converting unix date to excel date

been bugged by this for while - on unix the date timestamp is number of seconds since 1/1/1970
On excel, it's 1/1/1900
So to convert the unix timestamp to microsoft excel, use the formula:
=timestamp/86400 + "1/1/1970"
(where 86400 = 24 * 60* 60 ie: # seconds in a day).
Oh you might also want to add/subtract an offset for the timezone (depending on the timezone settings of your unix box). eg: for +10 GMT (sydney, melbourne, canberra) add 10/24 ie: 0.416667

ps: make the cell format Date or Time or Custom format.
Personally I prefer ddd dd/mm/yyyy HH:mm:ss (ie: Tue 03/03/1999 23:59:43)

2008 SOA magazine readers choice

I'm personally a bit dubious about the readers choice result from SOA magazine ( http://soa.sys-con.com ) since it gives very high rankings to IBM websphere software.

Some make sense and some don't.
Best App server:

1. IBM websphere (yeah, huge number of commercial, plus ambigous since this includes WASCE and probably Apache Geronimo)
   
2. Glassfish (big push from SUN)
   
3. Weblogic (ol' favorite, but Oracle owns this now and god knows how they market it)
   
4. WSO2 (** weird?? Where did this come from? Maybe manipulation?)
   
5. JBoss (huh, would have thought this near #2 or #4)

Best IDE

1. NetBeans (assuming 6.1, which is excellent)
   
2. Rational Application Developer (eclipse)
   
3. Oracle JDeveloper (not eclipse)
   

What's weird is where are all the other Eclipse-oid based IDE's?

Best Integration Server

1. Websphere Integration Developer
2. Fiorano ESB
3. Java CAPS (glassfish++)

Agree with IBM being the big gorilla here. What's surprising is the gain of Sun servers, which traditionally are a pile of dog sh*t (since Sun never seemed to understand the enterprise and hence the dogs breakfast of J2EE 1.3/1.4)

Best Opensource SOA

1. WASCE (does this include Apache Geronimo??)
   
2. Sun openESB
3. SoapUI

Since where was WASCE SOA? This is yet another Java EE server. Also what the heck is SoapUI doing here? This is just a test/development IDE (although as a JNLP java applet)

Best Portal

1. IBM Websphere Portal
2. Sun Portal
3. Weblogic Portal 10.2

Yeah yea, Websphere blah blah. IBM must have stacked the whole review with their internal staff. or fanboys. Still surprising Sun is in the list. Maybe they gave staff a couple of hours to fill the survey too :-)



Best Security

1. IBM Datapower XML security gateway XS40
2. Sun access manager/open SSO
3. oracle web services management
4. Metro

No surprises about IBM, Datapower is a damned good appliance. IBM liked it so much they bought the company. Big surprise to see Sun in there twice (#2 and #4). Though metro is actually quite good.

Best SOA platform

1. IBM Websphere
2. Fiorano SOA
3. Sun Java CAPS

IBM, IBM, IBM, IBM. Sigh, this report is so biased it's getting tedious.

Best SOA Testing tool

1. Rational Tester for SOA
2. SoapUI

Ditto. Though rational is pretty good, SoapUI is a hell of a lot more lightweight, yet pays it's way (the community edition is free :-). Could do with more test management though.

Best SOA Tool

1. Fiorano ESB
2. Sun Java CAPS
3. Rational Software Architect
4. Rational Team concert

What, IBM *NOT* at the top? Someone at IBM messed up (and probably got forced to move to Bangaldore as punishment).
It's a bit weird to mix development tools (#3 RSA & #4 Rational Team) with servers (#1, #2). Maybe that's why IBM got pushed down, staff got confused..

Best SOA training site

1. IBM SOA Sandbox
2. SOA Training Curriculum (MomentumSI)

IBM SOA Sandbox is great, so this choice actually makes sense.

Best SOA Book

1. IBM"The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0"
2. Amberpoint et al An Implementorﾒs Guide to SOA ﾖ Getting it Right
3. IONA Understanding SOA with Web Services

All vendor "books". Basically a "white" paper advertorial disguised as a book.

Best SOA or XML Site:

1. IBM's SOA Microsite
2. www.fiorano.com

Yeah they are ok. What about non-vendor stuff.

Con-clusion:

sys-con SOAWorld magazine tries to be a vendor neutral but they need some mechanism to do a real unbiased report. Maybe if Gartner or any of the reputable firms would run the survey I would be less skeptical.

Do's and don'ts with babies :: Hilarious pics

Do's and don'ts with babies :: Hilarious pics

Made me cry with laughter. Though I didn't see what's wrong with the last 2 ones..

Dustin's Software Development Cogitations and Speculations: Standardization: The Dangerous Relationship for Open Source

An interesting post about how standardisation can destroy open source software
eg: xdoclet eg: log4j

Dustin's Software Development Cogitations and Speculations: Standardization: The Dangerous Relationship for Open Source

The main factor of course with open source is the commitment of the developers, supporters, vendors and community of users. Like every fad, they can come and go really quickly....

FUD rulez!

Aarne-Thompson classification system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good grief. As kids we used to joke about how movies all seemed to follow basic plotlines.
So star wars was standard plot 5 & 17 with subplots 3 with twist 8.

Well... at the turn of last century, Aarne & Thompson developed the Aarne-Thompson classification system for classifying folktales!!


Good grief I say!
After all, the classic stories about clever foxes is "The Clever Fox (Other Animal) 1–69"

or how about Realistic Tales (Novelle) : "The Man Marries the Princess 850–869"

omg. Now for a phD for my classification system for movies and tv plots. .

mmm

nice.

most popular programming language

Well it seems Java is still #1 for programming languages according to the TIOBE Software: Tiobe Index October 08 edition

The rest are:

Oct 2008	Position Oct 2007	Delta in Position	Programming Language	Ratings Oct 2008	Delta Oct 2007	Status
1	1		Java	20.949%	-0.67%	A
2	2		C	15.565%	+0.97%	A
3	4		C++	10.954%	+1.37%	A
4	3		(Visual) Basic	9.811%	-1.35%	A
5	5		PHP	8.612%	-0.89%	A
6	8		Python	4.565%	+1.13%	A
7	6		Perl	4.419%	-0.93%	A
8	7		C#	3.767%	+0.03%	A
9	13		Delphi	3.288%	+1.75%	A
10	10		Ruby	2.860%	+0.47%	A
11	9		JavaScript	2.670%	-0.01%	A
12	12		D	1.333%	-0.26%	A
13	11		PL/SQL	1.024%	-0.94%	A-
14	14		SAS	0.600%	-0.78%	B
15	17		Lua	0.551%	-0.04%	B
16	21		Pascal	0.520%	+0.10%	B
17	22		ActionScript	0.506%	+0.14%	B
18	16		COBOL	0.491%	-0.19%	B
19	18		Lisp/Scheme	0.485%	-0.09%	B
20	15		ABAP	0.445%	-0.40%	B

What's happened to ABAP (SAP)??

Remember Smalltalk?

I was an IBM support specialist for VisualAge for Smalltalk in the 90's. Seeing these blogs brought tears of bitter memories to me since I'm now a Java head .... To quote: http://blogs.gartner.com/mark_driver/2008/10/09/remember-smalltalk/
Here a simply equation. In terms of mental fortitude…
1 Smalltalk developer = 2.5 C++ developers
1 C++ Developer = 1.5 Java developers
in other words…
Smalltalk is a meal with a fine Bordeaux and a petite filet mignon
Java is a meal with a cold beer and t-bone
So Yeah.. I said it.
Smalltalk is making a comeback. (pausing to wait for reader to regain consciousness)
...
Its somewhat funny to consider that a new generation of developers (post C++) consider the features in Ruby to be bleeding edge when in fact they are mostly retro features of things that Smalltalk has done for decades. The challenge of course is that languages like Python and Ruby have the heat needed to create a strong momentum. Smalltalk enjoys the benefit of association but not enough to transfer that heat in large volume — at least not yet.

Dave Thomas (OTI head) wrote a oldish article in Celebrating 25 Years of Smalltalk about the impact of Smalltalk (don't I remember Footprint and ENVYand the horrors of Visual Banker!)

or an alternative view: What would you miss if you had to stop using ruby and go back to smalltalk?. Yeah I remember that hassle with Operator precedence and the pain it caused.

Finally, a web framework for smalltalk!! http://www.seaside.st/ or Aida http://ww.aidaweb.si/

so... what about Scala? (wikipedia entry)

jaxrpc on weblogic 10

Maxence Button's blog on WebLogic & Java EE: Building JAX-RPC or JAX-WS webservices with Weblogic 10

weblogic workshop 10 and EJB 3.0

Maxence Button's blog on WebLogic & Java EE: August 2008

in particular, using workshop 10 for EJB 3.0 development

InfoQ: How to GET a Cup of Coffee

InfoQ: How to GET a Cup of Coffee

Interesting article on REST using starbucks as an analogy. Might ask Jim Webber if I can use this for my REST lecture in 31284 web services developer / 32525 Web services technologies

Embedded Jetty

I wanted to use Jetty in embedded mode to run a simple AXIS server (for web services support for students).
Since the students have a limited amount of space, having a <5Mb web application service sounds nice.

(I set up Tomcat, and reduced it to 4.6Mb by having lots of symlinks to /usr/share/java which we happened to have a lot of the common libraries installed)
Using symlinks (again) I should be able to reduce this to < 2Mb.

Anyway, found out how to embed Jetty ... might make my own axis "simpleJettyServer" based on the following. ps: I wonder how you map using this?


So Long WTP, Embedded Jetty for Me - Code Commit: "

public class StartApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Server server = new Server(8080);
        Context context = new Context(server, "/", Context.SESSIONS);

        ServletHolder servletHolder = new ServletHolder(new WicketServlet());
        servletHolder.setInitParameter("applicationClassName",
                "com.myapp.wicket.Application");
        servletHolder.setInitOrder(1);
        context.addServlet(servletHolder, "/*");

        server.start();
        server.join();
    }
}

BEA Workshop - with Ajax

We recently installed Aptana studio (community edition) 3.2 on our lab workstations.
Unfortunately, when installed over Eclipse Europa JST All In One it causes the occasional crash.

here's an alternative - install it as an eclipse extension (so we can disable the install if necessary).

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/dev2arch/2008/03/ajax-with-bea-workshop.html

ps: you can also use the eclipse link function eg /opt/eclipse/links/plugin.link where the .link file contains path=/path-to-plugin/

Workshop for WebLogic 10.3 JEE 5 Trial and Error

Want to use EJB 3 in Oracle workshop 10.3?


Workshop for WebLogic 10.3 JEE 5 Trial and Error (James Bayer's Blog)

Installing CVS plugins into Oracle Workshop for Weblogic 10.3

it seems that oracle workshop for weblogic 10.3 is missing CVS.

IDIOTS!!!!

Installing CVS plugins into Oracle Workshop for Weblogic 10.3 (Greg Stachnick's Blog)

Now I'm also using SVN with Oracle Workshop 10.3.
The update site do not work - don't try the subversive plugin from eclipse - this causes a JDT error on Eclipse Europa (Oracle Workshop 10.3 version)

Use http://subclipse.tigris.org/ instead. And don't use the JavaHL driver unless you have the official SVN client from tigris.org

XP-Dev.com Subversion, Version Control, Subversion Hosting, Version Control Hosting, Project Tracking :: User Home Page :: wongcr

free svn hosting

also http://unfuddle.com/

Weblogic Embedded LDAP server

WebLogic Embedded LDAP

Good guide on how to use the embedded Weblogic LDAP server.

To view the current LDAP tree (but not! the myrealm security!!)
Weblogic -> Console -> Domain -> AdminServer -> View JNDI Tree
Other bits:
http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs100/ConsoleHelp/taskhelp/security/ConfigureEmbeddedLDAPServers.html

Essentially you need to also set up a security credential password for weblogic (otherwise weblogic generates a random password)

Domain -> Security > Embedded LDAP
ps: you can also set anonymous bind here too.

Using it: Credentials: cn=Admin & password = credential password you set up earlier
Base Dn: dc=domain_name (ie: your weblogic domain name eg: weblogic)

Heirarchy:

Users  ou=people,ou=myrealm,dc=mydomain
Groups  ou=groups,ou=myrealm,dc=mydomain

Security roles  ou=ERole,ou=myrealm,dc=mydomain

Security policies  ou=EResource,ou=myrealm,dc=mydomain

Using an LDAP browser, you get to see the following heirarchy when using Base DN: dc=weblogic

And when you use dc=Config you get

Faith in humanity restored

Wow, what an interesting day.
Last night at 6pm I got a call from Bondi Beach Police - the laptop bag had been found at Bondi Pavilion! With everything inside ok!

My God, that was an interesting tale to tell. It seems like whoever took the laptop bag carried it all the way to Bondi Beach and according to the Laptop logs, tried to access it at 4:50pm.

Of course, one of the best things about thinkpads is that they have a bios/harddisk password system, and the X60s also has a fingerprint reader.
So whoever turned them on couldn't even get past the bios startup page .. and just dumped the bag. They just took my name tag!! (it was an Ansett Golden Wing baggage label - rare I guess??) and my reflector/light on the outside of the bag? They even left my memory keys, papers, and USB wifi detector behind.

After picking up the laptops, I had to think seriously about security in the future...

But... my faith in the fundamental honesty of mankind has been restored...


Some bypasser found it and returned it to the police station.

tragedy and stupidity

Today is not a good day for me.
I rushed to work today from Burwood (where I left Priscilla and the kids to learn swimming) and caught the train to central.
I was pretty sleepy on the train (kids again, poor sleep) and left the train at central.

The problem was that this wasn't a usual schedule for me. I brought 2 bags today, the other had books in it. so.... I left the other one on the train!!!

The bad news is this was my ... LAPTOP bag!! It's gone!! AArrggh!!

What's even worse...
I brought my NEW laptop in the same bag!! 2 laptops in 1 bag! LOST ON THE TRAIN.

How can I make this even more worse??

MY daughter's BIRTH CERTIFICATES were in that bag as well! (I was going to photocopy them at work!). And I have FINANCIAL information on it in spreadsheets. I guess they could also try to hack my security (eg: Firefox master password) etc.

I've been panicking - at the station they got the guard to look at the North Sydney stop, no dice.
Tried lost and found, called Wynyard, been to Town Hall, registered at Central station.. no dice.

I guess I just have to live on faith that someone will hand it in, but this is unlikely since I had a name tag on the bag with my name and mobile number in it.

I can only live in hope....



ps: the laptops were an IBM Thinkpad X30 (upgraded a lot) and a Lenovo Thinkpad X60s (upgraded a lot too). Bummer dude.

'Hello World' example of an Applet using Java RMI

'Hello World' example of an Applet using Java RMI

Also Sun Blueprints (they recommend using a servlet as intermediary)

Demystifying Java Applets, Part 1: Cross-Browser, Standards-Compliant, Pure HTML Deployment Using the Object Tag

Demystifying Java Applets, Part 1: Cross-Browser, Standards-Compliant, Pure HTML Deployment Using the Object Tag

also
(Multiple Browser Supported) Java applet using XHTML 'object' tag

Teaching Mobile Computing to Generation C: A Conversation With Java Champion Qusay Mahmoud

Teaching Mobile Computing to Generation C: A Conversation With Java Champion Qusay Mahmoud

Designing Enterprise Applications with the J2EE Platform, Second Edition

Designing Enterprise Applications with the J2EE Platform, Second Edition

http://java.sun.com/blueprints/patterns/index.html

Core J2EE Patterns

Core J2EE Patterns

AWT, Swing, SWT, and JFace: A comparison of Java GUI libraries

tomlauren.com: AWT, Swing, SWT, and JFace: A comparison of Java GUI libraries

SWT, Swing or AWT: Which is right for you?

Picking the right Eclipse distribution for you

Picking the right Eclipse distribution for you

Using the Eclipse GUI outside the Eclipse Workbench, Part 3: Adding actions, menus, and toolbars

Using the Eclipse GUI outside the Eclipse Workbench, Part 3: Adding actions, menus, and toolbars

ZapThink :: Become a Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA)

ZapThink :: Become a Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA)

Yet another credential. However, I do respect zapthink consulting, but every man and his dog seems to have certifications.
Looking at their 4 day bootcamp in Melbourne, September 1-4, 2008 (ps: USD1995 with USD500 early bird discount), they do the following: (quoted)

LZA Credential Levels and Requirements

Since architects come in all shapes and sizes, and since the credential program sets a quality bar for those that go through it, ZapThink has the following levels of credential to match your skills and capabilities:

Junior Licensed ZapThink Architect

1. No prior enterprise architect experience necessary. Completion of four-day LZA Bootcamp including completion of all the exercises at the Bootcamp.

Senior Licensed ZapThink Architect

1. Need one of the following:
   • A pre-existing Senior LZA credential
   • Two years of experience as an Enterprise Architect
2. Completion of four-day LZA Bootcamp including completion of all the exercises at the Bootcamp

Licensed ZapThink Architect Fellow (Trainer)

1. Need to have an active Senior LZA credential; AND
2. Five years of experience as an architect; AND
3. Participation as an apprentice ZapThink trainer at two ZapThink LZA boot camps.

The LZA Credentialing Process

The LZA credential is an annual credential. Since SOA and enterprise architecture as a whole undergoes continuous change, our ability to back your capabilities lasts as long as the knowledge is still thought-leading. As such, we offer our LZA program on an annual basis. The process for becoming a Licensed ZapThink Architect is straigth-forward and simple if you already have some enterprise architecture skills.

• Pre-Qualifications: You must have at least some demonstrable enterprise architect experience as an individual, with an enterprise end-user firm, or at a consulting practice with a consulting firm or vendor company with a consulting practice. We ask that you submit your current CV or resume and answer a few survey questions as a means to ascertain your applicable skills.
  
  
• The LZA Bootcamp: The credentialing process itself consists of a four-day workshop structured as a means to exchange the latest SOA practices, methodologies, and artifacts, and finishes on the last day with a one-on-one evaluation of your capabilities for credentialing. You leave the LZA bootcamp with a credential for your efforts, and with our knowledge of your expertise. LZA bootcamps are offered multiple times a year at designated training locations. Class sizes are limited to no more than fifty (50) so that we can properly credential each individual architect.
  
  

If you think you have the interest, skills, and time to get an LZA credential, the opportunity awaits! Please sign up today for an LZA bootcamp and get on board the fastest-growing SOA credential in the industry.

Licensed ZapThink Architect Course Agenda

Day One

Module 1: Fundamentals of SOA

Business Agility
• Business Constant: Change
• The Problems of IT are The Problems of Business
• If you are in a Hole, Stop Digging!
• The Business Inflexibility Trap
• Business Agility
Service Orientation & Web Services
• Service Orientation: A Business Approach
• What is SOA?
• Is SOA New?
• One Difference is Web Services
• SOA vs. Web Services
• Confusing SOA & Web Services
• If not Web Services, Then What?
• Business Drivers for SOA
• The Distributed Computing Pendulum
• Service orientation: the next big thing?
• SOA: Paradigm Shift?
• So, How to Implement SOA?
• There’s No Such Thing as a SOA Wizard!
The Service Abstraction
• Levels of Service Abstraction
• Consumers & Providers
• What are Services? (Technically, Service interfaces)
• Interoperability vs. Portability
• Service Interfaces Aren’t Good Enough!
• The Difference is the Abstraction
• The Fundamental Technical Challenge of SOA
• Multiple Interfaces per Implementation
• Multiple Implementations per Interface
• Multiple Interfaces per Business Service
• Actualizing the Business Service Abstraction
Metadata & SOA
• The Secret Sauce: Metadata
• Programmatic vs. Declarative
• What are Metadata?
• Metadata for SOA
• What’s a Service Contract?
• What’s in a Contract?
• What’s NOT in the Contract
• WSDL: Service Contract Starting Point
• Contract Metadata Beyond WSDL
• Sample Service Contract Template
• How to Think Service-Oriented
SOA Case Studies
• Module 1 Case Studies: Mini-Studies on SOA Use
• Shared Services: US PTO
• Reducing Integration Costs: Aeroplan
• Compliance & Volume: Wells Fargo Bank
• Meeting Client Needs: MITRE

Exercise: Service Contract Definition

In this exercise, teams will create their own Service Contract Template, explaining all the elements of metadata and information needed to describe appropriately abstract, loosely coupled, and composable Services. Then, they will use their Service contract template to sketch out the contents of a contract for a particular Service.

Module 2: SOA as Architecture

SOA & Enterprise Architecture
• What is Architecture?
• Architecture is not About the Technology
• SOA Views
• Many Perspectives on SOA
• SOA: A Technology View
• SOA: Infrastructure Service View
• SOA: A Business Service View
• SOA as Enterprise Architecture
• The Zachman Framework
• Pros & Cons of Zachman
• SOA & Zachman
• Architectural Artifacts
• Map of Architectural Artifacts
SOA Modeling
• SOA Modeling
• The SOA Metamodel
• Building the Service Model
• SOA Foundation: Model-Driven Architecture
• The Service Model: Building Business Services
• The IBM Component Business Model
• SOA Foundation: The 4+1 View Model
• The 4+1 View Model & The SOA Metamodel
• Defining the Service Model
• Service Model Drives Contract-First Development
• The Challenges of Contract-First Development
SOA Tenets & Service Design
• Defining Services
• Service-Level Understanding
• Validating Service Assumptions
• Key Service Abstraction Enabler: Coarse Granularity
• Achieving Proper Granularity
• Zeroing in on Proper Granularity
• Granularity vs. Atomicity
• Example: Too Fine Grained vs. Too Coarse Grained
• Service Identification: Top Down vs. Bottom Up
• Loose Coupling: Separation of Concerns
• The Web: Loose Coupling in Action
• Service Contracts: The Key to Loose Coupling
• Levels of Coupling
• RPC vs. Document-Style
• Loose Coupling and Context
• Services & the Process Model
• Service Identification: Process Decomposition
• New Service Definition

Exercise: Building a Service Model

Participants analyze a set of high level current, and future, business and technical requirements, evolve an SOA strategy and then perform a top-down and bottom-up plan for Services, identifying their core components and key characteristics.

Day Two

Module 3: SOA Infrastructure (Part I): Messaging, Data, and Legacy

SOA Infrastructure Concepts
• Technology Selection: Approach, Choices & Challenges
• Purchasing SOA Infrastructure
• The Problems with "Vendor-Driven Architecture"
• SOA Infrastructure Starting Point: The Intermediary
• Some Intermediary Roles
• The Great ESB/ SOA Middleware Boondoggle
• Buy More Middleware for SOA?
• Compounding the Problem: No Clear ESB Definition
• Do You need an ESB for Service Mediation?
• Intermediary-Based Service Abstraction
• Building Intermediary-Based SOA Infrastructure
• Levels of SOA Infrastructure
• SOA Infrastructure: More than Intermediation
SOA & Legacy
• Exposing Existing Capabilities
• The Continued Value of Legacy
• SOA, Integration & Legacy
• Legacy Migration
• Legacy Enablement
• Legacy Rejuvenation
Data Integration & SOA
• SOA & "Legacy" Heterogeneous Data & Data Stores
• The Data Services Layer
• Data-Level Understanding
• Understanding Data Services
• Data Integration & the Data Services Layer
• Supporting Data Services with Data Integration
• Leveraging Existing Data
• Leveraging Data Services Layer
• The Data Services Layer Abstraction
SOA Messaging
• Messaging Infrastructure
• SOA Message Exchange Patterns
• SOA Tenet: Asynchrony
• Messages vs. Events

Module 4: SOA Infrastructure (Part II): Performance, Security, and Semantics

Addressing SOA Performance Challenges
• Challenges at the Content Level
• Challenges in Content Processing
• SOA Depends upon Transformation & Content-Based Routing
• Is XML Required for SOA?
• XML: Foundation for Web Services
• The XML Processing Problem
• The XML Performance Crisis
• Hardware vs. Software Approaches to Improve XML Performance
• Distributed XML Processing
SOA Security
• Critical XML Processing Challenge: Security
• The Context of IT Security
• XML Threat Prevention
• Web Services Security
• The SOA Security Challenge
• The Security Context Challenge
• Security Context Kludges
• Solving the Security Context Challenge
• The Role of Entitlement Management
• 21st Century Network Security
• Federated Security
SOA & Semantics
• Semantic Level Understanding
• Understanding Application Semantics: Concepts
• Role of Application Semantics
• Semantics: The Greatest Challenge of SOA
• Resolving Semantic Issues
SOA Case Study
• Case Study: SOA Security in the Real World -- BP

Exercise: SOA Infrastructure Plan

Participants will think through and plan aspects of the SOA Infrastructure. They will use their SOA roadmap as a starting point for the SOA infrastructure plan.

Module 5: SOA Governance

Understanding Governance
• Business Empowerment vs. IT Control
• Corporate Governance
• Governance & Regulatory Compliance
• The Business Motivation for Governance
• How to Tackle Governance?
• Governance Relationships
• The Cornerstone of IT Governance is Architecture
• Elements of IT Governance Strategy
• Architectural Governance Processes
• IT Governance Feedback Loop
• SOA Governance "in the Narrow"
Enabling Policy
• What is a Policy?
• Policy: Business vs. Technical Examples
• Governance/Security Model
• The Challenge of Policy Automation
• SOA Governance Steps
• Policy Examples
• Steps for Automating Policies
• Supporting Policy Changes
The Governance Framework
• Creating the Governance Framework
• Governance Pitfall: Versioning
• Handling Service Versioning
• Governance: The Key to Business Empowerment
SOA Case Study
• Case Study: SOA Project Management & Governance -- T-Mobile

Exercise: Building a Governance Framework

Teams will lay out a plan for governance within each of the teams that will address governance issues.

Module 6: SOA Quality & Management

SOA Testing & Continuous Quality
• How do you manage change?
• The GQM Loop
• Quality & the Service Lifecycle
• SOA Quality Assurance
• Service Lifecycle Governance and Quality
• How do you Test Architecture?
• Creating a Test Plan
• SOA Testing Domains
• Service Testing Principles
• Test for Reuse/Reusability
• Test for Heterogeneity
• Test for Abstraction
• Test for Composition
• Composition Level Testing
• Integration Level Testing
• Security Level Testing
• Governance Level Testing
• The Challenge of SOA Testing
• Testing in Production??
• Quality & Management
SOA Management
• SOA Management: Many Facets
• The Problem with SOA Management
• The First Rule of SOA Management
• The SOA Management Conundrum
• Exception Management & SOA
• Metadata Management & SOA
• Complexities of SOA Metadata Mgmt. Marketplace
• What is a Registry?
• What is a Repository?
• Summary: Metadata Management

Exercise: SOA Implementation Test Plan

In this exercise, teams will use the scenarios from the exercises up to this point to put together a test plan for the project as scoped in the project plan exercise.

Day Three

Module 7: Service Composition, Business Process, & SOBAs

Service-Oriented Business Process
• What is a Business Process?
• The Role of Business Process Reengineering
• The Automation Paradox
• Problems with Traditional BPM Tooling
• Business Process the Old Way
• Business Process the Service-Oriented Way
• Service-Oriented Process
• Process Definitions
• Example: Orchestration vs. Choreography
• WS-* Standards for Orchestration & Choreography
• Limitations of BPEL
• Maintaining Process State
Process Definition
• New Process Configuration & Design
• Discovering Processes
• Shared vs. Private Processes
• Defining New Processes
• Process-Level Understanding
• Using the Process Catalog
• Process-Level Understanding
• Varieties of Business Processes
• Service Composition: Supporting Business Process with Services
• Business Logic at the Composition Level
• Exposing Composite & Data Services
Service-Oriented Business Applications (SOBAs)
• SOBAs: Rethinking the Application
• SOBA Example
• Enterprise Applications and Process
• Example: SAP NetWeaver
• Transactions and SOA
• Transactions the Loosely-Coupled Way
• What about Workflow?
• BPEL4People Scenarios
• Portals as Gateway to Workflow
• Abstract the User
Service Consumers & Mashups
• Service Consumers & Enterprise Mashups
• The Services Tipping Point
• SOBAs & Service Consumers
• The Rise of the Service Consumer
• The Rise of the Mashup
• What’s New about Mashups?
• Empower Business Users?
• Web 2.0 vs. SOA
• Mashup Example
• Enterprise Mashup in Action
• Process vs. Data?
• Use Case for SOA
• Without Governance, Mashups are Dangerous
• Without SOA, Mashups are Toys
SOA Case Study
• Case Study: SOA Journey at BP

Exercise: Planning SOBAs

Participants will consider all of the Services in their Service model, as well as the business processes in their scenario. Teams will construct at least three new business processes that in part reuse some of the Services in the Service model..

Module 8: SOA Project Management

Iterative Approaches to SOA
• Iterative: More than Step-by-Step
• SOA Project Approach
• Project Management for an SOA Project
• Iterative Problem Domain
• Iterating SOA Initiatives
• Iterate your Architecture?
• Initial Assessments
• SOA Pilots
• Milestone / KPI Plan
• The ZapThink SOA Roadmap
• Defining SOA Success
• Sequence of Steps (Iterative!)
• Implementation Notes
The SOA Lifecycle
• Building for ongoing change: Beyond the SDLC
• The Dual Lifecycle
• Building Applications the New Way
• Where’s the code?
• The Agile SOA Lifecycle
• Measuring Agility: The Agility Model
• The Relationship with Program Management
• Measuring SOA Maturity
• SOA Maturity Model: Wipro
• SOA Maturity Model: HP
• Service Integration Maturity Model: IBM
• SOA Maturity Model -- Sonic/Systinet
• SOA Maturity Model: Oracle
• SOA Maturity Model: Software AG
• Word of Warning!
SOA Versioning
• SOA & Change Management
• Change Management: Multiple Levels
• Dealing with Service Implementation Change
• Service Contract Change
• Policy and Service Metadata Change
• Supporting Policy Changes
• Data Layer Change
• Service Infrastructure Change
• Business Process Change
SOA Case Study
• Case Study: Retail Bank ROI

Exercise: Creating a SOA Roadmap & Project Plan

Teams will put together a SOA Roadmap based on the ZapThink SOA Roadmap, and then detail a project plan for completing the first phase or iteration of the SOA project from their SOA Roadmap and Service Model. They will take into account the various tasks that go into early iterations of SOA projects, as well as the project staffing they will need to complete this project.

Day Four

Module 9: Paying for SOA

Establishing a SOA Business Case
• Building the Business Case
• Building Support for SOA
• Review: Business Drivers for SOA
• Challenges in Calculating ROI
• Business Driver: Cost Savings
• Reducing Integration Cost
• Business Driver: Reuse
• Benefit: Increasing Efficiency Thru Service Reuse
• SOA Reuse Governance
• Reuse Challenges
• Business Driver: Visibility
• Visibility & Control
• Visibility & Heterogeneity
• Complex Event Processing & SOA
• Business Driver: Business Empowerment
• Business Driver: Business Agility
• When Not to Apply SOA
SOA Funding & Budgeting
• Challenge Area #2: Funding & Budgeting
• Traditional IT Funding: Project Based
• Initial SOA Funding
• Funding SOA Rollouts
• Budgeting SOA Projects
• Calculating your SOA Project Budget
• Example: SOA Project Budget
• Completing the Project Budget
• Some Things to Remember
• Good Money after Bad

Exercise: Up-Front ROI Analysis

In this exercise, teams will assemble an ROI analysis of a proposed SOA project.

Module 10: Addressing SOA Organizational Challenges

SOA Best Practices
• Challenge: Inertia in the Organization
• Challenge: Balancing IT Control & Business Empowerment
• Challenge: Reuse = Sharing
• SOA by Any Name
• SOA = Best Practices
Understading SOA Skills
• Is there an Architect in the House?
• Another Look: SOA Challenges
• Interaction Challenges
• More Interaction Challenges
• The "Ivory Tower" Problem
• The Power of the SOA Center of Excellence
• Convincing Technical Specialists
• Working with IT Middle Management
The Service Domain and SOA Teams
• Enabling Service Domains
• Service Domain Roles
• Building the right SOA team
• SOA Project Staffing
• Project Leader
• Data Specialists
• Security Specialists
• Native Systems Specialists
• Service Development Specialists
• BPM/Composition Specialists
• Governance Specialists
• Testing & Deployment Specialists
• Project Archivists
• External Services Specialists
• How Many of Each?
• EA Challenges: The Role of the EA
• Enterprise Architecture Challenges
• EA Challenges: The Risk of SOA
• The Real Challenge: People, Change and Fear
SOA Case Study
• Case Study: SOA Organizational Change & Funding @ Novartis

Exercise: Development of a SOA Business Case

Participants will craft a sound, well-reasoned, and well-supported business case for a SOA solution to a business problem. They will discuss a specific business problem scenario that is specific and relevant to any of the team members.

Final exam: SOA Jeopardy!

Test your SOA skills with this lively version of the popular television quiz show!

In Depth Look at 3G Mobile Data Rates in Australia - Page 4 - MacTalk Forums

In Depth Look at 3G Mobile Data Rates in Australia - Page 4 - MacTalk Forums

Open Source Flash Projects Open Source Flash

I'm trying to develop flash animations for lectures/tutorial notes and didn't want to use macromedia to generate it. Seems like there are quite a few tools that generate flash animations.

[Open Source Flash Projects]

I might also mention that OpenOffice 2.x Impress can generate flash too, though not as flashy (sic) as Macromedia stuff.

Here is a way to generate it using AJAX and Javascript. [AjaxAnimator]
the downside? Firefox goes mad at 80% (so obviously this is seriously shitty code)

Finally, java heads would like JGenerator (official homepage: http://www.jzox.com/,
source page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jgen/

Optimisation tips and tricks for speeding up J2ME apps

Optimisation tips and tricks for speeding up apps

http://j2medevcorner.wordpress.com/2007/03/13/optimizing-for-speed-in-j2me-extreme-tips-for-lightning-fast-midlets/

Continuous Integration

Continuous Integration

mynokiamobile.blogspot.com: Sign Unsigned BiNPDA Files

run unsigned symbian sis files on s60 nokia phones


mynokiamobile.blogspot.com: Sign Unsigned BiNPDA Files

Nokia eRcp on E90 communicator

how to get Nokia eRcp on the E90 communicator.

The problem is that the consumer version of this phone only runs S60 3rd Ed FP1.
FP2 comes with the latest JVM & eRCP.

However, if you install Lotus Expeditor 6.1.2, they give instructions on how to obtain the patch from nokia:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ledoc/v6r11/topic/com.ibm.help.ic.doc/Client_Rel_Notes.html#Release_Notes__resources
(navigate to "Resources available on the Web" & "Nokia E90 issues")
You email Nokia.eRcp@nokia.com for an account and password & then logon to
https://www.extranet.forum.nokia.com

More stuff on eRCP on e90: http://www.eclipsecon.org/summiteurope2007/presentations/ESE2007_eRCP.pdf

Use VirtualPC differencing disks to your advantage

HOWTO: Use Virtual PC's Differencing Disks to your Advantage

Hey found this link as an interesting idea to have multiple virtual images to test/run software.

What a big difference this makes. VMware player/server doesn't allow you do to this, (though you could save a common shared virtdisk, but it isn't quite the same as Diff VHDs!)

Another interesting point from the VirtualPC is to use windows NT as the lightest weight OS for VPC! http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2004/11/05/252746.aspx

SpringSource Team Blog » Spring Overtakes EJB as a Skills Requirement

I think Spring is becoming important :-)

SpringSource Team Blog » Spring Overtakes EJB as a Skills Requirement

Seriously, I did a similar lookat using www.jobserve.com.au and found a similar trend.
Spring + Hibernate and Java is important.

Why are we not using Java EE 5?

I've been given the responsibility here at the University of Technology, Sydney take over the J2EE subjects 31242/32549 Advanced Internet Programming and the short course, AJPCPE "Advanced Java Programming"

One of the interesting debates I've been having with colleagues, industry and other trainers is what version of Java EE to teach.

Currently we are using a mix of Java application servers:
Tomcat 5.5 + Mysql 5
Axis
Weblogic 8.1 + Oracle 10
Weblogic 10.1 + Oracle 10

Now what makes the mix even more interesting is a comment from the BEA techday recently in sydney - basically the #1 weblogic server by big corporates (eg: commbank, qantas, westpac, etc) is Weblogic 8.1.

AArrgghh J2EE 1.3. Yuk.

The main strategy for these large companies is to skip odd version numbers ie: not weblogic 9.2 but migrate to weblogic 10. However, weblogic 10 is buggy and slow and the admin interface is unpopular. (and slow, oh sorry did I say that??)

Here's a Javalobby commentator's view of why are aren't going to Java EE 5... ( Why are we not using Java EE 5?).

I agree. Java EE 5 is simpler to develop with but no one wants to use it! Sun claims a huge success with Glassfish (or so their testimonials say) but are they in full scale product?

Sorry my friends, I think I'll stick to Java 1.4 for the moment, and give the option for Java EE 5 as an extension to the subjects. Or maybe teach both. Sigh.

WTP Tutorials - Building a School Schedule Web Application

WTP Tutorials - Building a School Schedule Web Application

Nice example.

Java EE without Ajax

Saw this by accident: Apusic is a chinese middleware company that has licensed and passed the J2EE 1.5 tests.

JavaEE without Ajax

The basic argument is that via a JSF render engine, you can AJAXify your JSF based JSP with minimal effort. The big issue with Ajax now is that you call javascript, hence a maintenance nightmare.(especially after my experience with SBW!!)

to quote:
Java, Yes; Java Script, No!
“We Love Java, Not Java Script.” Alternatively, such meaning can be put in the typical sentence pattern of the former Chinese leader Chairman Mao, “Java, yes; Java Script, no!” I believe that many readers may not agree with the title of this section. Yet it is a common voice of a large number of J2EE developers.
Quite many Java engineers have a strong favor in, or even obsession of, Java. They love the simplicity and elegance of Java. Once they are given an assignment that requires Java Script, they will feel puzzled. Overly flexible grammar, no way of checking the grammar through compiler, lack of good debugging tools… all hampers the use of Java Script by the developers, not to mention development with Ajax.
In short, the Java community needs Ajax to improve the man-machine experience of the Web applications based on javaEE. However, people do not like the current Ajax development mode. Needless to say, we want some new solution.

Who Will Rescue JavaEE Ajax ?
What is it then? My answer is JSF . Now, a popular belief about JSF is, in a somehow comic way, “Tragic life – Sun places JSF into the world of Java Web, naked.” My belief, however, is that as a revolutionary server component technology, JSF is like the sun at eight or nine o ' clock in the morning, hopeful and possible for anything.

Weblogic, Eclipse WTP, and RAVING MAD!!

Listening to the soundtrack of Battlestar Galactica. Bear McCreary. wow, what an imaginative and invocative soundtrack. I haven't seen most of the episodes but the music alone is enough to make me want to see the episodes in question. Got distracted looking at the composers website (bearMcCreary.com) where he describes the themes. Love it!

Am going insane preparing for the Adv Java Prog short course this saturday. Have been working around the clock and not seeing much of my wife and kids. not to mention subject material prep for web services development and going to meetings for the impending merger of facIT and facEng.

Monday was a meeting with our peers in engineering ICT land. Spent most of the time wrangling over title of the new "school". met Bob Rodowski and David Davis. I agree this david on his suggestion (School of ICT)

One reason I'm so mad is I had time to do and rethink the AJP course to something nicer like J2EE 1.5 or whatever.
Anyway, it took me 2 F*CKING months to get weblogic 10 working. Turns out there are a million bugs in it (and I though 9.2 was shit). What ever happened to the quality and speed of 8.1?
I investigated (ie: wasted time) looking at WASCE and Geronimo and so on (I didnt go for JBoss for some unknown reason). WAS 6 could've been a go-er except that it's not that friendly for young-uns at uni.

I wanted to use eclipse WTP 2 to do the development stuff - hey, the embedded JSP container (Jetty, aka J2EE Preview) is cool. But hey, Eclipse WTP 2 under Europa breaks all the time with permgen errors and a million little nigglys. Bleeding edge, more like haemorrage edge. Also because bloody IT support at faculty of IT UTS insist on the latest and greatest software so by default (ed: Fedora 8's fault) it runs fricken "icedtea" Java 1.7. This of course is ALPHA code and breaks not only eclipse but everything else under the sun (or should that be solaris .. chuckle!)

So I kept trying for 2 F*CKING weeks to get it working. Finally, 3 days ago (and a massive panic attack) I gave up and ran Workshop for Weblogic (comes with the server in $BEA_HOME/workshop_10.0 ) which was quite decent actually.
What am I saying??? IT ROCKS. The downside? It CRAPS the other server runtimes. Why did they remove J2EE preview and block you loading any plugins for other server runtimes? Oh well, that's why it's free. I wasted quite a few hours trying to hack it, but hey, ran out of time (suspect they have overridden a few Eclipse WTP classes deep inside in its bowels)

And BEA Workshop (or Workspace whatever) for JSP is wonderful. Has a JSP and Struts and JSF WYSIWYG editor. Amazing that I can run it for free (or at least 1 year). They combined everything together at last in the latest (march 08) versions of Weblogic 10 ?MP1?.

Now one more rant before I finish typing up the labs. I wish there was a way to manage slides. Powerpoint slides that is. I'd like some form of content management system that works for presentations so I can reuse, extend, do OO stuff. Slide Executive (looked interesting but it's a bit of a wank really. Just scans your directories for PPT slides, grabs the text and converts the slide into a GIF (!) then lets you generate virtual presentations via drag drop. You can search (using the extracted text) but there is nothing like version control or whatever. It ain't content management!

Oh goody. Maybe that will be my next project.

Code and content manage rulez!

Apache Synapse vs Camel

another good comparison between the Apache ESB offerings

ESBs in 2007: Taking the Open Source Bus to SOA (eBizQ)

article from eBizQ
http://www.ebizq.net/hot_topics/esb/features/8480.html (Part 1)
http://www.ebizq.net/topics/open_source/features/8638.html (Part 2)

Javablog » How MIDlet Signing is Killing J2ME

Javablog » How MIDlet Signing is Killing J2ME

bored bored bored bored bored

bored bored bored bored bored
bored bored bored bored bored
bored bored bored bored bored
bored bored bored bored bored
bored bored bored bored bored
bored bored bored bored bored
bored bored bored bored bored

Modest snack packaging

Text reads:

Kangbaien
More delicious than I can tell
Fashionable
Aftertaste without end
Unable dispute
Hot sell the good taste

Yeah, "Aftertaste without End". Maybe not even beer or mouthwash can get rid of it

Research points the finger at powerpoint

Food for thought: Are lectures too boring because of powerpoint?
(SMH article)

Quote:

It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time.
The Australian researchers who made the findings may have pronounced the death of the PowerPoint presentation.
They have also challenged popular teaching methods, suggesting that teachers should focus more on giving students the answers, instead of asking them to solve problems on their own.

A lot different from what I've been taught about lecturing!!

A new baby

As of 00:05 wed 4th April 2007, I have a new daughter. She is a healthy 3.22kg, 48cm long child with lovely black hair (more than my first daughter Abigail had :-)

Mum, Dad and baby are fine (so far).

Circle of Three

I've been having some problems managing my daughter abigail so now I am currently staying at child care with her ... full time!!!
What's so painful is that I am paying her fees, yet am not actually getting out.

We spoke with the community nurse and it seems that since we spent the last 8 weeks on holidays with her, she now knows what she's missing - both parents 24 x 7!!!

So this means we basically have to "wean" her off her dependency off us. What the childcare centre will do is get a full time assistant to look after her, this is what is called a "circle of three" - the child, the parent and the carer.
We three play together and she get's used to us both. Then one of us ( me I hope :-) can leave so she still has that comfort of a regular adult with her.

Fortunately, the NSW government will help fund 100hrs of this persons time. All we need is a doctors referral or a letter from the community & health service at camperdown.

wish me luck!

Flash Wankers

Today I was sent a "free 14 day trial of AFR access" (http://www.members.afraccess.com/) which is written in...

fLasHhh

What a pile of shit. Their web site doesn't size correctly (it's a single flash file that is only about 5cm high under mozilla) and only really works under Internet Explorer 6 upwards. Fools. They lose my business.

Why do I rant so much about flash wankers?

It's all about choice. And usability. And accessibility (especially if you run a text-voice browser for blind people, or run a non-graphic browser like linx or elinks, or use a tool like plucker to download to your PDA). And who HATES those ^(*^(^%((%*& animations??
(see a good rant: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html and web sites that suck and
How Flashy websites turn off customers )

What about those stupid splash pages? I want info not infotainment when I want to purchase or spend my internet bucks! Even worse is the epilesy (and vomit) background music and animations. YETCHHH BARF!!!

To me, flash can be used correctly to enhance a website, but alternative navigation MUST exist (see ??W3?? UN?? guidelines).
Some graphic designers are egotistical wankers who use this as a platform to show how "clever" or "artistic" they are.
Not on my $$$ thank you very much.

More on open-source ESB's

Note that most of these posts are old news (last year)
More on the integration between synapse, servicemix and celtix.:
Open-source projects intertwine for integration
http://news.com.com/2102-7344_3-5844789.html?tag=st.util.print

Open source's next frontier
http://news.com.com/Open+sources+next+frontier/2100-7344_3-5460334.html

and an opinion from a vendor (Capeclear)
Open Source and the ESB!
http://www.capeclear.com/annrai/archives/2005/08/open_source_and.html

Apache Synapse vs Apache Servicemix

Lately I've been wondering about the conflict between Apache Synapse and Apache Servicemix (part of Geronimo).

Here's an article that claims they are complementary..

How does ServiceMix compare to Synapse?
http://goopen.org/confluence/display/SM/How+does+ServiceMix+compare+to+Synapse

basically says Synapse is WS-*/Soap centric, and Servicemix is far more open (I agree - ESB is more like a generic connect-all bus, and SOAP/ws-* is just another transport).

On the other hand, the creators of Synapse claim that Synapse is an ESB??

Apache Synapse - The ESB that kills the ESB
http://www.us.apachecon.com/html/sessions.html#WE2

Oh well, at least the teams are getting together to get some commonality.
News: ServiceMix, Apache Synapse and Celtix Teaming Up (Sep. 02, 2005)
http://today.java.net/pub/n/ServiceMixSynapseCeltix

This just confuses the consumer and helps microsoft...

Can The Cockroaches Survive a Nuclear Option?

A fascinating article about how the federal government took over the states autonomy by fair means and foul.

Even more interesting was the potential civil war between NSW and the federal government in 1930's (Lang vs Lyons) which went as far as the commonwealth government organising the military to take over state buildings (with the NSW police arming up to oppose it).
The governor of NSW instead sacked Lang, resolving the conflict.

Still, I wonder whether NSW, in combination with the other states, could start secessionist movements to force the federal government to be fairer?

Spring + Hibernate EJB3, POJO + JDBC?

Spring + Hibernate EJB3, POJO + JDBC?

All Hail, The Return To Java EE Standards!

Yakov Fain slags Spring and Hibernate as tangled wire, and claims EJB 3.0 (Java EE 1.5) resolves the issue of THE standard to use.

All-in-One Guides: SOA Implementation

Good summary of SOA guides - this isn't a single guide as such, but links to techtarget's WS and SOA reports/whitepapers etc

Rethink on mirror trusts helps planning

FAMILY succession planning has been made clearer and easier following a rethink by the Australian Tax Office.

A June tax ruling has broadened the possibilities under which certain assets transferred between trusts would be exempt from capital gains tax.

It is now possible for parents to set up "mirror" trusts to transfer assets that would normally be subject to capital gains tax - namely property (land and buildings) and shares (in private and public companies) - to nominated beneficiaries.

Basically this is about how to transferring assets from a trust without incurring CGT.

upgraded to beta blogger

Well, it seems that I have upgraded to Blogger beta. The template editor is nice, much easier than the old CSS method, but you can still update the HTML template so that is good.
So this is a test of the email functionality

Unlock phone

A swedish/danish website that generates the unlocking password for many brands of phone
eg: nokia, given IMEI and network operator.

Travelling with my own phone

You could buy a OneRoam SIM card. This is estonian, and doesn't expire (you get a +372-xxxx-xxxx phone number). Some countrys let you receive calls free too. Rates are not the best, but hey, just for travelling

Brainbench - Predicting Employee Success

Hey, Brainbench are offering lots of free certification tests until october 31st

Brainbench - Predicting Employee Success

Deploy J2EE applications on Apache Geronimo

Deploy J2EE applications on Apache Geronimo

The Geronimo renegade: OpenEJB and Apache Geronimo's EJB implementation

The Geronimo renegade: OpenEJB and Apache Geronimo's EJB implementation

testing email blog

hopefully this will work one day

Loading OperaMini on J9 on Palmos 3.5-4.0

I have a clie SJ22 running palmos 4. So this link tells you the step by step instructions on how to run Opera Mini on this machine, using the IBM J9 KVM.

Monday 16th October

Last day of holidays!

Another early start, our transfer bus was late and worse it detoured via
katong!

(no-one was at the hotel,so we left whoever it was behind :-)

The airport was incredibly crowded, even though we internet checked
there was a long long queue! guard sent us to alternative spot. Security
check was sloooow since the were checking 3 gates at once, and 1 xray
guy who was very vigilant and slowwww. Flight crowded but abi ok.

Sunday 15th October

swim, thence Central library, picked up at noon at Intercontinental
Hotel. Abi just had 20mins nap but was curious and didn't cry

Went to Katong 5-star for the "best" hainanese chicken rice, then to Sim
Lim Square to look for camera case. Nice desserts in food hall eg: blue
jelly ice, jelly and fruit

Haze getting thicker, can hardly see to the other side of the river.
Packed bags furiously. Abi amused herself with toys.

After dinner, discovered a loud and not very nice sounding band playing
in the open air at Chijmes opposite our window. Priscilla phoned the
night manager while Abi conveniently cried in the background. Night
manager offered to get us to another quieter room, said others had
complained and that they had already requested a reduction in volume.
Amazingly Abi went to sleep after having a drink of water. Luckily for
us the 'band' stopped at 11pm

Saturday 14th October

The Esplanade (Durians), bumboat, lunch at Out of the Pan in vitality
court – crepes. Late 2^nd lunch with Daniel & family, Abi made new
friends with Faithe & Charis. Played furiously with lots of squealing
and giggling amongst the curtains and lighting features and banquettes
and late lunchers. Nice black sesame porridge for Priscilla's dessert.

Abi slept at 4pm as soon as she was put into the stroller, then woke at
7pm & we went to Raffles city food junction (again!). PP mini-pot 100%
MSG and she couldn't eat it either (horrible). CW had simpler stuff
which Abi could eat

Friday 13th October

Woke up early to go to the Jurong Bird Park. Really hot and humid.
Nice penguin display in air conditioned darkness but Abi wanted to be
outside.

Chris & Abi swim while PP slept, then PP & Abi swam while Chris slept.
12yo girl is from Perth, Serena, and Abi let her hold her in the water.

Dinner with Di Buck Leung, Sun & family at the Singapore Swimming Club

Riot at the playroom with kids while chris watched Singaporean Chinese
soapy.

Wednesday 11th October

Abi and Chris try to find pharmacy to buy Ventolin – no one sells it
without a prescription. Luckily it rains and there is a little breeze
to relieve the haze and humidity. Abi ate rice then rice noodle at
Kopitiam before walking around Bencoolen St and then Sunshine Plaza
surrounds. Kept on falling over – 3 times. Getting tired and cranky,
finally asleep on the walk back to Carlton hotel.

Quick dinner at the Kopitiam where we rushed it due to the Night Safari
tour pickup time at 6pm.

Waited till 6:30pm for the bus, this was a royal pain since they seemed
to have a lot of traffic. Once on the bus, we drove to the tour
companies HQ where people got on/off for their various tours and waited…
and waited… and waited.

Finally we left around 7pm, and got to the Safari around 7:30pm. Guide
pretty chatty but a bit inane. Tried to show us Malaysia, but due to the
haze, couldn't see a thing.

Night safari started with a tram ride, which took us through the various
fauna eg: lion, etc etc Abi whispered while other tourists proceeded to
tear through at full volume. The animals must be used to the loud
noise from the shows anyway. Abi made friends with a girl about 12
years old who was there with her grandparents.

Tuesday 10th October

Chris went to O'Briens café in Citilink tunnel for coffee and
complimentary wireless internet access. Priscilla and Abigail wandered
the open air courtyards of Chijmes complex for a while until it got too
humid and Abi was sweating. Walked to meet Chris. Bought some
frankfurt buns from a bread shop for Abi, plus some strange sandwich
that she didn't eat. Turns out it was a club sandwich with chilli onion
tuna with cucumber and tomato slices either side. Strange and very spicy.

Cousin Daniel phoned – he is taking the morning off and wants to meet
for lunch. He is some high achiever dude – where does he get the energy
from ? Walked to Suntec City and the underground eating area under the
Fountain of Wealth / traffic roundabout. Abi asleep for some of the
meal, woke and ate some rice and noodle and grabbed a pork rib. Then
had to be walked around cos she was bored in the restaurant – maybe we
should have sat out in the mall with a view to the Fountain. At 1pm the
fountain's external water jets are turned off to allow tourists (mainly)
to walk around the central fountain 3 times with their hands in the
water. An enterprising set up comprising photographer with wireless
transmitter taking shots of everyone going around the fountain, in the
hope of selling photos.

Visited the Koi Garden (set next to the walkway from one carpark), then
got into Daniel's car (leather baby seat and air conditioning). He has
taken the rest of the day off to drive us to the grave / ashes
repository at Mandai. A long drive, and so comfortable as Chris and
Daniel chat Abi and Priscilla nap.

Pay respects to ancestors, then Abi woke up and we went to show her.
Peaceful place except for the bizarre funeral music a bit like New
Orleans jazz band but out of tune.

Daniel drives to Katong area and dinner at Uncle Moo's house. Abi very
hungry and ate a lot of biscuits. Stop by Daniel's apartment (Hume
Villa) to pick up a few nappies. Visit next door mainly to pick up
money from Papa's account operated by Sun. Her eldest daughter Germaine
is 14 years old!!! Feel like time has flown (4 years since we saw them
at our wedding). Abi curious about their white poodle that ran up and
licked her face. Chris tried to buy some Ventolin cos the air pollution
was triggering his asthma. Need a prescription for the puffer. Abi
visited a neighbour with 2 japanese chickens, then walked to the end of
the street to meet Chris and Uncle Moo after their walk to the
pharmacy. Auntie Pat has expired packets of Ventolin – no thanks!

Dinner with Cheryl, Denis and baby Dylan. Chicken rice and white
chicken, steamed fish, chilli crab, vege in oyster sauce. Abi too
excited / tired to eat, just wanted to drink cold milo and water – no
air conditioning here. Ate 1 piece of rockmelon. While playing with
Eugene she tripped and fell onto the tiled floor – another little egg on
her forehead! Iced it for a while then Abi forgot her pain. Took photos.

Driven home by Cheryl and Denis, Dylan asleep in his mother's arms (no
mandatory baby capsule here). Went via Deepavali celebratory
decorations in Little India area. Chris and Denis take photos while at
a red light, with cameras through the sunroof.

Monday 9th October

Breakfast on the floor (picnic mode) with cereal from HK and milk that
we bought last night.

Walked around the swimming pool and function areas of the hotel with Abi
exploring.

Went to basement level of Raffles City for lunch at Subway (!) Abi
admired the 3 water features in the 3 atria.

Walked to Suntec City via Citilink underground shops to catch the SIA
hop on bus. Lots to see, Abi walked every now and then, lots of stairs
and escalators and changes of level which was annoying. Abi finally
asleep when we reached Suntec City Tower 2 shopping area with the kiddie
and maternity shopping zone and she had played a bit.

Went into some shops – clothes are definitely more expensive here in
Singapore than in HK. Chris bought a pair of Crocs after only a short
think. Abi tried on a pair but too big.

Finally made it to the SIA bus stop in the humid external atmosphere.
Driver didn't check our coupons and identification cos we probably
looked very touristy with the child and bags. Long bus ride around the
loop, abi started getting very restless and wanted to get off the bus
when she saw that other people were doing that. Distracted her for a
while with stickers.

Forced to change buses at Botanical Gardens – change of shift. Chris
grumpy. Abi explored the ramps and gardens.

Home to Carlton hotel for a quick wash, dinner for Abi at Raffles City
food court, then called Uncle Moo to co-ordinate being picked up to go
to dinner with them. Abi walked around foyer and stairs whilst waiting.

To La Pasat for famous satay dinner. Touts everywhere from the 14 satay
stalls. Eugene arrived separately from work in NW of city. Waterfront
area will be developed for casino and resort in the next few years.
Hope that this won't change the grungy atmosphere of satay street. Abi
didn't want to sit and eat, too much waiting already. Walked through
the eating hall to see the other foods on sale. Bought some rockmelon
but she only wanted to play with ice cubes from the drinks.

The only vegetables was roja, raw cucmber, pineapple, mango, fried
doughnut all smearedin peanut and soy sauce. Satays were chicken, beef,
mutton and tripe(!). Eugene drank pigs organ soup as a starter and had
pulled tea.

To save a seat at some satay markets you have to buy tissues from the
touts (no serviettes distributed), one place you use a packet of tissues
to reserve your table.

Home via mid-autumn lights of Chinatown.

Sunday 8th October

Woke and quickly ate breakfast. Tried to pack remaining toiletries and
food into bags. Missed taxi ordered by Auntie Pauline, then anxious
wait for her to ring him to come back – he rang the bell of no.19A
Cornell Court and Chris actually saw him waiting but thought he was
there for someone else. Thank goodness there's no traffic to the
airport on Sunday, Auntie Pauline was waiting with 2 trolleys and a
security guard who thought that she was loitering suspiciously!

Gave her the extra bags of clothes. We didn't have any problems with
the luggage allowance. Went straight to the boarding gate, didn't have
time to have morning tea with Auntie Pauline as planned.

Abi settled in to the flight and didn't struggle much on take off.
Distracted by in flight magazine. Luckily there was a spare seat across
the aisle so we got that too. Abi fell asleep in Priscilla's arms and
Priscilla ate her lunch while watching a movie (The Devil wears Prada)
until near to the end when Abi awoke and started to eat the chicken
rice. She preferred the baby meal dessert however which was vanilla
crème caramel. No to the chocolate icecream.

<>
Landed in Singapore and had a nappy change. Found the SIA counter for
the transfer mini-bus. Lazy driver wouldn't help Chris put our bags
onto the bus even though he helped others on our bus. Abi excited at
the window seat, waving to people in other cars / backs of trucks as we
drove to the city. Carlton hotel very nice, got a double width room
(1001). Pollution on the skyline is very hazy – due to Indonesian slash
and burn operations.

Chris' relatives (Uncle Moo, Auntie Pat and Cousin Eugene) came at 5pm
to our room, chatted and played with Abi. She had already started play doh.

Dinner at food court of nearby Raffles City. Food is cheap here, S$4 a
dish average. Abi enjoyed being the centre of attention from the oldies
who kept commenting that she resembled Carisse, Daniel's youngest daughter.

Back to our room and Abi fell asleep only after babbling a long time and
finally when Chris turned off all the dim lighting and closed the heavy
drapes.

Saturday 7th October

Lunch with Uncle Kwong Auntie Cecilia at Kaya Korean BBQ Restaurant
Causeway Bay opp. Times Square. Quiet booths with window view over street

Afternoon tea with Goo Ma at their place in Waterloo Road. Abi a bit
manic on their sofas and around their knick knacks, wanted to explore
the bedroom wing.

Persuaded to stay for a "quick" dinner before heading home – walked
halfway to Mongkok to a Shanghai Restaurant with booths, Abi very manic
and tired, wanted to keep walking outside and to upstairs restaurant.
Didn't finish the set meal cos it was too difficult to keep her
entertained/quiet. Taxi back to pick up our stuff from their apartment,
then taxi to Mongkok MTR. Abi asleep as soon as we started walking down
the first flight of MTR stairs.

Packed bags until 130am, too tired to stuff all our stuff into the bags,
but did it anyway. Scales borrowed from Auntie Cecilia show different
weights in different rooms, but we are over the limit of 50kgs. Set
aside some winter clothes for Auntie Pauline to take to Sydney for us.

Friday 6th October

Bit of packing in the morning.

Shopping at Tai Koo Shing while Chris went to Wanchai computer centre
for his new Clie. Abi ate rice noodle and shredded chicken then fell
asleep once we met up with Chris.

Night time walk to Causeway Bay and back

Fire Dragon and Lion Dance at Chinese Club and surrounding back
streets. Abi in backpack. Unusual atmosphere, lots of tourists and
locals with kids peering for a glimpse of the Dragon and Lion. Buses
still running past the parade

Thursday 5th October

Chris' ankle felt better but more ice was applied this time via pack of
peas/carrots/corn. Abi wanted her ankle strapped also. Then ate some
of the half defrosted veges from the bag.

Auntie Pauline helpfully suggested a Chinese medical man across the road
for Chris' ankle in case it was going to turn rheumatic later, but he
manfully declined in favour of strapping and more salon sip. Then
Auntie Pauline suggested lunch at Island Shangri-La hotel in Central
which has chocolate fountain dessert bar! Did we need to think about
it? Quickly on to the top of a no.23 double decker bus, then up some
escalators to a very elegant and expensive looking lobby. The Café Too
was beautifully designed with delicious looking
bottles/dishes/glasses/food and strong colours everywhere. The dessert
bar was right in the middle with 3 chocolate fountains. Crockery had
round and triangular shapes, shot glasses of salad oils in 5 colours,
tilted shot glasses of rich desserts hand blown glasses for water.

Staff rather paranoid as they hovered and tightened Abi's high chair
straps and cleared dishes and provided tissues for messy eating (hers).
Table setting had chopsticks as well as cutlery.

Abi was excited as we toured the many cooking areas with chefs making
dim sims, tagines of indian food, pasta, pizza, mein, sashimi, salads,
Vietnamese rolls, crepes etc etc. She actually ate some of the linguini
that we ordered for her – white sauce, ham, mushrooms, zucchini, and
some salmon ravioli all hand made of course. Sensational, not to be
wasted so mum finished it off.

Dessert bar was lovely to view. Lots of cakes, strudel, shot glasses of
chestnut and truffle, fruit salad everywhere. Abi liked the look of the
ice cream bowls (blue rimmed handmade glass) and relished the vanilla
icecream that she was given. Then Auntie Pauline took her for walks and
they returned with gummi bears, pizza, pasta, and more ice cream. Then
the final walk was for dipping fruit balls and marshmallows into the
fountains via skewers. Abi lovingly licked the chocolate from each
skewer: milk chocolate, white chocolate, strawberry chocolate. Too
tired to have her babycino.

Went for a walk to HK Park, fell asleep within half an hour of leaving
the buffet. Nice breeze as the women walked sleeping child and chatted,
Chris rested his ankle seated on a bench. Good atmosphere for a snooze
if not for the mozzies. Wedding couples/ groups posing for photos.

Chris walked under the umbrella water fountain feature on an impulse
comment from Priscilla. Set precedent for others wanting to go off the
paved path, and an example for schoolboys watching.

Bus back to home was caught in a massive traffic jam from Wan Chai to
Causeway Bay. Abi and Priscilla sat in the back seat which was noisy
but not arctic.

Simple dinner at home for Abi only – adults were stuffed from lunch and
Abi only seemed moderately hungry around 6pm. Bed without too much fuss
– wanted the stuffed toys to watch her having a bath.

Chris went foraging – mindful of bus routes home from Kowloon side if
his ankle started to hurt.

Wednesday 4th October

Walked with Abi up to the playground up Braemar Hill, near the Aroma
Walk. She enjoyed having the play equipment to herself, then wanted to
walk up and down the entry ramps and along the pavement. Chris grumpy
cos camera doesn't let him take close up photos like Uncle Kwong's.
Kathy invited us to the AISHK cruise to Sai Kung – but its $HK300 per
person and mainly involves going to beaches (Abi and PP can't swim at
the moment) – declined.

Walked down the steep steps of Aroma Walk to North Point MTR, Abi did a
lot of walking so progress was slow. Trees and rocks and water trickles
were nice, apartments nearby are quite old and face onto the MTR stack
as well as the vegetated hillside. Chris tripped and twisted his ankle
trying to take photos of Abi. She joined her mother in expressing
sympathy.

Hobbled along to MTR via lots more steps then went to Mongkok. Chris
valiantly gave up going to Sham Shui Po computers cos Priscilla couldn't
have managed Abi and stroller simultaneously with no lift to the surface
at Mongkok MTR. Lunch at Café de Coral – Abi loved the white sauce
baked chicken rice dish. Everyone is buying and selling mooncakes.

After lunch Chris did computer shopping, Priscilla and Abi went shoe
shopping. Abi was interested in the shoes and sandals in a lot of the
shops on the sportswear street, then Priscilla decided against going in
to any more and gave Abi a chance to fall asleep. Bought a pair of
jogger sandals at Columbia while child was sleeping. Walked through
ladies market looking for the hand generator torches – 2 stalls had them
but one with only 2 LEDs as opposed to 8. $HK20 each without heavy
bargaining. Went to nearby playground after Abi awoke and she played
for a while on the equipment (nice rubber surface). Disgusting public
toilets with mostly squat cubicles and cisterns that eventually flushed
but mainly onto the floor.

Bought a cool drink $HK6 from a busy stall frequented by schoolkids.
Gee they talk fast and Priscilla was very very rusty with her Cantonese
– managed to buy what we wanted although the apple juice was just
cordial (Abi insisted on holding the cup and inevitably spilt it all
over herself). Bought strap guards from a car accessories shop that
Chris spotted nearby. Also wet umbrella holders for the car (Japanese
of course).

Ate leftovers for dinner – need to clear the fridge cos we will be
leaving HK soon. Unexplainedly Priscilla bought ice cream during her
evening forage walk. Also bought Fresnel lens for maps and strapping
bandage for Chris' ankle. It was iced then Salon sipped only when we
got home after a day of walking can carrying child. Didn't find a
medium sized elastic ankle strap – all small or large – but did find
self adhesive strapping material and copper impregnated elastic strap.

Had to cancel tomorrow's trip to Big Buddha (Po Lin monastery) due to
injury and thus afternoon tea with Auntie Pauline in Tung Chung.

Tuesday 3rd October

Rest morning waiting for PP's doctor's appointment at 1230pm

Abi a bit bored so when Betty came to pick up the bowls from the sago
pudding Abi was keen to go off with her in the elevator. Spent some
time with Auntie Cecilia in Geoffrey's play room. Fell asleep after
Chris picked her up and walked a short distance towards St Paul's
Hospital to meet Priscilla

Nothing wrong with PP - after waiting over an hour for her scheduled
appointment – lunch at Fairwood opposite hospital. Small portions and
quality definitely not up to par with Café or MX. Positioned probably
mainly for nearby by school kids. Lotus leaf wrapped rice for PP was
dry and salty with undefined meats nothing like the photo. Abi liked
Chris' regular chicken and boiled rice, was kept amused by the window
view over the traffic intersection with lots of double decker buses and
trucks and cars turning past the shop.

Went to Tai Koo Shing City Plaza cos Causeway Bay was confusing and
crowded. Access via MTR much easier than via tram. Bought some toddler
clothes – Abi wanted to walk around the kiddie stores barefoot and play
with all the toys. Chris went to buy underwear.

Dinner at Café cos Abi said "sik sik" when we walked past the shop
around 530pm. They have a tea set menu with smaller portions just right
for us.

Tuesday 3rd October

Rest morning waiting for PP's doctor's appointment at 1230pm

Abi a bit bored so when Betty came to pick up the bowls from the sago
pudding Abi was keen to go off with her in the elevator. Spent some
time with Auntie Cecilia in Geoffrey's play room. Fell asleep after
Chris picked her up and walked a short distance towards St Paul's
Hospital to meet Priscilla

Nothing wrong with PP - after waiting over an hour for her scheduled
appointment – lunch at Fairwood opposite hospital. Small portions and
quality definitely not up to par with Café or MX. Positioned probably
mainly for nearby by school kids. Lotus leaf wrapped rice for PP was
dry and salty with undefined meats nothing like the photo. Abi liked
Chris' regular chicken and boiled rice, was kept amused by the window
view over the traffic intersection with lots of double decker buses and
trucks and cars turning past the shop.

Went to Tai Koo Shing City Plaza cos Causeway Bay was confusing and
crowded. Access via MTR much easier than via tram. Bought some toddler
clothes – Abi wanted to walk around the kiddie stores barefoot and play
with all the toys. Chris went to buy underwear.

Dinner at Café cos Abi said "sik sik" when we walked past the shop
around 530pm. They have a tea set menu with smaller portions just right
for us.

Monday 2nd October

rest day.

Abi excited to hear Owen's voice on the phone

visit to Tai Koo & Kornhill plaza/ Cityplaza. Spent most of the time
lookinf for food (afternoon tea) Food court is really nicely fitted out
with dark timber furniture and light panels for tables and lighting.
Abi loved the chicken pho which was a family shared dish. Priscilla
forgot to bring nappes!! Rushed to Tin Hau to buy more, then home to
change, then straight out to nearby restaurant.

Dinner at Hong Kong Old Restaurant (Newton Hotel) with A/Cecilia &
U/Kwong cos it's a public holiday and Betty has her day off. Abi well
behaved at the table with the help of stickers and a small sketch book
before the food arrived, then ate some plain buns at the sides of the
roast duck dish, then tried the roast duck. Lovely food finished with
chicken wontons in chicken soup which Abi drank with gusto. Took
leftovers home. Walked home with our hosts. Abi very well behaved
during her exploratory walk up the stairs with Uncle Kwong and made her
parents proud.

Sunday 1st October

Ferry from central. Abi scared of waves while negotiating harbour traffic.

DB lunch (brunch buffet)

Kids playing especially with Tim & Alicia. Coin rolling. Wolf. Jeffry
accident.

MTR home. Big nap.

Victoria park and lantern/mid autumn displays. Abi walked excitedly
towards and around the main display with birds and dragons. Fascinated
by the shadows from the spotlights above us. Wanted to go to the fabric
cones with smoke and music but the change of music from gentle arcadian
lullaby to drums mad her scared.

Fireworks (not) viewed from Central library upper forecourt. Better
fireworks in Sydney.

Uncle Kwong invited us up to give us 2 bowls of sago pudding left over
from the meeting dinner yesterday. Shared photos with Chris, made him
jealous of the quality of his shots. They didn't get a good view of the
fireworks from their balcony either!