define "composite applications". define "mashups"

I admit. I am shamelessly quoting from this article because now you have a good definition of 'composite applications' versus 'mashups':

Composite Applications

Composite applications involve a “service-oriented” wiring between applications and are deployed to enterprise platforms. This event-based wiring of data between applications can create a dynamic desktop where, as the workflow inside one application is completed, all other applications that rely on this application can reflect the change. The completed application is then placed in the background and the user focuses on the next task. This enables not only component reuse within an organization, but also provides a framework for application reuse across the business. In this way, both line of business (LOB) and Information Technology (IT) applications can be integrated together on the desktop.

Mashups


A ″mashup″ combines data from multiple applications into an extremely lightweight application rendered in a browser. Mashups can extend enterprise data with services from the public internet such as Google Maps for location services, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds to publish content or Widgets (web plug-ins) that provide specific functions such as blog, wiki or social networking capabilities. Mashups are not intended to be strategic, systematically built, industrial-strength enterprise applications; rather, they are created quickly or opportunistically to meet a focused tactical need. Mashups are generally personalized to fulfill personal productivity needs rather than the requirements of a long-standing corporate role. 1 Mashups leverage content and logic from other Web sites and Web applications, they’ are lightweight in implementation and are built with a minimal amount of code (which can be client-side JavaScript™ or server-side scripting languages, such as PHP or Python). These are not fixed requirements, but reflect the original implementation of the mashup concept in Web 2.0 startup companies, which typically do not use enterprise oriented platforms, such as Java or .NET.

fixing was and portal (continued)

following my previous post on this topic, the following story is something we found by trial and error actions at a customer site. Actually, the story is about what to do in order to make sure that fixes are applied successfully on WebSphere Portal 6.0.x

We'll see if this process has been improved in WebSphere Portal 6.1, when it will be out and I will get the opportunity to play with it.

So, turns out that you'd be better applying e-fixes by hand, manually, one by one, from the command line. Forget the Java Wizard of UpdateInstaller for Portal, and forget the fix-packs, for instance the installing script for fix-pack 6.0.1.3 which is supposed to apply about 100 patches does not get the job done, properly. This is because fix-pack is trying to start/stop/start/stop the Portal itself several times and probably it gets something wrong on the way.

As such, load yourself with patience, plan for 2 man/day effort and proceed as following:
1. Get all your fixes from Fix Central site. Usually, if using IBM's DownloadDirector, you'll have several zip files downloaded on your folder.
2. Get the Portal UpdateInstaller, unzip it and place it under . On my install, I have this under d:\ibm\WebSphere\PortalServer\UpdateInstaller
3. Create your fix folder as in d:\ibm\WebSphere\PortalServer\fix
4. Then, do the following: read each of the fixpack readme :) Yes, really, do that :) Because some have other fixes as required for successful installation, then you might need to run for certain fixes commands like 'WPSconfig.bat apply-pk35496'
5. So, if you decide to apply a fix, copy its jar file into the d:\ibm\WebSphere\PortalServer\fix folder.
6. Decide how many fixes you want to apply, copy their jar files into the fix folder, making sure required other fixes are already applied or installed in the same run of UpdateInstaller.bat
7. The command line to apply a set of fixes is, from the UpdateInstaller folder, as seen below:

D:\ibm\WebSphere\PortalServer\UpdateInstaller>updatePortal.bat -install -installDir "d:\ibm\WebSphere\PortalServer" -fix -fixDir "d:\ibm\WebSphere\PortalServer\fix" -fixes PK35276 PK37018 PK32211 PK32501 PK32562 PK32570 PK32573 PK32626 PK33082 PK33379 PK33783 PK34220 PK34611 PK34624 PK34828 PK35170 PK35496

Happy patching :)

evernote

Evernote is one of these amazingly simple, yet useful programs. If you want to take notes and remember things either on web pages or by notepad type of editor, then this is for you. I need to remember technical stuff and I don't want to memorize because I know that I will forget :) So I need a program which does just what Evernote is doing. I think it is worth a try.

If you don't believe me, check the video on the front page. It has sync with your online account, clipping screen on your workstation and for the most fancy people, mobile versions which keeps your notes in sync.

for notes and outlook searches - IOPES

not sure how to start a recommendation for Outlook users .... oh yeah, switch to Notes :)

joking aside, I can highly recommend you try a program for searching all your mails. If you use and receive a lots of mails, I know your frustration when searching for something in old mails. Neither Outlook or Notes handle this job properly. Been there, done that. For some time I used to try Google Desktop Search which did a good job not only finding mails (it has a Notes plugin), except it took a whole lot of memory to do run. Since I am a rather organized person, I usually have no problem finding a file. But I need to find emails, since I also run at least one archive.

Since Notes 8 cannot search in archives (as I clarified this in another post), I needed a program to search only mails. Cannot say for Outlook since when I did used it I had another free indexer which was brilliant, called Lookout

IBM OmniFind Personal E-mail Search does this job and so far I have no complains. Well, the version I have uses a lot of memory too, but as I write this I am downloading the new version, I'll see if it handles memory better. Since I need from time to time to search for mails, I have no other choice. Do I ?

little story about wmm_cfg.xml:512

Guess how did I spend the last three days ? I tried to get passed the WebSphere Portal Installation Wizard on Windows, on subsequent attempts to install it on my machine.

After the first successful install, I upgraded to 6.0.1.3, but I had the impression that Portal is hanging on the Internationalization service. This was not the case as it turned out, I still have to figure why Portal is spending almost 15 minutes to this point, when starting. But this is another story, I'm working on it :)

So I said, I upgraded without thinking, my Portal is not starting. OK ! Let's approach the Microsoft way of doing things ! uninstall, then reinstall !

Uninstall from Add/Remove ... waiting another hour or so .... then delete everything under d:\ibm\ (didn't deleted the ibm folder and this is the trick which perhaps is the explanation why I failed) .... reboot the machine, start over, wait another 2 hours or so for the Wizard .... and bang ! the error message that script wmm_cfg.xml:512 line didn't executed.

hmmm .... start searching on net .... some other folks complained about the same error, but could not found an explanation.

good. ok, this happens from time to time. I found that Portal actually was installed but at that moment it was trying to enable global security on WAS. I tried manually with WPSConfig, I managed to do it but I had no idea what password it had set on cloudscape, so I lost all access to WAS and Portal :)

So, instead of mocking around with it (I think I'm getting older for this), I started again, with the wizard, but this time I made sure I deleted ALL the installation path. That is, including the ibm folder.

And, to my surprise, this time it got through. The installation wizard for the Portal showed the 'successful message'.

And here comes the thing: appears that this wizard wants to create the install path by itself (as d:\ibm existed when it failed). I don't have another explanation.