Nice Article on General Setup of Fedora 9

Here is a decent article on how to setup Fedora 9 in general using yum.
http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html#yum

New Feature Google Gadget

We are proud to now offer the ability to view your current weekly mileage statistics on your Google home page by using our EnduroTracker Gadget.
There are 2 ways to add the EnduroTracker Gadget to your Google home page. The first and easiest is to go to www.EnduroTracker.com
and click the Google icon on the bottom of the page.
The second way is to log into your Google home page at www.google.com/ig, click Add Stuff link on the top right hand side. On the next page, click on the Add Feed or gadget link located on the left side midway down the page. Enter or paste the following url into the input box: http://endurosocial.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/trunk/qaendurotrackeroauth.xml
To personalize the gadget , click the personalize link within the gadget, and login using your EnduroTracker credentials.

Also you can click the link below, to add the EnduroTracker Gadget to your Google home page

New Amazon EC2 Features

Amazon EC2 just added some higher level applications/services
like AutoScaling, Load Balancing, and Monitoring , link : http://aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/

Setting up Load Balancing and Monitoring on your own is straight forward, but AutoScaling is not easy. AutoScaling could be extremely useful to most people using EC2.

OpenSocial using OAuth and ShinDig

OpenSocial is a standard to allow social websites to communicate with other social websites.
For example developers can create widgets/gadgets that can be placed on their google home page
(http://www.google.com/ig) that get contacts/friends from twitter.com.

Shindig is a java application that acts as a container for hosting these gadgets.
OAuth is the authentication standard for authenticating a user across different sites.
For extensive coverage of OAuth see, http://oauth.net/ .

In this document , I will discuss how to setup a developer's environment so that he/she can
run a sample OpenSocial gadget using OAuth.

We will need a Consumer website (site where gadget is hosted), and a OAuth Provider site (where gadget gets its data from).
We will be using Shindig as our Container Site/ OAuth Consumer for hosting this sample OpenSocial gadget.
In OAuth parlance Shindig is the Consumer site.
We will use oauth code project from google code as our OAuth Provider site, http://oauth.googlecode.com

In this example Shindig (Container Site/OAuth Consumer) will be run on port 8080.
OAuth.googlecode will be run on port 9090.

Overview of Steps

1. Download, compile/package, configure and run (via Jetty WebServer )oauth provider example site on port 9090
from http://oauth.googlecode.com
2. Download, compile, configure , and run in Eclipse IDE the Shindig (Consumer/Container site) using Jetty Webserver on
port 8080 via Maven Jetty Plugin.
3. Apply recommended edits/patches to Shindig
4. Startup OAuth Provider Site via command line.
5. Startup Shindig site via Eclipse using External Tools configuration for Jetty.


Prerequisite Software:
1. Download and Install a SVN client (i.e Tortoise SVN) , http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
2. Download and Install Java (JDK/JRE) 1.5 or later and set the JAVA_HOME environment variable. See, http://java.sun.com
3. Download and Install Maven (a build tool like ant but with a ton of features) , http://maven.apache.org/download.html
2. Download and Install Eclipse IDE , choose Java EE Developers Version from , http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
3. Install the Maven2 Plugin in Eclipse
Steps:
A. Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install
B. Search for new features to Install
C. Create a new remote update site for Maven 2 plugin
Name: Maven2 - Sonatype
Url: http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/update/
D. Select the site and click finish
E. There are optional dependencies on mylyn and subclipse. Get them here if you don't have them.
link: http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/update/
Otherwise, just install the Maven Integration plugin.


Detail Steps for setting up OAuth provider example site
1. Using your svn client (Tortoise SVN), download the oauth code from http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/java
2. Open a command window, and navigate to download location.
3. at command line: mvn
(This will run the default build step for the oauth project, and will compile the code )


Detail Steps for setting up Shindig
Note: Setting up Shindig in Eclipse was time consuming for me , for some reason the Maven plugin
in Eclipse didn't auto detect all the dependencies, and I had to right click on the Shindig and
select Maven - > Add dependecy -> and add each dependency listed in the pom.xml file.

Most of the steps here are from: http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/#tab-building

Setup new workspace and project

Creating a new workspace eliminates the performance cost from existing projects and makes it easier to manage the
code.

1. File -> Switch Workspace -> Other...
2. Select directory to store workspace
   
   • Do not select a parent directory of the shindig source (e.g. ~/src/shindig) as Eclipse won't allow
     
   • you to
     create the Java project.
   • Something like ~/eclipse/workspaces/shindig would work fine
   
   
   
3. File -> New -> Java Project
   
   1. Name the project. The instructions below will assume "SHINDIG".
   2. Select 'Create project from existing source' and navigate to .../src/shindig/java
      
   3. Click Finish
   4. If you see a dialog for "Open Associated Perspective", click Ok. Don't worry about the errors after
      loading as they will be fixed in the next step.
   
   
   
4. Right-click the project, select Maven : Enable Dependency Management
5. Right-click the project, select Maven : Update Project Configuration

6. Optionally, if you would like to be able to browse or step into the code of your dependent jars when
   debugging, you need the source jars.
   
7. Right-click the project, select Maven : Download Sources and
   Eclipse will automatically know about these sources when debugging.
   
8. You can browse them under Maven
Dependencies in your project.
9. If you'll be using AllTests to run tests or generate code coverage stats, adjust the project's output folders.
   
   1. Project -> Properties -> Java Build Path -> Source
   2. Locate and open SHINDIG/gadgets/src/test/java
   3. Select Output Folder: (Default Output Folder) and click Edit...
   4. Select Specific Output Folder
   5. Enter target/test-classes and click OK.
   6. Repeat for SHINDIG/social-api/src/test/java
   
   

Debug using Eclipse

Overview of Debugging
You will need to setup an External Tools Configuration in Eclipse to enable the Jetty WebServer.
You will also need to setup a Debugging Configuration in Eclipse.
Another reference site is: http://cwiki.apache.org/WICKET/maven-jetty-plugin.html

Setting Up External Tools Configuration
Select In Eclipse Run -> External Tools -> External Tools Configuration
Select the New Launch Configuration, name it "Maven-Jetty"
In the Main tab, fill in Location box with your Maven execution location. (i.e D:\Maven\bin\mvn.bat)
In the Main tab, fill in the Working Directory of your Shindig project. ( i.e ${workspace_loc:/SHINDIG} )
In the Main tab, fill in the Arguments box with : jetty:run-war -f pom.xml
Select the Enironment tab, click New Variable enter Name : JAVA_HOME, value: (location of your JAVA_HOME, i.e c:\SUN\sdk\jdk)
click New again, enter Name: MAVEN_OPTS,
value: -Xdebug -Xnoagent -Djava.compiler=NONE -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8080,server=y,suspend=y

Setup Debug Configuration
Select Run - Debug -> Remote Java Application. Click New Launch Configuration icon, name this: " Debug Maven Jetty".
Fill in the dialog by selecting your project: SHINDIG.
In the connection properties, set Host to: localhost, Port: 8080.



Patches to Shindig Trunk that you should apply yourself:
Patch #1
Class: OAuthRequest.java, method: fetchRequestToken
Near Line: 327
Edits:
HttpRequest request = new HttpRequest(
Uri.parse(accessor.consumer.serviceProvider.requestTokenURL));
request.setMethod(accessorInfo.getHttpMethod().toString());
//Bug - Need to Set authtype as well, otherwise AuthType always
//defaults to NONE via the HttpRequest constructor.
request.setAuthType(realRequest.getAuthType());

Patch #2
Class: OAuthRequest.java, method: createHttpRequest
Near Line: 485
private HttpRequest createHttpRequest(HttpRequest base,
List<Map.Entry<String, String>> oauthParams) throws OAuthRequestException {

OAuthParamLocation paramLocation = accessorInfo.getParamLocation();

// paramLocation could be overriden by a run-time parameter to fetchRequest

//bug alert: no need afaik to create a new HttpRequest instance,
//since we pass it the base HttpRequest instance in as a parameter
//The use case of having an authType other than NONE is a real use case
//If we leave this line in then the authType always gets overriden to NONE
//via this constructor new HttpRequest(base)
//HttpRequest result = new HttpRequest(base);
HttpRequest result = base;
// If someone specifies that OAuth parameters go in the body, but then sends a request for
// data using GET, we've got a choice. We can throw some type of error, since a GET request
// can't have a body, or we can stick the parameters somewhere else, like, say, the header.
// We opt to put them in the header, since that stands some chance of working with some
// OAuth service providers.
if (paramLocation == OAuthParamLocation.POST_BODY &&
!result.getMethod().equals("POST")) {
paramLocation = OAuthParamLocation.AUTH_HEADER;
}

switch (paramLocation) {
case AUTH_HEADER:
result.addHeader("Authorization", getAuthorizationHeader(oauthParams));
break;

case POST_BODY:
String contentType = result.getHeader("Content-Type");
if (!OAuth.isFormEncoded(contentType)) {
throw responseParams.oauthRequestException(OAuthError.INVALID_REQUEST,
"OAuth param location can only be post_body if post body if of " +
"type x-www-form-urlencoded");
}
String oauthData = OAuthUtil.formEncode(oauthParams);
if (result.getPostBodyLength() == 0) {
result.setPostBody(CharsetUtil.getUtf8Bytes(oauthData));
} else {
result.setPostBody((result.getPostBodyAsString() + '&' + oauthData).getBytes());
}
break;

case URI_QUERY:
result.setUri(Uri.parse(OAuthUtil.addParameters(result.getUri().toString(), oauthParams)));
break;
}

return result;
}

Startup OAuth Provider Site via command line

1. Open a command window, and change directory to download location of oauth
2. at command line: cd example/oauth-provider
( This is the main directory for the sample oauth-provider website )
3. at command line: mvn -Djetty.port=9090 jetty:run-war
(this will run the oauth-provider website using the jetty webserver on port 9090)

Startup Shindig site via Eclipse using External Tools configuration for Jetty

Prerequisite: Create consumer key file using OpenSSL from the command line. Download at: http://www.openssl.org/related/binaries.html
1. Open Command Line and run:
openssl req -newkey rsa:1024 -days 365 -nodes -x509 -keyout testkey.pem -out testkey.pem -subj '/CN=mytestkey'
2. From Command Line run:
openssl pkcs8 -in testkey.pem -out oauthkey.pem -topk8 -nocrypt -outform PEM
3. copy oauthkey.pem to : Shindig\java\server\src\main\webapp\WEB-INF
4. Edit Shindig\java\common\conf\shindig.properties and edit shindig.signing.key-name and shindig.signing.key-file
# OAuth confiugration, including the key file for signing requests
# The URL base to use for full OAuth support (three-legged)
shindig.oauth.state-key=
shindig.oauth.base-url=/oauth/
shindig.oauth.authorize-action=/WEB-INF/authorize.jsp
shindig.signing.key-name=mytestkey
shindig.signing.key-file=/WEB-INF/testkey.pem

Steps:
1. Assuming you have the Shindig project open in Eclipse,
select Run - > External Tool Configuration -> select "Maven-Jetty" ( created in the "Setting Up External Tools Configuration" above)
2. Next if you want to debug and set breakpoints,
select Run -> Debug Configurations -> select " Debug Maven Jetty" configuration.
( created in the "Setup Debug Configuration" step above.

This is a intial draft, so let me know if additional comments or steps should be added.
Have fun with OpenSocial and Shindig!

Postgresql Spatial Database (GIS) using PostGIS

Postgresql is a open source database that has an add-on module named PostGIS.
PostGis adds support for geographic objects. It allows you to spatial enable your databases.
With the onset of websites like Google maps, having the ability to map locations, map routes, etc, is becoming common place.
With PostGis, I am able to quickly and easily determine distances between 2 locations. I can retrieve longitude and latitude values.

Installing PostGIS

I am using Fedora 8, so I needed to install PostGis from source.

Install from Source Method
1) download, configure, make proj (version 4.6.1)
notes: yum installs files to /usr/share/pgsql/contrib/lwpostgis.sql, postgis_comments.sql, spatial_ref_sys.sql,
from source files get installed to /usr/share/lwpostgis.sql, lwpostgis_upgrade.sql, spatial_ref_sys.sql

2) After compiling proj from source,
a) edit /etc/ld.so.conf
add /usr/local/lib
b) ldconfig
c) recompile PostGis ( if previously installed)

3) Compiling PostGis from source,
a) just run ./configure (without options)
b) then: make
c) make install
4) createlang plpgsql [yourdatabase]
5) psql -d [yourdatabase] -f lwpostgis.sql
6) psql -d [yourdatabase] -f spatial_ref_sys.sql
PostGis is found at http://postgis.refractions.net

Amazon Flexible Payments Service Part 3, Co-branded Flow

In a typical website, you want your customer to have a payment link that starts the process of them paying for services/products that your site has provided to them via Amazon. This typical process end to end is called Co-Branded UI process in Amazon's FPS documentation.
There are 3 roles in the process: Sender, Caller, and Recipient. The sender is the entity sending money. The Caller is the entity calling the Amazon FPS Api. The recipient is the entity who will receives the payment. Amazon uses tokens to provide secure handle to payment instructions.
In this process 3 tokens are used a Caller token, Recipient token, and Sender token. Your web application will need to create a Caller Token, and Recipient Token.
In the Co-Branded UI process , once you customer chooses a product/service and payment amount, they get redirected to Amazon's FPS website where they log in using their Amazon account, select their payment method. It is here in this part of the process on the Amazon site where the Sender token is created. After confirming their payment method, and amount on the Amazon site, the user gets redirect back to you site. When they are redirected back to your site, Amazon passes back to your site the Sender token. Your site will need to acquire this sender token information, and then your site will need to formally request/submit a payment authorization to Amazon FPS Webservice.
Amazon can then notify you when payment was successful either via a scheduled job that you create that queries Amazon FPS, or via Instant Payment Notification which requires you to setup a Web Service that Amazon calls when payment is successful. One of the undocumented Payment Transaction Statuses that I found is "Initiated". In their WSDL file they only define: "Success", "Failure". This can cause issues if you are not expecting to receive this status of "Initiated", and are only expecting to the 2 values of "Success" or "Failure".
The best way to get comfortable with Amazon FPS in my humble opinion is to review and work thru the examples and sample applications.

Amazon Flexible Payments Service Part 2, Setup

In order to use Amazon FPS, you will need to create an aws developer account (Amazon Web Services Account) and sign up for Amazon FPS sandbox account.
Follow the steps in the Amazon FPS Getting Started Guide, http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=913&categoryID=125
After completing these steps, you should setup you local development environment, and work thru some of sample applications.
I ended up working thru the Java sample applications and rewriting them in C# to get a solid understanding of Amazon FPS.
It is important know what your requirements for you payment application are ahead of time, so that you can pick which features of Amazon FPS you want use. Do you want to retrieve your payment notification from Amazon in a scheduled job or Do you want know instantly when a payment transaction is completed?
If you want to know instantly when a payment transaction is completed and don't want have to deal with creating a scheduled job, then use Amazon's IPN feature (Instant Payment Notification). IPN requires that you setup a Web Service on your web server that Amazon FPS can access to notify you of payments. If you don't want to setup a Web Service for IPN, you will need to go the scheduled job route.