Attempting to get on the JSR 286 (Portlet Spec) Expert Group: Part 1

After a fair bit of work at the coal face, I've decided to try and head off some of my personal nightmares at the pass. I've sent the following mail to JSR 286:

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing to request information on how to join the JSR 168 Expert Group.

I am an Agile Developer / Architect working for one of the worlds most respected Consultancies, as well as a JCP individual member of the last 4 years. I am also both a Sun certified J2EE Architect and Java 5 programmer.

I have extensive and recent experience of JSR 168 Portlet development (most recently with Websphere Portal Server 5.0.1) as well as the more established web and enterprise API’s (Servlet / JSP / JEE / EJB), frameworks (e.g. Struts and JSF) within, and external to the Portal model. In addition, I used to be a member of the Sun Microsystems Software Practice in the UK and consulted on some of the most important Sun Portal Server deployments of recent years.

What interests me most is the consideration of a open and standardised method of inter-portlet communication - an area which I understand this specification intends to address. I have “in the field” experience with IBM’s click to action and “wires” technology. In addition, I have experience of the WSRP specification. As an employee of a consultancy / systems integrator I believe I have a valuable role to play in representing consumers of the specification, both developers who use it, and also users who want their portals to be capable of richer, platform-independent functionality. As an ex employee of a vendor, I can also appreciate that the specification is not only suited for a single audience. I can help achieve this balance.

I am keen to participate as fully as possible and have no qualms about putting in whatever work will be required to fulfil my role as a contributor to this important specification.

I hope you feel as enthusiastic as I do and look forward to progressing this further. I hope I haven’t missed the boat to be a member of this exciting team.

Kind Regards,

Andrew

Fingers crossed...

My Favourite Netbeans Update Centres

I just upgraded to a Netbeans 5.5 after cleaning up all my installs. I wanted the new Subversion support, which was available in the beta release via the Beta Update Centre. The problem was, the daily build doesn't have the Beta update centre listed, and try as I might I can't find anywhere where it is explained how to add it manually. I've had to download and install the beta again just to find the url.

In future, I'll use this:

My Favourite Netbeans Update Centres

• Netbeans 5.5 Development Update Centre


• Netbeans 5.0 Update Centre


• Netbeans 5.0 Hotfix Update Centre


• Netbeans 5.0 Third Party Update Centre


• Netbeans 5.0 Beta Update Centre


• Netbeans 5.5 Beta Update Centre


• Netbeans Enterprise Pack Update Centre


• MevenIDE Update Centre


• nbextras.org Update Centre


• Ramon Ramos' Update Centre


• Liguorien Update Centre


• Napkin Look and Feel Update Centre

Adding a New User to Websphere Portal 5.x and Letting them Access a Page

Documentation not great. To create a user, and let them see your page, do as follows:

1. On the login screen click the "Sign Up" link
2. Add your users details
3. Click "OK" to create the user
4. Login as the admin user
5. Click on the "Administration" link in the top right hand corner
6. Select the "Access" section on the left hand side
7. Click on "User and Group Permissions"
8. Search for your new User by UID
9. Select your users "edit" icon (the pencil) under select resource type
10. Select "Pages"
11. For the "Content Root" page, click the "assign access" icon (the key)
12. Tick the "user" box
13. Click "Done"
14. Click on the [user uid] breadcrumb to get back to the recources to allocate access to page
15. Click the "portlets" link
16. For each portlet you need to asssign access to, find it, click the "assign access" icon (the key), tick the "user" box and click "Done"

You should now be able to log in as the user, navigate to the page (if required) and see the portlets you have allowed user access to.