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You might remember back in November I won some beautiful boiled wool in Sandra Betzina's coat/jacket contest. The fabric, donated by Stone Mountain and Daughter, is a hard-to-describe royal blue/periwinkle color. (I first referred to it as purple, but it really is more of a royal blue.)
I decided it was fitting to make this fabric up using a Sandra Betzina pattern. I chose Vogue 1198, View B, which I'd been wanting to make since the motorcycle-inspired jacket pattern came out last fall. I also felt it was fitting to purchase the notions from Stone Mountain, who donated the fabric, so I headed off on New Year's Day to buy zippers, thread, and maybe a piece fabric, or two. ;)
I recently reviewed the Palmer/Pletsch DVD, "Full Busted?," and I applied techniques from the DVD to this pattern.
One of the biggest tricks I learned from the DVD is how to prepare a tissue pattern so you can use it as a fitting tool. I usually do a rough fitting using the tissue pattern, and then do a final fitting in a test fabric. Previously, I found it difficult to get a good fit in tissue without ripping it to shreds. The Palmer/Pletsch technique worked fairly well. I did spend much longer than usual fitting the final jacket, but I saved the muslin stage, so it was worthwhile. I certainly knew that the final jacket would be large enough to make fitting possible and that is critical.
Supplies and Notions:
- Royal blue boiled wool from Stone Mountain and Daughter
- Royal blue pebbled Vera Wang silk from FabricMart for the lining. (Purchased last June, originally for another project. I bought this Vera Wang fabric in both pebbled and non-pebbled versions, but the pebbled was closer when I grabbed for it. :) )
- Black, lightweight fusible interfacing
- Scrap of cotton/rayon fabric for interfacing the hem.
- 24" YKK zipper - "Brastique" in black. (The pattern calls for a 20" zipper, but I knew I would be lengthening the jacket as part of the FBA process.)
- Two 7" YKK zippers - "Brastique" in black
- 1/4" Wonder Tape
- Black wool batt from Living Felt.
- Needle felting tools (needles, foam, Janome FM725 felting machine)
Alterations and Modifications:
- Lowered the bust fullness 4.5". (Which was a bit too much, but I was able to fix this when fitting the final fabric version.)
- 3" Princess seam FBA.
- After fine tuning the fit, I decided to omit the gathered back belt.
- Narrowed the cuff 1".
- Removed fullness at the side hip.
- In the final fitting, I removed some of the fullness from under the bust, down to the hip, at the front princess and side seams. On the princess seam, I removed fullness from the side panel only because the bottom of the left front was already quite narrow and I didn't want to interfere with the line.
- Though I am a huge fan of topstitching, I didn't want it for this project. The zipper pockets are supposed to secure the zipper using topstitching, but I hand picked both zippers. This also avoided any risk of needle breakage on the brass teeth of these substantial zippers.
- At the very end, I shaved off 1/2" from each shoulder, before attaching the sleeves.
- The first time I hemmed the jacket, I was not happy with it. It was too unsupported, so, inspired by Ann Rowley, I frogged the hem and made a proper, interfaced hem. The result is so much nicer. :)
Interfaced hem, in progress
More Needle Felting!
Tszuj it up!
As I was working on this jacket, I had the nagging feeling that I needed to tszug it up a bit. I was pondering over various techniques when Annette, one of my favorite reviewers on Pattern Review, and who is participating in the "12 Jackets in 12 Months" sew-along on Stitcher's Guild, became inspired by my needle felted jacket.
The concept of dry felting was new to Annette, but she eagerly jumped into it with both feet, and I advised her on her first order of supplies. She was then gifted with a needle felting machine and, within a week or two, she had completed a new coat, which featured a needle felted collar. I loved the camouflage-style design she created. (The clever girl couldn't wait for her wool roving order to arrive for the coat, so she felted the collar using dryer lint created when she machine washed/dryed the brown Shetland wool.)
She gave me ideas. :)
I immediately ordered the same needle felting machine she was using, a 5-needle Janome FM725, which is for sale on many sites at a clearance price (they have to make way for newer models). I bought mine from Fabric.com, so shipping was free.
While waiting for the machine to arrive, I wanted to get started with the needle felting on my collar and cuffs. I used the black wool batt I bought from Living Felt for my last project. (It as part of their monochrome set, but one of the only colors I did not use for that project.) I played with a free-form technique using both a single needle and the 4-needle tool that I purchased after completing my last project.
I made several samples before I was ready to start on the actual garment pieces. The samples were critical to the process, because I really didn't know what I was doing, but I liked how the samples were turning out, so I felt ready to attack the actual pieces. To prepare the final collar and cuff pieces, I fused interfacing to the back and then proceeded to apply the batt in the "squiggle" free form design that I had practiced.
See? I can do things besides circles. :)
The collar and two cuffs took me an evening to felt. At the end of the evening, I had broken several needles, but the swirls of black batting were fairly securely tacked. The wool was not as "melded" into the fabric as I wanted, but I knew I could accomplish that pretty easily once the felting machine arrived.
You've heard how long it took for the felting machine to arrive, so the project languished a bit. Once it came, I was delighted how quickly I was able to meld the black fibers thoroughly into the collar and cuffs. It's such a satisfying process.
Cuff on top was hand felted. Cuff on bottom after machine felting. I really wanted to meld the fiber into the fabric and was able to accomplish that with the machine.
Finally, the jacket could be finished. But wait, work intruded with an all-weekend emergency. As soon as I delivered my part of that project, I immediately came down with some form of plague and sewing was out of the question. I am still not over it, but am functioning, thank goodness.So I persevered and it's done! WOOT! Jacket #2 is complete, at last. :D
Wearing the collar open
OK, I've bathed, put on make up, but I still look sick. At least I hope that's my sick look. ;)


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Chet Culver
Chester John "Chet" Culver (born January 25, 1966), also widely known as one-time world conquerer Serpentor, is the current Emperor of the U.S. State of Iowa (brought to you by Viagra), having won the 2006 Iowa election and formally sold the naming rights to Pfizer . His shocking rise to power marks the first time two complete morons have simultaneously controlled both the legislative and executive branches of Iowa's government since 1967. Of course, it is purely coincidental that both branches are controlled by Democrats, for there remains plenty of moronic republicans as well. Culver is the first genetically engineered Emperor to replace a genetically engineered Emperor since 1941. He was elected the Federal Liaison of Fascist Party-Pooping Terrorism in 2008 (due to his long standing ties with Cobra).
The Early Years[edit]
Chester was spawned beneath Washington D.C., on January 25, 1966, to commemorate the ten year anniversary of Elvis Presley's first number one single Heartbreak Hotel. His father, Dr. John "Mind-Bender" Culver (Cobra Lieutenant, Musician, and Fast Food Heir) scoured the Earth to find the genetic material to create the perfect son (see Culver's DNA). After leaving Cobra, John Culver went on to be Emperor of Iowa from 1976-1986 and would certainly be Chet's inspiration for later entering into politics. Chester shares a birthday with such famous individuals as Virgina Woolf, William Colgate, and Robert Burn. Mr. Culver also appears to have an unhealthy obsession with the date.
Culver was home schooled by his father and his father's longtime confidant, Cobra Commander. After finishing high school, Chester earned a band scholarship to Colgate University, holding first chair in the concert orchestra, mastering the pan, skin, and all other known forms of flutes. He graduated in 1988 with a B.A. degree in Global Enslavement. Culver would take a part time job as a lobotomist and lobbyist in Washington, lobbying on behalf of The Endangered Species Punchers Of America (ESPA), People for Public Crucifixions (PPC), and The Deadbeat Alcoholic Dad's Defiling Younger-Women Group (DADDY), before leaving the lime-light of the hill to attend law school.
Chet attended law school at Drake University in Des Moines, IA. While at Drake, Culver saw the play Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf and fell fast in love with Broadway. He dropped out of law school to pursue a carer in acting and would receive several auditions for Mentos commercials, midget porn, and driver's education videos, failing to ever land a role. Heartbroken, Culver returned to Drake earning his master's degree in education. He accepted a position at a Des Moines area high school, teaching Political Dictatorship and Interpretive Dance, before first getting his feet wet in the arena of elected public office.
Cutting His Teeth[edit]
To celebrate his thirtieth birthday, Culver, battling a minor cocaine addiction presumably picked up in the days of his midget porn auditions, flew to New York in order to see the Broadway musical Rent. On January 25, 1996, after attending the evening performance, Chet brutally slaughtered Johnathan Larson, the musical's author, on the streets of Manhattan. While in prison, Chester found and lost Islam and went on to meet his lovely wife, Maire Claire, via The Prison Inmate Marital Pen-Pal System (PIMPS). The murder garnered Culver immense popularity with the people of Iowa, who never really cared much for the musical Rent anyway, and they would elect him Secretary of State in 1998 following the completion of his two year sentence for Involuntary Manslaughter.
While Secretary of State, Culver would often look confused and bewildered, but eventually, his genetic predisposition for world domination would take control. Drunk on power and gin, Chet wrote and endorsed The Kitten Smothering Act of 2000, requiring all Iowans to smother felines less than a year old. The legislation passed 90% to 10%. Culver would hold the seat for six years, writing increasingly ridiculous legislation as the years rolled on. In 2005, "Chet" Chester A. Constitution Molester Culver, on advice from his father Dr. Mind-Bender, announced his plan to run for the office on Emperor of the State of Iowa (soon to be brought to you by Viagra). Chester spent most of the next year praying to Jesus that his terrorist funded campaign would hold enough steam to push him into office riding his famous father's coattails.
Culver's Carnage[edit]
In 2006, Chet won the Cobra nomination for Emperor defeating Cobra mainstay Zartan. Running on the campaign slogan "That's Day One Type Shit," Culver vowed for drastic change in the state. He squared off in the Iowa election against incumbent Republican Emperor, Stale Half-eaten Unfrosted Blueberry Pop Tart, as well as Democratic nominee General Syl. E. Hippiepants and Green party member Ralph Nader. Culver went on to win the closest election in Iowa history, with 36% of the vote, defeating Mr. Tart by 2%, Mr. Hippiepants by 16%, and Mr. Nader by 26%. Later that year, Chester took the throne of Emperor and set his master plan for change in motion.
Immediately after entering the Emperor's mansion, Culver showed Iowans exactly what he meant by "Day One Type Shit," as he quit wearing underwear, beheaded the gold medal winners of the Iowa Special Olympics, and passed the Iowa Anti-Smoking Bill. Chet's radical new legislation would prohibit Iowans from indulging in the essence of being smokers, and the act of smoking in public areas, as it relates to smoking cigarettes, hot chicks, cheese, poles, crack, fools, meat, punk-ass bitches, hot pieces of man slab, BBQ, cigars, quick anal sex, and cigarettes for Christ sake. Announcement of the law enraged citizens and resulted in several protests and riots. The Iowans who once loved Culver's fast and loose rouge style of government quickly turned on him.
On January 1, 2008, the Iowa Anti-Smoking Bill went into effect, and Culver would answer all questions concerning it at a town hall meeting in Dubtown, IA. At that meeting, Chester was confronted by Josephine Dubuque (distant relative of Julien Dubuque himself) about his impotence and complete disregard of citizen's rights. He would respond to Josephine by slapping the living shit out of her and pissing on her face. Some eyewitnesses say a large amount of defecation was found on her chest, steaming hot. Culver would flee the city and state in a sense of panic. Josephine had a vendetta to settle and would rally the people of Iowa to hunt down Culver to put his head on a spike. The angry mob began moving east by way of tractor, carrying pitchforks and torches, burning random things that stood in their way, in what the local press has dubbed "Dubuque's March To The Sea." On January 25, 2008, Dubuque's angry mob reached Rockford, IL (less than 60 miles form where they started nearly a month earlier) ; Chet Culver celebrated his 42nd birthday, still at large, somewhere beneath Washington D.C.
- Famous Dates In History January 25
- "Cocaine and Carnage: The Chet Culver Story" By: C.L. Coffman circa. April 1, 2008.

subset: commoncrawl


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This article is more than 1 year old
Hacker's record credit card theft fetches 20-year sentence
Millions pwned
Confessed TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for orchestrating one of the largest thefts of payment card numbers in history.
The sentence, by US District Court Judge Patti Saris, is the lengthiest to be imposed in a US hacking or identity prosecution. Miami-based Gonzalez was also fined $25,000 and still faces restitution charges that could be in the tens of millions of dollars.
Prosecutors told the judge Gonzalez should receive 25 years because he victimized millions of people and cost banks and their insurers as much as $200m. His attorney, Martin Weinberg, challenged that estimate and presented evidence his client suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism.
Last year, Gonzalez pleaded guilty in three separate cases brought in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Thursday's sentence in Boston dealt only with the Massachusetts case. A hearing scheduled for Friday will deal with the other two prosecutions.
Prosecutors said Gonzalez led a gang of hackers who conducted war-driving campaigns that identified retailers with weak wireless networks. They then penetrated those networks and installed sniffer programs that siphoned millions of credit and debit card numbers as they were being zapped to payment processors.
The operation targeted a variety of retailers and restaurants including TJX Cos. and BJ's Wholesale Club, Office Max, Barnes & Noble and Dave & Busters restaurant chain. Thursday's sentence came the same day Dave & Busters agreed to implement a comprehensive security program to settle US Federal Trade Commission charges the restaurant left consumers vulnerable to credit card thieves.
During much of the operation, Gonzalez was an informant for the US Secret Service, for which he earned $75,000 a year. Wired.com has much more here. ®


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Geothermal Science, Inc. offers professional consulting services to the worldwide geothermal industry. Our team of geoscientists and engineers provide professional consulting services on all aspects of geothermal resource assessment and development, geothermal reservoir engineering, field testing of geothermal resources, well test design/supervision/analysis, and numerical modeling of geothermal reservoirs.
Our goal is to help clients to find, assess, develop and manage geothermal resources and projects successfully, sustainably, and profitably.
We have worked on over sixty different geothermal resource areas and operational projects around the world for energy companies, consulting firms, law firms, government agencies, financial institutions, private investors, and exploration drilling companies.
Our range of services cover all aspects of geothermal development. They include:
Read More >
Geothermal Science, Inc. takes an integrated approach to meeting our clients' needs – at any stage of a project.
We bring our clients the latest advances in geothermal technology and the expert application of the latest in scientific software. We also rely on analytical tools, research and our industry knowledge to deliver results.
We've worked on over 80 different geothermal reservoirs in 15 countries while working for energy companies, consulting firms, law firms, government agencies, financial institutions, private investors, and exploration drilling companies.Let's Talk About Yours >


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Nintendo has announced details on the first downloadable content pack for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is called "The Master Trials" and is due out summer.
Here is the full overview of "The Master Trials," via Nintendo:
- Trial of the Sword: By accessing this location, players can challenge the new Trial of the Sword (previously known as "Cave of Trials Challenge"), where enemies appear one after another. Link starts without any armor or weapons, and if he defeats all of the enemies in the room he can proceed to the next area. Trial of the Sword will include around 45 total rooms for players to complete. When Link clears all of the trials, the true power of the Master Sword will awaken and always be in its glowing powered-up state.
- Hard Mode: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is already considered one of the most thrilling games in The Legend of Zelda series, and fans looking for a challenge are in for a treat with the new Hard Mode. In Hard Mode, the "ranks" of enemies in the game are increased (i.e. Red Bokoblins change to Blue), and players might even encounter higher-ranking enemies they wouldn't find through normal play. Enemies will also slowly recover health in battle, forcing you to defeat them more quickly. They will also more easily spot Link as he approaches them, making these enemies tougher to sneak up on. In addition, floating planks held aloft by balloons will be scattered around Hyrule. By successfully reaching these planks, players can battle enemies and collect treasure.
- Hero's Path Mode: Exploring Hyrule is exciting, but with such a large world it's sometimes hard for players to remember where they've been. To help with tracking progress, the new Hero's Path Mode will document every step players take, and mark their path in green on the map. The route taken will be tracked for the player's last 200 hours of play time, with an included slider to track footsteps on a timeline. This even works retroactively, so players that have already put many hours into the game will be able to see where they have traveled. This feature will help in identifying the locations they haven't visited in this vast world, and may help players find those Shrines they haven't encountered yet.
- Travel Medallion: There will be a new treasure chest somewhere in the game world which contains the Travel Medallion. With the Travel Medallion, players can create a temporary new travel point on the map where they are currently standing. Link can then transport himself to that point at any time. Only one travel point can be registered on the map at a time.
- Korok Mask: By finding the new Korok Mask, players will have a much easier time finding Korok locations in the game. When equipped, the mask will shake, indicating that a Korok is hidden somewhere nearby.
- New Equipment: Eight new pieces of equipment inspired by previous characters and games in the series will be added to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild after downloading the first DLC pack. Once discovered by the player, they will yield equipment themed after fan-favorite games and characters such as Midna, Tingle, Phantom and Majora's Mask.
"The Master Trials" will only be available as part of an "Expansion Pass" bundle for $19.99, which also includes a second downloadable content pack to be revealed in the future and released this holiday.
Outside of the downloadable content, Nintendo announced that starting today, players will be able to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in one of nine audio languages (Japanese, English, France French, Canada French, German, Spain Spanish, Latin America Spanish, Italian and Russian), with a different language used for on-screen text, by downloading a free software update on Switch, and by downloading the "Voice Pack" from the Nintendo eShop on Wii U.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is available now for Switch and Wii U.
View the first screenshots of "The Master Trials" at the gallery.
- ❮
- ❯


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Welcoming Reception
Upon entering our office, our smiling receptionists, Jessica and Lisa, will greet you. They are always more than happy to assist you with anything you need including the making or changing of appointments, treatment plan questions, and insurance or billing concerns. Our office puts great priority in open communication with our patients.
We call for 2 week notification for all hygiene related appointments to give you adequate time to make sure all appointments work with your demanding schedule. You will also receive a 48 hour confirmation call to assure we will see you at the correct day and time.
Child Friendly Facilities
For the past 20 years our office has created a kid-centered environment that is geared to make your child feel welcome as soon as they step into our office. Our waiting room has a ton of entertainment choices including 2 video-game systems, toys, books, and a 250 gallon fish tank.
Our facility is an open air floor plan with treatment bays for a spacious feel. Each bay has it's very own television equipped with cable channels including Disney, Nickelodeon, and Nick Jr.
Every child also has the opportunity to enter for our monthly prize basket!
State of the Art Technology
The staff stays on the cutting edge of dentistry and dental technologies by continuously taking continuing education courses and trainings. Our office offers state of the art technology including digital radiography and laser dentistry.


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Now Servicing All Tesla Models
Think of how much abuse your brakes take. Day in and day out, they stop your vehicle when it's going fast and when it's going slow. Maybe your vehicle has been vibrating when you brake, or maybe it seems like your stopping distance is a little bit longer than it used to be.
Then it's time to get your brakes checked out. After all, you have to be able to stop if you want to be safe. Nearly all newer vehicles have disc brakes on the front, and many have that type of brake on all four wheels. That makes it likely you'll be getting disc brakes fixed at some time in your vehicle's lifetime.
Knowing how disc brakes work is as easy as riding a bicycle. If your bike had hand brakes, you'll probably remember a mechanism that squeezed a couple of pads on each side of your bicycle wheel when you applied the brakes. Disc brakes are similar; but instead of the bike wheel, there's a metal disc instead. If that disc is warped or has irregularities in it, it's going to vibrate.
It used to be that rotors were thick, and when they warped, a technician could "turn" them to scrape off a layer of metal so their sides were straight again. The latest vehicles are using thinner, lighter rotors with a slightly different construction. Now, it's likely that rotors that are resurfaced this way will not have enough metal left to work safely. In fact, some manufacturers advise only replacing rotors that are worn out.
Newer designs have reduced rotor prices, and in many cases, the labor cost of turning the rotors is higher than buying new. There are times, though, where your rotors can be resurfaced and still meet manufacturer specifications.
If you have a rotor replaced on one side of your vehicle, it might be a good idea to replace rotors on the other side, too.
Maybe you're looking for the new rotors to last longer than the ones that were on there. New technologies can offer a longer lifespan in a premium rotor. Armed with knowing the type of driving you do, you and your Mackert Automotive LLC service advisor can make the best decision on which direction you want to go with your new brakes.
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Holiday presents will soon be under the tree for millions of adolescents. With those gifts may come sibling squabbles over violations of personal space, such as unwanted borrowing of a fashionable clothing item, or arguments over fairness, such as whose turn it is to play a new video game.
Those squabbles represent two specific types of sibling conflict that can have different effects on a youth's emotional health, according to a multi-year study by a University of Missouri psychologist. With these findings, parents can learn how to bring peace to the home and encourage their children's healthy psychological development.
"Our results show that conflicts about violations of personal space and property are associated with greater anxiety and lower self-esteem one year later in life," said Nicole Campione-Barr, MU assistant professor of psychological science in the College of Arts and Science. "Conflicts over issues of equality and fairness are correlated to greater depression one year later."
Campione-Barr and her colleagues studied 145 pairs of mostly European-American, middle-class siblings for one year. The average ages for the pairs were 15 and 12 years. The teens rated different topics of possible conflict, noting the frequency and intensity of the arguments. The arguments were organized into two categories: violations of personal domain or conflicts over fairness and equality. The study then examined correlations among the arguments and teens' reports of depressed mood, anxiety and self-esteem after one year.
"Although parents may be inclined to step in as arbiters, previous research has found that parents' interventions into adolescent sibling conflict can be detrimental," said Campione-Barr. "In concert with those prior findings, we believe our research suggests that setting household rules such as 'knock before entering a sibling's room,' can be the best means for parents to resolve disputes and avoid appearing to play favorites. A calendar of chores and defined time limits for turns with a video game can help reduce conflicts over fairness. However, if a parent notes that one child consistently gets the short end of the stick, action should be taken to ensure one child isn't being too subordinate. Also, if most sibling interactions become intense conflicts, a family should seek professional help, especially if violence is involved."
Campione-Barr noted that one limitation to her study was that it was largely constrained in its demographic scope to white, middle-class Americans. Other cultures and economic classes may have a different relationshipsdifferent relationships among privacy, fairness and emotional well-being. Although adolescents in some households may not have their own rooms, they still need some degree of respect for personal space from both parents and siblings. For example, parents and siblings should respect the private nature of children's diaries.
"The next step in our research will be to examine the positive aspects of relationships among adolescent siblings and parents," said Campione-Barr. "Strong, healthy family relationships are immensely beneficial later in life. For example, there are things people will tell their siblings that they would never tell their parents, or possibly even friends. We are currently studying disclosure and levels of trust among parents, siblings and peers."


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WebSphere Application Server 7.0 Administration Guide
As a J2EE (Enterprise Edition) administrator, you require a secure, scalable, and resilient infrastructure to support and manage your J2EE applications and service-oriented architecture services.
The WebSphere suite of products from IBM provides many different industry solutions and WebSphere Application Server is the core of the WebSphere product range from IBM.
WebSphere is optimized to ease administration and improve runtime performance. It runs your applications and services in a reliable, secure, and high-performance environment to ensure that your core business opportunities are not lost due to application or infrastructure downtime.
Whether you are experienced or new to WebSphere, this book will provide you with a cross-section of WebSphere Application Server features and how to configure these features for optimal use. This book will provide you with the knowledge to build and manage performance-based J2EE applications and service-oriented architecture (SOA) services, offering the highest level of reliability, security, and scalability.
Taking you through by examples, you will be shown the different methods for installing
WebSphere Application Server and will be shown how to configure and prepare WebSphere resources for your application deployments. The facets of data-aware and message-aware applications are explained and demonstrated, giving the reader real-world examples of manual and automated deployments.
WebSphere security is covered in detail showing the various methods of implementing federated user and group repositories. Key administration features and tools are introduced, which will help WebSphere administrators manage and tune their WebSphere implementation and applications. You will also be shown how to administer your WebSphere server standalone or use the new administrative agent, which provides the ability to administer multiple installations of WebSphere Application Server using one single administration console.
also read:
What This Book Covers
Chapter 1, Installing WebSphere Application Server covers how to plan and prepare your WebSphere installation and shows how to manually install WebSphere using the graphical installer and how to use a response file for automated silent installation. The fundamentals of application server profiles are described and the administrative console is introduced.
Chapter 2, Deploying your Applications explains the make-up of Enterprise Archive (EAR) files, how to manually deploy applications, and how Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) is used in the configuration of resources. Connecting to databases is explained via the configuration of Java database connectivity (JDBC) drivers and data sources used in the deployment of a data-aware application.
Chapter 3, Security demonstrates the implementation of global security and how to federate lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) and file-based registries for managing WebSphere security. Roles are explained where users and groups can be assigned different administrative capabilities.
Chapter 4, Administrative Scripting introduces ws_ant, a utility for using apache Ant
build scripts to deploy and configure applications. Advanced administrative scripting is demonstrated by using the wsadmin tool with Jython scripts, covering how WebSphere deployment and configuration can be automated using the extensive WebSphere Jython scripting objects.
Chapter 5, WebSphere Configuration explains the WebSphere installation structure and key XML files, which make up the underlying WebSphere configuration repository. WebSphere logging is covered showing the types of log and log settings that are vital for administration. Application Server JVM settings and class loading are explained.
Chapter 6, WebSphere Messaging explains basic Java message service (JMS) messaging concepts and demonstrates both JMS messaging using the default messaging provider and WebSphere Message Queuing (MQ) along with explanations of message types. Use of Queue Connection Factories, Queues, and Queue Destinations are demonstrated via a sample application.
Chapter 7, Monitoring and Tuning shows how to use TivoliPerformance Monitor, request metrics, and JVM tuning settings to help you improve WebSphere performance and monitor the running state of your deployed applications.
Chapter 8, Administrative Features covers how to enable the administrative agent for
administering multiple application servers with a central administrative console. IBM HTTP Server and the WebSphere plug-in are explained.
Chapter 9, Administration Tools demonstrates some of the shell-script-based utilities vital to the WebSphere administrator for debugging and problem resolution.
Chapter 10, Product Maintenance shows how to maintain your WebSphere Application Server by keeping it up-to-date with the latest fix packs and feature packs.
WebSphere Messaging
Messaging in a large enterprise is common and a WebSphere administrator needs to understand what WebSphere Application Server can do for Java Messaging and/or WebSphere Message Queuing (WMQ) based messaging. Here, we will learn how to create Queue Connection Factories (QCF) and Queue Destinations (QD) which we will use in a demonstration application where we will demonstrate the Java Message Service (JMS) and also show how WMQ can be used as part of a
messaging implementation.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- Java messaging
- Java Messaging Service (JMS)
- WebSphere messaging
- Service integration bus (SIB)
- WebSphere MQ
- Message providers
- Queue connection factories
- Queue destinations
Java messaging
Messaging is a method of communication between software components or applications. A messaging system is often peer-to-peer, meaning that a messaging client can send messages to, and receive messages from, any other client. Each client connects to a messaging service that provides a system for creating, sending, receiving, and reading messages. So why do we have Java messaging? Messaging
enables distributed communication that is loosely-coupled. What this means is that a client sends a message to a destination, and the recipient can retrieve the message from the destination. A key point of Java messaging is that the sender and the receiver do not have to be available at the same time in order to communicate.
The term communication can be understood as an exchange of messages between software components. In fact, the sender does not need to know anything about the receiver; nor does the receiver need to know anything about the sender. The sender and the receiver need to know only what message format and what destination to use. Messaging also differs from electronic mail (email), which is a method of communication between people or between software applications and people.
Messaging is used for communication between software applications or software components. Java messaging attempts to relax tightly-coupled communication (such as, TCP network sockets, CORBA, or RMI), allowing software components to communicate indirectly with each other.
Java Message Service
Java Message Service (JMS) is an application program interface (API) from Sun. JMS provides a common interface to standard messaging protocols and also to special messaging services in support of Java programs. Messages can involve the exchange of crucial data between systems and contain information such as event notification and service requests. Messaging is often used to coordinate programs in dissimilar systems or written in different programming languages. By using the JMS interface, a programmer can invoke the messaging services like IBM's WebSphere MQ (WMQ) formerly known as MQSeries, and other popular messaging products. In addition, JMS supports messages that contain serialized Java objects and messages that contain XML-based data.
A JMS application is made up of the following parts, as shown in the following diagram:
- A JMS provider is a messaging system that implements the JMS interfaces and provides administrative and control features.
- JMS clients are the programs or components, written in the Java programming language, that produce and consume messages.
- Messages are the objects that communicate information between JMS clients.
- Administered objects are preconfigured JMS objects created by an administrator for the use of clients. The two kinds of objects are destinations and Connection Factories (CF).
As shown in the diagram above, administrative tools allow you to create destinations and connection factories resources and bind them into a Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) API namespace. A JMS client can then look up the administered objects in the namespace and establish a logical connection to the same objects through the JMS provider.
JMS features
Application clients, Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), and Web components can send or synchronously receive JMS messages. Application clients can, in addition, receive JMS messages asynchronously. A special kind of enterprise bean, the message-driven bean, enables the asynchronous consumption of messages. A JMS message can also participate in distributed transactions.
JMS concepts
The JMS API supports two models:
Point-to-point or queuing model
As shown below, in the point-to-point or queueing model, the sender posts messages to a particular queue and a receiver reads messages from the queue. Here, the sender knows the destination of the message and posts the message directly to the receiver's queue. Only one consumer gets the message. The producer does not have to be running at the time the consumer consumes the message, nor does the consumer need to be running at the time the message is sent. Every message successfully processed is acknowledged by the consumer. Multiple queue senders and queue receivers can be associated with a single queue, but an individual message can be delivered to only one queue receiver. If multiple queue receivers are listening for messages on a queue, Java Message Service determines which one will receive the next message on a first-come-first-serve basis. If no queue receivers are listening on the queue, messages remain in the queue until a queue receiver attaches to the queue.
Publish and subscribe model
As shown by the above diagram, the publish/subscribe model supports publishing messages to a particular message topic. Unlike the point-to-point messaging model, the publish/subscribe messaging model allows multiple topic subscribers to receive the same message. JMS retains the message until all topic subscribers have received it. The Publish & Subscribe messaging model supports durable subscribers, allowing you to assign a name to a topic subscriber and associate it with a user or application. Subscribers may register interest in receiving messages on a particular message topic.
In this model, neither the publisher nor the subscriber knows about each other.
By using Java, JMS provides a way of separating the application from the transport layer of providing data. The same Java classes can be used to communicate with different JMS providers by using the JNDI information for the desired provider. The classes first use a connection factory to connect to the queue or topic, and then populate and send or publish the messages. On the receiving side, the clients then receive or subscribe to the messages.
The JMS API is provided in the Java package javax.jms. Below are the main interfaces provided in the javax.jms package:
Messaging applications use the above listed interfaces in the Java code to implement JMS. The demo JMS Test Tool application contains code which you can look into to see how the above interfaces are used. We will cover the JMS Test Tool later in the chapter when we demonstrate how to deploy an application which uses messaging.
WebSphere messaging
WebSphere Application Server implements two main messaging sub-systems. The default-messaging-provider is internal to WebSphere and the WebSphere MQ messaging provider which uses WebSphere MQ. First, we will cover the default messaging provider which is implemented by using a SIB. Then, we will move onto the WebSphere MQ messaging provider. To demonstrate use of the SIB and the default Messaging provider, we will deploy an application which will use JMS via the SIB. Before we deploy the application, we will need to set up the JMS resources required for the application to implement Java messaging using the Java Message Service (JMS).
Default JMS provider
WebSphere Application Server comes with a default JMS provider as part of its installation and supports messaging through the use of the JMS. The default JMS provider allows applications deployed to WAS to perform asynchronous messaging without the need to install a third-party JMS provider. This is a very useful feature which runs as part of the WebSphere Application Server. The default JMS provider is utilized via the SIB and you can use the Administrative console to configure the SIB and JMS resources.
Enterprise applications use JMS CF to connect to a service integration bus. Applications use queues within the SIB to send and receive messages. An application sends messages to a specific queue and those messages are retrieved and processed by another application listening to that queue. In WebSphere, JMS queues are assigned to queue destinations on a given SIB. A queue destination is where messages can be persisted over time within the SIB. Applications can also use topics for messages. Applications publish messages to the topics. To receive messages, applications subscribe to topics. JMS topics are assigned to topic spaces on the bus. The JMS topics are persisted in the SIB and accessed via appropriate connection factories which applications use to gain access to the bus.
The following table gives a quick overview of the types of resource available for configuring JMS resources for the Default JMS provider running in the SIB.
WebSphere SIB
Before our applications can be installed and set up to use the default messaging provider, we must create a service integration bus. In a way, the SIB provides the backbone for JMS messaging when you are using the default provider. The default provider is internal to WebSphere Application Server and no third-party software is required utilize it.
A service integration bus supports applications using message-based and service-oriented architectures. A bus is a group of interconnected servers and clusters that have been added as members of the bus. Applications connect to a bus at one of the messaging engines associated with its bus members.
Creating a SIB
To create a Service Integration Bus (SIB), log into the admin console and navigate to the Service integration section within the lefthand side panel and click on Buses,
as shown in the following screenshot:
Click New to enter the Create a new Service Integration Bus page where we will begin our SIB creation. Type InternalJMS in the Enter the name of your new bus field and uncheck the Bus security checkbox as shown below and then click Next.
On the next screen, you will be prompted to confirm your SIB settings. Click Finish to complete the creation of the SIB. Once the wizard has completed, click Save to retain your configuration change. You will be returned to a screen which lists the available SIBs installed in your WebSphere configuration. Now that the SIB has been created, you can click on the SIB name to configure settings and operation of the SIB. We will not be covering managing a SIB in this book as it is beyond our scope. All we need to do is create a SIB so we can demonstrate an application using the default JMS provider which requires a SIB to operate.
To complete the configuration, we must add an existing server as a member to the SIB so that we have a facility for message persistence. The SIB is just a service integration bus, almost like a connecting conduit, however we need and actual members, which in our case will be our application server called server1, which contain the actual implementation for the message store.
To add a server as a bus member, click on the bus name called InternalJMS in the SIB list and then navigate to the Topology section and click Bus members as shown below.
You will now be presented with a screen where you can add bus members. Click Add and you will be able to select the server you wish to add as a member to the bus. You will notice that the server is already pre-selected as shown below.
Click Next to the final screen, where you will select the File store option from the option group field labeled Choose type of message store for the persistence of message state. Click Next to view the next configuration page where we will use the page defaults. Click Next to enter the Tune performance parameters page where we will also use the defaults. Clicking Next again will take you to the final summary page where you will click Finish to finalize adding the application server as a bus member. Click Save to retain the changes. You will now see the application server called server1 listed as a bus member. Now we can move on to configure the JMS resources.
Configuring JMS
Once we have created a SIB, we can configure JMS resources. The types of resources we need to create depend entirely upon the application you are deploying. In our demo JMS application, we are going to demonstrate putting a message on a queue using a sending Servlet which places messages on a queue, known as the sender, and then demonstrate receiving a message on the receiving Servlet, known as the receiver. This exercise will give you a detailed enough overview of a simple implementation of JMS. To continue, we will need to set up a queue connection factory which the application will use to connect to a message queue and an actual queue which the application will send messages to and receive messages from.
Creating queue connection factories
To create a queue connection factory, navigate to the Resources section of the left-hand-side panel in the Administrative console and click Queue connection factories from the JMS category as shown below.
Select a scope of cell from the cell-scope pick-list and then click New to create a new
QCF. In the Select JMS resource provider screen as shown below, select Default messaging provider from the available provider options and click OK.
On the next page, you will be asked to fill in configuration settings for the QCF. We will only need to fill in a few fields. As shown below, type QCF.Test in the Name field, jms/QCF.Test in the JNDI name field and select the bus called InternalJMS
from the Bus name field.
Click Apply and then Save when prompted to do so in order to retain the changes.
You will now see the QCF listed in the list of configured QCF.
Creating queue destinations
To create a queue, we will follow a similar process to creating a QCF. Select Queues from the JMS category located in the Resources section found in the left-hand-side panel of the Admin console.
Select Default messaging provider from the list of messaging providers and then click on OK to enter the queue configuration page.
On the queue configuration page, enter Q.Test in the Name field and jms/Q.Test in the JNDI name field.
Select InternalJMS from the Bus name field found in the Connection section and select Create Service Bus destination from the Queue name field and click Apply. You will then be prompted to create a queue destination.
In the Create a new queue for point-to-point messaging screen, type QD.Test in the identifier field and click Next.
In the following screen of the wizard labelled Assign the queue to a bus member, you will see that server1 sis already pre-selected in the field called Bus member. The bus mentioned in the Bus member field is where the actual queue destination will be created Clicking Next will present you with the final step, a summary screen where you can click Finish and then Save to retain your queue configuration.
To view your queue destination, you need to select the bus called InternalJMS from the list of buses found by navigating to the Service integration section of the left-hand-side panel from the Admin console and then click Buses. You will recognize this screen as the main bus configuration page we used when we created the SIB. Click the Destinations link located in the Destination resources section shown in the Destinations page as shown in the screenshot below.
You will then be presented with a list of queue destinations in the SIB.
To create Topics Connection Factories (TCF) and Topic Destinations (TD) for publish/subscribe messaging, you can follow a similar process. Publish/subscribe messaging will not be demonstrated in this book; however, you can use the process defined for creating QCF and QD as an example of how to create TCF and TD.
Installing the JMS demo application
To demonstrate the use of QCF and QD in the SIB, we will manually deploy an EAR file which contains two servlets that can be used to test JMS configurations.
The JMS Test Tool application is a web application which provides a controller Servlet, which will process requests from an input page, which allows a user to put a simple message on a queue then get the message. The application is not industrial strength; however, it goes a long way to demonstrating the basics of JMS. The application can be downloaded from www.packtpub.com and it also contains all the source code, so you can look into the mechanics of simple JMS programming. We will not explain the code in this chapter as it detracts from administration; however, feel free to change the code and experiment in your learning of JMS.
After you have downloaded the JMSTester.ear file to your local machine, use the Admin console to deploy it using the instructions in Chapter 2 as a guide. We will take you through some screens to ensure you correctly configure the appropriate resources as part of the installation.
When you start the installation (deployment) of the EAR file, ensure you select the option called Detailed from the How do you want to install the application? section on the Preparing for the application installation screen as shown below to expose the configuration steps required by the EAR file, otherwise you will be given the default JMS configuration and you might not understand how JMS has been configured in the application. Another good reason for selecting the Detailed option is that the wizard will present extra screens which will allow you to optionally override the JNDI mappings for resource references.
On the Install New Application screen, change the application name to JMS Test Tool, and then keep clicking Next until you come to Step 6, the Bind message destination references to administered objects page. When you get to this page, type jms/Q.Test in the Target Resource JNDI Name field, which means you want to bind the application's internal resource reference called jms/Queue to the WebSphere configured JMS queue destination called jms/Q.Test (which we created earlier) as shown below.
Using this level of JNDI abstraction means that the application does not need to know the actual JMS implementation technology, which in this case happens to be the internal WebSphere Default JMS provider. Click Next to proceed to the next step of the wizard. The next screen of the wizard will be the Map resource references to resources screen where you will be given the option of binding the applications JNDI resource declarations to the actual JNDI implementation as configured in WebSphere. In the image below you can see that the application has been configured to point to a QCF called jms/QCF, however in our configuration of WebSphere we have called our connection factory jms/QCF.Test. Type jms/QCF.Test into the Target Resource JNDI Name field.
This concept of abstraction which WebSphere offers to J2EE applications which utilize indirect JNDI naming is a very powerful and very important part of configuring enterprise applications. Using indirect JNDI allows for the decoupling of the application from the application server actual implementation of JMS. The application is then pointed to the JNDI which it will use to look up the actual resource reference that has been configured in WebSphere. So, in simple words, the administrator decides what messaging sub-system the application will be using and is transparent to the application.
We have now completed the configuration elements that require user intervention, so we can keep clicking Next until the application wizard is complete. If you get any warning as shown below, you can ignore it; the warnings come up due to WebSphere telling you that you have configured the QCF and queue destinations at cell level, and that other applications could be referencing them as well. Just click Continue to move on to the next steps.
When you come to the Context root page, take note that the EAR file has been configured to use JMSTester as the web applications context root. We will leave this as defaulted for our demonstration; however, you could override it by typing in another context root. When you get to the Summary page of the wizard, click on Finish and Save to retain the applications deployment.
JMS Test Tool application
The JMS Test Tool application provides a simple test harness to send and receive messages to and from queues. The application can be downloaded from http://www.packtpub.com. To launch the deployed application, you can use the following URL:
If the application is deployed and has started error-free, you will be presented with the JMS Test Tool interface, which is a set of three HTML frames, as shown below.
The main frame is the top-most frame where you enter a test message as shown below. The left-hand-side bottom frame provides help on how to use the tool, and the right-hand-side frame will show the results of a send or get message action.
If you click Put Message, you will see that the left-hand-side bottom frame displays the status of the message being sent as shown below. Each time you click Put Message, a new message will be put on the queue.
If you click Get Message, you will see that the left-hand-side bottom frame displays the contents of a given message retrieved from the queue as shown below.
Each time you click Get Message, the next message will be read from the queue until there are no more messages.
You can use this application to test both JMS and local MQ queue managers. This concludes our overview of using JMS and the default messaging provider.
WebSphere MQ overview
WebSphere MQ formerly known as MQ Series is IBM's enterprise messaging solution. In a nutshell, MQ provides the mechanisms for messaging both in point-to-point and publish-subscribe. However, it guarantees to deliver a message only once. This is important for critical business applications which implement messaging. An example of a critical system could be a banking payments system where messages contain messages pertaining to money transfer between banking systems, so guaranteeing delivery of a debit/credit is paramount in this context. Aside from guaranteed delivery, WMQ is often used for messaging between dissimilar systems and the WMQ software provides programming interfaces in most of the common languages, such as Java, C, C++, and so on. If you are using WebSphere, then it is common to find that WMQ is often used with WebSphere when WebSphere is hosting message-enabled applications. It is important that the WebSphere administrator understands how to configure WebSphere resources so that application can be coupled to the MQ queues.
Overview of WebSphere MQ example
To demonstrate messaging using WebSphere MQ, we are going to re-configure the previously deployed JMS Tester application so that it will use a connection factory which communicates with a queue on a WMQ queue manager as opposed to using the default provider which we demonstrated earlier.
Installing WebSphere MQ
Before we can install our demo messaging application, we will need to download and install WebSphere MQ 7.0. A free 90-day trial can be found at the following URL:
Click the download link as shown below.
Similar to Chapter 1, you will be prompted to register as an IBM website user before you can download the WebSphere MQ Trial. Once you have registered and logged in, the download link above will take you to a page which lists download for different operating systems.
Select WebSphere MQ 7.0 90-day trial from the list of available options as
shown below.
Click continue to go to the download page. You may be asked to fill out a questionnaire detailing why you are evaluating WebSphere MQ (WMQ). Fill out the question as you see fit and submit to move to the download page.
As shown above, make sure you use the IBM HTTP Download director as it will
ensure that your download will resume, even if your Internet loses a connection.
If you do not have a high-speed Internet connection, you can try downloading a free 90-day trial of WebSphere MQ 7.0 overnight while you are asleep.
Download the trial to a temp folder, for example c:\temp, on your local machine. The screenshot above shows how the IBM HTTP Downloader will prompt for a location where you want to download it to. Once the WMQ install file has been downloaded, you can then upload the file using an appropriate secure copy utility like Winscp to an appropriate folder like /apps/wmq_install on your Linux machine. Once you have the file uploaded to Linux, you can then decompress the file and run the installer to install WebSphere MQ.
Running the WMQ installer
Now that you have uploaded the WMQv700Trial-x86_linux.tar file on your Linux machine, and follow these steps:
- You can decompress the file using the following command:
gunzip ./WMQv700Trial-x86_linux.tar.gz - Then run the un-tar command:
tar -xvf ./ WMQv700Trial-x86_linux.tar - Before we can run the WMQ installations, we need to accept the license agreement by running the following command:
./mqlicense.sh –accept - To run the WebSphere MQ installation, type the following commands:
rpm -ivh MQSeriesRuntime-7.0.0-0.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh MQSeriesServer-7.0.0-0.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh MQSeriesSamples-7.0.0-0.i386.rpm - As a result of running the MQSeriesServer installation, a new user called mqm was created. Before running any WMQ command, we need to switch to this user using the following command:
su – mqm - Then, we can run commands like the dspmqver command which can be run to check that WMQ was installed correctly. To check whether WMQ is installed, run the following command:
The result will be the following message as shown in the screenshot below:
Creating a queue manager
Before we can complete our WebSphere configuration, we need to create a WMQ queue manager and a queue, then we will use some MQ command line tools to put a test message on an MQ queue and get a message from an MQ queue.
- To create a new queue manager called TSTDADQ1, use the following command:
crtmqm TSTDADQ1 - The result will be as shown in the image below.
- We can now type the following command to list queue managers:
dspmq - The result of running the dspmq command is shown in the image below.
- To start the queue manager (QM), type the following command:
strmqm - The result of starting the QM will be similar to the image below.
- Now that we have successfully created a QM, we now need to add a queue called LQ.Test where we can put and get messages.
- To create a local queue on the TSTDADQ1 QM, type the following commands in order:
runmqsc TSTDADQ1 - You are now running the MQ scripting command line, where you can issue MQ commands to configure the QM.
- To create the queue, type the following command and hit Enter:
define qlocal(LQ.TEST) - Then immediately type the following command:
end - Hit Enter to complete the QM configuration, as shown by the following screenshot.
You can use the following command to see if your LQ.TEST queue exists.
echo "dis QLOCAL(*)" | runmqsc TSTDADQ1 | grep -i test
You have now added a local queue called Q.Test to the TSTDADQ1 queue manager.
runmqsc TSTDADQ1 DEFINE LISTENER(TSTDADQ1.listener) TRPTYPE (TCP) PORT(1414) START LISTENER(TSTDADQ1.listener) End
You can type the following command to ensure that your QM listener is running.
ps -ef | grep mqlsr
The result will be similar to the image below.
To create a default channel, you can run the following command.
runmqsc TSTDADQ1 DEFINE CHANNEL(SYSTEM.ADMIN.SVRCONN) CHLTYPE(SVRCONN) End
We can now use a sample MQ program called amqsput which we can use to put and get a test message from a queue to ensure that our MQ configuration is working before we continue to configure WebSphere.
Type the following command to put a test message on the LQ.Test queue:
/opt/mqm/samp/bin/amqsput LQ.TEST TSTDADQ1
Then you can type a test message: Test Message and hit Enter; this will put a message on the LQ.Test queue and will exit you from the AMQSPUTQ command tool.
Now that we have put a message on the queue, we can read the message by using the MQ Sample command tool called amqsget. Type the following command to get the message you posted earlier:
/opt/mqm/samp/bin/amqsget LQ.TEST TSTDADQ1
The result will be that all messages on the LQ.TEST queue will be listed and then the tool will timeout after a few seconds as shown below.
We need to do two final steps to complete and that is to add the root user to the mqm group. This is not a standard practice in an enterprise, but we have to do this because our WebSphere installation is running as root. If we did not do this, we would have to reconfigure the user which the WebSphere process is running under and then add the new user to MQ security. To keep things simple, ensure that root is a member of the mqm group, by typing the following command:
usermod -a -G mqm root
We also need to change WMQ security to ensure that all users of the mqm group have access to all the objects of the TSTDADQ1 queue manager. To change WMQ security to give access to all objects in the QM, type the following command:
setmqaut -m TSTDADQ1 -t qmgr -g mqm +all
Now, we are ready to re-continue our configuring WebSphere and create the appropriate QCF and queue destinations to access WMQ from WebSphere.
Creating a WMQ connection factory
Creating a WMQ connection factory is very similar to creating a JMS QCF. However, there are a few differences which will be explained in the following steps. To create a WMQ QCF, log in to the Admin console and navigate to the JMS category of the Resources section found in the left-hand-side panel of the Admin console and click on Queue connection factories. Select the Cell scope and click on New. You will be presented with an option to select a message provider. Select WebSphere MQ messaging provider as shown below and click OK.
You will then be presented with a wizard which will first ask you for the name of the QCF. Type QCF.LQTest in the Name field and type jms/QCF.LQTest in the JNDI
name field, as shown below.
Click on Next to progress to the next step of the wizard, where you will decide on how to connect to WMQ. As shown in the following screenshot, select the Enter all the required information into this wizard option and then click on Next.
In the Supply queue connection details screen, you will need to type TSTDADQ1 into the Queue manager or queue sharing group name field and click on Next.
On the next screen of the wizard, you will be asked to fill in some connection details.
Ensure that the Transport field is set to Bindings then client. Type localhost in the hostname field and then add the value 1414 to the Port field, and type SYSTEM. ADMIN.SVRCONN into the Server connection channel field as shown below and then click on Next to move on to the next step of the wizard.
On the next page, you will be presented with a button to test your connection to WMQ. If you have set up WMQ correctly, then you will be able to connect and a results page will be displayed confirming a successful connection to WMQ. If you cannot connect at this stage, then you will need to check your MQ setup. Most often it is security that is the problem. If you find you have an issue with security, you can search Google for answers on how to change WMQ security. Once your test is successful, click on Next to move on to the final Summary page which will list your QCF configuration. On the final page of the wizard, click Finish to complete the WMQ QCF configuration and click Save to retain your changes. You will now see two QCF configurations, one for JMS and one for WMQ, as shown below:
Creating a WMQ queue destination
The next step after creating a QCF is to create a queue destination. We will use the queue named LQ.Test which we created on the TSTDADQ1 queue manager. To create a new queue, navigate to the JMS category of the Resources section in the left-hand-side panel of the admin console and click Queues. Click on New to start the queue creation wizard. In the provider selector screen, select WebSphere MQ messaging provider and click on Next. You will then be presented with a page that allows you to specify settings for the queue. In the Name field, type LQ.Test and then type jms/LQ.Test in the JNDI name field. In the Queue name field, type LQ.TEST which is the actual name for the underlying queue, as shown below.
Useful tip: Optionally, you can type the Queue Manager name, for example, TSTDADQ1 into the Queue manager or queue sharing group name field, but if you ever use WMQ clustering, it is not required and will stop MQ clustering from working correctly.
Click on Apply to submit the changes, and then click on Save to retain the changes to the WebSphere configuration repository. You will then be presented with a list of queues as shown below:
We have now configured a WebSphere MQ queue connection factory and a WebSphere MQ queue destination which our test application will use to send and receive messages from WMQ.
Reconfiguring the JMS demo application
Now that we have created a QCF and queue destination using WMQ as the message provider, we will need to reconfigure the JMS Test Tool application to point to the WMQ JNDI names as opposed to the Default Provider JNDI names. When we deployed the application, the installation wizard allowed us the option of re-pointing of the JNDI names. This was because the application's deployment descriptor declared resource references, which the installation wizard picked up and presented as configurable options in the installation wizard. Even after a deployment is complete, it is possible to reconfigure an application at any time by drilling down into the application configuration. We want to change the JNDI names the application is using for the QCF and queue destination. We are going to change jms/QCF.Test to jms/ QCF.LQTest and jms/Q.Test to jms/LQ.Test. This re-mapping of the applications JNDI will allow the application to use WMQ instead of JMS via the SIB. To change the application's resource references, click Applications in the left-hand-side panel of the
Admin console, and then expand the Application Types section and click WebSphere
enterprise applications. Click on the JMS Test Tool from the application list. You will
then be presented with the main application configuration panel. Look for a section called References as shown in the following screenshot:
Click on the Resource references link and change the Target Resource JNDI Name
field to jms/QCF.LQTest as shown below and then click on OK to return back to the
previous page.
Click on Continue if you get any warnings. We have now re-pointed the application's QCF reference to the new WMQ QCF configuration.
To change the queue destination, we click on the Message destination references link
and change the Target Resource JNDI Name field to jms/LQ.Test as shown below.
We have now completed the re-mapping of resources. Click on Save to make the changes permanent and restart the application server. When you next use the JMS Test Tool application, the sending and receiving of messages will be using WMQ instead of the Default Messaging Provider.
You can use the following command to show the messages sitting on the LQ.TEST queue if you wish to see the queue depth (how many messages are on the queue): echo "dis ql(*) curdepth where (curdepth gt 0)" | runmqsc TSTDADQ1
In this chapter, we learned that WebSphere provides a level of abstraction to messaging configuration by allowing resources to be referenced by JNDI. We deployed a message-enabled application which required a queue connection factory and queue destination which it used to send and receive messages. We configured two different implementations of JMS. One implementation used the internal Default Messaging Provider, which required a SIB to be created, and we covered how to create the QCF and queue destinations and bound the applications resource references to those configured in WebSphere.
We then covered how to install WebSphere MQ and larned how to create a queue manager and a queue. Then, in WebSphere, we created a QCF and queue destination using the WebSphere MQ provider and demonstrated how to to re-map our applications resource references to re-point the application to use MQ messaging subsystem as opposed to the internal messaging subsystem.
There are many uses of messaging in enterprise applications and we have essentially covered the key areas for configuring WebSphere to facilitate resources for message-enabled applications.


text:
A federals appeals court has turned back the latest effort by a civil rights coalition to bar police from enforcing the most contentious part of Arizona's immigration law.
Opponents of part of the law requiring police to question some people they contact about their immigration status wanted the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block its enforcement.
That provision survived a U.S. Supreme Court review and it went into effect Sept. 18 after a federal judge in Phoenix said it could be enforced.
In a ruling Tuesday, the appeals court in San Francisco denied the coalition's emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal and their request for certification to the Arizona Supreme Court.
An attorney with the National Immigration Law Center says the coalition is assessing its next step.


text:
When I first migrated from Windows to Ubuntu, by far the most daunting thing I had to do was use the command line.
Typing commands is an alien experience when you've only ever been used to pointing and clicking.
When I talk to new Ubuntu users, they are often uneasy with the idea of talking directly to their computer.
Is there a simple and friendly guide to help new users get acquainted with the command line?
Do you have any tips to make the experience easier or more fun?


text:
Tornado Eyewitness Accounts
Will Keller's encounter with the forces of nature left a lifelong impression. This Kiowa County farmer offered a rare eyewitness account from inside a Kansas twister.
The Keller family farm was located about three miles east and one mile south of Greensburg. Around 4 p.m. June 22, 1928, the family was in a wheat field inspecting hail damage. Will Keller spotted an umbrella-shaped cloud in the west that looked suspicious.
Keller noticed the "oppressiveness" in the air that signaled the coming of the storm. "I saw at once that my suspicions were correct, for hanging from the greenish-black base of the cloud was not just one tornado, but three," he recalled. "One of the tornadoes was already perilously near and apparently headed directly for our place. I lost no time therefore in hurrying with my family to our cyclone cellar."
The approaching tornado fascinated Keller, who returned for a last look after making sure that his wife, Myra, and young Will were safe in the cellar. Across the flat, unbroken horizon Keller saw an unobstructed view of the three funnels. The one nearest was much larger and more active than the other two.
"As I paused to look I saw that the lower end which had been sweeping the ground was beginning to rise," Keller said. "I knew what that meant, so I kept my position. I knew that I was comparatively safe and I knew that if the tornado again dipped I could drop down and close the door before any harm could be done."
Soon the tornado was directly overhead and Keller noticed an odd stillness. He smelled a strong gassy odor and found it difficult to breathe.
"I looked up and to my astonishment I saw right up into the heart of the tornado," Keller said. "There was a circular opening in the center of the funnel, about 50 to 100 feet in diameter, and extending straight upward for a distance of at least one half mile, as best I could judge under the circumstances. The walls of this opening were of rotating clouds and the whole was made brilliantly visible by constant flashes of lightning which zigzagged from side to side."
As Keller looked up he saw small tornadoes forming around the lower rim of the vortex, but in the center of the large tornado he saw a hollow opening. The slow moving storm gave Keller enough time to examine the view from inside and out.
"I noticed that the direction of rotation of the great whirl was anticlockwise, but the small twisters rotated both ways—some one way and some another," Keller said. "The opening was completely hollow except for something which I could not exactly make out, but suppose that it was a detached wind cloud."
The tornado headed east and next struck the Evans family farm. Like the Kellers, the family was in the field. With no time to reach their storm cellar, the family lay flat on the ground, clutching at bushes. They felt themselves lifted from the ground. Their 17-year-old daughter's clothes were torn, but the family was unharmed. Inside the tornado, Evans could see wreckage from his house, including the kitchen stove.
Keller lived to tell his story again and again. Sixteen months later he traveled to the weather bureau in Dodge City where he related his dramatic tale. Keller recalled hearing other tornado stories, including one told by a hired man who took refuge in a barn.
Keller's story can be found in the newspaper collections of the Historical Society.
Entry: Tornado Eyewitness Accounts
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: January 2010
Date Modified: July 2017
The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.


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Images included in the demo are only for demo purpose, they are not available with the main download file.
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MAC Eyeshadow Product Photos - Part 1 (Video)
MAC Eyeshadow Product Photos – Part 1
I was able to snap some photos of MAC's permanent line of eyeshadows, so here's part one of them! 🙂 Please keep in mind that these are testers from the MAC counter, not owned by me, so they may be messy, gross, etc. I swatched most of MAC's permanent eyeshadows a few months ago, so do check that out if you'd like swatches instead!


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Architects: Kamat & Rozario Architecture
- Area: 7000 ft²
- Year: 2012
Photographs:Shanavas Photography
Text description provided by the architects. The Design took inspiration from the firm's name, WHITE CANVAS, an independent advertising agency. A blank white canvas takes on the personality of the artist.. We drew an analogy to Absolut Vodka's "Absolut Blank" Campaign, where artists were invited to express themselves on a blank canvas in the shape of the iconic bottle. The clean White canvas takes on different Avatars depending on the artists' imagination.
The requirement of the client included a number of closed rooms for meeting/ discussion/ideating etc. These closed spaces or 'containers' were envisaged to be 'the Absolut bottle'. The infill wall for each container defines its character.
Thus, each container has its own personality depending upon its user and program. Waste pieces of blockboard, generated from all the carpentry done at site, were used to create a surface and left unfinished.
The containers were placed in the center of the floor so that light and air from the windows stayed unhindered. Work areas happened along the periphery of the space. Areas between the containers served as informal breakout spaces.


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Chapter 13 - The system of price statistics in the ABS
13.1 The objective of this final chapter is to improve users' knowledge and understanding of the array of price statistics produced by the ABS, and to facilitate the selection of the most appropriate measures for particular applications, such as the analysis of inflation, indexation, and business contract adjustment.
13.2 The Wage Price Index (WPI) is part of a broader system of price statistics. There are a range of other price indexes that apply to different sectors of the economy. This chapter describes the other price measures produced by the ABS; both the direct measures of price change, and derived measures.
Principle price indexes
13.3 There are seven principle price indexes in the system of economic statistics.
(i) Wage Price Index
(ii) Consumer Price Index
(iii) Selected Living Cost Indexes
(iv) Producer Price Indexes
(v) Import Price Index
(vi) Export Price Index
(vii) House Price Index.
13.4 These are well known and closely watched indicators of macro-economic performance and the purchasing power of money. They are used as deflators in providing summary measures of the volume of goods and services produced and consumed. Consequently, these indexes are not only important tools in the design and conduct of the monetary and fiscal policy of the government, but also are of great utility in economic decisions throughout the private sector. These indexes provide an integrated and consistent view of price developments in production, consumption, and international transactions in goods and services.
Direct measures of price change
13.5 All the principle price indexes introduced above are direct measures of price change; that is, they are obtained through collecting and directly using price data. Each of the other ABS indexes is described in the following paragraphs.
Consumer Price Index (CPI)
13.6 The CPI measures quarterly changes in the price of a 'basket' of goods and services which account for a high proportion of expenditure by Australian metropolitan households.
13.7 The CPI is published quarterly in Consumer Price Index, Australia (cat. no. 6401.0).
13.8 Detailed information about the CPI can be found in Consumer Price Index: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2011 (cat. no. 6461.0).
Selected Living Cost Indexes (SLCIs)
13.9 The ABS produces a set of quarterly living cost indexes to assess the effect of changes in prices on the out-of-pocket living expenses experienced by selected household types. The households are categorised according to their principal source of household income, which is derived from the latest Household Expenditure Survey (HES).
13.10 The household types in the scope of these indexes account for just over 90% of Australian households. The household types that have been identified as being appropriate for the construction of these indexes are:
- employee households - those households whose principal source of income is from wages and salaries;
- age pensioner households - those households whose principal source of income is the age pension or veterans affairs pension;
- other government transfer recipient households - those households whose principal source of income is a government pension or benefit other than the age pension or veterans affairs pension;
- self-funded retiree households - those households whose principal source of income is superannuation or property income and where the HES defined reference person is 'retired' (not in the labour force and over 55 years of age); and
- pensioner and beneficiary households - those households whose principal source of income is a government pension or benefit, the age pension or veterans affairs pension.
13.11 Results for these households are available in the publication Selected Living Cost Indexes, Australia (cat. no. 6467.0).
Producer Price Indexes (PPIs)
13.12 PPIs measure the changes in the prices of goods and services as they either leave the place of production or enter the production process. PPIs can be constructed as either an output measure or an input measure. Input PPIs measure the rate of change in the prices of goods and services purchased by the producer. Output PPIs measure the rate of change in the prices of goods and services as they leave the producer.
13.13 The PPIs are published quarterly in Producer Prices Indexes, Australia (cat. no. 6427.0).
13.14 Detailed information about the PPIs can be found in Producer and International Trade Price Indexes: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2006 (cat. no. 6429.0) and Information Paper: Outcome of the Review of the Producer and International Trade Price Indexes, 2012 (cat. no. 6427.0.55.004).
Import Price Index (IPI)
13.15 The IPI measures the changes in the prices paid for imports of merchandise that are landed in Australia each quarter.
Export Price Index (EPI)
13.16 The EPI measures the changes in the prices received for exports of merchandise that are shipped from Australia each quarter.
13.17 The IPI and EPI are published quarterly in International Trade Price Indexes, Australia (cat. no. 6457.0).
House Price Index (HPI)
13.18 The HPI measures changes in house prices in each of the eight capital cities. The information is presented in the form of price indexes constructed separately for established houses and for project homes. The price index for established houses covers transactions in detached residential dwellings on their own block of land regardless of age. Project homes are dwellings available for construction on an existing block of land, therefore price changes relate only to the price of the dwelling.
13.19 The valuation basis of the HPI is purchasers' prices; that is, the price includes non-deductible taxes (for example GST in the case of project homes). The HPI is published quarterly in House Price Indexes, Eight Capital Cities (cat. no. 6416.0)
13.20 Detailed information about the HPI can be found in House Price Indexes: Concepts, Sources and Methods, Australia, 2009 (cat. no. 6464.0).
Derived measures of price change
National Accounts Price Indexes
13.21 The Australian System of National Accounts is a systematic framework of statistics providing a wide range of information about the economy and its components. Within the National Accounts framework are derived measures of price change, which include implicit price deflators (IPDs) and chain price indexes.
13.22 IPDs are obtained by dividing a current price value by the chain volume measure expressed in dollar terms. IPDs are derived measures (hence the term implicit) and are not normally the direct measures of price change by which current price estimates are converted to volume measures. They reflect both changes in the prices between the two periods and changes in the composition of the aggregate between those periods.
13.23 As the composition of an aggregate often changes from period to period, IPDs do not compare the price of a constant basket of goods and services between any two periods (except in comparing the index reference period with any other period). IPDs calculated from quarterly aggregates may be particularly affected by changes in the physical composition of those aggregates. As much of the quarter to quarter change in the physical composition is of a seasonal nature, IPDs derived from seasonally adjusted data are normally more reliable measures of price change than those calculated from unadjusted data. Even so, seasonally adjusting the series may not completely eliminate the effect of seasonal changes on the derived IPDs.
13.24 IPDs are available for gross domestic product; export of goods and services; imports of goods and services; and domestic final demand, and its four major components. They are published quarterly as part of Australian National Accounts; National Income, Expenditure and Product (cat. no. 5206.0), and Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia (cat. no. 5302.0).
13.25 In contrast, the chain price indexes in the Australian National Accounts provide estimates of pure price changes. They are annually re-weighted, Laspeyres chain price indexes. These indexes encompass the whole of the economy.
13.26 An annually chained price index weights price changes together using the previous year's weights for each quarter of the current year. The chain price indexes are calculated from the deflators used to derive the volume estimates, weighted together in the same way and at the same level of detail as the chain volume estimates. In those cases where quantity revaluation is used to derive volume estimates, the implicit price deflator at a detailed level of disaggregation is used in constructing the chain price indexes to minimise the effect of any compositional change.
13.27 Detailed information about the Australia System of National Accounts can be found in Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods, Edition 1 2012 (cat. no. 5216.0).
Which price series should I use?
13.28 As described in this chapter, there are a wide range of price indexes produced by the ABS which are used for indexation, research and analysis. Although the ABS acknowledges that the various price indexes it publishes are used in indexation clauses and wage negotiation, it neither endorses nor discourages such use. The ABS has prepared information for users that sets out a range of issues that should be taken into account by parties considering an indexation clause in a contract using an ABS published price index. This paper, Use of Price Indexes in Contracts, is available on the ABS website.
13.29 The index or indexes selected will affect the price change recorded and should be chosen carefully to best represent the set of items. A description of what each price index measures is available on the ABS website which will assist in the decision of which index to use. For more information about what data is available, please contact the ABS National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.


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That's my belly folks, not my rockin' booty. |
I was busy. Busy slackin'. Busy being delightfully pregnant. Persistently tired and having an excuse to slow down a bit.
Henna for the belly! |
Quite frankly, I never got that major nesting urge that other women talk about. Which, of course, I had been relying on getting to finish all of the cleaning and sewing that I had hoped to do. But I didn't get the urge, so I didn't get them done.
Instead, I did manage to bring this little delight into the world:
Lolo! |
Blogosphere, meet my LoloFe. She entered this world on the 8th of September via C-Section, but not without putting up a solid effort to be born feet-first into the world. :)
Buddy's Henna tatt for LoloFe. <3 |
The sewing, admittedly, is a little quieter with the calls right now. Though that may be because Lo is quite keen on being attached to her Mama AALLL DAY. Which, I don't generally mind. More napping and cuddling time for me. :) But it also means I'm up at 12:30 only because I didn't get dinner at dinner time. Because I was feeding some beautiful little monkey-girl.
Sock Monkey, Klint, courtesy of Sock Monkey Drawer |