SLF4J Template for Eclipse

In Preference > Java > Editor > Templates

Insert the following template:

${l:import(org.slf4j.Logger)}
${f:import(org.slf4j.LoggerFactory)}
private static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(${enclosing_type}.class);

SOAPUI 5.0.0 hangs after upgrading OS X to Yosemite

After upgrading to the company's Mac OS X to Yosemite, SOAPUI 5.0.0 refuse to load properly. It will start, and the UI will come up, but it just hang with the spinning wheel right away.

I was able to resolve this issue by uncommenting the line #53 in $SOAP_HOME/bin/soapui.sh

#   JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dsoapui.browser.disabled=true"

I hope this help someone else out there who has the same problem, and also for myself to reference again if face with the same problem in the future.

Getting edx devstack to run on Windows

1) Fix issue https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/issues/3230

2) Change Vagrant ansible-play command to

ansible-playbook -i localhost, -c local vagrant-devstack.yml --tags=deploy -e configuration_version=master -e edx_ansible_source_repo=https://github.com/lsiu/configuration.git -e edx_platform_repo=https://github.com/lsiu/edx-platform.git -e edx_platform_version=master -vvv

3) Fix symbolic link issue
See: https://github.com/edx/configuration/wiki/Vagrant-troubleshooting#dealing-with-line-endings-and-symlinks-under-windows

 # You need to run this from cygwin, not the Windows command-line (see above)
 git rm --cached -r . && git reset --hard
 git config --global alias.add-symlink '!__git_add_symlink(){ dst=$(echo "$2")/../$(echo "$1"); if [ -e "$dst" ]; then hash=$(echo "$1" | git hash-object -w --stdin); git update-index --add --cacheinfo 120000 "$hash" "$2"; git checkout -- "$2"; else echo "ERROR: Target $dst does not exist!"; echo "       Not creating invalid symlink."; fi; }; __git_add_symlink "$1" "$2"'
 git config --global alias.rm-symlink '!__git_rm_symlink(){ git checkout -- "$1"; link=$(echo "$1"); POS=$'\''/'\''; DOS=$'\''\\\\'\''; doslink=${link//$POS/$DOS}; dest=$(dirname "$link")/$(cat "$link"); dosdest=${dest//$POS/$DOS}; if [ -f "$dest" ]; then rm -f "$link"; cmd //C mklink //H "$doslink" "$dosdest"; elif [ -d "$dest" ]; then rm -f "$link"; cmd //C mklink //J "$doslink" "$dosdest"; else echo "ERROR: Something went wrong when processing $1 . . ."; echo "       $dest may not actually exist as a valid target."; fi; }; __git_rm_symlink "$1"'
 git config --global alias.rm-symlinks '!__git_rm_symlinks(){ for symlink in `git ls-files -s | grep -E "^120000" | cut -f2`; do git rm-symlink "$symlink"; git update-index --assume-unchanged "$symlink"; done; }; __git_rm_symlinks'
 git config --global alias.checkout-symlinks '!__git_checkout_symlinks(){ POS=$'\''/'\''; DOS=$'\''\\\\'\''; for symlink in `git ls-files -s | grep -E "^120000" | cut -f2`; do git update-index --no-assume-unchanged "$symlink"; if [ -d "$symlink" ]; then dossymlink=${symlink//$POS/$DOS}; cmd //C rmdir //S //Q "$dossymlink"; fi; git  checkout -- "$symlink"; echo "Restored git symlink $symlink <<===>> `cat $symlink`"; done; }; __git_checkout_symlinks'
 git rm-symlinks

4) Before running `vagrant provision`, comment out the checkout and clean resets (if left in playbook, it will resets the above fix)

/edx/app/edx_ansible/edx_ansiblplaybooks/roles/edx_ansible/tasks/deploy.yml
/edx/app/edx_ansible/edx_ansiblplaybooks/roles/edxapp/tasks/deploy.yml

Co-working spaces in Hong Kong

Boot.hk - http://boot.hk - (no longer in operation)
Cocoon - http://www.hkcocoon.org/
the Hive - http://thehive.com.hk/
The Good Lab - http://www.goodlab.hk/
WYND - http://www.wynd.hk/about/
Fill in the blank - http://www.fillintheblank.hk
PaperClip - http://www.papercliphk.com
80/80 Space - http://www.8080space.com/
The Loft - http://www.theloft.com.hk/
PLATFORM - http://www.platform.hk

Play Framework 2.2.x + Twitter Bootstrap 3 + Less

There are a variety sources of How-Tos on the internet which shows how to integrate Less version of the Twitter Bootstrap into Play Framework which involves prefixing the Bootstrap files with "_". However, this is not necessary by specifying the lessEntryPoints key.

1. Put source of bootstrap/less under app/asset/stylesheet/bootstrap
2. Create app/asset/stylesheet/main.less with the following entry: import bootstrap/bootstrap.less
3. Add lessEntryPoints key to build.sbt: play.Keys.lessEntryPoints <<= baseDirectory(_ / "app" / "assets" / "stylesheets" ** "main.less")

Reference: Configuration Section in http://www.playframework.com/documentation/2.2.x/AssetsLess

To find out whether you have configured it properly type play-less-entry-points in the Play! console and you should only see one entry.

Immersing myself in data and database

With the buzz of Big Data, is it coincidence or deliberate measure on my part to learn more about database?

This week I finally complete the 7 week online course - M102: MongoDB for DBAs. A great course offered by MongoDB Inc. (formerly known as 10gen).

Not only do I get to learn about MongoDB, it also help me brush up on basic DBA stuff as well as infrastructure architecture for data storage.

As part of my job, I got to attend a the "DB2 10 for Linux, Unix and Windows Fundamentals" offered by IBM here locally in Hong Kong. I wasn't too excited on the first day about typical DBA administrative task, but the second day got more interested. From the course, I get to learn more about the theory behind column-based database and some basics around how DB2 implemented with their fancy name BLU Acceleration. 

Another interesting topic is Temporal Table feature in DB2. After some Googling, Temporal Table has been standardized into the ISO/IEC 9075:2011 or SQL 2011! It is already yesterday news. Even opensource database such as PostgreSQL supports Temporal Tables. I still recall those days manually doing it in the application layer, then later using Hibernate Envrs or EclipseLink History Policy and thought I was cool. Now this stuff is natively supported in standard SQL.

Got my M101J: MongoDB for Java Developers Certificate

M101J: MongoDB for Java Developers is a 7 week course. The courses was well taught. I am now officially NoSQL certified!