Everything beta

     When Google announced that Java is the second language that the Appengine will support I almost didn't believe it given the surge of the new languages and the perception that Java entered legacy but the JVM is a powerful tried-and-true environment and Google saw the potential of using it for what it is bound to become: a runtime environment for the new and exciting languages (see JRuby and Grails). The JVM is the new gateway drug … read on »

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 sometimes quite reliable) PHP hosting providers to choose from with LAMP being the de facto standard in the web hosting world. But when it comes to Java hosting providers the picture … read on »

In Part 1 we imported world political borders into a database table. In this second part we'll use the table and generate a script that will be used to add the borders overlay to Google Maps. We'll use the cool Ruby and some fancy GIS words along the way. We left-off with a database table containing all borders. The goal today is to produce a Javascript file that will be used for overlaying polygons representing countries, over … read on »

One thing I needed when designing the Meteoalarm mashup for Spincloud were the political boundaries for all European countries. With them at hand, I would use the polygon overlay from the Coogle API and fill the country polygons with the respective weather warning colors. This first part is a tutorial on how to import world political borders into a MySQL database table. The second part in these series will use this table to create a script that … read on »

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 its possible impact: Red: very dangerous, Orange: dangerous, Yelllow: potentially dangerous, Green: no warnings. Currently only the country-level … read on »

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 even a caveman could do it. The mashup result -two pipe connections later- is beyond the link: http://pipes.yahoo.com/newsplore/breakingnewson

Today was my lucky day according to least one popular blog. I got the Themes tab enabled in my gmail account, wohoo! I only wish they could change the font sizes too, I'm up for a microscopic look'n feel, really small and cozy-cute. My current favorite is the Shiny theme: Now, if only googlers would add a Cover Flow option instead of that dull message list. Oh, and it should come gratis as usual. I learned something today too. To take a screenshot on … read on »

I just bought my first MacBook yesterday. My current laptop (a beaten down Toshiba Satellite) was long overdue and I realized that I didn't want yet another boring Win notebook, it just doesn't do it for me anymore. I'm in front of a PC every day at work and I surely don't want to see the same things while at home. And so I was determined to buy a Mac. My first Mac. I didn't know … read on »