bedeviled mojo slop

I now officially own the ™ for blojsom which means I can use the ® symbol alongside the name.

Filing a trademark has to be one of the most fascinatingly boring processes. It took a year and 6 days for the application to be fully processed and the mark registered. Basically it goes like this:

* File a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
* After many months, your application is assigned an examining attorney responsible for verifying the application and searching for conflicting marks
* The attorney can then give the OK for the application or it can be refused for a number of reasons (which can later be resolved)
* After the application is OK'd, it's published in the Official Gazette, a weekly publication from the USPTO, for a 30-day opposition period
* Any party who feels they might be damaged by registration, can file an opposition to registration
* If no one opposes the registration (there is a fee for filing an opposition), a Certificate of Registration is issued
* The Certificate of Registration is issued about twelve weeks after the published date

I cryptically mentioned this process awhile back. I had a list of other registrations published in the same Gazette as blojsom that were quite amusing, but I can't find it now. The only notable one I remember is the filing for del.icio.us.

Technorati Tags: blojsom trademark

The del.icio.us API now has a security blanket. And so, I updated the delicious-java API to use the new secure API endpoint.

Download.
Javadocs.

Technorati Tags: del.icio.us java

Wynona's Big Brown Beaver - Primus

I'm participating in a panel for a HOBY Conference at The College of Saint Rose this Saturday. I guess someone else bagged and they needed someone to fill in.

The New Media: Has freedom of information gone too far?

The internet has brought us everything from email to blogging to Myspace.com. Have we gone too far in the information we share? What impact does this have on traditional media and communications channels?
Are we actually in an age of open communications or simple rhetoric?

It's pretty much a 90 minute unconference session. Looking forward to it.

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Error: Operator - Taking Back Sunday

The second milestone for blojsom 3.0 is available for download.

Installation.
Upgrading.
Changelog.
Javadocs.

Technorati Tags: blojsom

I should have blojsom 3.0 M2 done and available tonight or tomorrow.

Things that got fixed:

* Search
* Tag cloud generation and tag query
* Calendar filter and populating the calendar for the template

Things that got added:

* Named queries in the mapping files. Thankfully Hibernate's Criteria API does much of the heavy lifting in terms of interacting with the database for me and I only needed to add 3 simple queries. Named queries allow for something like:

List entriesMatchingMetadataKeyValue = session.getNamedQuery("entry.by.metadata.key.value")
.setString("blogId", blog.getBlogId())
.setString("metadataKey", metadataKey)
.setString("metadataValue", valueSearch).list();

For the most part, those named queries should work across databases. In the event that they don't, the query can be edited right in the mapping file. No source code changes at all.

* The database loader bean now handles upgrading the database as well as initial database creation.

May 05 19:52:24 INFO [main] database.DatabaseLoader - About to upgrade blojsom database
May 05 19:52:24 INFO [main] database.DatabaseLoader - Read in sql script
May 05 19:52:24 INFO [main] database.DatabaseLoader - Finised upgrading blojsom database

* Default posting category (finally, I know)

* Ability to search through responses (comments, trackbacks, pingbacks) (finally, I know)

* Added TinyMCE as a rich-text editor. This is also a per-user option so if you've got say 9 users on a given blog, then none, some, or all can choose to use the rich-text editor.

* Information on post status available when editing a post. This will probably be useful for more complex workflows so that you can know what stage an entry is at. So, an entry might be "Awaiting Approval", but still be editable.

Things that'll probably be in blojsom 3.0 final:

* Roles. Think of these as a collection of permissions under a given name like "Contributor", "Administrator", etc.

Let's say you logged into the administration console and you're an "Administrator". You'd see:

Let's say you're a "Contributor". You'd see:

The administration interface changes dynamically adding or removing options based on your "role". Roles are fluid as well meaning that a given user can be in a given "role", but have certain permissions that are added or removed.

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Burn - The Cure

3/4 Vodka
1/8 Triple Sec
1/8 Blue Curacao

Prepare similar to the Bloodshot. Instead of red food coloring, use a single drop of green food coloring.

After the food coloring dissipates, the drink takes on a funky blue green color (more green than blue).

Apparently I missed the announcement of delicious-java 1.10, which is odd. But, no matter, version 1.11 is available.

Changelog.
Download.
Javadocs.

Technorati Tags: delicious java

Vodka
Blue Curacao
Cranberry juice
Splash of 44 North vodka (Huckleberry flavored)
A few blueberries

Good fun. Just in time for Cinco de Mayo!

Girl - Beck

TypeKey4J 1.1 is available. Download. Javadocs. BSD license.

Fixed an issue with signature verification. Thanks to Ian Young for spotting it and providing a very simple fix.

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I like GUIs and the MySQL folks have done a good job with MySQL Administrator and MySQL Query Browser. It makes database maintenance that much easier. I also use YourSQL for table editing of data. If MySQL had a similar tool to YourSQL, I'd really be happy.

So that I could test blojsom on PostgreSQL myself, I went searching for PostgreSQL on OS X information. Unfortunately, for me, there's too much command-line in this Apple article describing PostgreSQL on Mac OS X. I'm sure all of it would've worked out just fine, but phooey. I ran across PostgreSQL for Mac. They've got some good GUI tools for installing and managing PostgreSQL on OS X. And while they worked and I could successfully deploy blojsom on PostgreSQL, I wanted something better.

And it looks like EnterpriseDB is it. It even has a nice GUI for managing your PostgreSQL installation.

I'd still like a table editor similar to YourSQL for table editing of data, but installation and setup of EnterpriseDB was far easier than the PostgreSQL for Mac setup.

Technorati Tags: osx mysql postgresql yoursql enterprisedb