As I’m using the ubiquitous Hibernate 3.3 as the JPA 1.0 provider for Spincloud, I decided to try out another one. I had tried OpenJPA (spawned from Kodo JDO) when they only supported build-time bytecode enhancement and it was a pain to make it work. It worked all right but boy what a pain. There’s… Continue reading Evaluating EclipseLink 1.1
Author: Florin
Choosing a Java hosting provider
TL;DR: Go for a VPS. I now use Digitalocean, they’re awesome. Selecting a web hosting provider is a tough job for any web developer that wants to put a Java/JEE web application online. The choice is much simpler when it comes to publishing a PHP web site and there are a load of cheap (and… Continue reading Choosing a Java hosting provider
Upgrading to Spring 3.0
In the spirit of beta I’m upgrading spincloud.com to Spring 3.0. I’m using version 2.5.6 currently but it’s missing REST support and I had to use Carbonfive’s REST library which worked like a charm. Now it’s time to get back under Spring’s fold and use their built-in REST support. Spring 3 opens the door to… Continue reading Upgrading to Spring 3.0
Spincloud Labs: Political boundaries overlay in Google maps (Part 2)
Update Sep.21.2011: I took the code in the two parts and made a github project off of it called Gborders. The code is simpler and there are more options to generate the borders overlay based on geographic regions. Happy forks! In Part 1 we imported world political borders into a database table. In this second… Continue reading Spincloud Labs: Political boundaries overlay in Google maps (Part 2)
Atlantis spotted on Google Earth?
I couldn’t miss this one. It didn’t take long after Google released its seafloor imagery to its Earth and Maps products for someone to claim the discovery of nothing less than Atlantis itself! Ah, and again it wasn’t me… Take a closer look at the Atlantic Ocean floor area: On the left, a grid-like structure is… Continue reading Atlantis spotted on Google Earth?
Spincloud Labs: Political boundaries overlay in Google maps (Part 1)
Update Sep.21.2011: I took the code in this post and part deux and made a github project off of it called Gborders. The code is simpler and there are more options to generate the borders overlay based on geographic regions. Happy forks! One thing I needed when designing the Meteoalarm mashup for Spincloud were the… Continue reading Spincloud Labs: Political boundaries overlay in Google maps (Part 1)
Spincloud, a month old: looking good
I launched Spincloud on New Year’s day. I didn’t expect a flood of traffic to hit the site since -let’s face it- there was nothing groundbreaking. Spincloud was born from my idea of having access to the world weather in one step or less and I’m pleased with the results so far. Spincloud gains adoption every… Continue reading Spincloud, a month old: looking good
@Meteo_alarm twitter stream now available
= Update Nov.25.2009: The twitter name has changed to @meteo_alarm. Please update your bookmark or follow list. Between code refactoring and cooking new ideas, I took some time to add a new feature to Spincloud. Inspired by the crowd-sourced weather updates triggered by really bad snow storms in the UK, I (finally) started to see the… Continue reading @Meteo_alarm twitter stream now available
Spincloud now integrates with Europe’s weather warning service Meteoalarm
A short month after the initial public release of Spincloud, I am pleased to announce the addition of a new feature: integration with the European weather warning service Meteoalarm which provides the most relevant information needed to prepare for extreme weather, expected to occur over Europe. The colors indicate the severity of the danger and… Continue reading Spincloud now integrates with Europe’s weather warning service Meteoalarm
@BreakingNewsOn map
I’m a bit of a news junkie and when I heard that a twitter stream called @BreakingNewsOn existed I did the natural geekish thing, mash it up. Yahoo pipes was my friend here. I haven’t used the Pipes before but that didn’t quite matter, Yahoo did a great job keeping this playgroundsy product in the child realm so… Continue reading @BreakingNewsOn map