1. User Experience. User Experience. User Experience
2. iPhone currently the leader, revolutionized Mobile app sales, but market (and devices) evolving very quickly.
3. Good case for usage in Enterprise (cost reduction, growing use of iPhone platform in Enterprise, New channel to customers) but be flexible, be ready for the evolution.

The iPhone as an Emerging Enterprise Platform

1.15pm Wednesday 2nd December 2009
Venue – The Alexander Hotel  Dublin .

The iPhone has captured significant mindshare since its launch in 2007, and in particular the application development model and the iTunes App Store, which has had over two billion downloads of over 100,000 applications.
There has been a move from games and other ‘fun’ applications to software companies looking to add mobile channels for their products. Enterprise focussed companies like Intuition are developing iPhone applications in order to add to the value of their core product or service.

As part of the Enterprise Europe Network, Enterprise Ireland are hosting an information and networking event on December 2nd in Dublin.

This is a chance for software companies to explore the opportunities presented by mobile applications and Apple’s iPhone in particular. Topics covered will include:

• What is so special about the iPhone?
• How does one develop applications – what are the skills required?
• What are the costs?
• How to deploy enterprise applications?

There will also be an opportunity to meet with the iPhone developer community in Ireland.

Enterprise Features iPhone – Dermot Daly, Tapadoo

What is an iPhone?

• Basics ; phone, location/direction/tilt aware , quality web browser and multimedia,Document and pdf viewer)
• And apps

Enterprise features

• Originally consumer (02 contracts reflected this)
• Latest iPhone 3GS had enterprise (not emphasised) e.g. Compass Video Cameria
• Enterprise Mail (e.g. ActiveSync from MS, but also POP/IMAP/CALDAV/LDAP)
• Centralised Config (e.g. App lockdown, can prevent changes)
• Security Enhancements (e.g. FindmyIPhone, RemoteWipe)
• VPN out of the box (all internet standards)

All stuff Nokia/ Blackberry do, but iPhone slicker

Apps

• iPhone enhanced website
• Website with iPhone specifc css
• Similar to Mozilla Prism?
• No deployment / easier to deploy
• No access to underlying hardware.

Native Apps (code to phone)

• Underlying hardware access
• Objective C & SDK Libraries
• Number of ways to deploy

iPhone SDK (4 layers 20+ frameworks each)

• iPhone OS / based on MacOS/ derived from BSD Unix
• Core Services (e.g. Core Data, backed by SQLLite on phone) , contact , addressbox, GPS, StoreKit (for upsell) within app e.g. eBooks)

• Media (Quartz 2d animation, Open GL 3D in Hardware, iPod Library and Core Audio / Video)
• Coco Touch – User Interface / controls ; Messaging UI; Map Kit (with Google Maps); Game Kit (P2P Games)

Sample Native Applications

• iPhone version of existing e.g. RTE Breaking news
• Own staff to allow

Challenges

• Deployment to public via App store
• To own own staff
• Enterprise Deployment (more than 500 employeees – Limited e.g. University of Ulster)
• Ad Hoc Deployment (Management Overhead – need to gather specific device ID’s – limit up to 100)

The Market

• Nobody will release figures on iPhone in Ireland (est 50k – 150k based on app downloads – guess)
• 02 -> Vodafone Q1 next year (around Feb?)
• Expects Market to double overnight
• Expect Vodofone business plan
• UK – 5% – 1m phones and pushing other platforms
• Better than any other single handset (as opposed to single manufacturue) – one app works on all iPhone
  - e.g. no problem of testing like Java phones
  - Worldphone – 50m devices (inc iPod touch)

Developer

• Need to develop on Mac
• Object C, DSK and App store process (need to learn)
• xCake Developer community / apps.ie
• Cost (people expect it to cost less / yet usage pattern very differnt – little and often) similar to Senior Java
• Base on Spec (like most software projects)

Intuition Keith O’Loughlin (CTO)
“Intuition’s experience with iPhone”
Scaling / eLearnging

• Don’t repeat same mistkaes; think of user experience
• Intuition provide professional learning applicaiton to corporates globally
• Mobile started Blackberry, client demand led to iPhone – also on Windows Mobile
• Mobile allows eLearning in users time / on their terms
• Not a Laptop as that experience is more akin to desk based (e.g. phone always there, always ready unlike Laptop)
• iPhone Experience (Emotional attachment)
• Three modes of use (Bored Now / Repetitive Now e.g. stock or Football news/ Urgent Now ) – from Google
  - 6 Month old can use iPhone (but not Blackberry!)
• iPhone has created market for mobile applicatoins (Blackberry, Orange, Vodafone all trying to copy idea)
• Free apps; usage over time ; shelf life tails off sharply over 3 days ; What is user call to embed in their

Lifestyle (use again and again, evangilise) – doesn’t happen for PC’s.  All about the user experience

iPhone and Enterprise

• Blackberry v Apple
• 2 millon  Apple iPhones  in Corporate , growing hughely , 35m Blackberry, overtake in 3 years at current rate of growth
• Beware of Google (space evolving very quickly – like 1980 in PC space)
• More smartphones sold last year than Laptops
• Enterprise benefits : rich apps / improve effecienct / workflows / reduce costs / grow revenues
• Issues: Security (percieved issue) / difficult deployment / Early adoptor days

Developer: good that single screen size and form size (develop once) , only 3 OS v Java experinece

• First app on apple platform in 6 weeks
• Some API missing e.g. to turn off phone API not exposed

Apple; focus on qualiy and brand – control!!

• Won’t allow apps with bugs (and Apple decide what bug is!)
• Limited develop support
• App store very easy to use
• A lot of applications – easy to get lost
• Low cost of entry / but slow process / very thoroought process

Repeat: Not about the technology, about the user
Average phone replaced every 2 years – very easy for market to change

Opportunites / Pitfalls

• Scale
• Devices Big Picture (be flexible; devices will change, Apps will not) – iPhone good place to start.
• Style v Substance
• Platform subsistence
• 2 models
• consulting / developer
• existing product , new channel

MyHome.ie Keith Mahon
“Experiences with MyHome.ie on the iPhone”

Head of Technology , Irish Times digital group.

• Phoneware created local based search engine, fitted with what MyHome where thinking of doing.
• Involved since Dec 08 (12 months); 4 Months to develop while Irish Times learned
• Apple is ‘blockage’ in systems – useful to get professional advice!

Lessons Learned

• Reduce functionality to what users really want
• Traffic with not reach mobile (yet) for iPhones – set expectations – more strategic move for future.
• Estimates market at 15,000  users (note – estimate of user based  much less than Dermot Daly)
• At least one month to get on Appstore, 1 week for each update; but no committment to dates from
• Need to promote, like any other website

Success

• Number 1 Irish app store 12 days / top 50 for 2 months- will change up and down over time.
• Give credibility with other users, even if they don’t use iPhone themselves.
• Strong commuter audience (morning and evening spikes).
• Agents started getting calls / emails directly from iPhone – very visible change!
• Writeup in Sunday Business Post – can lead to spike in Traffic.
• 449,000  page views within 15 days; Tiny v Main web sites (15million  in same time) – but new and growing audience

App

• Shows map with homes for sale (will include rental)
• Virtual overlay (look through camera, see available houses around you)
• Give app away free , but looking how to get people to subsribe

Strength and Weakness

• Smaller , restriced audience – shortage of supply of devices, being kept expensive. Maybe wider when Vodafone sell iPhone Q1 2010.
• Does not work on stardard iPhone – needs 3GS iPhone
• No SMS integration like normal mobiles (maybe later versions)
• A lot of strengths (Locaion aware, excellent delivery channel)

iPhone -  a new Frontier for payments
WorldNet TPS

Enterprise Ireland  HPSU ( Startup) – provide secure online payment (Payment Gateway) going 2 years, product 1 year.

See Opportunity as enabling business – promote iPhone as payment terminal
Complements existing business / other virtual access points such as laptop / PC

For business this means  e.g. Tour Operator / Sell items on Tour Buses while promoter is still on road

Competitor to iPhone in payments space is Desktop – very different proposition (good and bad)

PCI Compliance (part of Visa contract) means storing credit card info on PC / or paper means fines up to 25,000 Euro  for each infringement

Moving to (all ideas that have been tried before , with various success, mainly due to societal factors

• Cardholder present transation
• Pay by mobile instead of credit card
• P2P payment applications

A lot of the leading payment players behind these ideas – will market take off?

OS3 – Damian O’Suilleabháin
“Approaches to iPhone development & the Irish iPhone Developer community”

OS3 develop iPhone apps (3 public , more on way)

Can’t activate iPhone without giving Credit Card details – very low friction sell through AppStore – like DoCoMo model.

Why iPhone?

• Trip to future; demographics – about 25% Western world only know internet on mobile / social network natives . Don’t like ads,  but friends think it’s cool.
• Growing rapidly.
• 2 Billon n apps downloaded in last 18 months – last month 500m
• Major brands have apps available
• Opportunity; Extra revenue / new customers through new channel / association with coolness

Web Apps v Native Apps

• Web development use existing web technologies (Simple) Apple Browser the best mobile browser – compares well to many desktop browsers. Doesn’t do flash.
• Web App +: Write in (web) langugae teha you’re familar with) Easier upload – no dealings with Apple. Dynamic. Reused web application for other mobiles / from Desktop.
• Native Apps gives (almost)  full power of API.  Mac Based Operating System – very powerful. e.g. Gesture Capture, Compass.
• Native App can be used offline. Easier to Monetize app (sell through appstore).

InHouse v Outsourced Development

• Same as traditional software development pro’s and con’s.

iPhone Developer Community in Ireland

• xCake - loose developer community / act as group when talking to Enterprise Ireland , O2
• Apps.ie – evolved from XCake – showcase for Irish iPhone apps, evangilize mobile applications in Ireland.
• Members; available on site include 21 developers from companies to individuals

Here are the important points;

1. It’s Big.
2. It’s the first data centre that Microsoft have built outside of the US. Kudos to the  Microsoft Ireland team and the IDA for their success in getting the data centre located here.
3. It’s a big deal for Ireland – maybe only 20 seconds on the RTE News, but that’s because stacks of servers don’t hit the ‘Human interest’ angle. This might be as important a decision as Intel coming to Ireland in the late 80’s.
4. Did I mention that it’s Big? 300,000 Sq feet. That’s a lot of football pitches.

Seriously lads; forget about having a server under your desk, or even your own server room down the hall. Leave it to the professionals. Data Centres and the cloud is the way software is going.

Want to say a big thank you for the guys who did all the hard work in putting the camp together. Keith, Emily, Alan and Jason, do ye not have a business to run as well?!

Key people that I’m looking forward to hearing are the two EI guys (David is talking at 11.30 about Business plan mistakes and Gerard’s on at 15.30 about how your startup should approach EI for the first time). I’m also looking forward to seeing Ciara talk about personal productivity (10am), Ronan about Microsoft Bizspark (10.45),  Justin talking about Service (14.45) and Steve talking about Software as a Service (16.15).

Talk to you there!

Enterprise Ireland in association with IT@Cork, ITAG and ISA would like to invite you to a seminar entitled ‘Opportunities in The New Software Economy’. These seminars will be held in Cork (Sept 8), Galway (Sept 9) and Dublin (Sept 10).

The New Software Economy is driven by the growth of the Internet and changes in the software value chain. It is underpinned by new technologies such as Open Source, Services Oriented Architecture (SOA), Cloud Computing, Semantic Web and Web 2.0. It is characterised by demand for greater flexibility, global delivery and cost effective solutions. Partnerships and collaborations predominate. Learn more about the New Software Economy

This seminar will give you the opportunity to network with key stake holders in the software industry in your region from different sections of the ecosystem: – SME, multinational companies, financial sector, public sector and academia.

Additionally, the seminar will provide insights from key thought leaders on the important topics at the forefront of the New Software Economy.

The speaker line-up will include:-

Chris Hofmann, Director of Engineering, Mozilla Foundation

Fergus Gloster, former VP of Business Development, Salesforce.com

Joe Drumgoole, CEO, Putplace.com

Seminar cost:  Admission is €50 and will include tea/coffee on arrival and tea/coffee/sandwiches on conclusion

The full amount of €50 per person is due on registration. Spaces are limited and allocated on a first come first served basis.

Cancellation Policy

No refunds will be issued on cancellation, however if a registered participant cannot attend the seminar, he/she may nominate a substitute. Cancellations or substitutions must be notified by email to tina.cahill@enterprise-ireland.com.

Invoicing Policy

A sales order acknowledgement will be issued to you on receipt of your registration form. Invoices will be issued after the event has taken place.

Methods of payment

Payment can be made online by credit card.

BizCamp is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovators to come together, share experiences, and possibly create new value out of the day. It’ll be a chance to meet up with people who’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt – members of the business community, VCs and investors, and representatives from the relevant state agencies. Lost your job or finding current market conditions tough? Come along to BizCamp, who knows what new opportunities might turn up?

People tend to associate *Camps with the Web and the tech start-ups, but our aim is to try and embrace as much of the Irish business community as possible. We want to see people from all streams – finance, operations, HR, legal, delivery specialists, R&D, marketing – and yes, even tech! Ireland Inc. has a wealth of knowledge and acumen, more than enough to help us out of these troubled times. By attending (and, more importantly, contributing!) you can help make BizCamp the first “good news story” of the recession.

A full list of people already signed up to attend is available at

http://www.bizcamp.ie/whos-attending/

Eircom, Bank of Ireland and other key digital companies will be sponsoring the event. The Bizcamp is being organised by a number of entrepreneurs who have businesses in the Leinster region, along with people active in the web from business and public sectors.

While most of the speaking slots are informal we are looking key business speakers for two panels on the day; Speakers should be recognizable figures, all with a good story to share. Suggested panel topics are raising funding and supports available for your business. A list of people already speaking at the event is online at http://www.bizcamp.ie/2009/01/speakers-sessions/

Aside from the business networking available at the event, Speakers will have an opportunity to promote themselves and their business in a friendly Q&A type session. If you think you’d have something to contribute to the panel,  please contact me (Paul) via the comment form on this blog.

How to combine (jBPM) Workflow and (Drools) Business Rules – here’s the summary. Slideset is available on this blogpost.

• Workflow (e.g. JBoss jBPM) is great – it allows you to take spaghetti code and draw it as a workflow diagram (flowchart) so that it can be reviewed by the business (the nice people who pay our wages). You then attach standard (Java) actions to these steps.
• Only problem is when you come to a decision node (the one circled in red below): How do you decide to go left or right (in the workflow)? Normally this is coded in Java – good for us, but hidden from those nice business people (which means that this is more room for errors-in-translation).
• Business Rules allow you to keep those decision making rules in Plain English: When something is true , then do this. That’s it. The rule engine does most of the hard work.
• Integrating Workflow and Rules is easy. Use JBoss Seam (link) or do it by hand (link). And it works on non-JBoss web / app servers such as Websphere, Oracle Application Server, Tomcat and Weblogic.
• Repeat x6 : Use workflow and rules. Use workflow and rules …

In a maybe related development, Tom Baeyens is now using strangely Rules-y like examples over on his workflow blog ….

What are you missing? Apart from the crash test dummies (below), there’s loads of lego blocks, Swiss mountains, trains crashing through walls and a Kangaroo. (Spring, Geddit?). You might even learn something about Java along the way.

Agile Projects using the Spring Framework
Executive Briefing
Delivery: Public or In-house
Course Length: 0.5 days. Optional mentoring / follow up session if required by Client
Course Approach: Lecture, discussions
Level: Beginner / Intermediate

Course Description:

Spring, with good reason, is the most actively used framework in the Enterprise Java world today. The half- day briefing shows the problems that Spring can solve for your projects, core Spring concepts such as Inversion of Control and integration with existing Enterprise Java technologies for database access, messaging and web deployment. The briefing also shows how to use Spring to make your projects more agile, improving quality and reducing deployment time.

Course Objectives:

• Following completion of this course, students will be able to:
• Understand why Enterprise Java is the mostly widely used corporate technology, and how Spring both simplifies and improves this technology.
• Understand core Spring concepts such as Inversion of Control (IOC), configuration , deployment and testing.
• Describe how to integrate Spring with Enterprise Technologies such as Databases, Messaging and Web 2 frameworks.
• Understand how Spring can make your projects more agile and the benefits it brings to your organization
• Map out a plan of how to introduce the Spring framework to existing systems.

Course Syllabus:

Section 1: The Problems That Spring Solves

• Introduction
• Who are you? Who are we?
• What is Spring?
• What is (Enterprise) Java?
• The problems with Enterprise Java
• Why Enterprise Java is costing you money.
• The Deployment Scale
• Java Classes and Objects
• Just enough XML to get by
• Core Spring – Inversion of Control pattern
• Spring Configuration and my First Spring App
• Deployment via Web, Enterprise Java and Command line
• Spring on other platforms (.Net , Ruby and Groovy)
• Alternatives to Spring
• Spring and Java 5 – easier development
• Starting out – just a little Spring in your Step.

Section 2: Core Spring and Enterprise Spring Integration

• Spring Web Framework (MVC)
• Spring Web with Struts , JSF , XSLT , Tiles and GWT (Google Web Toolkit)
• Spring and Ajax in Web 2 Applications.
• Spring Webflow
• Spring and Databases (Hibernate and JDBC)
• Spring and Messaging (MQ and JMS)
• Spring Remoting and Web Services
• Aspect Orientated Programming (AOP)
• Transactions in Spring
• Appfuse – ready to roll Spring projects with Maven
• Administration of your Application using Spring and JMX
• Scheduling using Spring and Quartz
• Spring and Acegi Security

Section 3: Practical Spring – make your project more Agile

• The problems with IT Projects
• What is Agile
• Spectrum of Agility
• How Spring makes your project more agile (and your customer happy)
• Key Agile Practices
• Unit Testing with Spring
• Integration Testing
• Mock Objects
• Spring IDE
• Spring and Business Rules
• Spring and Workflow
• Alternative Spring configuration.
• Extending Spring to meet you (obscure) needs.
• What’s new in Spring 2.5 (and coming up for Spring 3)

Audience:

• Managers and Project Managers wishing to understand the benefits of adding Spring to their projects.
• Software developers needing an introduction to Java and the Spring Framework and integration with key Enterprise technologies.
• Support, Database , Web Designers and other IT professionals needing to interface with Spring and Enterprise Java systems.
• .Net developers wishing to understand the concepts behind the Spring.Net framework.

Related Courses:
Enterprise Java (Trigraph) and Agile Project Management (Trigraph)

Prerequisites:
Some high level exposure to the Java, .Net or other Object Orientated language would be beneficial but
not necessary.

1. If you’re in business you need computer systems to support your team. Systems to find previous dealings with a customer, systems to allow your team to work together, systems to stop people finding out things that they shouldn’t.
2. Once your business passes the 100 employee mark and is heading for ‘Enterprise’ scale, chances are you need custom software written just for you, in addition to he ’shrink wrap’ stuff you’ve been able to get away with until now.
3. Most custom Enterprise software is written in (or uses a large element of) Enterprise Java.
4. Enterprise Java is hard to get started with – it’s a big and complex framework because it solves big and complex problems. The Spring framework makes it easy.

OK, so we’re Spring nuts. But nuts only because it’s solved problems for FirstPartners over the last 4 years. What we like:

• Spring allows you to use just enough Enterprise Java to solve your problem
• Spring complements Enterprise Java, not replaces it.
• Spring gives you a gentle slope to using Enterprise technologies.
• Spring works well with Java, Oracle, .Net , (J)Ruby and pretty much any mainstream technology – including most of the widespread Java Frameworks like Struts and Hibernate.

So you wait ages for one Spring Event in Ireland, then two come along at once. We’ve written about Rod Johnson speaking in Dublin on Tue March 11th. Now there is a full day Spring Event in Belfast the day before (March 10th). And it’s sponsored by Momentum NI, so it’s free. And the Hilton Hotel is right beside Belfast Central train station, so it’s easy to get to from Dublin.

The full agenda is here (more details below), but given the importance of Spring to the Enterprise world, and the fact that the top four Spring guys are speaking, we reckon that it the Enterprise event of the year. The booking form is here.

Spring Ireland 2008

Start: 10th March 08:30 End: 10th March 17:30
Hilton Belfast, 4 Lanyon Place, Belfast (Beside Central Train station) SpringSource is proud to announce Spring Ireland 2008. Join us for a free one-day conference with presentations from the SpringSource team including a keynote from Rod Johnson.

Keynote: Spring into the Future – Rod Johnson

The Spring Framework began in 2002 with Rod’s best-selling Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development; one of the most influential books ever published on J2EE, Rod is recognised as one of the world’s leading authorities on Java and J2EE development.With the rapid expansion of SpringSource and move to new corporate HQ in Silicon Valley, this is a rare UK opportunity to hear Rod provide his views and explore the future of J2EE application development.

What’s New in Spring 2.5 – Sam Brannen

Sam is a lead architect at SpringSource and one of the most experienced developers within the organisation.This session provides delegates with an overview of the new features available in Spring 2.5. Specifically, highlighting the simplified and extensible configuration support provided via configuration annotations and new XML configuration namespaces, new Java 6 support, updates to Spring AOP, improved JDBC and JPA support, annotation-driven web MVC controllers, the new annotation-based TestContext framework for unit and integration tests and more!

SpringSource Professional Services – Greg Southey

Greg has built SpringSource’s UK Professional Services organisation into the leading Spring consultancy business in the world.

This is a brief resume of some of the 97 major projects completed by the UK Professional Services team in 2007. Delegates will hear about the business drivers behind some major development projects, the business issues faced and how they were resolved in partnership with the client.

Spring as a Full Stack Web Framework – David Syer

As Principal Consultant at SpringSource, Dave leads the way in the understanding of satisfying business requirements using the Spring Portfolio. His easy manner cloaks a prodigious knowledge of application development.

This session explores the “full stack” web framework trend and answers the question: how does Spring stack up? This session defines what a full-stack web framework is, then provides a fair technical comparison between a Spring-centric web development stack and the alternatives. Delegates will head about the feature-set of modern “full stack” web frameworks, and what Spring has that differentiates itself from the pack.

Spring in Ireland – Ian Graham

Ian Graham, Momentum, will explore the use of Spring in Ireland and introduce case studies from companies who are using the Spring family of products.

Round Table Discussion – Rod Johnson, Rob Harrop, Dave Syer, Sam Brannen & Greg Southey

Your chance to ask Rod and his team anything that’s on your mind regarding Spring!

Details : The blog awards kick off at 7.30pm. So lets do it one hour earlier at 6.30pm. Same venue , Alexander Hotel, has a nice big foyer area. There’s no food at the awards themselves , but the hotel does a waiter service in the lobby if you’re just up ‘from the country’. Just look out for me (I’ve been told I look like my photo on the top right. Which is not a good thing) , or any of the nominees (although I suspect Rowan and Michele aren’t as cartoonish in real life).

You don’t have to be a nominee to come along. Just come along and talk about what has worked for you as a Business Blogger.

Update: I would put good money on Kieran from Ice Cream Ireland turning up in full ice-cream-man gear. Click here to encourage him. It does solve the problem of ‘you-dont-really-look-like-your-photo’.

Get the feeling that I’m a bit of a Spring fanatic? Wasn’t always that way. It took me two projects where other people had choosen Spring to convince me. And did I mention that it’s one of the most in demand skills in the Java world?

Rod Johnson (aka ‘Mr Spring’) is speaking in Dublin at the Westin hotel Dublin on the 11st March. It’s fairly central, and it’s a breakfast briefing, so you don’t even to have to arrange the day off work. More details on the event are on the Kainos Website.

Update: The registration form to sign up for the event is here.

With the Dublin Java Pub Quiz of course (more info).

Tue 15th Jan, 7.30pm, Duke Pub , Duke Street , Dublin (Just off Grafton Street, round corner from M&S).

Surprised?

You’d think that I’d be delighted that the idea of the all the competition leaving. Reality is that all us IT Consultants live in an ecosystem: if companies don’t have a pool of talent available they will find somewhere or some other way of doing it.

All of the 5 guys have very different reasons for going (and they are guys, just to confirm the stereotype). All are going for very positive reasons. They want to go to the UK, USA, France and further afield. Some are going on spec, some have work with top companies lined up. There is a mix of nationalities, but all have been in Ireland for three years or more. These aren’t people who came to Ireland for a working holiday or are leaving do the ‘Big OE’ in New Zealand. They’re also people Ireland can ill-afford to lose.

The common thread in all the stories was that the Irish Property Market; It’s great to have an itch to travel, but you’re never going to leave unless somebody gives you a push. High rents and impossible property prices gave these guys (at least some) of that push.

BBC :

An overturned truck, which took the emergency services six hours to remove, brought large areas of Dublin to a standstill on Monday….One of the worst traffic jams the city has ever seen….the chaos led to a huge build-up of traffic, with a jam on the M1 Belfast-Dublin motorway extending as far back as Skerries, 20 miles north of the city.

RTE:

Traffic eases after truck accident…. Although there was only a marginal impact on early rush hour traffic, there were major delays in late morning.

Can I still donate my 150 quid licence fee to my blogger of choice?

• Bernie Goldbach came all the way from Tipp on the off-chance that he would get 3 minutes with Joel Spoelsky. Given that it’s a 4 and half hour round trip, I’m glad that he got his interview.
• Joel, as ever, was a very good speaker. His message for software developers; soft rounded corners matter. Think iPhone instead of Samsung brick.
• David Syer of Interface 21 was talking about what’s next for Spring (2.5 and 3.0). A lot of good stuff coming up; support for the latest Java Enterprise specs, Webflow , OSGi (deploy bundles , not applications), configuration using annotation instead of XML
• Shaun Smith of Oracle. Covering building JPA Applications (Java and Databases) using Eclipse and Java. Now, I’m not a great fan of Toplink (I prefer Hibernate) , but the open source work including the work on the Eclipse IDE , and it’s support of the JPA (Java Persistence Architecture) standard, and it’s ability to transform Java Ojbects into loads of things (e.g. XML instead of Database Tables) is making me want to take a 2nd look.
• Caught talking in the Lobby : Shaun of Oracle Toplink and Emmanuel Bernard of Hibernate. I was vaugely disappointed these two didn’t come to blows (being from rival projects). There were actually nice to each other and exchanged business cards. Fascinating conversation though …
• James Strachan , Iona and Apache, speaking about messaging patterns. He takes the bean soup that is messaging and integrating your applications and makes it seem really simple. He’s also talking about Apache Camel, ActiveMQ and ServiceMix

Other People Blogging about this:

• Luan O’Carroll , who put a lot of work into making the conference happen.
• The O’Reilly GMT announcement of the Irish Java Conference.
• The Aquarium blogging about the conference “around the corner”.
• Web2Ireland.
• Bill de hOra, who has a good blogpost about the conference.

Links to our JBoss jBPM (Workflow/ Business Process Management) presentation slides to follow shortly …

Here are the top 10 projects that I’m looking forward to checking out.

10) Java and Microsoft SQL Server : It’s still a brave Microsoft person that comes to a Java conference. Shows MS recognition a substantial amount of Java deployments persist their Data to a SQL- Server database.

9) Eclipse STP (and SOA) – Service Orientated Architecture is the buzzword of the year. If anybody can put substance behind the hype , it’s the guys From Iona.

Eclipse JPA and Dali. Hibernate pushed Object Relational Mapping (ORM) to be the standard approach to database access. The manager of the ‘other’ ORM Project (Oracle Toplink) should give a interesting coverage of the tooling developments.

7) Apache Geronimo – by Jeff Genender from Apache Foundation. So long the ‘other’ Open source application server, this is now becoming credible in commercial deployments.
6) Java Update – Simon has been working as a lead Java consultant for Sun Microsystems. He’ll be talking about Java Standard Edition 6 and Java Mobile Edition. But what I’m really interested in is Java Enterprise Edition 5, Scripting, Java Realtime and Java FX.

5) If scripting is your thing fellow Onjava Blogger Dejan Bosanac is also speaking on this subject. He’s talking about Scripting within the JVM, which will be one of the hot topics for 2008.

4) iPhone v JMME – I don’t get the buzz around Mobile (give it another 18 months , we’ll all be running Java Application Servers on the mobile). But many people are interested in it – this talk is how to make you Mobile Java apps as slick as those in the iPhone.

3) JBoss Drools Engine (Drools) – I’ve blogged (a little bit) about Drools before. I’ve also been fortunate enough to hear Mark Proctor speak and you will come out an convinced that the natural home for Business Logic is in the Rule engine.

2) JPA and Hibernate - There is a very strong possibility that Emmanuel Bernard will be returning to Dublin to talk about the Hibernate project that he leads. Having seen his recent talk, and given the level of interest in Hibernate, I expect a strong turnout for this one.

1) Spring 2.5 - Spring has been around for more than 5 years and is making serious inroads in the the Enterprise Java community. Sam Brannen (from Interface21) will give details on the latest on the major update to Spring (2.5) as well as what is planned for the future.

Disclaimer: I’ll be talking about Java Workflow (based on on JBoss jBPM). But compared to these guys, I’m way down on the Z-List of presenters.

Other People Blogging about this:

• Jakub Korab, one of the conference Organisers
• Luan O’Carroll - another conference Organiser
• Web 2 Ireland
• The SPOT Blog.
• Tom Raftery
• Clare Dillon, Microsoft
• Dejan Bosanc’s Personal Blog
• Dr Root
• The Spring Framework Blog

Online or Web checkin means you print your boarding card before you leave home. It means you arrive at the airport , walk straight through security and enjoy a coffee while waiting for your flight to board. For Aer Lingus it’s great on a day trip; print both boarding cards the night before you leave. For BMI there’s a glitch; you cannot print your return boarding card until after you arrive in London.

What? On your busy-day-with-client-not-one-second-to-spare you are expected to start printing pieces of paper. What is worse, you only find this out after you pay your money. Called the Flight Helpdesk ‘we have a lot of people complaining about that Sir’. Mail to BMI customer service, no reply.

The moral of this story is not to complain about BMI (although here’s my Ajax related Rant about Scandanavian Airlines if that’s your thing , or Mulley’s lost baggage saga if you prefer). And yes, I should be glad of a choice of flights to Heathrow (see Limerick Bloggerand Bock the Robber)

No, the moral of the story is that IT systems (yes the geeky bits) can have a huge impact on customers in traditional business (you know, the ones that pay you money). Being the helpful people we are, we’ll even show BMI how to fix this using Business Rules. Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the BMI system code, Someone, a long long time again decided ‘no one will ever want to check in before they leave’ . And now that it’s spaghetti code, it can’t be fixed, leaving a lot of unhappy customers.

Dublin Airport is a mess. It’s more like Ellis Island, even at 5am in the morning – a seething mass of humanity trying to leave Ireland. At least it was better than the last time, with 100’s of school kids going out on ski trips. Did I smell that bad when I was a teenager?

It’s going to get worse before it gets better, as the Terminal (’due 2009′) is bound to get delivered late, overbudget , if it ever gets delivered at all. Here’s how to fix the mess in the meantime, and save billions.

• The Aer Lingus Web Check In is excellent, and free. It means you get to the Airport , and walk straight into the (one) security queue, no messing about. Suggestion: Make everybody check in online for free. We know you can use the web – it’s how you bought your tickets.
• Now that the half the check in desks are no longer needed, clear the floor space so that you no longer have to fight your way to the security queue.
• Share check in desks. Other airports do it. It means that all Desks have a short queue, rather than the Ryanair queue snaking around the building.
• Move all the Restaurants to airside (i.e. after security). Nobody goes to the airport as a ‘day out’ anymore. Change the restaurants so that they can be used only be people that have gone through security. This is half done already – all it would mean is moving the glass partition wall on the top floor of the aiport.
• Get rid of a few shops and make more space for Security. Security is slow, as you often have to wait for people to put on their shoes, belts , coats etc on. If there was more space, these could move aside and let more passengers be screened by the same number of security personnel. If I want shopping , I’ll go to Dundrum.
• Let people pay for FastTrack Security. No, its not fair, but neither is life. Let people with more money than time ‘buy’ a fast track security pass (e.g. as part of buying your ticket online). Use this money to open a new ‘priority’ security gate. The profits could go to having more security people on the existing gates.
• Stop fast-tracking Z-List celebrities. I know of one family (who child was about to explode with a full nappy) only get taken to the head of the security queue because they were behind a minor actor who was (once) on Coronation Street. How does this help the Irish Economy?

A lot of these things are simple. Even the more complicated things could be sorted out with a couple of meetings and a couple of million thrown to whoever complains. Far cheaper than the cost (and delay to the Economy) of a new Terminal.

What is Hibernate? Java programs are like Lego blocks – very 3D with bumps on them to connect together. Database tables to store data are like flat sheets of paper. Hibernate is a bridge between these two very different worlds. In technical terms, it’s called Object-Relational-Mapping (ORM).

Why is it important? Hibernate is the defacto standard in the Java World, and has had huge influence on the most recent version of the EJB spec. There’s a .Net version and even competitors (such as Toplink from Oracle) are moving to the Hibernate way of doing things.

1. We’re Drogheda based and so have an 041 instead of an 01 number. People still have a hangup about calling out of their area code (maybe goes back to the old Dept of Posts and Telegraph Days, if you’re old enough to remember the old Orange Renault 4 Vans).
2. We’re often out of the office (doing important consultant-y things on client sites).

We could use a Virtual Office, but that would be overkill most of the time. Instead we use SkypeIn, which has given us a London number for over a year now (+44 2081 23 2081) for just over 30 Euro. Conor reported today that SkypeIn finally has Dublin numbers available. So after signing up, our new Dublin office is (+353) 01 44 33 123.

We’re fairly open about who we are and what we do (hence this blog post) ; but a lot of people find it reassuring / convenient to be able to use these numbers instead of a mobile.

Update: John Ward makes an important point about the geographic restrictions on the users of these Dublin numbers, and probably (re) started a discussion on ‘what is a Dub?’ (See comments)

So it in Friday’s Irish Times Business section (main part), I was surprised to see Sugar advertising for people for their Dublin European HQ (I obviously missed this press release back in March announcing the opening). The ad in the main part says ‘look at page 19 of the jobs section’. Page 19 exists, but no Sugar CRM ad. Strange.

Michele (him of Blacknight) talks a lot about Sugar CRM, from the hosting point of view.

Update: Link to the Sugar CRM Careers page (includes CRM Jobs in Dublin)

Related posts about meetups, Dublin, and Java events.

As an experiment, we’ve just opened a Dublin IT Contractors Group on Facebook. No matter what the Technology is that you use, you’re welcome to come along and take part.

From Jake, organiser of the Dublin Java User Group.

Subject: Conference Announcement – Call for Speakers

From: Jakub Korab Date: August 15, 2007 06:41 AM R

I am happy to announce what I hope will be the first in a series of major Java events here in Dublin. In conjunction with IrishDev the Dublin JUG will be hosting the Irish Java Technologies Conference in early November. This 2-3 day event aims to bring together the big names in Java right here in Dublin.

We are currently in the process of organizing speakers for the event. If you have any suggestions of technologies/topics that you would like to hear discussed, particular speakers you would like to hear, or would like to present on a topic, please email myself or .

Jake Dublin

JUG Organizer

More details on Jake’s Blog.

More info on the route they took is here.

It’s strange having (by accident) seen the same ship before it left Denmark – that’s a 2 hour Direct flight, can’t imagine how long it took to sail it across the North Sea and around Scotland down to Dublin. I’m just glad we took the plane. This is the original – good condition considering it’s almost a thousand years old.

• Vodafone Broadband internet card – it means I can get the Internet on the train. Living in Drogheda with a lot of clients in Dublin, this means about 10 hours extra a week when I’m now connected.
• Hard Disk TV recorder – most of the good shows are on after 10pm. I’m up early most mornings and that is way past my bedtime.
• A Phil and Ted. You either know what this is , or you don’t , but if you have one you’ll swear by it.

Now I’m going to add a fourth : the Nokia 770 , bought solely on Damien’s recommendation. It’s not a phone , more of a big screen that you can add your existing phone (it connects pretty automatically via bluetooth, and will use any available wireless network). It solves the problem of using internet on your mobile ; before you had to choose between a normal-ish phone with a tiny internet screen, or a large screen but having to hold a brick to your ear to make calls. It’s almost small – about the size of 2 decks of playing cards.

I was getting a bit worried before it arrived as Elly has one and is cursing it, but it solves two problems for me:

1. If on the train / other location, and can’t use my laptop (e.g. I didn’t get a seat and I’m standing up), then I can still get (fairly decent) access to email and other online services (Google Maps, Del.icio.us bookmarks, LinkedIn Social Networking being the ones I’ve tried so far).
2. When I couldn’t be bothered getting out the laptop (e.g. 5 minutes before a meeting), it’s useful for a quick check.

So, it’s not perfect , but it does the job that I want it to do ; for a little over 100 Euro – Bargain. Yes , it could be quicker, but it does a fairly good job of showing most websites (including this blog, the main site and the wiki). It’s a pity it doesn’t have flash, nor play the BBC internet radio , but I’m sure I can get downloads for it. It does do GoogleTalk for free Voip calls and have other internet radio stations. And , if you’re bored you can use it as an MP3 player. Battery life (4hrs) isn’t great, but (a) the charger is very very light and (b) if I need internet that much I’ll use the laptop.

An added bonus is that I’ve been looking around for a simple ‘Contacts Management’ solution. The 770 has one built in , with more that you can download /access online. Not holding my breath that it will solve this problem as well for me (would never have considered a PDA before), but icing on the cake if it does.

As a personal quirk , I like the fact that it’s an open platform (it’s Linux based). What it means for normal people is that there are plenty of 3rd party downloads if there (I’ve added a PDA and a console to monitor web servers) without having to pay through the nose. While I’ve dabbled with development for mobile devices, that wasn’t the main reason for buying this thing.

It will be interesting to see how Conor, Niall , Walter and Gordon are getting on with theirs. And to answer Michele’s question, the email client is ok , but I’ll end up usign Gmail (they’re hosting Firstpartners email , no synch issues.)

Update: Ken also has a review, with real life pictures (give a better flavour of the size of the thing, even though the screen is much sharper in real-life.

To quote the main Seedcamp website:

Seedcamp is where Europe’s top young founders can come together in one place.

From securing funding to developing the right network, young entrepreneurs in Europe face challenges in building globally competitive technology businesses. Through the provision of seed capital and a world class network of mentors, we want to provide a catalyst for Europe’s next generation of entrepreneurs.

We might need to use a different name, but would you be interested in an informal meetup of startups and investors? Given the turn in the property market, would investors be ooking to put their money into the startup technology sector? Where would you like to see it held?

Hello,

I’m sending this email to anyone currently or previously involved in the MSc
in Advanced Software Engineering in UCD. We’re recruiting new students for the coming session. If you know anyone who might be interested, please
forward them the email below.

many thanks

Mel.

The School of Computer Science and Informatics in University College Dublin
invites applications for the MSc in Advanced Software Engineering.
Registration takes place in September 2007; the first module will be held in
December 2007.

This course is ideal for someone working in the software industry who wishes
to develop new skills and gain a postgraduate degree, but who cannot study
fulltime for whatever reason.

A student on this degree takes 6 week-long, intensive modules over a two
year period, followed by a writing a dissertation. Each module takes place
on the UCD campus, while the dissertation work is undertaken off-campus
under the supervision of a UCD academic.

For full details please see
http://www.csi.ucd.ie/Postgraduates/MScAdvancedSoftwareEngineering.html.
Contact the course director directly at mel.ocinneide [at] ucd.ie with any
queries you may have.

Dr. Mel Ó Cinnéide,
School of Computer Science and Informatics, University College Dublin,
Belfield, Dublin 4.
tel: +353 1 7162482 fax: +353 1 2697262
http://csiweb.ucd.ie/Staff/AcademicStaff/meloc

Update: 

• Jakub’s blog post is here. The comment about PHP is wrong . It should read ‘Paul confessed that he is a big fan of PHP due to the number of ready-to-go-solutions out there, then took a lot of flak from the Java developers present’
• Jake’s also posted about how to get the best deal from the Dell website.

Good to see an Irish Organisation ‘get’ the networking possibilities that Web2.0 brings.

Also came up in conversation at Barcamp Belfast – Business Networking International (BNI). Great if you do lots of little sales – e.g. Accountants, Solicitors, IT shops , as the aim is do to cross referrals between close, but not competing , companies.

I’ll (finally) get to OpenCoffee Dublin tomorrow (Thurs 5th July). Will it be better for networking than Investnet, Barcamp or BNI?