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Friday, December 28, 2007
Glittery things
There were a lot of things in the production of this movie that were responsible for it's rich tapestry of looks, but it is all too easy to forget that no post production took place.
While Roger Rabbit had the optical printer, the Thief came straight out of the camera, the way it was shot.
Also in the city, there lived a thief who shall be nameless...
Also in the city, there was some birefringence, which shall be called the Sellotape trick.
I am talking here about, what in computer terms is called, colour cycling.
The effect of coloured patterns cycling through all the hues in relation to each other is probably best known from the swirling background in the "Return of the Pink Panther" titles, but I think I am correct in assuming it is also responsible for the water effect in the fountainand most definitely the treatment of all the "gem effects" throughout the film.
Here's how it works:
The cameraman shoots the whole scene, camera-moves and all, but with the water area of the fountain painted black.
Film is rewound and the same move is shot again on the same piece of film, this time with a matte (black card or painted cel), the shape of the water surface, on the camera light box.
Behind the matte is a polaroid screen, (polarizing filter) that covers the matted area.
On top of this screen is a cel with the shapes of ripples stuck on from various layers of clear sticky tape (Sellotape in the UK).
Some 5 or 6 layers of tape have to be applied to get nice strong colours, so the whole shebang can become quite thick, which doesn't matter as it is all backlit and shadows are not an issue.
To the naked eye, this is still totally devoid of colours, but when seen through a second polaroid screen, turns into a veritable aurora borealis.
The second screen can either be a motorized filter that rotates on the camera or a second screen, applied to the top of the matte, the only important thing being that the cel with the tape is between the filters.
Polarizers restrict the light that falls through them to wave action in one direction only, that means, if you put a horizontal polarizer on top of a vertical one, virtually no light penetrates, rotate the top screen to horizontal and the screens become clear, the principle behind the display on your pocket calculator.
Stretched polythene, such as cling film (Ceranowrap) and sticky tape, has the weird property of twisting light that falls through them, but, and here is the trick, not all colours by the same amount.
So if for example enough layers are applied to twist red through 90 degrees more than green, than, with the filters above and below at right angles, no green penetrates, but red goes through unhindered.
If the top filter is allowed to rotate, the generated colours cycle through their respective hues.
A colour filter would be added to tint the whole effect. Blue, in this case.
The process is called birefringence, but we never called it that of course.
If any Rostrum camera person out there knows what they called it, please enlighten us.
There are added back lit water effects on top of these two exposures and there would probably have been some top lit effects as well but I'm sure we will come to some of those techniques later when we arrive at (what Dick called) the Star wars scene.
If you have children and come back from the Imax 3-D one day, with your pocket full of cheap cardboard 3-D glasses, get the Sellotape out and have some fun...
Your kids'll love it...
Thursday, December 27, 2007
the name of the rose
This is the story of a scene that may have puzzled quite a few people watching the movie-
two rotating roses on a palace background, a few feet long and seemingly without any context or purpose.
Planned as the first glimpse of the Princess, or rather, her hands, this is a POV shot and would have had added animation of her hands holding the stalks, then cut to Yum Yum arranging the roses in a vase.
The roses were animated by Margaret Grieve, our resident plant animator.I think it is fair to say that Dick indulged in a bit of type casting. Margaret is an avid gardener and, as the name might suggest, female and therefore deemed to be good at things like flowers and all things pretty. There are plenty of other examples of this kind of casting, i.e. Dietmar, a tall, big German became the expert on War machine contraptions and soldiers..Michael, another fellow German with a very analytical mind, an amazing ability to solve technical problems ( and none to explain it without giving you the history of the Guttenberg press and how to assemble same out of matchboxes) , was tasked with animating complicated helicopter shots of rushing landscape.
How I ended up with the ultra camp courtiers is anyone's guess..
But I digress, back to the roses. So Margaret animated the roses, keeping track of every individual petal, and having in-betweened quite a few, that wasn't an easy task. That took a few weeks. Then the scene went to render artist extra –ordinaire Dee Morgan, who painstakingly hand rendered each frame onto frosted cels. She the Render- Man!
After a few months of combined effort, the scene was ready for Dick to add Yum Yum's hands… or so we thought.
At that time, renowned playwright John Patrick Shanley came aboard to write a new version of the script. And, if I recall correctly, that included lyrics for a song yet to be composed.( I somehow seem to recall that Mo was involved in these lyrics too) .
And these lyrics spoke of two roses, one like the sun, and one like a star- filled night. Geeky as I am, I hand-copied the lyrics for future reference.
So Dick decided that the scene would go back to Dee , so she could re- render the blue rose and add stars. Which took another few weeks, by which time , Shanley had left the picture and so did the song.
If anyone has any questions about why this movie remained unfinished , this story may give you a clue.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Happy Holidays!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
In the mid sixties Dick apparently got interested in the teachings of Sufiism, a middle eastern philosophy from the middle ages, and around 1966, he collaborated with Idries Shah on a series of books. Shah had written "The Sufis", the seminal work on Sufiism and was now collecting the Folk tales about the famous Mulla Nasrudin.
Nasrudin, who is known throughout the middle east and Russia, combines the figures of Teacher and fool, sometimes based on the idea, that, if you make a preposterous statement to your pupil, the pupil, by contradicting you, will have to reason his own way to the truth.
I am pretty convinced that Dick illustrated 2 books for Shah,
The exploits of the incomparable Mulla Nasrudin
of which I have a copy, and
The pleasantries of the incredible Mulla Nasrudin
which I once had a snoop through at Dick Purdums house.
The stories are mostly philosophical jokes and some of them resemble parabels that I remember being told in my childhood, so the basic concept seems to be a universal one. They're great fun and the illustrations are a perfect match for the strange tales.
The interesting thing is how many elements in the illustrations are predecessors of what would ultimately become the "Thief style".
Middle eastern illustrations, the influence for the backgrounds in the movie, rely heavily on the use of perfect geometrical patterns, that have an almost mathematical quality to them.
I remember, working up patterns for the crane across the golden city up to the minaret and being amazed by their logic.
Patterns that looked like a collection of star shapes would turn out to be nothing else but lines that turned left and right alternatively, but would weave over and under the lines they met in perfect regularity.
This created quite remarkably complex patterns.
Just look at the scene where Zig Zag contemplates men being "fools who walk in dreams" in his study.
The window in the background consists of ten pronged stars, surrounded by ten diamonds, interspersed with ten pentagons and ten pentagrams, before repeating again, yet, it's just bars going: turn right, over, under, turn left, over, under and so on.
Quite apart from the use of arabic patterns, the illustrations also featured many characters that resemble those in the film.
There is a Proto-thief, a Proto princess and many references to the Escher style optical jiggery pokery that later made up King Nod's palace.
Being a great fan of mathematical games and conundrums, I'm sure I will come back to these patterns later, especially when it comes to the work of Roy Naisbitt, the single most important influence in my life, as far as what "really melts my butter" is concerned, when it comes to graphic translations of reality into screen imagery.
I include some images from the book, published by Jonathan Cape.
There must, at some time, have been the plan to turn Nasrudin into a series of animated films because piles of boxes labelled with that name were populating the shelves at the forum, and many a rough animation on the theme seems to have been canibalized to populate the scenes of the final movie.
Incidentally Dick fell out with Shah after illustrating the book and there are rumours that Zig Zag is based on the character of the great Sufi master.
After what I heard Dick say about his film-villain, I would be very interested to meet Shah, with his 12 fingers, extra digits, two elbows on each arm and two arses...
I wonder...
Anyway, here's a Nasrudin Story:
In a dream Nasrudin saw himself being given money.
When there were nine silver pieces in his hand, the invisible donor stopped giving them.
Nasrudin shouted: "I must have ten" so loudly that he woke himself up.
Finding that all the money had gone, he closed his eyes again and murmured:
All right then, I'll take the nine...
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Route Sheet Meeting
Dick managed the different departments himself with only one production coordinator, Ian Cook. There were people in supervising roles in camera, ink&paint and checking, but they were all also doing their share of the hands-on work in their departments.
Once a week (and later as we grew up to around 30 animators twice a week) we would gather for a route sheet meeting. Route sheets looked like this:Dick used them to keep track of the scenes from rough animation through final film. In the meeting he would work his way along the walls that the route sheets were hanging on (actually just the back of animation desks and shelves). Often he would be on his knees since they went right to the ground. As he was progressing through the scenes you knew when it would be your turn. He would ask you to estimate how much of the work you had accomplished. If you said 20% he would shade in 20% of the appropriate box with a blue color erase pencil (green meant it was done, shot on film and final). After a few weeks he had often shaded in more than was justified and he would ask: almost done? You had given your best, put in long hours, but still you're just half way through your shot. You tell him and now he starts erasing the box with the back of his color erase pencil, making some concerned noises. That was one of his ways of applying pressure.
He went through the same process in this same meeting with all departments. The next shot might be already in trace&paint and now it would be their turn to haggle over the percentage.
This would move along fairly swiftly and offered all sorts of opportunities to coordinate the needs of the different departments. Trace& paint, checking, camera would all know when each scene was about to come their way.
He had no scheduled review times. Most of the time he would be sitting at his desk in the middle of the big animation room and animate his scenes. Anybody who needed his feedback, animators, BG artists, T&P, checking would approach him carefully. He usually was very approachable and enthusiastic. If you were showing a linetest he would walk with you to the video linetester. He might ask "Is it good?", which is a difficult thing to answer, but he was expressing confidence in you at that point. He wanted it to be good. Initially he would respond to the things he liked, before talking about things that he wanted you to change or improve. If he liked s.th. he would sometimes say so very loud and ask everybody around to come and check it out.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Work hard and party hard...
I feel that most animation artists will be aware of Dick's achievements and a lot about him has been put into print already. Roy's contributions to the studio's work are also fascinating and inspiring. When I saw Dick and Roy working together I felt they were co-creators. Most of the non-character work in the film has been designed by him: The Golden City (you might remember the wall sized drawing in the Thames documentary that starts with the camera craning into Dick's office in the old Soho studio), most of the BG layouts and camera mechanics.
Sometimes he created intricate card board setups for the BG elements with mechanics similar to a jumping jack. In CG there is a way to link movements of different elements (in Maya you can use set driven keys). It's similar to that. The idea is that you have one control that moves a whole bunch of elements, sometimes at different speeds. He has also animated amazing technical F/X, turning things so convincingly as if done by a computer. There are some scenes that use the strobing effect of a pan to cause BG elements to animate. We'll discuss all that when we get to these scenes.
There is also all the work he contributed to the commercials, The Christmas Carol, the Pink Panther titles and Roger Rabbit, in particular the Maroon Cartoon at the beginning.
He is a passionate swimmer and he made a strong attempt to cross the English channel just a few years ago.
He kept his work life and personal life in balance. Work hard and party hard, that's his motto. A great man.
Friday, December 14, 2007
The animator's animator
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Roy Naisbitt, John Leatherbarrow and Paul Dilworth (new update from Paul)
This was the first scene of the Thief I saw on film. I had seen bits and pieces in several documentaries on VHS before. The day Dietmar and I were hired Dick gave us the tour of his little studio in Camden. It was a few months before he rented additional space in the Forum, where they had worked on Roger Rabbit. On the ground floor was the camera room and he asked John Leatherbarrow to show us what he had on the moviola. I was very impressed. The scene seemed to be glowing, especially the water fountain.
The Cobbler in this scene had been painted before the model was updated, apparently it didn't bother Dick in this case. At the end of the scene the camera zooms closer to the wall behind which the Thief will appear in the following shot. All we see are the flies that always follow him everywhere, because he has never had a bath and smells bad.
I think this BG is by Paul Dilworth. I always liked his stuff, very close to Errol's style.
Dick told us the story how he hired Paul. Apparently Paul was walking door to door in Dick's neighborhood offering to make paintings of people's homes. When Dick saw his work he asked him if he would like to paint BGs on his film. I think he liked discovering talent that way.
Here is a story by Michael Sporn about how Dick discovered voice actor Paul Matthews, while working on Raggedy Ann and Andy: (By the way there are some similarities between Andy's design and the Cobbler. I kind of remember somebody pointing out before that the Cobbler was conceived during that period.)
"Dick was in and out often recording and editing the voice track. A lot of time was spent in the rehearsal studios in the Broadway/theatrical of town. (That was about three blocks away from the studio.) In an elevator ride up to the rehearsal space, Dick overheard a large black man in the elevator. I believe he was a delivery guy, maybe a messenger. Dick popped up in a flash. He immediately asked the guy if he had ever done any acting. No? Well, Dick hired him on the spot to be the voice of the leader of the One Eyes. His voice was incredibly deep and dark. Within the week, Dick had rerecorded the lines. (Another actor had done him in England, and Dick was looking for something better.)"
I also like the story about how Dick convinced a bunch of Irish guys to record for the Brigands sequence. He invited them to the studio, made sure they had plenty to drink and had them read the script. He kept the tape rolling as they got more and more drunk. Eventually they started fighting, he got it all on tape and used it in the film.
Returning to the pan scene... you can't see it here but there are 3 levels of BG art moving at different speeds to create a multiplane effect. The room with the cobbler, the walls of the courtyard and the fountain at the end. The levels were actually right on top of each other, just seperated by speed, not like the Disney multiplane camera, but very effective.
There was no layout department, or rather the layout department was a one man operation: Roy Naisbitt. In other studios you also had a scene planning department which worked out camera moves. On the Thief that was all Roy for the most part. Sometimes the animators could do their own layout, zoom and pan under Roy's and Dick's supervision. Here I think Roy did the layout drawing and Paul the watercolor work. Roy told me one of his secrets when designing pan moves. Make sure that the speed is never even. At the bottom of the artwork he would have pencil calibration marks. This is when the BG has bottom pegs and the animation top pegs. Dick loves top pegs. So Roy would spread out the pan layout on his long layout desk and block out the pan maybe on 8s or 16s, very lightly, constantly erasing, changing the spacing. Only when he was happy with that would he draw in the inbetween marks. For the multiplane effect you would only need to xerox these calibration marks up or down.
I remember Roy telling me about how fascinated he was by what he was sometimes observing through the window while driving on the underground train. Shapes zipping by would move up and down, weaving in a s-curvy way. He decided to use that when designing pan backgrounds.
In this BG you can see how he avoids parallel horizontal lines. That makes this very fast pan work really nicely even though there is no motion blur painted in, as it was in Disney movies. Everything is always in focus in this film, just watch the War Machine sequence, no depth of field either.
Roy gave each scene it's unique layout. He really nailed the 2 dimensional, persian look. Floors in perfect downview and parralel perspective, beautiful shapes.
When I grabbed the frames for this I made sure to have a bit of overlap where I wanted to stitch the images. In these areas I noticed differences in exposure, in brightness. That reminded me of the camera tricks that John Leatherbarrow brought to the table. After gaining a lot of experience with mattes on Roger Rabbit. Dick and John decided to use mattes on the Thief in a way that went far beyond the usual F/X like fire and lightning. Making use of John's computerized motion control camera they used mattes on BG elements to expose parts of the BGs differently. They would do multiple camera runs just for that. I think they even used colored lights in the different runs, changing the appearance of the BG sometimes dramatically. That way they could make you forget that you're actually looking at a piece of artwork. It just becomes a world. This effect shows up the most on film projected on a big screen. On a TV even a DVD doesn't show it. On the big screen some of the stuff was just incredibly beautiful.
In this scene I'm pretty sure that John changed exposure as the pan moves from the shadow into the bright sunlight and again towards the end of the pan and at the beginning he might have used blue light on the outside wall and normal light for the inside room with the cobbler.
I think Neil animated the water and flies. All this probably in late 1989, since I saw it in January 1990.
during the 90-92 period there were 2 other camera men on John's team, Allen Duck and Brian Riley. I wouldn't really know who would have done the actual camera work on any scene, but John was overseeing everything. They worked in shifts by the way to be able to deal with the growing footage that came their way.
One time I had worked out a fairly complicated camera by-pack for a scene I had animated on, something I couldn't do on the video line tester. I asked John if I could check if it worked before it would be shown in front of everybody in rushes. He told me there was no time and that he didn't have much sympathy for animators always wanting to make sure that things worked. He said it in a much nicer way since he is a friendly guy, but he pointed out that the camera team was in that scary spot every morning. They worked all day and night and would not know if they made a shooting mistake or chose the wrong exposure or whatever until rushes were shown.
new update from Paul Dilworth:
I didn't do the long panning bg. It was an Errol le Cain bg. I did some close ups of it I think.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
No clean-up department?
I forgot to mention that clean-up on the Thief meant clean-up ready for trace&paint. Previously the craft of tracing animation drawings onto cel had not been practiced much since Disney introduced the xeroxing process on One Hundred and One Dalmatians .
All the drawings had to have a very clear pencil line, but you could have color roughs under the drawings. Another thing that contributed to the quality was that we worked with enormous scope field sized paper, keeping line thickness and wobble really low.
Cobbler and Errol
It was re-animated, probably by Alex Williams, who did a lot of the Cobbler scenes. Jerry Verschoor was Alex's assistant for most of the film, so I would guess that he worked on this as well. This new version I have only seen as a linetest, so I assume it might not have gotten into trace and paint.
Lacking a color image I'm showing this one, which is from a same-as scene a little later in the film:
The proportions are much different, very short torso and long legs and a lot of detail shapes have been changed. The animation style is different, too.
The original animation is very posey, everything moves and stops at the same time. The final animation has overlap build in, hiding the keys, things stop at different times. The design is more sophisticated, using asymmetry for more interesting shapes. The spacing would also have been adjusted for the use of ones, rather than just putting inbetweens between every 2nd Drawing of animation that has been done on Twos.
This is to avoid the spacing becoming too even and floaty.
If I remember correctly the watercolor BG for this scene is by Errol Le Cain. That was always something special, an original Errol. He played a huge role in creating the look of the film. Early on he did a lot of inspirational illustrations to establish the style, inspired by Persian miniature art. He also provided final background paintings for the film. He died in 1989. I don't know when he stopped working on the Thief. While we worked on the film, a huge number of new BGs were created by other artists and they all had to match his style.
This is Errol in an old documentary from the 60's about Dick's studio:Here are 2 of his inspirational illustrations:
link to some of his other work.
(use also the next page button)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Ken Harris and Art Babbitt
Whenever possible he had his artists working on the Thief in between and sometimes even during commercial assignments. He had worked out a deal with Ken Harris to bring him out of retirement. For several years Ken, who lived in the US, spent 6 months every year working at Dick's studio in London. (This started when Chuck Jones produced the Christmas Carol and brought Ken on to animate at Dick's studio in 1971 or 72.) Ken contributed lots and lots of animation on the Thief character. Since his Warner days he had a personal goal of animating 30 feet every week. Another major animator on the film was Art Babbitt, who animated scenes with King Nod, the Cobbler, the Dying Messenger and Zigzag. Initially Dick had put some of the work through the system. He would clean up the drawings, add overlap etc. It then went through trace and paint and camera. Over the years the designs evolved however, and in order to keep the models consistent Dick found himself redoing scenes that were done in final color already. To avoid this Richard Purdum, one of the directors working at the studio in the 70's, suggested to keep the animation in the line test stage and save it to be reworked later. After Roger Rabbit Dick finally was able to find outside funding to start working on the film full time with a bigger crew. Ken had died in 1982, while Art was still alive, but already in ill health (He died in 1992). Art had also given a lot of lectures at Dick's studio and Dick based a lot of his own Master Class and his book The Animator's Survival Kit on Art's teachings. By 1990 Dick had already finished a lot of scenes with the Thief and had nothing but praise for Ken's animation. He now started to delegate a lot of this work to Neil Boyle and later also to Alan Simpson and myself. I think the Thief was Dick's favorite character, but he also wanted to establish the design and animation style for some of the other characters: The Cobbler, King Nod, Zigzag and Yumyum. He did this by animating the first scenes himself and then picked some of his animation poses to create model sheets.
Sometimes when working over Art's animation he could be heard voicing his frustration out loud. In retrospect, while giving Art a lot of credit for his earlier work and especially appreciating him as a teacher, he realized that Art's work on the Thief had it's problems (one has to consider that Art had been in his seventies) and that he needed to rework it much more than Ken's and often even completely redo scenes. He told us that he also regretted giving in to Art requesting model changes to characters that he had been assigned to animate. He had been Art's employer and director but also his student and at the time, out of respect, had not allowed himself to be critical of his mentor.
To balance things out you might want to look at this:
Monday, December 10, 2007
The Nanny Diaries
I remember working on a couple of scenes introducing the Nanny to the film early on, one of my first assignments. After inbetweening a short while for Neil Boyle, who managed to train us very quickly in developing a sharp eye for a good in-between and keeping volumes consistent, I was assigned to assist Alyson Hamilton, who was charged with animating the Nanny dragging a bunch of bananas, then, in real Warner Bros style beating up the Thief before returning to her task humming a merry little melody-
a tune that kept being hummed constantly in our house in Kentish Town.
While Alyson tried out a multitude of ways to give the Nanny her shaky walk , I was charged with inbetweening the bunch of bananas. Having learned all about inbetweening ( I thought ) ,I was quite convinced that the keys weren't properly charted and totally inbeweened the stagger out of the animation. And I am not kidding when I say that it took ages to finish one single in-between of that multitude of bananas. And this being a Dick Williams film, of course they were charted on ones. Well, it taught me an important lesson never to change an animator's keys or to at least inquire what his or her intention might be. I humbly re-inbetweened the lot…many times..many,many times.
Dick wasn't quite happy with the stagger for a while and so for several weeks I seem to have only drawn bananas. I vaguely recall also inbetweening the Nanny, but the banana incident certainly overshadows all that. I think I can speak for all of us Germans in stating that we got a thorough training and understanding of inbetweening and volume control in our first assignments on the movie. As far as I can recall, the long shots were Ken Harris' original animation and were not altered.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Continuity or not...
I feel it's a good way to start, but maybe it will be more interesting to loosen it up pretty soon and start talking about scenes regardless of where they fit in. This would also make it easier for us when we take turns posting.


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Scout Law
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
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text:
This page covers topics related to the KDE PIM Suite on MS Windows NT kernel (which means running on Windows Desktop versions NT or newer like XP, Vista or 7).
To build KDE PIM for Windows use emerge. For documentation about emerge please see [1]
You should be able to get executables just by calling emerge kdepim.
For a list of open, Windows specific, bugs please see: bugs.kde.org
|Documentation of KDE
|Somehow the documentation is not loaded correctly in khelpcenter without visible errors in the debug output
|Provide a search backend
| Andre Heinecke <firstname.lastname@example.com>
|Default Folders
Some default folders in the wrong place (not in AppData)
| Andre Heinecke <firstname.lastname@example.com>
|Provide a working Nepomuk
| Andre Heinecke <email@example.com>
|Multiuser Support
| Make it possible
to deploy KDEPIM in multiuser environments
|Dialogs opening in background
| Dialogs are way to often opened in
the background and thus missed by the user
| Andre Heinecke <firstname.lastname@example.com>
|KWallet in background of accountwizard warnings
|Do not open the initial KWallet dialog behind the accountwizard
| Andre Heinecke <email@example.com>
|Seamless integration with Gpg4Win 2.1
|Crypto does not integrate as good and easy as it should
| Andre Heinecke <email@example.com>
|Summary Screen without Nepomuk
|The summary screen has problems without nepomuk avialability
| Andre Heinecke <firstname.lastname@example.com>
|Make mailto work
| There are probably some wrong parameters set in the registry. KSendemail has already been fixed so that i can take the parameters correctly.
|Performance of Plugin loading
| Loading plugins like the configuration plugins takes unnaturally
| Andre Heinecke <firstname.lastname@example.com>
|SSL Certificate checks
|All SSL Certificate checks fail
| Andre Heinecke <firstname.lastname@example.com>
|System Requirements
|Minimum System requirements
| Andre Heinecke <email@example.com>
|LDAP Support
| Enabling KLdap
|Akonadi Notifications
| Akonadi Notifications are not communicated correctly to the GUI
|Kwallet warnings
| Remove the Kwallet "do you want to grant xy access
|Image view in Mailviewer
| Images in the Mailviewer are not shown correctly
| Make KDEPIM feel native on Windows
|Integrate with GPG4Win
| GnuPG is
currently supported
|Akonadi startup/shutdown
| Decide how akonadi should be started/stopped on Windows (There is now a
Full Shudown button in Kontact that also kills akonadi
All SSL certificate checks currently fail a correct solution would be to take the Installed Windows certificates additionally to the kdelibs default certificates.
The loading of plugins, especially the kcm modules for the configuration Dialog take unnaturally long to load for the first time. Depending on your Machine this can be 10-40 seconds.
Clicking on the Summary Screen in Kontact seems to trigger a very large query. Used with multiple large accounts Kontact started to loose stability and ultimately began to freeze um with some Akonadi ressources crashing.
There needs to be a build of the gnupg development libaries that better integrates with gpg4win. The selfbuilt camakeified Versions do not have any upstream support and are built without smime support. The upstream gpg4win-dev package was built against gpg 1 and does only work after some tricks. Kleopatra master on Windows also seems a bit buggy (refreshing way too often) but this might be a side effect of the libraries.
Many Dialogs (for example the "ignore ssl errors" dialog can open in the background) and be missed by the user that then is confused by the behavior of kontact.
The Kwallet warnings don't make sense as they do not add any kind of security. The processname can easily be faked and they are just written in a plain text file. They often open in the background and are confusing.
The minimal system requirements (CPU/RAM/Disk Space) for Kontact on Windows are currently unkonwn since it is much more standalone then on a GNU/Linux System those need to be measured and communicated. Windows apperantly expect something like that.
Kontact on Windows currently can be run on the same machine twice with different users but there are appearantly some problems on Windows Server installations.
Done by integrating a binary package of openldap into the build.
There are two options to get LDAP support for PIM on Windows:
Windows has native LDAP support with winldap:
There are several issues with Nepomuk / Soprano and the redland rdf libraries on Windows, they are currently disabled because there is no stable build for Windows.
For a virtuoso installation to work regsvr32 has to be called on the virtuoso odbc driver at the moment. Soprano has to be fixed so that it checks if that driver is availble and if not registers it. The NSIS installer does this currently
DBus problem that has been fixed in newer versions of DBus > 1.4.1
Oxygen Theme looks strange and alien on Windows 7 default style but ok on Windows XP style Currently the Packaged Style in the Enterprise 5 package is optimzed for XP and Vista/7 looks.
Best solution would be to check what the System Style is or package the KDE-Systemsettings to customize that style.
Akonadi startup can take a while on slow systems which delays the first Kontact startup.
Once akonadi is running it can not be stopped from the UI
Crypto is now working again the reason was an error in libstdc++ on windows that caused std::strings to corrupt the heap.
Either run killkde.bat in your installation\bin directory or run kdeinit4 --terminate to shut down everything.
To delete all configuration files remove the folders .local .config .kde in your userdata directory. (e.g. c:\documents and settings\testuser\ on xp c:\users\testuser on win7) Also delete .kde in your application data directory (e.g. c:\documents and settings\testuser\Applicationdata on xp c:\users\testuser\Applicationdata\roaming on win7)
To change the application language of Kontact from German to English please use a text editor and change the locale settings in the file 'kdeglobals' to:
Country=en Language=en_US
and restart all KDE processes (esp. logout, login). You'll find this file usually under the installed directory in 'Kontact\share\config' (e.g. c:\Program Files\Kontact\share\config\kdeglobals).
Or goto: help -> change application language
If you encounter crashes, a backtrace might help the developers to find the defect faster. There are some hints doing a backtrace with gdb on windows in http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Debugging/Debugging_on_MS_Windows#MinGW_debugging_hints
General debugging techniques of KDEPIM Software are also available on Windows. There is akonadiconsole installed as a tool to debug akonadi, as well as qdbusviewer.
DebugView and some other tools from the following URL can be useful to diagnose problems: http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KDE_on_Windows/Tools
DebugView will let you see the message of the KDE runtime system, which on GNU/Linux you can see on stdout or stderr.
|jstaniek 22:01, 14 January 2008 (CET): TortoiseSVN is GPLed SVN client which is nicely integrated with Windows Explorer. Perhaps we can use its source code as a reference...
Introduction: We can detect whether KMail is the default e-mail client. If set as default, KMail should act as a default mailer, and thus be invoked automatically for actions like RMB "Send To -> E-mail Recipient". This shall be also reused by others for KOrganizer and Konqueror. The solution is relatively simple modifications to the Windows Registry. See Mozilla's solution.
First, we can use HKLM node for system-global settings or HKCU node for current-user-only settings. If the attempt to set the value in HKLM fails, usually because of unsufficient permissions, HKCU should be used. As expected, HKCU overrides HKLM settings. See KB297878. Below we'll use HKCU.
From the KB: After updating the registry keys, the application broadcasts the WM_SETTINGCHANGE message with wParam = 0 and lParam pointing to the null-terminated string "Software\Clients\StartMenuInternet" to notify the operating system that the default client has changed.
HKLM\Software\Clients\AppName\DllPath points to a dll implementing MAPI interface. Internet Explorer uses Windows Messaging by default to invoke a mailer on a mailto: link. Only if the MAPI install is misconfigured will it resort to directly accessing the mailto association key.[2] Example implementation of MAPI services is Thundebird's mozMapi32.dll (the key is usualle equal to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\mozMapi32.dll).


text:
Help Fight Childhood Hunger When School Is Out
For kids, summertime should mean food, friends and fun. For many families fighting to make ends meet, however, summer can mean struggling to stretch tight food budgets even further.
Federal summer meals programs provide a solution. These free, healthy meals are available to kids and teens age 18 and under at thousands of summer meals sites across the country.
Five Facts on Free Summer Meals
1) According to a recent national survey of low-income families by Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign, 43 percent say it's harder to make ends meet during summer months. Families also say, on average, their grocery bills are about $300 higher every month when kids are out of school.
2) Free summer meals can help. Summer meals sites provide free meals funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, approved by state agencies and run at safe local spots such as schools, churches and community centers. Many sites also offer fun learning and recreational activities along with the food, so kids and teens can stay active and spend time with friends. Kids say the meals are tasty and parents are pleased that they follow USDA nutrition guidelines. There are no applications to fill out and the programs do not require any proof of income.
3) Too many kids are missing out. While more than 21 million kids in the U.S. rely on free and reduced-price school lunches for their nutrition during the school year, just over 3 million get a free summer meal.
4) To help, Share Our Strength-a charitable organization dedicated to ending childhood hunger-created the No Kid Hungry campaign. It raises awareness to ensure parents and kids know about the program and works to recruit new sites, with small grants to cover startup costs and outreach staff to help them get up and running. Much of this summer meals work is done through public/private partnerships, including with the Arby's Foundation and Sodexo Foundation, the USDA, governors' offices and others.
5) Finding a nearby site is easy. Go to www.NoKidHungry.org/SummerMeals, text FOOD to 877-877 or call (866) 3HUNGRY to find a site and learn more.
How You Can Help
• Make a Donation: The Arby's Foundation will match the first $100,000 in donations at www.NoKidHungry.org/Summer.
• Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper about where people can find summer meals at www.NoKidHungry.org/SummerLTE.
• Volunteer to assist at a site by finding one at www.NoKidHungry.org/SummerMeals. – (NAPSI)


text:
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Nike Letter
My name is Matthew Walzer. I am a high school student and will be a junior at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
I was born two months premature on October 19, 1995. I weighed only two pounds fourteen ounces, and because my lungs were fully not developed, my brain did not receive enough oxygen. As a result, I have a brain injury that caused me to have Cerebral Palsy. Fortunately, I am only affected physically, as others can be affected mentally, physically or both.
I have overcome many challenges in my life. Although doctors from the country's top hospitals told my parents that I would never walk; and if I ever talked I would have a major lisp, these diagnoses proved to be false, I walk somewhat independently around my home and use crutches when I'm out or at school. I've also never had a speech problem. In fact, I am planning on attending college. I have attained a 3.9 grade point average (4 being the highest) and I am taking advanced placement classes. I have a strong passion for journalism and write for the sports and news sections of my high school newspaper. This year I personally received an award for writing one of the top high school sports columns in my county.
Out of all the challenges I have overcome in my life, there is one that I am still trying to master, tying my shoes. Cerebral palsy stiffens the muscles in the body. As a result I have flexibility in only one of my hands which makes it impossible for me to tie my shoes. My dream is to go to the college of my choice without having to worry about someone coming to tie my shoes everyday
I've worn Nike basketball shoes all my life. I can only wear this type of shoe because I need ankle support to walk. I am currently wearing the Lunar hyper gamer and LeBron Zoom Soldier 6's. At 16 years old, I am able to completely dress myself, but my parents still have to tie my shoes. As a teenager who is striving to become totally self-sufficient, I find this extremely frustrating, and at times, embarrassing.
I know that Nike makes slip-ons, sandals and other types of shoes. However, I and many other physically challenged people are unable to wear them due to a lack of support. When I think of Nike, I think of one of America's most innovative and forward thinking companies. Nike is always pushing the limits, making their shoes lighter, faster and stronger by using new materials, new designs and new technologies. This benefits people all around the world. Bill Bowerman said it best, "If you have a body you are an athlete." I believe everyone, no matter what their physical, economic, or social circumstances may be, deserves to call themselves an athlete, and deserves to have a sense of freedom and independence.
If Nike would design and produce basketball and running shoes with moderate support and some kind of closure system that could be used by everyone, Nike could create a shoe line that attracts people that face the same physical challenges I did and still do, yet it could still be possible for anyone to wear them.
I am always searching the web for any type of shoe brand that makes athletic shoes that provide good support, are self-lacing and are made for everyday wear or for playing sports. It is disappointing that no athletic brand has taken the creative initiative to design and produce athletic shoes in this category. I hope that by bringing this to your attention, Nike will consider being the forerunner in producing athletic shoes that will make the difference in the quality of so many lives.
This letter is not a business proposal. I am simply making you aware that there is a need for this type of athletic shoe, a great need.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. No matter what challenges I've faced in my life, I've always strived to be independent, independence is for everyone.
Best Regards,
Matthew Walzer
45 comments:
This is a pretty inspiring story, and if you don't mind i sent the link of this letter to the Nike company. Just so there's a bigger chance Nike will take the initiative to listen to you. I hope one day you will be able to reach your goal of being completely independent :)ReplyDelete
I really hope that Nike/another company does something to make your life easier. Sounds like something they should really look into. Good Luck Matthew!ReplyDelete
The "Glove" or the "Shake n Destruct" were great basketball shoe's and they were mainly tightened up by a ZIP..... Come one Nike, get in there!ReplyDelete
I hope Nike takes your idea and does somthing great with it. I saw nicekicks on instagram had your link in a letter they sent to Nike. So I decided to see what they were sending and it was your statement above. This is very inspiring.ReplyDelete
I have got to add something, this young man writes well and I believe this is America he is USA I really hope Nike step up because I really don't want them to lose consumers over this. great job thank God for you Matthew very inspirational I buy a pair the minute they drop in storesReplyDelete
I have got to add something, this young man writes well and I believe this is America he is USA I really hope Nike step up because I really don't want them to lose consumers over this. great job thank God for you Matthew very inspirational I will buy a pair the minute they drop in stores in support if you Go MatthewReplyDelete
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i hope nike makes the perfect shoe for you, and others, and i hope that it will also be affordable.(unlike many of their newer projects) maybe they'll even incorporate their recently patented self-lacing technology in the shoe. hope u do well in college A& that nike gets u the shoe.ReplyDelete
Best of luck in college, and thank you for sharing your story. It was inspiring.ReplyDelete
Good letter. I am RT this link and also watched Nicekicks video and shared it in the hopes that Nike will read this.ReplyDelete
I saw these innovative laces that can turn any shoes into slip-ons. The website is for start-up companies and since they surpassed their fundraising goal they will likely produce more. They're not as cheap as I'd like so I haven't bought them and thus can't tell you how well they work, but look into them. Hope this helps!!! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hickies/hickies-turn-your-kicks-into-slip-ons?ref=liveReplyDelete
really really InspirationReplyDelete
Matthew, your letter was inspiring and if Nike "picks up the ball" they will have a new huge feather in their cap by developing this great idea. I truly wish you success in your questReplyDelete
Just tweeted at you but I also suffer from a mild form of cerebral palsy on the left hemisphere of my body. I played sports in high school but was definitely limited because of inappropriate foot wear per my condition. Self sufficiency was my one mission. My heart goes out to you man and it seems like you have the right attitude and approach to go far, regardless of who ties your shoes. Keep on trucking
I hope they see this letter and you get your shoes.ReplyDelete
You rock.
It would be great if a portion of the proceeds from the shoe go into research for Cerebral Palsy, or a fund to see you through college. Good luck man!ReplyDelete
This would be appealing to people with disabilities and anyone with fine motor/dexterity issues including aging boomers with arthritis. This could extend the Nike brand to boomers who want to continue to be independent, stylish and keep their cool factor while having function that could assist them. Good luck! I'll try to help by posting @Independence1st on this.ReplyDelete
AWesome letter. I have so many friends and students with disabilities who struggle with shoes, either with the lacing aspect or trying to fit them over AFOs. In my case, I have a slight foot deformity from rheumatoid arthritis -- just enough to make most shoes not fit right.ReplyDelete
Way to speak up!
Hey Matt,ReplyDelete
Super inspired by your letter. I may be able to help connect you to the right people at Nike. Please DM me your email address on Twitter @reidsplace so I can make the proper introductions. Let's make this happen.
Thanks for sharing...ReplyDelete
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Hello from a mom of an awesome 10-year-old with CP. This letter was AWESOME, and I am so glad it got you results!ReplyDeleteReplies
Hi Ellen, You may want to check out a line of footwear called Quikiks. They allow you to easily step into the shoes and have them securely fasten without the need to bend over or use your hands at all while providing great support.Delete
Will be the best for our population with CP and Autism. Please help..ReplyDelete
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Hi Oneida, You may want to check out a line of footwear called Quikiks. They allow you to easily step into the shoes and have them securely fasten without the need to bend over or use your hands at all while providing great support.Delete
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Hi Matt, Thank you for sharing your personal struggles and frustrations. You may want to check out a line of footwear called Quikiks. They allow you to easily step into the shoes and have them securely fasten without the need to bend over or use your hands at all while providing great support. Best of luck in college!ReplyDelete
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I have 20 year old twins with cerebral palsy. They are so tired of wearing ugly shoes - please, please, please, make them in girly colours at least - PS black is not a girly colour!ReplyDelete
Super inspired by your letter. I may be able to help connect you to the right people at Nike.thanks for share your story with us.ReplyDelete
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DailyDirt: Sriracha Apocalypse Watch
from the urls-we-dig-up deptMany people are freaking out about the potential shortage of Sriracha, the popular hot sauce (aka "rooster sauce") that has taken the world by storm, after it was reported that the new Sriracha factory in Irwindale, California, was facing a potential shutdown due to noxious fumes coming from the plant -- generated by chili pepper processing -- that were causing eye and throat irritation, as well as headaches, in nearby residents. A judge has now ordered the makers of Sriracha, Huy Fong Foods Inc., to stop any work that generates irritating fumes. While the smelly factory may not be welcome in Irwindale, at least two other cities (Philadelphia and Denton, TX) have suggested that the makers of Sriracha sauce relocate to their neck of the woods. In the meantime, here are a few links with more information about Sriracha, as well as potential alternative hot sauces.
- Sriracha is made with hybrid jalapeño peppers (processed within a day of being picked), vinegar, sugar, salt, and garlic. Sriracha was created in 1980 by David Tran, at the time a recent immigrant from Vietnam, who couldn't find any hot sauces that would satisfy his palate. It took him months to come up with the right formulation for the now well-known Sriracha sauce that's packaged in the distinctive clear bottles with the rooster logo and green caps. [url]
- YouTube filmmaker Griffin Hammond has created a 33-minute documentary about Sriracha. The film -- which features many interviews, a glimpse inside the Sriracha factory, as well as a number of songs and videos dedicated to Sriracha sauce -- can be viewed online for $5 a view. It seems that, until recently, relatively little was known about the company that makes this popular hot sauce. [url]
- "Bizarre Foods" host Andrew Zimmern thinks Sriracha sauce is overrated. While he does love Sriracha, he says there are many better alternative hot sauces, such as the Marie Sharp line from Belize and Crystal from Louisiana. Other chefs recommend hot sauces such as the Rogue, a super-hot Moruga blood orange and Scorpion chili sauce from High River Sauces, and Tobanjan (Japanese) and Kochujang (Korean) sesame-based hot sauces. And if you just can't get away from Sriracha, you can try the Thailand-made Shark Brand Sriracha sauce. [url]
Filed Under: chili pepper, crystal, david tran, food, hot sauce, kochujang, marie sharp, rogue, siriracha, tobanjan
Companies: huy fong foods


text:
Join the conversation! Log in or Register to leave a comment
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text:
I know some of you have been around this forum for eternity; so I wanted to ask you, who are some of the members you miss posting with around the forum?
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PS: Not sure if this topic already exists


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Johns Hopkins Medicine - Green Spring Station
10753 Falls Road Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute, Pavilion II, Suite 455 Lutherville, MD 21093
Phone: 410-583-2802 | Fax: 410-583-2842
The Johns Hopkins Hospital
600 N. Wolfe Street Wilmer Eye Institute Baltimore, MD 21287
Dr. Boland is an Associate Professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is board certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology, and has sub-specialty training in the medical and surgical management of glaucoma. He is available for consultations on both glaucoma and cataracts. He sees patients at the Green Spring Station office of the Wilmer Eye Institute.
Dr. Boland received a B.S. with distinction in electrical and computer engineering and earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, respectively. He completed his ophthalmology residency at the University of Iowa, annually ranked as one of the top training programs in the country. He received his glaucoma training at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins University. His current research efforts include medical informatics in ophthalmology and computer-assisted diagnosis.
Dr. Boland is also an associate director of the residency training program at the Wilmer Eye Institute. In this role, he is committed to ensuring that Wilmer trains future ophthalmologists who will be leaders in all aspects of the field.
In addition to his roles in patient care, research, and education, Dr. Boland is also the Director of Information Technology for the Wilmer Eye Institute. He therefore directs the department's efforts related to digital image management and electronic health records.
- Director of Information Technology, Wilmer Eye Institute; Associate Residency Program Director, Wilmer Eye Institute
- Associate Professor of Ophthalmology
- Joint Appointment in Health Sciences Informatics
Departments / Divisions
Centers & Institutes
- MD, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (2001)
- University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics / Ophthalmology (2005)
Board Certifications
- American Board of Ophthalmology / Ophthalmology (2007)
Research & Publications
Research Summary
Dr. Boland's current research efforts include medical informatics in ophthalmology and computer-assisted diagnosis. Specific projects include combined analysis of optic nerve structure and function in glaucoma and evaluation of personal health records to improve adherence with glaucoma medications.
Technology Expertise KeywordsGlaucoma; informatics; computer-assisted diagnosis
Selected PublicationsView all on Pubmed
Chiang, M.F., Boland, M.V., Margolis, J.W., Lum, F., Abramoff, M.D., Hildebrand, P.L. 2008. Adoption and Perceptions of Electronic Health Record Systems by Ophthalmologists: An American Academy of Ophthalmology Survey. Ophthalmology. 115(9):1591-1597.e5.
Boland, M.V., McCoy, A.N., Quigley, H.A., Miller, N.R., Subramanian, P.S., Ramulu, P.Y., Murakami, P., Danesh-Meyer, H.V. 2011. Evaluation of an Algorithm for Detecting Visual Field Defects Due to Chiasmal and Post-Chiasmal Lesions: The Neurological Hemifield Test. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. 52(11):7959-65.
Boland, M.V., Ervin, A.M., Friedman, D., Jampel, H., Hawkins, B., Volenweider, D., Chelladurai, Y., Ward, D., Suarez-Cuervo, C., Robinson, K.A. April 2012. Treatment for Glaucoma: Comparative Effectiveness. Comparative Effectiveness Review No. 60. AHRQ Publication No. 12-EHC038-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Ervin, A.M., Boland, M.V., Myrowitz, E.H., Prince, J., Hawkins, B., Vollenweider, D., Ward, D., Suarez-Cuervo, C., Robinson, K.A. April 2012. Screening for Glaucoma: Comparative Effectiveness. Comparative Effectiveness Review No. 59. AHRQ Publi- cation No. 12-EHC037-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Boland, M.V., Ervin, A-M., Friedman, D.S., Jampel, H.D., Hawkins, B.S., Vollenweider D., Chelladurai, Y., Ward, D., Suarez-Cuervo, C., Robinson, K.A. 2013. Comparative Effectiveness of Treatments for Open-Angle Glaucoma: A Systematic Review for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Annals of Internal Medicine. 158(4): 271-9.
Pandit, R.R., Boland, M.V. 2013. The Impact of an Electronic Health Record Transition on a Glaucoma Subspecialty Practice. Ophthalmology. 120(4): 753-60.
Boland, M.V., Chiang, M.F., Lim, M.C., Wedemeyer, L., Epley, K.D., McCannel, C.A., Silverstone, D.E., Lum, F. 2013. Adoption of Electronic Health Records and Preparations for Demonstrating Meaningful Use: An American Academy of Ophthalmology Survey. Ophthalmology. 120(8): 1702-10. [PubMed]
McCoy, A.N., Quigley, H.A., Wang, J., Miller, N.R., Subramanian, P.S., Ramulu, P.Y., Boland, M.V. 2014. Development and Validation of an Improved Neurological Hemifield Test To Identify Chiasmal and Post-Chiasmal Lesions by Automated Perimetry. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. 55(2):1017-1023.
McCoy, A.N., Quigley, H.A., Wang, J., Miller, N.R., Subramanian, P.S., Ramulu, P.Y., Boland, M.V. 2014. Development and Validation of an Improved Neurological Hemifield Test To Identify Chiasmal and Post-Chiasmal Lesions by Automated Perimetry. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. 55(2):1017-1023
Boland, M.V., Chang, D.S., Frazier, T, Plyler, R., Jefferys, J.L., Friedman, D.S. 2014. Automated, telecommunication-based reminders and adherence with once-daily glaucoma medication dosing: The Automated Dosing Reminder Study. JAMA Ophthalmology. 132(7):845-850.
Jampel, H, Boland, M.V. 2014. Calculating the "Threshold to Treat" in Ocular Hypertension. Journal of Glaucoma. 23(8):485-486.
Pandit, R.R., Boland, M.V. 2014. Impact of Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine Workflow on the Integration of Patient Demographics and Ophthalmic Test Data. Ophthalmology.
Contact for Research Inquiries
Academic Office
600 N. Wolfe St.
Wilmer 131
Baltimore, MD 21287 map
Activities & Honors
- Achievement Award, American Academy of Ophthalmology, 2012
- Secretariat Award, American Academy of Ophthalmology, 2013
- Grant, Microsoft HealthVault Be Well Fund, 2008
- Physician Scientist Award, American Glaucoma Society Young, 2009
- Clinician-Scientist Research Award, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology/Alcon Early Career, 2009
- American Academy of Ophthalmology
- American Glaucoma Society
- Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
- Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
Professional Activities
- Web Editor, JAMA Ophthalmology, 2013
Videos & Media
Research Overview - Glaucoma Center of Excellence
Research Collaboration - Glaucoma Center of Excellence
Surgical Improvements - Glaucoma Center of Excellence
Lectures and Presentations
The Aging Eye
http://webcast.jhu.edu/Mediasite/Play/79c77f6d36a94b2c96af5ec2f4457134 (01/01/1900)
Recent News Articles and Media Coverage
Patient Ratings & Comments
The Patient Rating score is an average of all responses to physician related questions on the national CG-CAHPS Medical Practice patient experience survey through Press Ganey. Responses are measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best score. Comments are also gathered from our CG-CAHPS Medical Practice Survey through Press Ganey and displayed in their entirety. Patients are de-identified for confidentiality and patient privacy.
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This section describes the following tasks:
The following example application starts with the example provided in Chapter 3, WSIT Example Using a Web Container and NetBeans IDE and demonstrates adding security to both the web service and to the web service client.
For this example, the security mechanism of SAML Sender Vouches with Certificates is used to secure the application. The steps are similar to the ones described in Example: Username Authentication with Symmetric Keys (UA), with the addition of the writing of a client-side SAML callback handler to populate the client's request with a SAML assertion.
To add security to the service part of the example, follow these steps.
If you haven't already completed these steps, complete them now:
Update the GlassFish keystore and truststore files as described in To Update GlassFish Certificates.
Create a user on GlassFish as described in Adding Users to GlassFish.
Create the CalculatorApplication example by following the steps described in the following sections of Chapter 3, WSIT Example Using a Web Container and NetBeans IDE:
Skip the section on adding Reliable Messaging.
Deploying and Testing a Web Service (first two steps only, do not run the project yet)
Expand CalculatorApplication->Web Services, then right-click the node for the web service, CalculatorWS, and select Edit Web Service Attributes.
Deselect the Reliable Messaging option if it is selected.
Select Secure Service.
From the drop-down list for Security Mechanism, select SAML Sender Vouches with Certificates.
Click the Keystore button to provide your keystore with the alias identifying the service certificate and private key. To do this, click the Load Aliases button and select xws-security-server, then click OK to close the dialog.
For this example, the Truststore information that you need is specified by default, so there is no need to change these settings.
Click OK to exit the WSIT Configuration editor.
A new file is added to the project. To view the WSIT configuration file, expand Web Pages->WEB-INF, then double-click the file wsit-org.me.calculator.CalculatorWS.xml. This file contains the sc:KeyStore and sc:Truststore elements.
Right-click the CalculatorApplication node and select Run Project. Accept the s1as certificate if you are prompted to.
A browser will open and display the WSDL file for the application.
Verify that the WSDL file contains the TransportBinding and SignedSupportingTokens element, which in turn contains a SamlToken element.
Follow the steps to secure the client application as described in To Secure the Example Web Service Client Application (SV).
This section demonstrates adding security to the web service client that references the web service created in the previous section. This web service is secured using the security mechanism described in SAML Sender Vouches with Certificates.
To add security to the client that references this web service, complete the following steps.
This example uses a non-JSR-109-compliant client. To do this, create the client application up to the step where you create the Servlet (step 7 as of this writing) by following the steps described in Creating a Client to Consume a WSIT-Enabled Web Service, with one exception: name the application CalculatorClient (since it's not a servlet.).
Instead of creating a client servlet as is described in Creating a Client to Consume a WSIT-Enabled Web Service, just add the web service operation to the generated index.jsp file to create a non-JSR-109 client. To do this, follow these steps:
If the index.jsp file is not open in the right pane, double-click it to open it.
Drill down through the Web Service References node until you get to the add operation.
Drag the add operation to the line immediately following the following line:

JSP Page

Edit the values for i and j if you'd like.
Write a SAMLCallback handler for the client side to populate a SAML assertion into the client's request to the service.
To create the SAMLCallbackHandler, follow these steps:
Right-click the CalculatorClient node and select New->Java Package.
For Package Name, type xwss.saml, then click Finish.
Drill down from CalculatorClient->Source Packages->xwss.saml.
Right-click xwss.saml and select New->File/Folder.
From the Categories list, select Java Classes.
From the File Types list, select Empty Java File and click Next.
For Class Name, type SamlCallbackHandler, then click Finish.
The empty file appears in the IDE.
Download the example file SamlCallbackHandler.java from the following URL: https://xwss.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=6645[amp ]expandFolder=6645[amp ]folderID=6645
Open the file in a text editor.
Modify the home variable to provide the hard-coded path to your GlassFish installation. For example, modify the line:
String home = System.getProperty("WSIT_HOME");
String home = "/home/glassfish";
Set the subject confirmation method to SV (Sender Vouches). For more information on this topic, read Example SAML Callback Handlers.
Copy the contents of this file into the SamlCallbackHandler.java window that is displaying in the IDE.
Drill down from CalculatorClient->Web Service References.
Right-click on CalculatorWSService and select Edit Web Service Attributes.
Select the WSIT Configuration tab of the CalculatorWSService dialog.
Provide the client's private key by pointing to an alias in the keystore. To do this, expand the Certificates node, click the Load Aliases button for the keystore, then select xws-security-client from the Alias list.
Provide the server's certificate by pointing to an alias in the client truststore. To do this, from the Certificates node, click the Load Aliases button for the Truststore and select xws-security-server.
Expand the Username Authentication node. In the SAML Callback Handler field, type the name of the class written in step 3 above, xwss.saml.SamlCallbackHandler.
Click OK to close this dialog.
In the tree, drill down from the project to Source Packages->META-INF. Double-click CalculatorWSService.xml, and verify that lines similar to the following are present, where xwss.saml.SamlCallbackHandler is the SAML Callback Handler class for the client:
<wsp:All> <wsaws:UsingAddressing xmlns:wsaws="http://www.w3.org/2006/05/addressing/wsdl"/> <sc:CallbackHandlerConfiguration wspp:visibility="private"> <sc:CallbackHandler name="samlHandler" classname="xwss.saml.SamlCallbackHandler"/> </sc:CallbackHandlerConfiguration> <sc:KeyStore wspp:visibility="private" location="as-install\domains\domain1\config\keystore.jks" storepass="changeit" alias="xws-security-client" keypass="changeit"/> <sc:TrustStore wspp:visibility="private" location="as-install\domains\domain1\config\cacerts.jks" storepass="changeit" peeralias="xws-security-server"/> </wsp:All>
Compile and run this application by right-clicking the CalculatorClient node and selecting Run Project.


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Bigcartel.com is a simple shopping cart web app for artists, designers, bands, record labels, jewelry and crafters. Bigcartel.com provides you with your own independent store to sell your stuff online. Bigcartel is now home to over 250,000 independent artists worldwide, and growing.
Venture Slogan: Bringing the cart to the art
Venture Link: bigcartel.com
Source: Venturebin.com


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Saturday, September 06, 2008
Thanks for Flushing...er, Building
When things are automated, you just forget about them. And that's a good thing: you'd rather spend your time thinking about important things, like "is my design correct" or "should I be refactoring now". Developers who haven't embraced continuous integration yet spend way too much time doing something (builds) that are better left to automation. At the No Fluff, Just Stuff shows, one of the Sunday poll questions for the crowd is "How many are using continuous integration?" I'm always depressed to see that it's generally less than half the crowd. I can't think of any single practice that makes projects better than CI. Moving from building your project as a bunch of snowflakes (if you build using an IDE, what you build will be subtley different than what your neighbor builds, thus you aren't building the same thing: each build is like a snowflake) to a single, canonical build allows you to stop worrying about build problems. If it fails on the CI machine, it's broken, regardless of what happens on your machine. It frees you from the "midnight before the big demonstration, everyone's standing around Fred's machine because his is the only build that works" anti-pattern.
Having all that noise automated just lets you forget about it. As I was using the restroom in our Chicago office, I saw the perfect metaphor for this. Most of the newer buildings you enter now have auto-flush toilets, so that you don't have to touch any of the surfaces. It's become so common, in fact, that you forget that step in places that don't offer automatic flushing. In our office in Chicago, in the public restrooms, you see the "Thanks for flushing" sign on the wall. What a perfect metaphor! When it happens automatically, you can forget about it. When it doesn't, you have to remind people that it's important for the hygeine and smell of the environment to do the right thing.
If you haven't already, install auto-flushers for your project, in the form of continuous integration, and start thinking about more important things.
3 comments:
- Howard said...
I call that business traveller's cognitive disorder, where you expect toilets to flush, sinks to dispense water and you find available power outlets as fascinating as a hungry lion finds a zebra.
- Eugene Toporov said...
Right! The metaphor is great! Thanks for the idea. It may someday help convincing someone :)
- Shlomo said...
I saw a sign like that recently, but it took things a little farther. Right above the urinals it said "God is watching."
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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Update 22.7.09: John Hansell has a review of Hibiki 12 on his blog. The piece below was originally posted on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 but reposted because of John's review.
This review is by Nick Sikorski of La Maison du Whisky, the innovative importer pioneering Japanese whisky in Europe. Nick has had an advanced tasting of the new Hibiki 12 blended whisky from Suntory (the unique features of its release are explained in this post) and has given Nonjatta permission to publish his impressions:
"NoseIt is worth saying here that we may look back on the Hibiki 12 as a landmark in Japanese whisky's development. It is a mainstream blend which appears to be at least partially targeted at the export market. This is not the first time Japanese whisky makers have aimed at non-connoisseur export markets. In the Vietnam war, the bars and brothels where the GIs drank were often stocked with Japanese whiskies (see, for instance, "Two Score and Ten", History of the 3rd Marine Division, p. 211; or "British GI in Vietnam" by Ian Kemp, p. 178). The poster below, distributed sometime before 1963, seems definitely to have been part of an export push:
Without water: soft and mild with sweet floral notes of honeysuckle, as well as of gum and lemon curd. This is quickly followed by distinctive grain notes of airfix, and toasted cereal. After that comes milky porridge, bread sauce (milk, butter, cloves and onion boiling in a pan) and a fresh and inviting touch of orange zest. With water: the floral notes are still there, just not as sweet; lilies rather than honeysuckle. A hint of musk and vanilla oak follow, then feta cheese and sesame seed oil.
Without water: soft and rich but with a distinctive dry edge, like freshly buttered toast. It is slightly tannic and delicately fruity (almost acidic), like lemon tea. With water: still round and soft but more noticeably dry and astringent. There is toasted brioche and bread crust, dry cereal and lemon pith. Light and refreshing nonetheless.
Dry but nutty and slightly oily, rather like sesame seeds. A touch of milk and lemon completes the picture."
The next couple of posters are a bit more obscure and seem more recent. They may have been published domestically, with the English used to add to the feeling of sophistication, or in business/specialist magazines to improve Suntory's business profile. Just possibly they may be remnants of old export drives:
[Update April 2010: Actually, the first one may well have been a advertising push by Suntory abroad in the 1960s. I say that because of this photo, which is dated 1967, by the owner and appears to feature the same ad.]
Anyway, Hibiki 12 is being released in Europe in mid May, ahead of the Japanese launch. If this initiative even half succeeds, it may start something far bigger than those early foreign excursions.


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Autumn's budget impasse and debt ceiling "debate" in Washington has overwhelmed all other policy discussions. Once again, moving forward on a bipartisan basis to update our nation's housing policy will have to wait—until next year, or the next Congress, or the next president.
A long-deferred discussion is truly unfortunate because housing policy really matters. Research supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has shown that good-quality housing that is stable and affordable may be an essential "platform" that promotes a wide array of positive human outcomes in education, employment, and physical and mental health, among other areas. When it comes time once again to think broadly about U.S. domestic policy, housing should be near the top of the agenda.
Ever since the financial crisis began five years ago, policymakers have avoided moving forward with the necessary debate on such topics as how to reform the system of housing finance and whether the current balance between policies that favor homeownership and those that support renting is properly calibrated.
It is understandable that policymakers have not moved forward on this debate. Sub-prime mortgage financing and the creation of a housing bubble drove the financial crisis that struck five years ago last month. In the crisis atmosphere that followed, difficult tasks like reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the largest players in the housing market—were put on hold. Even as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development continues to promote thoughtful assessments on all aspects of housing policy, the discussion over housing finance and policy has been waiting for a calm, post-crisis moment to really begin.
Sadly, it does not appear that this is that moment, which dashes hopes raised only a few months ago.
In February, after 18 months of hard work to forge a consensus, the Housing Commission assembled by the Bipartisan Policy Center and co-chaired by former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and former Sens. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) and George Mitchell (D-Maine), issued its report. "Housing America's Future: New Directions for National Policy" provides a strong basis for exploring, in a reasoned and bipartisan manner, many critical issues.
And just this past August, in a speech in Phoenix, President Obama offered his most comprehensive thoughts on housing since he took office.
Conditions finally seemed promising to begin the dialogue about housing policy that the country needs to have. Yet once more, because of the crisis over the Federal budget, this discussion is being deferred to another day.
At the MacArthur Foundation, we have a distinctive vantage point on policy insights into the impact of housing on the U.S. economy and this nation's residents. One of our programs, How Housing Matters To Families and Communities, is a five-year, $25 million research effort to deepen the literature on the effects that smart, research-based investments in housing have on social and economic outcomes, beyond shelter.
Over the past year, we've learned many things that can contribute to the discussion about housing policy, once it moves closer to center stage. When policymakers are able to reengage, they'll find there are new developments in how Americans think about housing and what is being learned on the ground in communities across the country.
In April, a national survey conducted by Hart Research Associates and commissioned by the MacArthur Foundation, found that two-thirds of adults (65 percent) believe the focus of national housing policy should be split fairly equally between rental and ownership, as opposed to promoting one over the other. Three in five adults (61 percent) believed that renters can be just as successful as owners in achieving the American Dream. This is a meaningful change from attitudes held just five or ten years ago, when the American Dream was equated solely with homeownership.
Research published in August by Rebekah Coley of Boston College provides significant evidence about how important decent housing is to the well-being and development of children.
The study shows that, among the five housing characteristics included in the analysis (quality, stability, affordability, ownership, and receiving a housing subsidy), poor housing quality was the most consistent and strongest predictor of emotional and behavioral problems in low-income children and youth. This is vital new information for designing housing policy in an environment of scarce resources—given the increased awareness of the repercussions of the housing crisis, the deep recession from which the country is just now emerging, and the current heated debate over federal support for low-income families, from housing subsidies to food stamps.
Other MacArthur Foundation-funded research to be published in the months ahead will explore the link between job loss and evictions – and whether the latter drives the former, and not the other way around. The correlation between housing voucher programs and education choice will provide valuable information for both housing and education policy.
And fascinating research will soon be published showing the impact of stable housing on the ability of Latina mothers in the U.S. to forge a more equitable relationship with their husbands or partners.
When the political atmosphere eases, as surely it must, and the moment arises when housing policy can again be debated in a thoughtful manner, many new developments, flowing from well-considered research, will help inform the discussion and lead to smart policy that uses government resources for the best outcomes for families and communities.