WSO2 Mashup Server at Mashup Australia

Mashup Australia is an initiative by the Australian government to open up public data for broader consumption. It's similar to what they've done in Washington, but closer to home. So I decided to submit an entry on behalf of the WSO2 Mashup Server team.

The Mashup;

1. Uses data provided by the Australian government (an Excel spreadsheet) regarding the country’s mines and exposes them as a Data Service (using WSO2 Data Services)
2. The Mashup consumes this Data Service (just another SOAP Web Service), processes the data and publishes in a format easily palatable by the client side Javascript
3. On the client side with Google Maps the data is displayed according to the geographical location of the Mines. Using the filters available, the Mines can be pin pointed based on the type of mineral(s) they harvest.

If you like this mashup, please don't forget to rate it!

Mid-Market CEOs Share Best Practices

Paths to Revenue: Mid-Market CEOs Share Best Practices - HBR Now - Harvard Business Review

a recent survey of approximately 50 mid-market CEOs revealed that what was keeping them up at night was figuring out how to optimize the sales channel. Basically, "Is there a better path to revenue and profit?"

Not surprising. Read on to see the authors suggestions ...

Google Wave explained in 2 minutes

I for one, think there's too much hype around it to make a practical estimate of Google Wave's usefulness. But in the mean time, here's how one guy sees the wave (in 2 minutes). You can also go here if you have about one and a half hours to kill, to get the long version from Google :)

Your tweets and updates, coming soon to a google near you!!

Official Google Blog: RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!

"Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months."

Good news indeed. I wonder how page ranks will be handled ...

WSO2 SOA workshop - Santa Clara, CA | November 3rd 2009

Register Here

Deploying WSO2 Mashup Server in Tomcat

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For those of you interested in deploying the WSO2 Mashup Server 2.0 in Apache Tomcat, Sarasi has written a concise tutorial here. At the moment we do not provide a .war distribution. But, by following the above tutorial, you will be on your way in no time.

WSO2 Mashup Server 2.0

With the 2.0 version we are entering the WSO2 Carbon universe. This means that our users get all the goodies they are used to on top of a fully componentized SOA platform. We also did a bunch of bug fixes along with improvements to documentation. By the way, don't forget to have a look at the Wikipedia page. Feel free to improve it with content or external sources of information you come across about the WSO2 Mashup Server.

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WSO2 Mashup Server 2.0 Release Notes

07 Oct 2009


"Create, deploy, and consume Web services Mashups in the simplest fashion."


The WSO2 Mashup Server is a powerful yet simple and quick way to tailor Web-based information to the personal needs of individuals and organizations. It is a platform for acquiring data from a variety of sources including Web Services, HTML pages, feeds and data sources, and process and combine it with other data using JavaScript with E4X XML extensions. The result is then exposed as a new Web service with rich metadata and artifacts to simplify the
creation of rich user interfaces.

WSO2 Mashup Server is released under the Apache License v2.0


Check out the project home page at http://www.wso2.org/projects/mashup for additional information.

Features List

• Hosting of mashup services written using JavaScript with E4X XML extensions
  
• Simple file based deployment model
  
• JavaScript annotations to configure the deployed services
  
• Auto generation of metadata and runtime resources for the deployed mashups
  
• JavaScript stubs that simplify client access to the mashup service
  
• Code templates for developing rich HTML or Google Gadget interfaces
  
• TryIt functionality to invoke the mashup service through a web browser
  
• WSDL 1.1/WSDL 2.0/XSD documents to describe the mashup service
  
• API documentation
  
• Ability to bundle a custom user interface for the mashups
  
• Many useful Javascript Host objects that can be used when writing mashups
  
• WSRequest: invoke Web services from mashup services
  
• File: File storage/manipulation functionality
  
• System: Set of system specific utility functions
  
• Session: Ability to share objects across different service invocations
  
• Scraper: Extract data from HTML pages and present in XML format
  
• APPClient: Atom Publishing Protocol client to retrieve/publish Atom feeds with APP servers
  
• Feed: A generic set of host objects to transparently read and create Atom and RSS feeds
  
• Request: Ability get information regarding a request received
  
• Support for recurring and longer-running tasks
  
• Support for service lifecycles
  
• Ability to secure hosted mashups using a set of commonly used security
  scenarios
• Management console to easily manage the mashups

New in the 2.0 Release

The 2.0 version of the Mashup Server is built on top of the Award Winning WSO2 Carbon Platform. All the major features have been developed as pluggable Carbon components.

Future Directions

• Improved tooling support.
  
• An expanded toolkit of generic building-block services.
• Lots more cool stuff...
  

Reporting Problems

Issues can be reported using the public JIRA available at https://wso2.org/jira/browse/MASHUP

Contact us

WSO2 Mashup Server developers can be contacted via mailing lists:

• For Users: mashup-user@wso2.org
  
• For Developers: mashup-dev@wso2.org
  
• For details on subscriptions: http://www.wso2.org/projects/mashup#mail
  

Questions can also be raised in this forum: http://www.wso2.org/forum/226.

Training

WSO2 Inc. offers a variety of professional Training Programs, including training on general Web services as well as WSO2 Mashup Server, WSO2 WSAS, WSO2 ESB, Apache Axis2, Data Services and a number of other products.

For additional support information please refer http://wso2.com/training/course-catalog/.

Support

WSO2 Inc. offers a variety of development and production support programs, ranging from Web-based support up through normal business hours, to premium 24x7 phone support. For additional support information please refer http://wso2.com/support/.



Enjoy the WSO2 Mashup Server!


- The WSO2 Mashup Server Team

The Biz School Chronicles :: On Financial Leverage and Debt-Equity (Gearing) Ratios

The recent recession has given us enough real world examples of what happens when certain business theories are ignored for the sake of short term gains. This post from HBR, which appeared last week has excellent timing for two reasons. One; It's a nice case study practitioners can learn from (obviously). Two; It's useful for me in preparation for the semester exams, having just finished going through Financial Management. Theory around Degree of Leverage and Ratios sticks better when coupled with a real world example. Sadly, certain theories are well demonstrated by citing instances where companies failed due to ignoring them. Nevertheless, thank you Lehman Brothers (and others) for the case study on Overleverage.

Prolink PHS100 in Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04)

I finally decided to get a 3G connection as a backup for my ADSL one at home. I often find myself ending up in places without readily provided Internet and wishing for a mobile solution. After doing a bit of research, I found Airtel as the best deal. If you are wondering about Airtel 3G coverage, all I have to say is that I live and usually spend my time within a 20-30 Kilometre radius from the city of Colombo. And when I go out of this zone, Internet or a Laptop or anything related to work is usually the last thing on my mind :) So getting 3G coverage in rural Sri Lanka isn't a huge priority! That, and the fact that this is a supplementary connection, which means it should cost at least 50% or less compared to the primary connection made the choice very easy.



Now for the fun part. Hating how the usual Huawei E220 modem looks, I opted for the more elegant Prolink PHS100, which can be bought with no vendor lock (let's not get started on vendors locking hardware for which I pay for). I found this great post by Laxman, which gets the modem detected in Linux perfectly. But upon dialling with wvdial, the Airtel server wouldn't give me an IP nor any sort of DNS data. I kept getting the following;

--> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.60
--> Cannot get information for serial port.
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
--> Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0

ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
--> Sending: ATM0
ATM0
OK
--> Sending: AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","airtellive"
AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","airtellive"
OK
--> Modem initialized.

--> Sending: ATDP*99#
--> Waiting for carrier.
ATDP*99#
CONNECT
--> Carrier detected.  Starting PPP immediately.
--> Starting pppd at Fri Sep 11 00:12:27 2009
--> Pid of pppd: 5989
--> Using interface ppp0

--> pppd: Я[06]���� ���
--> pppd: Я[06]���� ���
--> pppd: Я[06]���� ���
--> pppd: Я[06]���� ���
--> pppd: Я[06]���� ���
--> pppd: Я[06]���� ���
--> pppd: Я[06]���� ���
--> Disconnecting at Fri Sep 11 00:13:03 2009

--> The PPP daemon has died: A modem hung up the phone (exit code = 16)
--> man pppd explains pppd error codes in more detail.
--> Try again and look into /var/log/messages and the wvdial and pppd man pages for more information.

--> Auto Reconnect will be attempted in 5 seconds

Looking at my /var/log/messages I saw this, which eventually lead to hours of reading logs, googling error messages etc., etc.

Sep 11 00:11:33 clair pppd[5974]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0
Sep 11 00:11:33 clair pppd[5974]: Using interface ppp0
Sep 11 00:11:33 clair pppd[5974]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyUSB2
Sep 11 00:11:33 clair pppd[5974]: CHAP authentication succeeded

Sep 11 00:11:33 clair pppd[5974]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Sep 11 00:12:03 clair pppd[5974]: IPCP: timeout sending Config-Requests
Sep 11 00:12:09 clair pppd[5974]: Connection terminated.
Sep 11 00:12:09 clair pppd[5974]: Modem hangup

Sep 11 00:12:09 clair pppd[5974]: Exit.

I tried for a while and was about to admit defeat and go for the ugly modem, which users claim to work perfectly in Linux. Then I had a Eureka moment. What if the modem remembers settings while its connected to Windows? I mean its light is always Red in Linux. But I saw it turning Blue when connected (that's what the manual says too Red -> no show / Blue -> party on). So I plugged the modem back in my Windows machine and instead of disconnecting using the Software, I just yanked it out.

Voila! Now, when its plugged to Linux the light turns Blue in seconds and wvdial completes. By the way, this is the second post from my 3G connection. The first post was an e-mail to Laxman (who was very helpful in giving further tips to try out) informing the solution. I added a comment to his original blog post as well.

WSO2 Carbon @ InfoWorld's 2009 Bossie Awards

Best of open source platforms and middleware | Open Source - InfoWorld

WSO2 Carbon is the foundation of WSO2's componentized SOA platform. Carbon provides the framework for all of the core functionality -- data services, ESB/routing, process management, registry, monitoring, and security - allowing you to plug in these components as necessary. The ESB and additional modules for governance and identity are good, and the process server is also decent, and with Carbon the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.