Change Subclipse (SVN) authentication and certificate in Windows XP

Since we rely on VMWare images to do our development we have run into this issue several times. After cloning a virtual image for a new developer you discover that your Subversion credentials are still saved in Eclipse or Rational Application Developer ((aka RAD) aka WSAD). To handle this we added a step in our cloning procedure to clear out save credentials so the next developer can enter their own. If you find yourself wondering how you could change your username, password and certificate for Subclipse you may find this helpful.

Change Subclipse authentication and certificate:

1. Close Eclipse or RAD/WSAD
2. Navigate to the following directory replacing {User} with your Windows logon id.
   C:\Documents and Settings\{User}\Application Data\Subversion
3. Delete all files under the Subversion directory
4. Open Eclipse or RAD/WSAD
5. Synchronize with your SVN repository
6. If prompted click Accept Permanently to trust the certificate
7. When prompted enter your Subverion user id and password

Useful Utilities: WinSCP

This is for those who haven’t been introduced to WinSCP yet, i know many already have. WinSCP is an open source SFTP and FTP client that runs on the Windows platform. It is free to use and has many awesome features. The graphical user interface allows you to easily drag and drop files out to your server directly from Windows Explorer. Since the WinSCP client supports secure FTP the files can be encrypted for security during the transfer. You can also save your favorite hosts and ip addresses in the tool for quick and easy access. The coolest new feature has to be the support for the U3 standard allowing it to be run along with other applications from a USB key device. For the impatient here is the download page.

http://winscp.net/eng/download.php

Annoying Remote Desktop Limitation

If you have ever received the error “The terminal server has exceeded the maximum number of allowed connections” when using Windows you know it means that unless you have physical access to the server you are probably locked out. After struggling with this issue on several occasions I decided to see if there was a way to get around this using Windows XP.

The issue occurs when a user opens a remote desktop connection to a server that isn’t licensed for terminal services. Once the session is active it will remain so until the user logs off of the Windows session. Closing the remote desktop session without logging off leaves the connection open. The limit for the number of simultaneous Remote Desktop users is two sessions.

To solve this problem you can log into a special session called the Console Session in order to Log Out and end the sessions of the other connections. This will allow you to Remote Desktop to the server again once completed.

1. To begin, open up a Windows command prompt.

2. To open up the Console Session type the following command, replace xx.xx.xx.xx with the ip address of the computer you wish to remote desktop to.mstsc /v:xx.xx.xx.xx /console

This will connect you to the Console Session on the server. Use this session to properly terminate the other two active sessions using the terminal services manager.

More information about the console session can be found here, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278845

Useful Utilities: Office Time

Office time is a great tool for professional who are required to keep track of their time. It has built in reporting, iCal publishing, and invoicing capabilities. Since I am easily distracted by phone calls and meetings it also tracks idle time and lets you subtract or place the time under a different project, this is by far my favorite feature. Right you can use the Windows version for free while it is in beta. There is also a Mac version. Enjoy.

http://www.officetime.net/

Useful Utilities: Clipomatic

 I use this tool daily to cache text that I copy to my clipboard so I can reuse and manage it. Clipomatic allows you to create predefined lists of commonly used text for easy pasting. I highly recommend it though be careful as it will cache any passwords you copy and paste.

http://www.mlin.net/Clipomatic.shtml

WebSphere Commerce Hint: Content Managed Files

The CMFILE table in WebSphere Commerce 6.0 is used to store managed files along with associated meta data. Recently I ran into a situation where I deleted an Attachment from the file system by redeploying the Stores.war module instead of just doing a partial update. When the ScheduledContentManagedFileEARUpdate scheduled job ran I expected to see the file appear in the Attachments folder in the deployed Stores.war file but instead nothing happened.

After doing some research, I found that there are two columns in the CMFILE table that need to be updated to ensure a content managed file is updated when the scheduled job runs. The PROMOTE_FS column indicates if a file has been created on the file system, a 0 value indicates that the file has not been promoted while a 1 value indicates that it has been promoted. The PROMOTE_TIMESTAMP column records the date that the file was created on the file system initially. I used the following SQL update in order to tell the scheduled job to recreate the file.

sql>update CMFILE set PROMOTE_FS = 0, PROMOTE_TIMESTAMP = NULL where CMFILEPATH = ‘path/to/file’;

Sure enough the next time the job ran the file appeared in the Stores.war/StoreName folder in the Attachment directory.

Click here to learn more about managed files.

Catalyst for IBM WebSphere Commerce

Purpose
The Catalyst tool for WebSphere Commerce is a tool available from Ascendant Technology that allows for the aggregation of content from multiple sources such as content management systems and blogs via standard web feeds. This content is consumed by Catalyst making it available for use by the Merchandising and Marketing engine of Websphere Commerce.

Current Features
Currently we support the following feeds

• ATOM
• RSS

Works in tandem with the Workspaces functionality in WebSphere Commerce

Content can be associated with Marketing and Merchandising assets

Allows integration with any content management system that can produce a standard feed

Future Plans

Support for the following feed types

• Podcasts
• Photocasts
• Vidcasts
• OPML
• Yahoo! Media RSS
• A9 OpenSearch