While setting up a new project this morning I was reminded of a somewhat counter-intuitive sequence when setting up a local environment (even with the simple Pointbase install). When you get to this screen:

Clicking Next will give you this warning:

Just click OK. The database isn’t running at this time.

And, for those who haven’t upgraded in a while and don’t read the manual, you will want to click Run Scripts when you see this screen:

After the wizard completes, look for the create_db.cmd in the domain root and run it before starting the server. The first start, the server will have problems starting. Let it run until nothing is spit into the console anymore, then kill it and start it again. This time it should come up.

Ed note: This was posted on my old site in 2004. Every time you think we are making progress in computing, read this

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages:

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
————————-
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
————————–
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
—————————–
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
——————————
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
——————————–
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
———————————
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
———————————
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
——————————–
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
———————————
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
———————————
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
———————————
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
———————————
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
——————————–
Having been erased,
The document you’re seeking
Must now be retyped.
———————————
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

I was a bit surprised to run across this issue for the first time in a 10.3.0 installation.  According to a post on OTN, it is caused by the actual Beehive library not added correctly in config.xml. However, when I ran across it, it was a different library (the sample projects) that were missing, but the same error occurred.

Go figure.

To find out what on your site is indexed on Google, go there and run the following search:

site:mydomain.com

Where “mydomain” is your domain name (change the . com if you have a different domain extension).

Click here for an example.

I was really surprised that log4j doesn’t have any facility to set the log file location with a relative path. Hard to build a portable application if you need to set the full value of a local path. And don’t talk to me about config files, because that requires reading documentation, which is only read less than it is written.

So, if you use the standard log4j servlet approach to start your logging, you can weave in the following to set your path relative to your app:


org.w3c.dom.NodeList nodes = doc.getElementsByTagName("param");;
org.w3c.dom.Node node = null;//nodes.item(0);
org.w3c.dom.NamedNodeMap nodeMap = null;
for(int i=0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++)
{
    node = nodes.item(i);
    nodeMap = node.getAttributes();
    if(nodeMap.getNamedItem("name")
        .getNodeValue().equals("File"))
    {
        node = nodeMap.getNamedItem("value");
        outputFile = new File(getServletContext().getRealPath(node.getNodeValue()));
        outPutPath = outputFile.getAbsolutePath();
        outPutPath = outPutPath.replace('', '/');
        node.setNodeValue(outPutPath);
    }
}


Then you can set the log location to outPutPath.

Enjoy

I’m always forgetting what ports to set for PCAnywhere use. This time I thought I’d share the link I found on PCAnywhere ports at http://www.nthelp.com/NT6/pcanywhere_ip_port_usage.htm.

Though these days I’m using TeamViewer, which has no problem with firewalls though does get filtered by some networks admins.

If you chose the Facelet aspect for your WLP project in 10.3.2, your portlets will use the “native” (i.e., WLP-only) portlet bridge rather than the “JSR-329″ (i.e., crystal ball) bridge.  In case you need to reuse your portlets in another portal framework.

I haven’t had time to try it out, but in theory one could write the .portlet file by hand and still get the best of both worlds.

If you see:

java.lang.ClassCastException: com.bea.portlet.container.ActionRequestImpl

Try adding the following:

import javax.portlet.ActionRequest;

…
ActionRequest actionRequest = (ActionRequest) ctx.getExternalContext().getRequest();
HttpServletRequest httpRequest = (HttpServletRequest) actionRequest.getAttribute(“javax.servlet.request”);

Go to Oracle WebLogic Portal 10gR3 (10.3.2) for the download.

From the description on the product page, this is a new version of WebLogic Workshop, but without the WebLogic Portal tools. WLP has a new release due out soon, and Oracle is focusing on their other IDE, so this makes sense, even if it doesn’t make old-time WebLogic developers feel all warm and fuzzy (or remembered).