Android Development: Best Practices

Thanks to Anatoly Polinsky for another blog post

I got introduced to an Android application development during Philly ETE conference by listening to “A guided tour of the Android ETE mobile application” talk, where Andrew Oswald ( a Java Architect from Chariot Solutions ) talked about creating an Android app for the conference, which was a cool introduction to “what it takes” to write one of those apps from scratch. I am looking forward to more talks around mobile development this year at Philly ETE conference as well.

Meanwhile I rely mostly on Android’s Developer Guide whenever I seek answers to my questions or/and best practices. Here are my notes on such practices I picked up listening to “A Beginner’s Guide to Android” Google I/O 2010 talk:

Read More....

Enterprise Integration with Spring Training

Are you a Spring Developer?

Do you have Enterprise solutions to develop or architect?

Chariot Solutions, a Spring Training Partner and Philadelphia leader in Spring Training, Mentoring and Consulting can help you take your Spring skills to the next level - Enterprise Integration!

There are many Spring developers who have learned by experimenting, reading documentation and maybe code dives into an existing application or two. But with the knowledge you gain from Official SpringSource training at Chariot from our certified SpringSource instructors, you can be more equipped to chose the right tools for your complex integration solutions.

The Enterprise Integration with Spring (EIwS) course is not only extremely valuable to any Spring developer it should be REQUIRED for anyone architecting Spring applications.

What is cool in the EIwS course?

• Synchronous & Asynchronous Processing
• Messaging with Enterprise Integration Patterns
• Messaging with JMS
• Exposing Services with RMI, HTTP
• Web Services with SOAP, REST and WS Security - and why REST is cool!
• Spring Local and Distributed Transaction Management - JTA/XA - Open Source distributed transactions without a JEE Server
• Service Integration with SMTP (email), File, JMS, FTP, JDBC, TCP/UDP, XMPP, etc.
• Polling and Triggering
• Tasks and Scheduling of Processes
• Message Filtering, Routing, Transformation, Splitting, Aggregating, Bridging and Chaining
• Creating Batch processes for inline or offline execution
• Monitoring Batch process exceptions
• Unit and Mock testing of application layers
• Modifying Integration processes without recompiling... AWESOME Right?

One of the key take-aways from this course is knowing which tools are available to choose from and why.

What does Gordon teach?

When I teach the Core or EIwS classes, I go through the common Spring project application layers, and their respective roles and responsibilities. We discuss the tools you have within Spring and which to use to solve integration concerns. In EIwS, the course builds from common concurrency, tasks & scheduling, Messaging with JMS to the flexible power of Spring Integration and Spring Batch tool sets. I teach layering your applications focussing on the power and flexibility of Service POJOs exposing your processes in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) manner and keeping your POJOs - Pure business objects, un-compromised by framework or infrastructure java objects.

I am teaching EIwS February 22-25, 2010 in Philadelphia! If you come you will receive:

• A shiny new course book
• An Official Spring USB thumb drive with SpringSource Tool Suite, Course Documentation PDF, all the labs & solutions
• The secret meaning of the acronym "SOA"
• Bad humor from your instructor (if I teach you can count on it)
• Demo's that Gordon creates (if taking my class)
• Lunch, Coffee, Tea & soft drinks

Q&A

---

Q: What if I have not taken the Core Spring course?
A: It is highly recommended that you attend the Core Spring Course first. Click here to see the Course Schedule

Q: What if I am not using Spring 3 yet?
A: No problem, although the course focuses on 3.0 features, you will still get usable information for your applications.

Q: What will I learn?
A: Scroll up.

Q: What if I already have used some of the topics covered?
A: Relax during those chapters or, even better, provide your "in the trenches" experience with the class.

Q: How can I get management to pay for the class?
A: This course is Essential to my skills, to provide you with better tools to choose the right approach to solving our complex integration needs. Check Here for possible Early Bird Discounts.

Q: Where do I find out about the Enterprise Integration course?
A: Click here for SpringSource Training Site

Q: When is Gordon teaching the class?
A: Click here for the next scheduled course on February 22, 2011

Q: Is there certification for Enterprise Integration Specialist?
A: Check here for the status on Enterprise Integration Specialist Certification

Memorable Quotes:

---

• "Wow, I just learned in 5 minutes what it took me 2 weeks to do in the past"
• "A Spring Developer without
  
• "Understanding the layered design of Spring applications really helps me best architect my solutions."
• "I really needed to provide file processing into my database, glad I took this class for those implementation discussions"

So, what are you waiting for? Register NOW for Enterprise Integration with Spring!

Simple Spring Social for Twitter Friends

The Spring Social project provides us developers with an easy way to interact with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & TripIt via the familiar Template objects we have used. Spring has provided Templates for convenient interaction with JDBC, REST, Hibernate, JNDI, and more.

One of the simplest social media calls is to lookup someone's Twitter friends with the TwitterTemplate.

1. Add the Spring Social project dependency to the pom.xml file

<dependencies>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.social</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-social-core</artifactId>
    <version>${spring.social.version}</version>
</dependency>
  ...
</dependencies>

2. Add the Spring Milestone Repository repository to the pom.xml file

<repositories>
  <repository>
    <id>spring-maven-milestone</id>
    <name>Spring Maven Milestone Repository</name>
    <url>http://maven.springframework.org/milestone</url>
  </repository><
  ...
</repositories>

3. Create the TwitterTemplate, and ask for friends

TwitterTemplate twitterTemplate = new TwitterTemplate();
List<String> friends = twitterTemplate.getFriends("chariotsolution");
for (String friend : friends) {
  System.out.println("Friend: " + friend);
}

4. Use the code above anywhere in your application

In the next blog, I will cover how to use Open Authentication (OAuth) to perform more Twitter operations.

Simple Spring Social for Twitter Friends

Gordon Dickens recently posted on his blog some thoughts on the Spring Social project.  

The Spring Social project provides us developers with an easy way to interact with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & TripIt via the familiar Template objects we have used. Spring has provided Templates for convenient interaction with JDBC, REST, Hibernate, JNDI, and more.
One of the simplest social media calls is to lookup someone’s Twitter friends with the TwitterTemplate.
Read more..

An Introduction to Mobile Device Detection

One of our architects, Steve Smith, recently posted this on his blog:

These days, there are many ways to browse the internet.  There are desktop browsers, mobile phone browsers, tablets, tablet/phones (e.g. Dell Streak), etc. all with different screen sizes, resolution, and capabilities.  How do you render an appropriate view optimized for the device accessing your site?  The answer is device detection.
The two main approaches for device detection are server-side detection and client side detection.  Server side detection involves determining the device at the time of the request and then presenting the appropriate view.  Client side detection involves manipulating the view after the content has been sent to the browser.

Read the full post..