Long Time No Post

If the timestamp on my last post is any indication, I've been absent for a long time.  What have I been doing you ask?  Well, I can sum it up to three main things: working, soccer, and learning how to play guitar.  For those of you that know me, you know I've had a guitar for about 10 years but have never been able to play more than the intro to several songs.  Well I finally decided to learn the proper way so I started taking lessons from Matt Lucci, owner of Lucci Music in Colorado Springs.  So far the guitar lessons have been really great and I've definitely improved in both skill and confidence since I began eight months ago.  I'm learning about music and guitar theory as well - this should put me ahead of the self taught people one day in the (hopefully near) future.  Anyway, if you're in Colorado Springs and you're looking to take music lessons for any of the major instruments (guitar, keyboard, violin, drums, vocals, etc) - you should definitely give Matt and the other instructors a try.  They offer group, private, and ensemble lessons.  Check out Matt's site at www.luccimusic.com if you're interested!

Setting Up Apache Forwarding to Glassfish

Okay, so I've been messing around with a GoDaddy dedicated server and I must say I'm very impressed with how the box is set up and is running. Just the other day I set up the preinstalled Apache server to forward jsp requests to my GlassFish install on that box. I found it to be a little confusing at first, so I wrote down the steps I took to get everything working - here they are:

Apache can forward requests to Glassfish by using a mod called mod_jk. This mod is installed on the Fedora Core 4 so we don't need to install it ourselves. There are two parts to setting this functionality up: Configuring Glassfish and Configuring Apache config files.

Configuring Glassfish
There are two steps to configuring Glassfish to accept forwarding from Apache:
Add the following line to the Glassfish JVM options:

• -Dcom.sun.enterprise.web.connector.enableJK=8009

Make sure the following files are in the Glassfish Server's classpath:

• tomcat-ajp.jar - Tomcat 5.5.16 version
• commons-logging.jar - version 1.0.4
• commons-modeler.jar - version 1.1

Do the above steps, bounce Glassfish, and then you should be listening on port 8009. You can verify this by running, 'netstat -a grep 8009'. If there is something listening on that port, you should be good to go.

Configuring Apache
GoDaddy's Fedora Core 4 Apache install is almost set up for what we want to do. The apache install/config files are located in /etc/httpd. Go to this directory and modify the following files:

conf/worker.properties - The config file is already set up with a worker named ajp13w, however it is not added to the worker.list. Assuming that the ajp13w is not used by anything (ie tomcat) you should be able to add your worker to the list with no problem.

conf.d/jk.conf- I added the following lines to the end of the file:

• JkLogFile /var/log/httpd/mod_jk.log
• JkMount /*.jsp ajp13w

After this has been done, bounce the httpd service (as root run 'service httpd restart').

Finished

Now that all this is done, your Apache server should forward all requests ending in .jsp to Glassfish.

I used the following Blogs to figure out all this stuff:

http://blogs.sun.com/dadelhardt/entry/loadbalancing_with_mod_jk_and_glassfish
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/jfarcand/archive/2006/03/running_glassfi_1.html

Lingo - A Month Later

Okay, a month has past and I am back to report on my feelings about Lingo. As a phone service, it rocks! I am able to make international calls for no extra cost and the quality is amazing! However, I think it's not as good on the people I'm calling's end but that is probably because I'm using Adelphia High Speed Internet and the upload speed is significantly less than the download. However, I have found ways around this:

Lingo has a feature called 'Simultaneous Ring' which is basically like call forwarding except that you can program up to five numbers (including your Lingo phone) to ring simultaneously. I've set it up so all my calls ring on my cell phone and when I answer on my cell, I'm no longer using my home bandwidth - make sense? As long as the numbers you want to ring are within your calling plan, there are no extra charges!

Also, the international numbers you can create for 10 dollars a month are a great deal. You can set up a number anywhere you want and people in that location can make calls to it as if it were a local call. It's great for people who can't get Lingo in their country yet!!

Well, a month going and I'm really happy with the service. Oh, the only down side is that no matter what I've tried, I can't get my DirecTV Tivo to successfully complete its daily calls. At first I was worried about this, but it seems that the Tivo is still able to get its program data from the satellite. I think the only thing the daily call is for is to update the Tivo's firmware. Considering the new features that Tivo has been putting into their firmware lately, such as forcing a recording to delete itself (it's there, you just might not have seen it used yet), it might not be so bad if it can't get these updates. But that's for another post!

Mission Accomplished

Well, that didn't take long - I sent a couple emails out and heard back first from T over at Johnny Triangles. Thanks a lot T! Also, he's looking for a Gawker invite, so if anyone has one, please let him know!! It's good to know that the Internet still has people willing to help each other out!!

Off to play with Writely...

Writely Account Request

There's not many things that I ask for out of life, but this is something that I could really really use at this point in time. What could it possibly be, you ask? An invite to a Writely account. If you have a writely account or know of someone who does, could you please send me an invite? I am working on a personal project that woudl greatly benefit from the use of Writely. I would greatly appreciate it and would pay back by giving you an invite to Google Spreadsheets (if you wanted it) and also linking to your site from my page.

If you would be so kind to invite this email address, it would make my day.

chris.shellenbarger@gmail.com

Thanks in advance...

Lingo Day 3 and 4

Day 3 - Nothing exciting, my package looks like it will be ontime and delivered on Friday!!

Day 4 - At first I thought this would be the same as Day 3, however I was poking around the Lingo site and noticed the feature called, "Simultaneous Ring". Basically, if this feature is enabled and someone calls your Lingo phone, the call will ring on up to five different phone numbers that you specify. Even though I didn't have my phone adapter yet, I decided to give this a try. I enabled the feature and added my cell phone to the list of numbers to ring when I recieved a call. I tested this out by calling my temporary local number and my cell phone rang immediately! Amazing! I had a friend in Brazil call my new Brazilian telephone number and the call came right through! It was great, the quality was better than most phone cards and I was talking for a flate rate!!! Incredible, I can't wait until tomorrow when I can actually start to make calls!


(A side note, when I first set up my "Simultaneous Ring" feature, I had a problem when my international friends in Brazil tried to call me. This was because I had forgotten to put a +1 in front of my number - so, initially I had 5125551212 and this was resulting in my friends hearing a ring and then silence. I made the number +15125551212 and presto! It worked!)

Lingo - Days 1 and 2

Well, after careful debate, I've decided to purchase a Lingo VOIP telephone. For those of who don't know, a Lingo phone basically operates like a regular phone except that it uses the Internet to send communication. Anyway, I had to decide between Vonage and Lingo and I decided to go with Lingo because they offer unlimited calling to a lot of countries, particularly Russia and Brazil, for just 49.95 a month. Plus, I'm able to set up a phone number in one of these countries so that my friends can call me. Considering I spent 10 bucks on two phone cards to call a friend in Brazil the other day, 49.95 for unlimited is an awesome deal!

Anyway, I've decided to keep a short journal about my experience with Lingo here as I had a lot of difficulty finding any good information on the Internet to influence my choice. What follows documents my experience.

Day 1 - I decide to order Lingo, so I go to their website. Everything is filled in on their site, including porting my existing phone line (Qwest) over to Lingo. I was also able to add my international number after I had completed my order. I placed this order midday, so I don't think the adapter will ship. However, I could be wrong.

Day 2 - I recieved two things from Lingo today: 1) A notification saying that my current number will be ported over in about 10 days - hopefully I didn't make a mistake in porting my number before I determined how good the service is. and 2) A notification that my adapter will ship today and I should have it within 3-5 days (shipped UPS Ground). So, until then I wait for the guy in brown to leave a package on my door.

Xbox 360!

Well, after weeks of calling local stores, I finally found a store that had an Xbox 360 Premium! Too bad they made me buy 4 games I didn't want or else they'd have sold it to someone else. Check out my gamertag to the right and add me as a friend if you play! I downloaded the original Gauntlet and it ROCKS!!!