In this post I will explain you how to embed a WebForm in a Ning network as a Ning App.

First things first… what is Ning and what is a Ning App?

Ning is an online platform for people to create their own social networks. Ning networks are Facebook like, people can register in your network, make friends, leave messages in peoples “Wall”, share photos, write in a forum, etc. As well as Facebook, Ning created the Ning Apps which allows creators to add extra functionality to their networks.

Okey… and how does WebForms fits in all this stuff?

You can embed a WebForm as a Ning App and allow network-users to submit any kind of information like feedback, polls, product orders, etc !

Note: Currently, the JRapid Community site (which is a Ning network) uses four Ning apps: “Views”, “Widgets”, “Transformers” and “Templates”. These are not WebForms but are Ning Apps created through JRapid.

You can find them in the “Plugins” tab.

Nice ! How simple is to embed a WebForm inside a Ning network?

Extremely easy ! So easy that I will not explain it…

Okey… I will explain it.

Follow the 5-steps creation process as if you were creating another WebForm. Stop in step 5 and look at the bottom, you will see something like this:

Click in the “Do you want to use your forms in Ning?” link.

A form will appear below. Complete it with the name of your Ning network and press ‘Tab’.

Finally, add the Ning App to your network.

You should not have any kind of problems !

This is the result:

Try it !

Don’t doubt to leave comments !

A few weeks ago JRapid released WebForms, which basically allows no programmer users to create and manage web forms in their web pages. The forms you create are stored in an own JRapid project so you can keep your work online and access it whenever you want. Publishing is just a one-click action which automatically deploys your project in JRapid’s scalable servers.

As said above, no programming is required, WebForms are modeled in JML (JRapid Modeling Language) which is plain XML. If your are not much familiarized with XML you can use the “Design” mode which is quite intuitive.

Usually designers depend on programmers to simply add a “Contact me” or “Poll” like forms. I always say, “designers should desing and coders should code”. Of course both should know about each others world but be realist, designers know nothing about server-side programming and coders just don’t have designer’s “eye” !

JRapid WebForms allow designers and low level skill programming users to embed web forms in their pages following a really easy 5-steps guided process.

But, what does it mean embed a form? What does WebForms really do? We are so used to see forms in web pages that it’s common to forget what happens inside ! Having a web form in your page where users can submit information implies having, somewhere around the world, a database to store the data, client-side (browser-side) programming to send the data and server-side programming to store the data in the database. Finally, a simple HTML form which is what final users see.

But… where does these data goes? As I said before, to your personal database in JRapid’s servers. These data can be accessed through your administration’s panel which is automatically created after the form. This panel comes with some cool charts and listings for displaying the data, and if you are a JRapid developer you can embed maps, BI, etc.

Check it ! Hope it helps you to get rid of unskilled PHP developers !

Guice embraces Java’s type safe nature, especially when it comes to features introduced in Java 5 such as generics and annotations. You might think of Guice as filling in missing features for core Java. Ideally, the language itself would provide most of the same features, but until such a language comes along, we have Guice.

Guice helps you design better APIs, and the Guice API itself sets a good example. Guice is not a kitchen sink. We justify each feature with at least three use cases. When in doubt, we leave it out. We build general functionality which enables you to extend Guice rather than adding every feature to the core framework.

Guice aims to make development and debugging easier and faster, not harder and slower. In that vein, Guice steers clear of surprises and magic. You should be able to understand code with or without tools, though tools can make things even easier. When errors do occur, Guice goes the extra mile to generate helpful messages.

For an introduction to Guice and a comparison to new and the factory pattern, see Bob Lee’s video presentation. After that, check out our user’s guide.

The following video is a presentation of Guice in the Google I/O 2009 conference. Are you interested in Guice? Want to know how Google Wave was developed? Play it !

In a now legendary 1995 memo, bill Gates raised the alarm that Microsoft was woefully unprepared for what he termed the “Internet Tidal Wave.” Fast forward 10 years to last October, and Gates blasts out another high-priority e-mail, this time warning of a coming “services wave” of applications available instantly over the Internet. “The next sea change is upon us,” he writes.

Ringing in Gates’ ears must have been the roar of Google — and the Web 2.0 hordes, whose XML-based mash-ups of sites are transforming the Web experience. As Gates observed in that same message, however, SaaS (software as a service) isn’t new. Nor is it restricted to the consumers, developers, and very small businesses that Microsoft is targeting with its customizable Windows Live page and Office Live free Web site and collaboration service.

Continue reading…

And below, Marc Benioff’s (Salesforce.com CEO) response to Larry Ellison:

Hi, another great article taken from the MSDN Architecture Center. All about multitenancy, what is and how multitenant applications are build.

Trust, or the lack thereof, is the number one factor blocking the adoption of software as a service (SaaS). A case could be made that data is the most important asset of any business—data about products, customers, employees, suppliers, and more. And data, of course, is at the heart of SaaS. SaaS applications provide customers with centralized, network-based access to data with less overhead than is possible when using a locally-installed application. But in order to take advantage of the benefits of SaaS, an organization must surrender a level of control over its own data, trusting the SaaS vendor to keep it safe and away from prying eyes.

To earn this trust, one of the highest priorities for a prospective SaaS architect is creating a SaaS data architecture that is both robust and secure enough to satisfy tenants or clients who are concerned about surrendering control of vital business data to a third party, while also being efficient and cost-effective to administer and maintain.

Continue reading…

Hi, I found this article about Cloud Computing in the MSDN Architecture Center. It is clear enough to understand what Cloud Computing is and how to build applications based on this paradigm.

Which Came First: The Cloud or Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing has fired the imaginations of many information-technology (IT) professionals around the world, whether they are small independent software vendors (ISVs), Silicon Valley startups, or large corporations that are looking to cut costs. There seems to be an ever-increasing number of people who look to the Cloud to hit upon the magic bullet that will solve any IT problem.

One interesting aspect of the hype that surrounds cloud computing is the lack of a clear definition as to what cloud computing is and, just as relevant, what it is not. If you were to ask 100 people to define the Cloud and what they believe cloud computing is, you would probably get 150 different answers (some people tend to answer twice, with the first answer contradicting the second). With this in mind, it seems only fitting to begin this article by discussing a general definition for cloud computing.

Continue reading…

Hi, I found this video which is an extract of a 4-day (and US$ 1600) of a Spring’s course. It covers the basics of AOP (Aspect Orientated Programming) and explains the Spring’s approach. It contains lots of code examples and screen records which also helps to better understand the Spring framework.

Taken from the Spring website:

In this highly practical SpringSource course Jeff Brown will teach you how to develop aspects with Spring AOP. This training gives you both theoretical as well as practical knowledge on Spring AOP.

In this training you will be provided with an:

• - Introduction to AOP
• - What problem does AOP solve
• - The Spring AOP approach
• - Defining pointcuts
• - Implementing advice

File: s2university_aop2.mov (open with Quicktime, Itunes, etc…)
Size: 185 mb

Download