Vivek Agarwal's Portal/Java Blog

Part 2: Does the Microsoft Outlook process not die when you close Outlook?

Vivek Agarwal — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:22:23 +0000

Sometime back I had blogged about the Outlook process not exiting when I closed Outlook, and while that posting covered one scenario (corrupted PST files) that can cause this issue, for the last few weeks I had been afflicted by this issue and scanpst was not the answer. I had suspicions about my Avast anti-virus add-in as in the past I have had issues with Outlook failing to exit due to an add-in, and that was an AVG add-in. However, turning off the Avast add-in did not help. Today, I just about had it with this issue and decided that I absolutely had to get to the bottom of it. So, I started disabling each of my Outlook add-ins one by one, and sure enough found the culprit!

It was the Apple iTunes add-in! I am running iTunes 9.0.2.25 and Microsoft Outlook 2003 SP3. Disabling the iTunes add-in enables me to regain my sanity – I can exit from Outlook and actually see the Outlook process close in Task Manager. Of course – disabling the iTunes add-in permanently is not a good solution for me, as I do sync my iPhone with my Outlook. I guess for sometime, I am going to try enabling the iTunes add-in whenever I run the iPhone sync, and then disable the add-in. Far from elegant, and I probably will give up on this, but at least I know the root cause and can curse Apple for a change as opposed to Microsoft!

Getting started with Liferay Portal 6? Check out this book …

Vivek Agarwal — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:44:43 +0000

Recently Packt Publishing sent me a copy of a new book by Jonas X. Yuan titled “Liferay Portal 6 Enterprise Intranets” for review. I must admit that I have not been through the book end-to-end in depth, but in the general skimming that I have done so far, it looks to be helpful for newbies/intermediate users of the Liferay Portal platform. The back cover of the book straight out states that it is NOT targeted at programmers and that shows in the content. For example, it is totally missing information on portlet development and Liferay development environment setup that can be found in Jonas’s other Liferay book titled Liferay Portal 5.2 Systems Development. With all the changes in Liferay Portal 6 related to the EXT/Plugins environment, those are certainly areas that Liferay Developers would benefit from, and maybe there will be an updated developer oriented book that will cover those topics.

In a nutshell, if you are a Liferay Portal administrator just getting started with the platform, or a technical evaluator/do-it-yourselfer working with Liferay for the first time, this book could be a handy tool in helping you getting a jumpstart with Liferay. The book has What’s Happening sections scattered throughout the content that give you a deeper insight into what you can achieve or what is happening behind the scenes. All in all – a good book if you fall in the target audience!

Check out the Packt site for more details on the book …

A controversial topic – exception handling approach …

Vivek Agarwal — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:02:51 +0000

Recently a client asked me to put together a short write-up on my preferred Java exception handling approach, and I figured I could blog about it as it has been a WHILE since I wrote anything on my blog! Now exception handling is one of those controversial topics that has the Java world split on checked/unchecked exceptions, and I certainly have an opinion about it. So here come my opinions!

Prefer unchecked versus checked exceptions in general

More often than not, clients are not in a position to handle exceptions, and either end up declaring all checked exceptions in their “throws” clause, or catching them generically and converting them into one “throws Exception” clause, or catching and converting them into a single “throws CustomCheckedException” clause. In none of these scenarios, do checked exceptions lend additional value. Checked exceptions do introduce some “versionability” issues – an earlier version of a method throws exceptions A and B, and now when you add new functionality to this method, it can encounter exception C which it cannot handle either; since checked exceptions are part of the interface, this method should not throw a checked exception C or else it breaks its contract with existing clients. Now you are stuck either converting C into an unchecked exception or modifying all clients – neither of these is a good option. Additionally with checked exceptions you can run into issues with needing to throw many exceptions because you cannot handle them within the method you are writing; once you get to a client that calls 3-4 methods each of which throw 3-4 exceptions each, you now have a client method that potentially needs to throw 12-15 exceptions – not good!

In general, most clients are unable to deal with exceptions, and hence it is preferable to make exceptions unchecked so that you do not require your clients to check for each exception. The client can choose to handle the exceptions that it knows how to handle.

If we encounter a checked exception in any code that we write, if we cannot handle the exception, we should in general convert the checked exception(s) from other libraries or base java libraries into an unchecked custom exception. If there is a possibility that a client may be able to do something useful with the exception, use a specific unchecked custom exception; if it is something that the client would not have a chance to do anything with, then make it a generic unchecked custom exception.
Anytime we convert an exception, we should nest the underlying exception in the new exception.

Never catch an exception and do nothing or do nothing except log the exception occurrence. If the proper way to handle an exception is to ignore it, that’s okay, but it should be clearly commented to ensure that you deliberated over this and consciously chose this option; do include your reasoning in your comment.
Never reveal details of your implementation in your exceptions by throwing a checked exception that is specific to a library that you are using. By doing so, you can introduce clients that now have a dependency on a library that you use internally.
Never display exception stack traces on a web page; in general favor a generic error message to the user for exceptions that bubble up to the “view”; log a more detailed error at the server level.
Always use a common exception handler to ensure consistency in how exceptions are handled, and allowing us to add common functionality such as notifications/alerts as needed.

I can understand that you may not agree with some or any of this, and I am sure that if you have been around Java for some length of time, it is unlikely that I can sway your opinion!

A feather in the cap for the Xtivia team! Top honors in vendor survey …

Vivek Agarwal — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:23:43 +0000

A quick plug for Xtivia and all its employees including yours truly, and above all our customers! We just received the exciting news that we have been ranked the number one top rated IT consultant for customer satisfaction in The VendorRate 2009 Year End Report that was recently issued. You can read more about Xtivia’s rankings on the Xtivia website.

VendorRate users evaluate vendors’ performance confidentially on ten specific performance criteria that include customer service, reliability, integrity, budget and effectiveness. The VendorRate quarterly report summarizes customer satisfaction ratings entered by technology professionals at the VendorRate website, trade shows, professional conferences, and virtual events. VendorRate is vendor neutral and accepts neither vendor sponsorship nor advertising.

This is certainly a reflection of our efforts in doing the right thing by our clients – we deliver quality service and results through our exceptional consultant team.

A big thank you to our customers for taking the time to submit the surveys and for giving us this recognition.

IBM’s launches a new Information Led Transformation Initiative

Vivek Agarwal — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:15:20 +0000

I am in Las Vegas for the IBM Gold Consultant Briefing 2009 that is being held in conjunction with the IBM Information On Demand (IOD) 2009 conference. I am well into the Gold Briefing (4th day), and am suffering a wee bit from information overload as part of the IBM Information Led Transformation (ILT) initiative! Today IBM announced its impressive ILT initiative which I see as another evolutionary step in the Information On Demand journey that was kicked off 4 years back. IBM certainly has made huge investments in this space over this period – $12B with $8B in some major acquisitions and $4B in organic R&D. And the IM portfolio certainly looks quite comprehensive with a broad range of capabilities.

The Information Stack in IBM’s words has the following pieces -

An Information Infrastructure comprised of software, servers, and storage that provides a foundation for your information.
Trusted Information gives you a single view of data through offerings that enable you to transform silos of information into a trusted, strategic asset that is shared across your organization.
Business Analytics and Performance Management enables you apply analytics to optimize your business through better decisions by providing planning, budgeting, forecasting, measuring, monitoring, reporting and analysis capabilities.

With IBM, you can never have enough brand names and enough churn in product names, to make staying on top of things a challenge! IBM has it all – the newer Optim, FileNet, InfoSphere, Cognos, SPSS, ILog solutions; the more traditional Db2, Informix, CMOD products; and the cloud and mashup buzzwords. I think technically very impressive but I sure do wish that it was easier to stay connected with all the brand/product names!

Just took an IBM Sales Mastery Test, and boy was it hard!

Vivek Agarwal — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:20:55 +0000

With the recent push to meet IBM’s requirements for business partner certifications, we have been working through the process of getting the required sales/technical certifications in a few areas that we were missing them. We certainly did not have all the sales certifications, and Xtivia has been working on getting them locked up. We already had the M197 IBM WebSphere Portal Family Sales Mastery and Related Lotus Products certification, but given that it was in my area of expertise, and I was curious what a sales certification test looked like, I took the test myself last week. And it lived up to my expectation – EASY, and I knocked it out in 33 minutes out of the available 90 minutes.

Today, I was asked by my boss if I could take the M159 WebSphere Sales Mastery Test for the Sales Professional v3 certification test as we needed it. Based on my earlier experience with M197, I fully expected this one to be a trivial task. IBM offers a virtual class “IBM TGVL: WebSphere Solutions & Competitive Selling” as prep for this test, but I was obviously too good to spend 16 hours preparing for a sales test (or so thought me and my inflated ego). Without further thought and effort, I launched the test and quickly realized that I was in trouble; not a good idea to skip the prep course! I spent 74 out of the allowed 75 minutes on the test, and my head was SPINNING – reading, and re-reading the questions and answers, and confusing the heck out of myself.

When I finally submitted my test, the Prometric site took over a full minute or more to grade it – that’s how tough the test was! The good news is that I passed it with some room to spare, but it certainly was not what I expected as a test for a sales guy. I guess if you do the prep course, you probably get exposed to all you need to know, and you can pass the test even if you are a sales guy. Yes, some major trash talking here! But seriously, I am not a believer in certifications proving that I can either implement or sell a particular solution – I have passed every cert test that I have ever taken – so no, it is not sour grapes talking! All these tests simply have some irrelevant questions – sometimes ingeniously framed to confuse candidates, but none that help in real-life scenarios.

However, at the end of it, I must admit that I am proudest that I managed to get this “WebSphere Solution Sales Professional” certification; more than when I got my “IBM Certified System Administrator – WebSphere Application Server, Network Deployment” or my “IBM Certified Solution Developer – IBM WebSphere Portal” or my “IBM Certified System Administrator – IBM WebSphere Portal” certifications. Yes, I know, blowing my horn hard, aren’t I!

PS: no malice intended towards any sales guys – I love them! Love them more when they close sales but love them nonetheless!

Does the Microsoft Outlook process not die when you close Outlook?

Vivek Agarwal — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:17:16 +0000

This is a quick blurb that may help somebody out with an issue that irks the heck out of me. I used to routinely encounter a problem with Microsoft Outlook 2003 on startup complaining -”The data file Personal Folders was not closed properly. The file is being checked for problems.” Outlook would then spend 30-60 seconds checking the file. While it would always pass the check, Outlook would not complete loading and allow me to read new messages until this check was done. It was more an irritant than anything else. Additionally, if I exited from Outlook, the Outlook process would never die off completely (unless I killed it in Task Manager or Process Explorer), compounding the problem further when I restarted Outlook.

I have tried several things over time to resolve this issue but none worked reliably until I used ScanPst. ScanPst is a Microsoft utility that can be used to repair corrupted PST files. On my Windows XP system, it is located at “C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033\SCANPST.EXE”. Anytime I run into the issues mentioned above, I close Outlook (ensure that the process is dead), launch ScanPst, scan all my PST files (I do have a few ), and repair any PST files that are reported as needing repairs. Relaunch Outlook, and voila – the problem is gone!

PS: You can find more information about ScanPST and using it at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287497.

Frustrated with Tivoli Directory Server’s error messaging!

Vivek Agarwal — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:57:35 +0000

After quite a break from IBM Tivoli Directory Server (and deep hands-on technical stuff in general), I helped one of my teammates set up multi-master (aka peer-to-peer) replication between two ITDS servers. Setting up replication was a breeze once we had the two LDAP servers up and running, but getting to that initial state turned into bit of a nightmare. We initially tried to take a shortcut to setting up replication by importing a LDIF into both the LDAP servers that had all the replication entries pre-configured. However, I think there was an issue with the LDIF, and the shortcut did not work out. We then edited the LDIF file to remove the replication related entries, and tried to import the LDIF into ITDS using the ITDS Configuration tool after recreating the LDAP DB2 database. We had done this a couple of times with the LDIF that contained the replication entries with no issues, but when we attempted to bulkload the LDIF without the replication entries, the import failed, and all we got was an error message to the effect that the file was in use by another process. That error message totally threw us off! We were unsure about what file was in use thereby resulting in the error message and causing the bulkload to fail. Our suspicions centered around the LDIF file and we closed all processes that could have the LDIF file open, and based on a suggestion from my coworker, we tried searching for an open handle to the LDIF file using the “Sysinternals Process Explorer” tool. However all of this was in vain, and then our suspicion fell on the LDIF file being invalid syntactically. Tried a different LDIF file but got the same error message, and we figured that the file was ok. After wasting more time on this, we tried a brand new and simple ldif file with only a couple of entries. The bulkload for that file actually worked but we still got the same error message about “file in use by another process”. So, in the end, the “file in use” error message turned out to be a red herring – we were getting that message on both a success and a failure during bulkload – so much for error messaging!

Not so good, IBM!

Xtivia launches new “Virtual-WebSphereAdmin” Service Offering!

Vivek Agarwal — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:57:28 +0000

I am really excited about this new offering from our business unit – the official press release went out today and I could not resist blogging about it even though I am getting a bit salesy here! As Dennis said in the press release – we have been providing remote WebSphere administration and development services for various client installations that included WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, WebSphere Portal, and IBM Web Content Management. These services ranged from complete outsourcing of all WebSphere administration and maintenance needs, to on-demand consulting and mentoring. So, in essence, we have now codified these services that we have been offering for years, into pre-packaged offerings that make it simpler for prospects and customers to understand the value proposition of Xtivia’s remote WebSphere services.

An excerpt from the news release -

Virtual-WebSphereAdmin provides a cost-effective solution for organizations seeking to optimize the availability and performance of their critical WebSphere-based business information systems. This is accomplished through a comprehensive remote WebSphere Administration service designed specifically to meet the WebSphere administration, maintenance, management and consulting needs of our clients. Xtivia’s Virtual-WebSphereAdmin service combines a sophisticated suite of monitoring and reporting tools with expert consulting services to deliver complete WebSphere performance management.

You can find more details about this service at http://www.xtivia.com/remote-services/virtual-websphereadmin or you can go directly to http://www.xtivia.com/request-information to get in touch with the Xtivia sales team about this service. I am confident that you will find it worth your time to do so!

Firewall dropping Oracle database connections in WebSphere connection pool?

Vivek Agarwal — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:53:02 +0000

We recently switched one of our client’s WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Portal based infrastructure to a new physical environment. During our testing we found that we were getting stale connection exceptions in SystemOut.log and in the application logs. On digging a little deeper, our team tracked it down to the fact that the Cisco firewall was dropping our Oracle database connections after they had been inactive for a certain amount of time. When our team discussed the issue with the network team, they were essentially told that all was good with the network infrastructure. The application team tweaked some of the connection pool settings but that only helped alleviate the issue slightly and we started encountering performance issues. Eventually, we figured out a solution that works!

The solution that we ended up with was to work around this issue on the Oracle end. We modified the sqlnet.expire_time parameter in sqlnet.ora on the Oracle 10g server down from the default “30″ (30 minutes) to “1″ (1 minute).

The explanation on why this worked

The parameter SQLNET.EXPIRE_TIME is used to specify the time interval, in minutes, to send a probe to verify that client/server connections are active. If the probe finds a terminated connection, or a connection that is no longer in use, it returns an error, causing the server process to exit. This parameter is primarily intended for the database server so that it can free up server-side resources that are not in use.

A side-effect of the probe is that there is TCP-IP activity between the client and the server each time the probe is executed, and the firewall designates the link as an active one. By lowering the probe interval down to a minute, we managed to fool the firewall into leaving the database connections in the connection pool alone, and not terminate them even though the client may not execute a query using the connection for an extended period of time.

I am sure you can tweak the value of this parameter to determine the optimal value for your firewall and situation; dropping down the sqlnet.expire_time to a minute is probably too radical and redundant in reality. Even though the probe generated by this setting is small, it still does generate network traffic that may be meaningful in some situations.