I haven’t been able to find anything that would work. Originally I thought it would be quite easy to just send it a Http Form that held the file, but I cannot get the service to read anything but a String. I was hoping I would be able to handle this without using a framework, but most of the solutions I find use Springs or Struts.

I wanted to send an HttpServletRequest and pull the file out of it, but I cannot get the request into the REST method. There must be a simple way to do this that I am missing. I post here if I manage to solve this.

EDIT: I finally managed to do this but forgot to update my post to explain how I figured it out.

It turned out to be something really simple that I kicked myself for not thinking of earlier.

createHttpProduct( @Context HttpServletRequest request )

All I needed was  javax.ws.rs.core.Context to give me access to the data that I needed. I should have known that already because I was using javax.ws.rs.core.SecurityContext earlier. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

I am currently using the AdSense Now! plug-in to put my Google AdSense ads around the site. It seems to just throw them in at random places around the site. Things line up a little better in stories but not by enough. I should probably just turn it off until I have time to figure out why the ads are everywhere.

Again, sorry for the huge mess that this is making on top of the messes that are already here. If I don’t get this sorted out by next week then I promise I will disable the ad program. Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE: I think I finally got the ads under control. Please tell me if they start misbehaving again.

The tools for living on the net already exist in several forms. It is already possible to host your own ftp server off your computer so you can have access to your files. Google has many programs already online for editing almost all business related documents with Google Docs. Sumo Paint already has a picture editing tool online, and Glide OS already has a cloud operating system. There are even several companies working on streaming video games over the internet!

The key feature missing here is connectivity. The actual connection to the net at any time is still science fiction. There are some cities in the world where you can connect almost anywhere, but once you leave the city your connection goes dead. Mobile internet like 3G (and future 4G) is better, but it’s not practical to put up cell towers everywhere to get fast connections and it’s still too slow.

Science fiction has put forward several different solutions that are possible in the near future. One example is a satellite system that can connect everyone outside the range of cell towers. Improved wireless standards also greatly increase the range beyond what current towers can. I’m no scientist but I do know that this sounds possible soon. Maybe LTE?

First, I started out with the main resource part, which you can find the basic to anywhere:

import java.io.InputStream;

import javax.ws.rs.Consumes;
import javax.ws.rs.POST;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;

import org.apps.validator.Validate;

@POST
  @Path("get/validate_hazard")
  @Produces("text/html")
  @Consumes("application/xml")
  public String validateHazard( InputStream hazardXml )
  {
    return Validate.isValid(hazardXml);
  }

(Some code has been hacked down to necessary parts. Leave a comment if you need more complete code.)

I originally had this method accept a Bean that I then used for all my updating or adding. Having it put the data into an InputStream was what took me the longest to figure out, even though it seems so obvious to me now. I probably could have put it into an InputSource or SAXSource if I wanted, but I’m still experimenting. Either way, there are several ways to go about validating.

To start everything off, here is how the input XML looks:

<hazardbean>
  ...
  <create_date>2009-06-04</create_date>
  ...
</hazardbean>

And here is how my XSD looks:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
 <xs:element name="hazardBean">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
       ...
       <xs:element name="create_Date" type="xs:date" maxOccurs="1" />
       ...
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
 </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

The first way I found is relatively simple. You can read the original article I modified it from called The Java XML Validation API at IBM’s site. Here is my take on it:

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import javax.xml.transform.Source;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamSource;
import javax.xml.validation.Schema;
import javax.xml.validation.SchemaFactory;
import javax.xml.validation.Validator;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;

public static String validator(InputStream hazard)
{
  String result = "Failed.";
    try
    {
    // 1. Lookup a factory for the W3C XML Schema language
      SchemaFactory factory = SchemaFactory.newInstance("http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema");

    // 2. Compile the schema.
    // Here the schema is loaded from a java.io.File, but you could use
    // a java.net.URL or a javax.xml.transform.Source instead.
      File schemaLocation = new File("C:/xml/hazardBean.xsd");
    Schema schema = factory.newSchema(schemaLocation);

    // 3. Get a validator from the schema.
      Validator validator = schema.newValidator();

    // 4. Parse the document you want to check.
      Source source = new StreamSource(hazard);

    // 5. Check the document
        validator.validate(source);
        result = "XML is valid.";
    }
    catch (SAXException ex)
    {
        result = "XML is not valid because " + ex.getMessage();
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
      result = "XML is not valid because " + ex.getMessage();
    }
    return result;
}

Pretty much the same thing their article covers. This will spit me out a nice error when something is not valid that explains why.

The next way that I tried using DOM:

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;

import org.xml.sax.ErrorHandler;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import org.xml.sax.SAXParseException;

public static String validateXML(InputStream hazard)
  {
    String result = "Failed.";
    try
    {
      // parse an XML document into a DOM tree
      DocumentBuilderFactory parserFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
      parserFactory.setNamespaceAware(true);
      parserFactory.setValidating(true);
      // set attributes to handle XML namespace
      parserFactory.setAttribute("http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaLanguage", "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema");
      parserFactory.setAttribute("http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaSource", "http://localhost:8080/xml/hazardBean.xsd");

      DocumentBuilder parser = parserFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
      parser.setErrorHandler(new Handler());

      parser.parse( hazard );

      result = "Success.";
      hazard.close();
    }
    catch (SAXException e)
    {
      m_logger.fatal( "Parsing Error: " + e.toString() );
    }
    catch (IOException e)
    {
      m_logger.fatal( "IO Error: " + e.toString() );
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
      m_logger.fatal( e.toString() );
    }
    return result;
  }

m_logger is just my companies logger class, a customized version of apache log4j.

IBM had another nice article on how to setup an ErrorHandler that I found quite useful. It took me a minute to realize that you have to build your own. (Again, if you would like to see the one I built, just ask in the comments. They are pretty self explanatory though.)

This brings me to the very last one. Using SAX to parse:

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;

import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser;
import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory;

import org.xml.sax.ErrorHandler;
import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import org.xml.sax.SAXParseException;
import org.xml.sax.XMLReader;

public static String validateXML(InputStream hazard)
  {
    String result = "Failed.";
    try
    {
      // Prepare parser for validating
      SAXParserFactory parserFactory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
      parserFactory.setNamespaceAware(true);
      parserFactory.setValidating(true);
      parserFactory.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/schema", true);

      SAXParser parser = parserFactory.newSAXParser();

      // Set namespace properties
      parser.setProperty("http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaLanguage",
                         "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema");
      parser.setProperty("http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaSource", "http://localhost:8080/restdemo/docs/hazardBean.xsd");

      // Get reader to parse XML
      XMLReader xmlReader = parser.getXMLReader();
      xmlReader.setErrorHandler(new Handler());
      xmlReader.parse( new InputSource(hazard) );

      // Close input source
      hazard.close();
    }
    catch (SAXException e)
    {
      m_logger.fatal( "Parsing Error: " + e.toString() );
    }
    catch (IOException e)
    {
      m_logger.fatal( "IO Error: " + e.toString() );
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
      m_logger.fatal( e.toString() );
    }
    return result;
  }

That’s about all there is to it. This works perfectly for REST services to make sure that the user inputs good data and leaves you with less error checking in the end. I hope this has been helpful to anyone else out there looking for a way to validate their XML against an XSD using Java.

Layar has developed an Augmented Reality program that currently runs on Android on the G1. Sure it only works in the Netherlands right now, but there will be other layers soon. What makes it great is is constant connection to the internet and its ability to tell you whats around you.

I remember reading articles on AR systems that required the users to carry around large backpacks with a huge antenna sticking out of it. They also had to wear large helmet visors just to be able to see simple things like way points. Now they have these systems built into phones that require no external attachments.

Imagine being able to pull up points of interest when traveling and be able to find them by the floating arrows above them. Never get lost in a city. Best of all, play games in the real world making it way cooler than the Wii. There are all kinds of different uses that are yet to be dreamed up. This is the stuff of sci-fi!

The Treo 650 was my first smartphone, followed by the Treo 700p that I have now. I thought that it was great having a small (but weak) computer in my pocket. I could play games, write memos, and use all kinds of programs, but something was still missing. I had horrible, overpriced, web access. I tried using the web during the free weeks that they (first Sprint, now Verizon) gave me for signing up. It was slow and had no features, I could hardly load up mobile sites.

Then came the iPhone. Normally I am against Apple products, mostly because of the people that use them, but this one caught my eye. I knew that version 1 wouldn’t be great, but they had a good idea. When they released a 3g version, that’s when I started to look at them a lot more seriously. Now being a Verizon customer, I had no way to switch over and buy an iPhone, especially with the price of canceling a contract, buying a phone, and a new contract. I am stuck.

Then the G1 came out with Android, but for T-Mobile only. My ears perked up when I heard about jailbreaking the iPhone or hacking the Android to put either on any network, but it was still all useless to me because Verizon decided that it wanted to stay a CDMA network. I could put either of those phones on almost any network. (By the way, I’m still trying to find a way to get either of those phones over to verizon, so if you hear anything, please drop me a link or something.)

Back on topic, Android was from Google, my favorite super-corp. I already have all sorts of stuff on Google plus it’s all open-source. It sounded perfect to the developer in me. I guess I can still dream though can’t I?

The Palm Pre sort of slipped by under the radar. I heard of it a long ways out and checked out some of its features, but again, for another network. I join the network with the best coverage (in my area), the best customer service (in my area), only to get left in the dust with no cool phones. At least the Pre is on Sprint’s CDMA network so I have a lot more hope of this one getting hacked. Either way it will reach Verizon eventually.

So here I am, still looking at these phones on ebay, hoping that I can score something cheap enough that I can get a simple data contract (if they even let you do that) just so I can finally play with the new toys that everyone else is getting bored with. New phones will always come, I just hope that I happen to be in the right place at the right time to see them shine.

But there is much more to this story. Not really, but it sounds better that way.

Mars has been running their Real Chocolate Relief Act for a while now, giving out free chocolate to 250,000 people every Friday. Signing up is simple, but you have to wait 6 weeks or more to receive your chocolate. When I finally got my rebate in the mail, the fine print says that it’s good for any Mars company candy bar up to $0.85. The problem though, is the store I went to sells Snickers bars for $0.99. The store decided to give me an $0.85 discount on the bar so I didn’t even get free chocolate.

I guess the real morale of the story is to just go to Safeway or something to claim your coupon/rebate for chocolate and you won’t get ripped. The chocolate was still delicious and I recently registered for another rebate. Hopefully in 6 weeks I’ll still remember what happened and remember to go somewhere else to get my free chocolate. It is Friday, so it’s open season on rebates.

I finally got around to reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. His description of the metaverse has re-sparked my interest in trying to find a working (sort of) metaverse like program out there somewhere. I re-found Second Life after hearing that it went Open Source and decided to give it another shot.

I originally tried SL several years ago. I thought that the idea was really cool, but I couldn’t really get the hang of it, and I had plenty of MMO games to compare it too. What I really wanted (and still do want) was a game with social networking abilities. Somewhere that I can have a small presence (just like on the web) and be found by people, but still have fun wandering around on my own. I also wanted people to be there on a regular basis.

In my new journey to SL, I’ve decided to give it a bit more of a chance. I read some articles about how major businesses have created their own online presence in SL and it has greatly benefited them. So I created a new account under the name Red Arkright (I still don’t like that you have to choose a last name from a list.) and did some mild modifications on my avatar to make it look remotely like me (which it still doesn’t) and ran through the tutorials again.

I found the tutorials a lot easier this time, probably because they broke it down into basic tutorials, for wandering and talking, and advanced tutorials, for creating and texturing. I got off and running pretty quickly and made my first jump to Dublin, Ireland. I had trouble controlling my avatar because of all the lag, even with no people around. It takes a long time for everything to render clearly and I often find myself staring at a sign for a while before the text becomes clear enough to read.

I’ve wandered around a little and figuring out how to use various objects can be quite difficult, but it’s still too early to judge if this is worth investing more time into. I’ll try to keep you updated on what happens and any interesting adventures that I have along the way.

Multiverse is like a super MMO engine and appears to be everything that I could have dreamed for. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet but it looks very promising. I believe that it would allow people to create a game where the characters could be transferred to any other game made on the same system. This would mean that I could create a world in a forest with medieval characters and then move them over to a world that is a city with future tech and not have to lose everything. It would be a truly expandable game/world.

I think I may sound like I’m rambling, and I probably am. But if I’m right about the possibilities that this holds, then they may just have something very useful.

I just played the demo to End War and it has awesome voice recognition. It uses a “Who, What, Where” structure for issuing commands that works quite well. The games consistently recognize the commands that I issue and usually the only times it misses is when I mumble. One example is when I tried to tell it to select “Unit twelve” and it kept getting unit four. I have no idea how it got 4 from 12 but that was my only issue after playing for about an hour.

I think I may be addicted to voice commands now because I almost tried talking to my computer after playing. It’s probably time I try using voice control software again on my PC to I can control my computer like in Star Trek.
“Computer. Media Directory. Open.”