If you’re like me and you just got assigned a project that has at it’s heart the evil and pungent windows smart client factory, and you’re having just a bit of trouble figuring out “huh, i just need a text box and a button… why are there 33 solution files and 15 service references…” try this link, it kinda helps to get the idea… it is funny that a “hello world” application ends up having like 7 projects and 40 some files inside the single solution… oh well. Here ya go, it helped me.

http://www.codeplex.com/smartclient/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Getting%20Started%20with%20the%20Smart%20Client%20Software%20Factory&referringTitle=Smart%20Client%20Software%20Factory

Cheers,
Tim

I needed to setup a development environment for my advanced Java course, and had just a hell of a time getting it set up, so I thought I’d write a small tutorial. Maybe you won’t need to spend as much time on this as I did. Anyway here goes…

• First step is to download the preconfigured TomCat server from the good people at coreservlets.com http://www.coreservlets.com/Apache-Tomcat-Tutorial/tomcat6.0-files/tomcat-6.0.16-preconfigured.zip unzip it to c:\
  
• Next you need to right click on “Computer” then select “Properties” then select “Advanced System Settings” you’ll be promted by UAC to give you’re permission.  Next click on “Environmental Variables”.  This will get us to where we need to be.
• In the “Environmental Variables” window under “system variables” click “new”.  Create a new variable named  “JAVA_HOME” and set the value to where ever you keep your java jdk for me it is

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11

• hit “ok” but don’t leave the “Environmental Variables” area we’re not done yet.

• Next find the variable “PATH” click on it and then click “Edit”  go to the end of the text that’s there and paste in “;your java directory\bin; %PATH%” .  For me it was:

;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11\bin;%PATH%

• don’t forget to add the  ;   before the new text . Hit OK

• Next find the variable “CLASSPATH” click on it and then click “edit”.  Go to the end of any text that’s already there and add this text:

;.;C:\apache-tomcat-6.0.16\lib\servlet-api.jar;C:\apache-tomcat-6.0.16\lib\jsp-api.jar;C:\apache-tomcat-6.0.16\lib\el-api.jar;C:\Servlets+JSP;..;..\..

• Hit “OK” all the way out of all the windows.  Now go to your “apache-tomcat-6.0.16″  file at C:\  open the apache-tomcat-6.0.16conf\server.xml file in a text editor and change the connect port on line 72 from 80 to 8080.
• Then add a username and password to the tomcat-users.xml file in the “C:\apache-tomcat-6.0.16\conf” directory.  It should look like this:

<?xml version=’1.0′ encoding=’utf-8′?>
<tomcat-users>
<role rolename=”manager”/>
<user username=”put your username here” password=”put your password here” roles=”manager”/>
</tomcat-users>

• Save and close the file.

• To start and stop TomCat go to the “bin” directory within your tomcat file and create shortcuts for the “startup” and “shutdown” batch files.

That’s it.  Click on your startup shortcut to start TomCat, and the Shutdown shortcut to, you guessed it, shutdown TomCat.  You’ll be able to access Tomcat at “http://localhost:8080″

Cheers,

Tim

I’m just starting to play with CakePHP.  It’s awesome, kinda like RoR, but for php of course.  It’s great for MVC Architecture.  Thanks to Ryan for letting me know about it.

Just got off the phone with AT&T tech support and really couldn’t be happier with the service I got.  Very cordial and helpful, and didn’t feel like so many other tech support people that are stuck on their script.  Anyway, looks like I need a new router, so I get to research that today.  Those of you that know me know how I love that.  If you have a suggesation leave it in the comments.  Needs to be gigabit, and wireless (might as well be wireless-n i suppose).

Got a new computer yesterday.  It’s this HP 2133 it’s super sweet!  was gonna go for the Eeepc, but htis one was being closed out at school (linux isn’t so hot with most of the kids), so it was too good a deal to pass up, $200.00.  The only bummer was that the linux installation was corrupted and I had to reinstall, but it’s sweet now.  Has a 1.2 Ghz processor 1GB ram and a 120GB HDD.  As long as you pay a little attention to not slamming it, it runs great!  Almost surprisingly so.  Unfortunately the wireless network at school can’t be accessed by linux (at least not by mere mortals) so it’ll probably end up with either XP or maybe the windows 7 beta, as a “net”book is a little less useful without the “net” part.  More later.