen resolutions and different plugins.

A book about CSS, "The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks" with some free chapters on line. I heard is good...I am going to try to check the free chapters and then I may get it...

Podcasts and blogs

Software development magazine podcast
measuremap provices easy free easy stats to your blog to understand what people do at your blog

Some notes on Java, Software Development and QA testing

2005-11-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

Dojo Toolkit is a open source toolkit that allows to easily build dynamic capabilities into web pages and prototype interactive applications...
Flock a new free open source web browser still in beta version. Keep your eye on it web developer's.
Java Studio Enterprise IDE (supports UML, Team Collaboration tools and Application Profilling) and Java Studio Creator IDE (for creating web applications) are now available from free from the sun web site.
testNG is a testing framework inspired on JUnit with more functionality, more powerfull and easier to use.
TheServerSide a site with news, blogs, discussions, white papers articles and reviews about Enterprise Java.

Another search engine for podcasts and blogs: feedster

Some other podcasts that I like:

Podcasts Rock

2005-11-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

Love it, love it.
Check some of my favorite ITC podcasts:

java posse
polymorphic podcasts
ASP .net podcast

Some new podcasts still to check:
cubicle escape
killer inovations

Some introduction notes to cascading style sheets:
Dave Ragget's Introduction to CSS

Some search engines that I've been using to search for podcasts:
blinkx
podscope

On my to do list:

Check Scott Amblers web site articles about software development pratices.
Check the online backpack tool for current to-dos, nodes and ideas, reminders and whiteboards (cooperative editing of documents).

Wiki and Javapedia Online: encyclopedia about Java

2005-10-28T20:58:00.000-07:00

The Java.net Wiki contains some usefull links related with Java and some other topics:

The Javapedia is an online encyclopedia of all the things that Java developers migth need to know.

I hope those are usefull.

Java World

2005-10-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

What to learn about Java and the Java World?

There is a good web site with podcasts about Java javaposse that contains interesting information about Java as well as interesting links . I was listening to the Java Posse Episode 2 - NewsCast for Sept 29 2005 where they provide information usefull information for Java Beginners such as:

There is a blog that called the Blog Ride by Ted Neward's that contains lists of recommended books about several Programming Languages like Java and C++.
There is a blog from Bobby Wolf from IBM that also contains information about where to learn about Java as well as information for people like me New to Java Techonlogy . That link contains a section about How to improve my Java Skills with a link to a collection of issues such about Java Theory and pratice issues. There we cand find articles about several different topics such as Java performance Java theory and practice: Urban performance legends, revisited.
There is also a site about Java examples that can be usefull too.
There is also a collection of Books on DVD that contain training on Java for beginners: Beginners Java 2 v1.5 20004 on DVD by Neal Ford.
There is a small compact book that I heard about it being a good book to start to read about Java: Java 5.0 Tiger a Developer's notebook by Brett McLaughlin and David Flanagan from O'Reilly.
As a desktop reference book I heard about the Java In a Nutshell from David Flanagan from O'Reilly.

I am also putting together some buzzwords related with the Java World:

Eclipse
Netbeans
Ant
Apache
TomCat
EJB
J2EE or JEE
JSP
JBoss
JUnit
Ajax

Friday, October 13th 2005

2005-10-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

Recently I got a present from my husband a new iPod and I started listening about computer topics from ITC. It has been a a new world for me and I am loving it. There are lots of interesting podcasts about Programming, Security, Web services, Microsoft and even Python. Between several I listened a podcast by Joel Spolsky and I am currently reading his book called Joel on Software. His book is a set of essays that he published on his blog (www.joelonsoftware.com). Yeee...Yee blogs are new to me too. You can tell, right? I want to subscribe to his blog and for that I realized that I need a RSS feader. RSS is an abbreviation for Really Simple Sindication...it ends up by being a XML format for syndicating web content. I ended up by downloading a new free rss feader for windows called FeedReader. Being really new to the podcast world I think it will be a good idea to scan the book that my husband just bougth Podcast Solutions: The Complete Guide to Podcasting.
Last but not least I heard about a search engine for podcasts: http://podcasts.yahoo.com. I need to give it a try still...