Weather syndication

Lot of us want to create portlets (or publish content) based on weather information. The best solution that I found is the Weather Channel XML . And I was really impressed by xaopWeather (PHP based)! Let me know if you find an equivalent but Java based !

AspectJ Tool for JDeveloper 10g

Gerard Davidson has created a java.net project to integrate AOP Framework to JDeveloper 10g, starting with an extension for AspectJ!

Which Version I am running ?

Today I was helping a customer on a deployment issue...

The first question that I have asked is:
"Which version of OC4J are you using ?". And he has no idea !

So let me give you some tips to know the version of Oracle components that you are using...

OC4J

In the j2ee/home directory:

java -jar oc4j.jar -version

JPDK

Go in the provider test page

http://server:port/context/providers/your-provider

You can see the version of the in the bottom of the page. In the JPDK you can also use the HttpCommonConstants.COMPONENT_VERSIONS to access it programmatically.

Also if you are looking for a version of a specific component, Oracle development often use a 'version file' into the jar file of this component.This is the case for example for:

• Portals: ptlshare.jar, wsrp-container.jar, wsrp-container.jar, pdkjava.jar, portaltools.jar
• Oracle XML: xmlparserv2.jar,oraclexsql.jar, xsqlserializers.jar
• UIX: uix2.jar, jewt4.jar
• BI Bean: bigraphbean.jar

Update following Markus comments:
Markus made me realized that I forgot to mention the standard way of checking the version of a product. It is also possible, and done by most of the Oracle components, to put the version number into the Manifest file of any archive. So take a look to the manifest, and if it is not available you can look for a version file into the archive.

So next time somebody ask you which version of the product you are using you will be all set !

Struts 1.2.1 Beta available / JDeveloper 10g How-To

Struts 1.2.1 Beta is now available for download. Duncan Mills published on OTN an article that explains how-to use Struts 1.2.1 with Oracle JDeveloper 10g.

Opening the Black Box of Integration

Web Service Journal just publish an article 'Opening the Black Box of Integration' written by Mike Lehmann OracleAS 10g Product Manager. Summary:

If you've been working with integration technologies for any length of time, you're well aware of the freight train of standards that has been careening through the industry during the last five years. These standards, particularly in the Web services space, are on the verge of doing to proprietary integration servers what SQL and J2EE standards did to database and middle-tier servers of days gone by.