Deploying Blojsom on Orion J2EE Server

As many of you might know already is Oracle J2EE technology based on Orion J2EE server. Currently these two servers go their separate ways in development, but there are still quite a lot similarities. I use this container at home for my personal web projects (family home pages etc). The installation of blojsom Blog server is pretty much the same as in Oracle J2EE server, with the exception of different name in http web site XML configuration file.

Here is the steps to deploy the blojsom blogging application on ORION J2EE container. Tested on 2.0.5 version.

1. Download the WAR file for blojsom (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=72754)


2. Copy blojsom.war to it's own directory, without any other files in it.


3. Make subdirectory META-INF


4. cd META-INF


5. Create/edit application.xml -file with following content:




<?xml version = '1.0' encoding = 'windows-1252'?>
<!DOCTYPE application PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD J2EE Application 1.3//EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/application_1_3.dtd">
<application>
<display-name>Blojsom</display-name>
<module>
<web>
<web-uri>blojsom.war</web-uri>
<context-root>blojsom</context-root>
</web>
</module>
</application>



6. Change directory to the root directory where blojsom.war exists. Create an EAR file out of the directory:

<path_to_your_jdk_home>\jdk\bin\jar cvf blojsom.ear *
You should see something like:
added manifest
adding: blojsom.war(in = 2493553) (out= 2449558)(deflated 1%)
adding: web-inf/(in = 0) (out= 0)(stored 0%)
adding: web-inf/application.xml(in = 387) (out= 240)(deflated 37%)

7. Copy this *.ear file to ORION_HOME/applications -directory


8. Edit ORION_HOME/config/server.xml

Add following line under the application-server -root element:


<application name="blojsom" path="../applications/blojsom.ear" auto-start="true" />



9. Edit ORION_HOME/config/default-web-site.xml

Add following line:


<web-app application="blojsom" name="blojsom" load-on-startup="true" root="/blojsom" />



10. Start the ORION server

Auto-deployment should start at this point.

11. Edit ORION_HOME/applications/blojsom/blojsom/WEB-INF/default/blog.properties

Change the blog-base-url and blog-url to point to your server and ORION port.
Change also other meaningful descriptive parameters to match your needs.

12. Restart the ORION server


13. Point your browser to url http://localhost:<port>/blojsom/blog/default/

Removing Powerpoint slide comments

I am working as a sales consultant and use Powerpoint slides quite often to describe the presented material. Many time some of the Powerpoint slides are annotated by someone else and if I want to deliver the PPT to the customers/partners I must remove the annotations. Doing this manually is time-consuming. Here is a trick to add a simple Visual Basic macro that automatically removes the annotations and leaves the slides.

Sub DelNotesShapes()
Dim oSld As Slide
For Each oSld In ActivePresentation.Slides
If oSld.NotesPage.Shapes.Count > 0 Then
oSld.NotesPage.Shapes.Range.Delete
End If
Next oSld
Set oSld = Nothing
End Sub

Press Alt-F11, choose from menu Insert->Module and copy above VBA code to the editor. Press Save and exit the VBA editor.
Run the macro in PPT with Alt-F8, choosing above macro name DelNotesShapes and "Run". After this all the notes/annotations are removed.

How to deploy Blojsom blogging application on standalone OC4J

Here is the steps to deploy the blojsom blogging application on Oracle Container 4 J2EE.

1. Download the WAR file for blojsom (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=72754)


2. Copy blojsom.war to it's own directory, without any other files in it.


3. Make subdirectory META-INF


4. cd META-INF


5. Create/edit application.xml -file with following content:




<?xml version = '1.0' encoding = 'windows-1252'?>
<!DOCTYPE application PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD J2EE Application 1.3//EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/application_1_3.dtd">
<application>
<display-name>Blojsom</display-name>
<module>
<web>
<web-uri>blojsom.war</web-uri>
<context-root>blojsom</context-root>
</web>
</module>
</application>



6. Create an EAR file out of the directory:

<path_to_your_jdk_home>\jdk\bin\jar cvf blojsom.ear *
You should see something like:
added manifest
adding: blojsom.war(in = 2493553) (out= 2449558)(deflated 1%)
adding: web-inf/(in = 0) (out= 0)(stored 0%)
adding: web-inf/application.xml(in = 387) (out= 240)(deflated 37%)

7. Copy this *.ear file to OC4J_HOME/applications -directory


8. Edit OC4J_HOME/config/server.xml

Add following line under the application-server -root element:


<application name="blojsom" path="../applications/blojsom.ear" auto-start="true" />



9. Edit OC4J_HOME/config/http-web-site.xml

Add following line:


<web-app application="blojsom" name="blojsom" load-on-startup="true" root="/blojsom" />



10. Start the OC4J server

Auto-deployment should start at this point.

11. Edit OC4J_HOME/applications/blojsom/blojsom/WEB-INF/default/blog.properties

Change the blog-base-url and blog-url to point to your server and OC4J port.
Change also other meaningful descriptive parameters to match your needs.

12. Shutdown the OC4J and restart it.


13. Point your browser to url http://localhost:8888/blojsom/blog/default/

Testing Oracle Software Packager

Finally got the time to test drive the Oracle Software Packager 2.2 that is used to create installation packages installable by Oracle Universal installer.

Great tool! After 1 hour I got my first installation staging area built up and tested using Oracle Universal installer.
Just wondering why this tool is not more widely used within our customers and partners.

Oracle Software Packager can create installation components which can be bundled together to create a main installation component. This seems to work nicely when using a "custom" installation option. All the subcomponents can be either selected or de-selected the same way as it works with OracleAS or OracleDB installation.

I'm going to use the installer to bundle all custom Interconnect adapters, adapter customizers and transformations so that they are more easily installed. The package will be called OracleAS Interconnect Power Pack.