iBatis DAO  The J2EE Data Access Object pattern calls for encapsulating access to a data source behind an API, giving you the freedom to change implementations or use different persistence strategies for different operations. As Sunil Patil shows, the Apache iBatis DAO framework helps you develop such a strategy.   [ONJava.com]

Hacking Swing with Undocumented Classes and Properties  Joshua Marinacci, coauthor of Swing Hacks, shows you six undocumented features, classes, and properties that let you hack into Swing. From how to hide a frame from the Windows task bar to how to make Mac OS X windows truly transparent, these undocumented hacks can add a level of polish that will make your apps stand out from the rest.   [ONJava.com]

How to End Wars Between Testers and Programmers  There's a natural conflict between testers and programmers because of the difference in perspective each role has. The best way to end struggles is to redefine the goals of the work so that their roles can be collaborative, not adversarial. In this article, Scott Berkun draws upon his years of project-leading experience to provide some inside tips for managing your development team.   [MacDevCenter.com]

Important Notice for ONJava Readers About O'Reilly RSS and Atom Feeds  O'Reilly Media, Inc. is rolling out a new syndication mechanism that provides greater control over the content we publish online. Here's information to help you update your existing RSS and Atom feeds to O'Reilly content.  [ONJava.com]

Give Your Business Logic a Framework with Drools  It's almost too easy to express your business logic as a spaghetti-code fiasco. The result is hard to test, hard to maintain, and hard to update. Rule engines offer an alternative: express your business logic as rules, outside of your Java code, in a format even the business side of the office can understand. Paul Browne uses the open source Drools framework to introduce the idea.   [ONJava.com]

Hibernate 3 Formulas  Hibernate's formula element has been limited in previous versions of the popular object-relational mapping framework, but in Hibernate 3, your formulas can be used in many new ways that will simplify and empower your programming. Dai Yifan shows you what's new.   [ONJava.com]

Composition  In his latest XML-Deviant column, Micah Dubinko suggests that composing independent specifications is trickier than it seems.   [XML.com]

Eclipse Plugins Exposed, Part 3: Customizing a Wizard  Emmanuel Proulx's series on Eclipse plugin development continues by showing how to put together a useful data model and a wizard GUI.   [ONJava.com]

Web Services Messaging with Apache Axis2: Concepts and Techniques  The messaging strategies needed for web services vary, and Apache Axis2 has addressed this problem by creating basic building blocks from which many messaging schemes can be built. Srinath Perera and Ajith Ranabahu show how it works.   [ONJava.com]

Implementing Transaction Suspension in Spring  Juergen Hoeller discusses the Spring Framework's declarative transaction facility, and how it integrates with WebLogic Server's JTA implementation.  [dev2dev]

Bean-Managed Transaction Suspension in J2EE  Container-managed transactions seem more capable than bean-managed transactions in the EJB spec, with the latter unable to, for example, suspend and resume transactions. But what looks like a limitation isn't necessarily so, according to Dmitry Maximovich, who shows you how to get to the underlying TransactionManager, making BMT as powerful as CMT.   [ONJava.com]

What Is Business Process Modeling?  Business Process Modeling (BPM) is a set of technologies and standards for the design, execution, administration, and monitoring of business processes. In this article, Mike Havey, author of Essential Business Process Modeling, briefly describes the state of BPM today and the BPM standards, then builds an ideal BPM architecture using the example of a retailer process.   [ONJava.com]

Memory Leaks, Be Gone  This article by Staffan Larsen introduces memory leaks, their associated causes, and how to find them using BEA WebLogic JRockit and the JRockit Memory Leak Detector.  [dev2dev]

Upload Files with JSF and MyFaces  Want to support uploading of files from the user's browser to your web application? You could parse the multipart form data yourself--or you could let Java do it for you. JSF doesn't support this out of the box, but, as Andrei Cioroianu shows, several JSF-based frameworks do.   [ONJava.com]

Taking JUnit Out of the Box  JUnit is practically ubiquitous among Java developers as a way to test code, but it's somewhat limited by the fact that it's only meant to run in one JVM on one box, hampering its usefulness when developing distributed applications. In this article, Amir Shevat shows how the open source JUnit extension Pisces helps JUnit overcome this limitation.   [ONJava.com]

Features: The Evolution of JAXP  Rahul Srivastava provides an introduction and update to the latest release of JAXP, a Java XML API.  [XML.com]

Generics in J2SE 5.0  Generics are one of the most prominent language features in J2SE 5.0, but are you using them yet? Properly used, they allow greater flexibility, compile-time type safety, and fewer annoying and potentially unsafe casts. In this article, Budi Kurniawan shows how they work.   [ONJava.com]

Getting Started with Maven  In this excerpt from Maven: A Developer's Notebook, authors Vincent Massol and Timothy M. O'Brien show you how to install and start working with Maven, the do-it-all Java project builder/manager.   [ONJava.com]

XML as a Bridge Between SQL and Web Applications  Have you ever wanted to treat data returned from an SQL query as XML? In this tutorial, Alexander and Olexiy Prokhorenko present a technique for doing just this.  [dev2dev]

JavaOne 2005: Participate in the Future of Java  JavaOne 2005 is touting the successes of Java, charting the next versions of Java's standard and enterprise editions, and calling on members of the Java community to participate in Java's future.   [ONJava.com]

POJO Application Frameworks: Spring Vs. EJB 3.0  Spring and EJB 3.0 are both reactions, in their own ways, to the complexity of EJB 2.1 and the complaints piled upon it. Both support developing with Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) and give the framework responsibility for handling transactions, security, persistence, etc. But the two use substantially different approaches. In this article, Michael Yuan puts the two frameworks up against one another to see how they stack up.   [ONJava.com]

What Developers Want  Regardless of the language and platform you choose for development, you likely share some goals with your fellow developers: to be productive, to use good tools, and to keep your tools and processes out of your way while you create good software. Murugan Pal, CTO of SpikeSource, explains ten attributes he thinks developers want.   [ONLamp.com]

An Ant Modular Build Environment for Enterprise Applications  Most Java developers already use Ant for their builds, but are you getting everything you could out of this tool? With a complex enterprise application, in which classes may be used in several tiers, it's important to control where the code lives and how it gets built, so you can build .jars with just the code needed for each tier. Les Hazlewood shows how this approach leads to faster builds and downloads, and even catches errant dependencies.   [ONJava.com]

Java City: The Java Enterprise Ecosystem  Should we worry about promoting a healthy Java community? Or is everything just fine in Java City? Jim Farley asks you to weigh in on these questions, and others, in the Talkbacks, and next week at JavaOne. He plans a followup article summarizing what you have to say. Your comments may help to shape content in Jim's upcoming book, Java Enterprise in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition, due out in the fall.   [ONJava.com]

Decorating Servlet Request Objects  The Decorator design pattern can be usefully applied to J2EE projects. In this article, Budi Kurniawan shows how to decorate Servlet request objects.  [dev2dev]

Exploring Laszlo Classes, Attributes, and Events  Laszlo offers an interesting option for rich client-side GUIs--XML markup of widgets and their event handling, which is then converted into a Flash executable that is run with the Flash plugin in the user's browser. Satya Komatineni introduces Laszlo and shows how to get started writing web applications with it.   [ONJava.com]

How to Talk About Jini, J2EE, and Web Services at a Cocktail Party  Heard about distributed technologies for Java, but not sure what they are or why they're important? Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates, authors of Head First Java, 2nd Edition, present this cocktail-party overview. Hold your own in conversation with Java geeks.   [ONJava.com]

Securing Web Services with mod_security  Web services build atop HTTP to allow more flexible applications. However, their flexibility and ubiquity do not always protect against vulnerabilities due to the way HTTP works. Fortunately, the mod_security module and some planning can block potential attacks at both the protocol and application level before they start. Shreeraj Shah explains.  [ONLamp.com]

Prevalence: Transparent, Fault-Tolerant Object Persistence  Want to persist your objects, with transactional integrity? You probably assume you're going to be using a database, but not so fast--for lighter uses, particularly for prototyping and testing, the idea of "prevalence" may make more sense. Jim Paterson introduces it by way of Prevayler, a popular prevalence framework.   [ONJava.com]

Playing Movies in a Java 3D World, Part 2  In part one of this two-part series, Andrew Davison walked through how to use JMF to play movie clips inside of a Java 3D scene. In this second and final installment, he discusses another version of the movie screen, using QuickTime for Java. Andrew is the author of Killer Game Programming in Java.   [ONJava.com]

A Firefox Glossary  Brian King, with some help from Nigel McFarlane, covers everything from about:config to "zool" in this fun, fact-filled Firefox glossary. It's by no means exhaustive, but you'll find references to specific chapters or hacks throughout the glossary to Nigel's book, Firefox Hacks. When you're ready to dig deeper, check out his book.   [O'Reilly Network]

Domain Searching Using Visitors  Modern applications typically require domain searching functionality--the ability to search for data within the context of the application domain. In this article, Paul Mukherjee describes an approach to domain searching using the Visitor pattern, and explains its advantages.   [ONJava.com]

Playing Movies in a Java 3D World, Part 1  The ability to play a movie clip inside of a Java 3D scene opens up opportunities for richer, more interesting 3D content. Andrew Davison, author of Killer Game Programming in Java, describes how he implemented a Java 3D movie screen, using the Java Media Framework (JMF) Performance Pack for Windows v.2.1.1e, as well as J2SE 5.0 and Java 3D 1.3.2.   [ONJava.com]

Parallel task execution in J2EE using the Work Manager specification  As it stands, the J2EE specification provides no easy way to initiate the execution of parallel tasks. JSR 237, the Work Manager for Application Servers specification, changes this. In this article, Dmitri Maximovich introduces the specification, and provides an example of how to use it. His code runs on the current beta of WebLogic Server 9.0.  [dev2dev]

Constructing Services with J2EE  Web services are a popular means of deploying service-oriented applications, and the standards in J2EE 1.4 make it easier to develop services that are portable and interoperable. Debu Panda shows you how, and takes a look at how things will get easier in J2EE 5.0.   [ONJava.com]