::macblog::

I have been experimenting with the continuous integration with help of the Continuum server. The process is rather straightforward but here are some observations anyway. I have put them to the checklist. I have been working according to the tutorial found on java.net: Continuous Integration with Continuum which is a very good reading to kick you off.

1. The installation of Continuum is pretty easy. It comes together with all needed components including Jetty as a web server and Derby as database back-end.
2. Then you of course need the project to play with - I have used my hobby project Parrot. The project must have some kind of build script - you can choose either from Maven2+, Maven1, Ant or Shell projects. I have chosen Maven2 for this.
3. Then you need to enhance your build script with SCM specification - so that build server knows where to get latest version of the project. Please note that you must provide the full path to the directory where your .pom file resides (i.e. <connection>scm:svn:https://somerepository.com/svn/trunk/0.0.1</connection>) otherwise you are about to get the ContinuumBuildExecutorException: Could not find Maven project descriptor, which was my case:-)
4. You can play with other maven properties like setting up developer’s name and email address, configure the email server etc. but these settings are not particularly needed for setting up the build itself.
5. Then import the build script from the scm location and you are done.

Continuum is neat, although not as powerful as Atlassian Bamboo (which we are using in our day to day routine). It completely lacks reporting functionality, is not so well graphically designed, but it is free and such flaws are coming with the territory. Someone may say that CruiseControl is better, and I cannot argue, because I haven’t tried that yet. I have discovered that upon failed tests the build is still successful. I have to elaborate on this a bit more.

Perhaps next time?

I have created a first gallery of photos. Here are some pictures of animals I have taken in Lešná ZOO:

After almost four years of service, my home PC finally gave up. It happened during the time I was on business trip in Norway and my wife remained without connectivity… sad. Fortunately she was at that time on visit at her parents so she wasn’t offline for a long time. The reason of the computer’s demise was power supply (350W Chieftec) which suddenly stopped working and the box refused to boot.
The old PC was rather obsolete. Imagine:

• Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe with nVidia nForce2
• AMD AthlonXP 3000+ (Barton) cooled by box cooler
• 1GB Kingston DDR
• ATI All In Wonder 9600 PRO
• 120GB WD SATA drive + 80 GB WD IDE hard drives
• all wrapped in 5 year old no-name case…

Good thing was, that prior to leaving for Norway, having an upgrade in mind, I have ordered the components for the new box and when I got back home, they were ready.

After discussions with my friends and colleagues I have decided to leave AMD architecture for Intel. My intention was to build a computer that will work for a few years without further investments. For that reason I wanted to build balanced box that can handle most of today’s challenges. Here are the components I have ordered:

• Gigabyte P35-DS4
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 cooled by SCNJ-1000P Scythe Ninja PLUS CPU Cooler
• 2GB of Kingston DDR2 memory
• ASUS GF 8800GT 512MB (which is probably today’s best buy in terms of price/performance)
• Fortron Blue Storm II 500W power supply
• Thermaltake MATRIX case
• Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio
• Twin Seagate 250GB/ 7200rpm Barr. 7200.10, 16MB, SATA (for SATA RAID)

All the stuff wrapped in boxes was taking quite a space, but this was about to change soon. I have assembeled the PC during the first weekend I was at home.

Building up a PC is not a big deal. I still remember playing with Lego when I was a kid and assembling a computer is very much alike. Most of the components are designed so, that it is not possible to misplace them or insert them into different slot.

The most difficult part was processor installation, I have been very careful in doing that (not intending to lose several thousand crowns spent on it). Everything went OK and by the evening I had a computer fully working.

I was very surprised by the cooler performance. It is able to passively cool the processor to nice 40 degrees of Celsius (under stress, for idle processor it is about 35 degrees) without help of the included fan. The only problem is the fan in the case, which is rather loud. I am thinking about replacing it with the Scythe fan that I haven’t used.

I have been playing with Maven and SWT lately. If you have ever tried that, you know it is not easy business.

First of all, the SWT libraries are not in the maven web repository. So you have to download them manually and put them to your repository yourself.

Second problem is that maven does not support dependencies to native libraries. I have been looking for viable solution for quite a long time and meanwhile I have been assembling the package by hand. But finally I have found the solution.

I have found an article on the Brice’s Tech Blog which describes the process quite well. No need to repeat what was already written, but here is just a quick checklist:

1. Define profiles in the .pom file correctly
2. Configure maven-dependency-plugin
3. Configure appassembler-maven-plugin
4. Run the build

There is however one mistake in the article which prevents from running the build. But it can be fixed easily: Just move the configuration section out of the executions section and put it after the artifactId tag.

I have tried it and it really works.

My colleague Rosta has driven my attention to a useful utility LooxLight for my Pocket LOOX yesterday. It is really tiny utility with small memory footprint (3,5 k) written by Ukrainian programmer Akshaal. It allows to set back-light for keyboard, wi-fi, bluetooth, GPS and power LEDs.

It is originally designed for LOOX N500 series, but according to author it should work on 700 series as well. Definitely worth a try!