I was recently using the 1.1 release of Craig MacKay’s Spring Module for NetBeans which supports the latest Spring Framework 2.5. Spring Framework tutorial hosted at NetBeans.org provides details on how to use this module in NetBeans IDE. Thomas Risberg’s Developing a Spring Framework MVC Application Step-by-Step tutorial is a good one which explains end-to-end web application development using Spring Framework 2.5. The sample in this tutorial was developed using Eclipse 3.3 and the application was deployed to Apache Tomcat 6.0.14. Spring supports JEE technologies, this sample application should run on any JEE compatible servers without much porting effort. I was able to run this tutorial using NetBeans IDE 6.0 and GlassFish V2 UR1 without any hassle. In fact, this combination worked out great for me with Craig MacKay’s plugin. A very useful plugin for Spring development on NetBeans IDE. I modified the original tutorial to use NetBeans and GlassFish infrastructure, and these tools should definitely help increase the productivity for Spring developers.

You can access the tutorial “Developing a Spring Framework MVC application step-by-step using NetBeans and GlassFish” here.

I was driving from Des Moines to Chicago on Friday 12/21 to send off my parents from O’HARE the next day. The seasonal affair was in effect as usual in Iowa. We started driving at 8am and we were navigating through the dense fog through I-80 and I-88. It was a black hole experience. The visibility was less than a quarter mile. Though, it was not so adventurous, we managed to reach Chicago around 2pm. I knew this would become worser when I return back to Des Moines as they had predicted a snowstorm across central Iowa on 12/22. I was checking the weather every often to make sure I plan my return trip safely. I decided to return on the next day and I wanted to take a chance against the predicted snow storm across mid west, the only place on earth where one could experience all unusual weather phenomenons on the same day.

My return journey was a roller-coaster ride as expected. I started from O’HARE at 4pm and I sailed through I-88 and I could travel only upto Dekalb (60 miles west off Chicago), where I decided to fuel and rest for some time as the dense fog advisory was in effect until 6pm. But, I rested until 7pm when the fogs were slightly gone. I resumed my journey towards the snow storm. I experienced severe winds gusting at the speeds of 30-40mph and I managed to drive through them. The temperature was around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. When I was nearing the Moline across the Mississippi river valley, the temperature started falling drastically. I experienced heavy rains and the fog was gone for the most parts of the sky. The temperature dropped to 30 degrees in 50 miles and as I was nearing the borders of Iowa, where the rain turned into snow and the temperature nose dived to 25 degrees.

The worser started, I could not drive as my windshield fluid was not enough to clear the blowing snow and I had to take an immediate exit where I filled my windshield fluid. I waited for 30 minutes near the gas station and then I decided to leave from there. The snow fall was heavy and the highway was already active with snow mowers spraying salt and premature cleaning began. But, it became very difficult for me to drive as the snow was 2 inches on the highway and it was not cleared for most part of the highway. I saw many vehicles falling into the sides of the highway and I even saw many trucks collapse on the highway. This was so dangerous as my speed was not more than 15mph on a highway in these hazardous conditions. I decided to quit my travel on that night as I was nearing Iowa City. I took the exit-242 to Holiday Inn, but there were no rooms left. The hotel guy suggested that there are some hotels near exit-246 which has less occupancy. So, I had to go back to the scary highway and take the exit-246. The temperature dropped to almost 15 degrees. Finally, I took the exit-246 and managed to stay in Hampton Inn in Coralville. It was midnight when I checked in. I planned to leave early in the morning when the weather subsides as it was only 100 miles to my final destination.

I recalled my stupid decision to travel that night. But, I learned how to drive safely and be extra cautious during these bizarre conditions. Nevertheless, I had an opportunity to witness the aftermath of a snowstorm which badly hit the holiday travelers across this region. I started my journey next day at 8am and I reached home safely by 1030am. I saw many vehicles out of the highway and I feel sad for them and hope they are in time for their Christmas eve.

Merry Christmas and Safe Holidays.

Today, Google released the Android platform SDK to the developer community. It comes with tools and APIs to develop applications on the open mobile platform using the Java programming language. It comes with an emulator and Eclipse plugin for development. The SDK is already available on Windows, Mac OS X (intel), and Linux (i386) platforms.

As part of today’s announcement, Google unveiled $10 million android developer challenge for developing applications on the Android platform. Android runtime is based on Dalvik VM. Each android application has its own VM which runs in its own process. The stack is built on top of Linux kernel version 2.6. The VM relies on the underlying kernel for threading and low-level memory management.

Google rocks!

Below are some screen shots of Android emulator in action.

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Today, Google announced the most awaited mobile strategy backed by the industry’s big wees. The momentum turned into Open Handset Alliance with more than 30 technology and mobile companies which developed the first complete, open and free mobile platform. Developers will have access to the Android SDK on November 12. Google unlocks the opportunity to bring innovation in mobile application development space and forms an open ecosystem for building vendor independent applications traditionally dominated by proprietary mobile OS vendors like Symbian and Microsoft.

View Google’s press release which lists its founding members. This alliance would transform the way revenues are generated from mobile based services and operator hosted services typically implemented as Service Delivery Platforms offered by many technology companies such as HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Bea. This would also impact the revenue sharing model prevailing in most of the Mobile Network Operator provided services such as content, multimedia, and gaming.

Finally, I had a chance to touch and feel the iPhone in an Apple retail store in West Des Moines. [singlepic=10,320,240,,] I was blown away by the technology Apple has brought to its consumers. Watching YouTube videos in a mobile device is just amazing. Facebook on iPhone connects you to people around you. Bringing social networking to mobile devices is a smarter idea. iPhone does it right. Support for myspace, flickr may soon become a reality. You can build web apps for iPhone using WebKit used by Safari browser today. Checkout Apple’s iPhone Dev Center for more information. iPhone owners must be proud of their expensive choice:). So far, Apple has only opened up Safari based web content and web application development on iPhone. Bad news for Java.

No wonder, iPhone topped Stuff’s Cool List 2007.