Christmas Colors

We now have nightly Maven builds including Clover testcase coverage reporting for uPortal.

Maybe there will be some unit tests in our stockings this year...

JA-SIG Facebook

Are you a member (or groupie?) of the Java Architectures Special Interest Group? Consider adding a profile on the JA-SIG Facebook.

Don't knock it.

"Right now, we do not require anything from the portal further than what the 2.1 series offers. This very well may change. But for the needs of our community, at this point in time we see no need to upgrade our version of uPortal."

- from the jasig-portal email list, 15 December 2005.

The velocity of persuit of revolutionary change should be balanced with the benefit of what already exists.

Or, in order for deployers to keep up with the upgrades, the upgrade path needs to be darn near painless. I'm learning that I've greatly under-valued the importance of a clear, compelling, automated, foolproof upgrade path in the uPortal project in the past. On the bright side, I'm learning.

Sakai conference Vancouver May 30 - June 2

Mark your calendar now for the Sakai portion of Community Source Week May 30 through June 2 in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Sheraton Wall Centre.

uPortal conference 4-6 June 2006 in Vancouver

Mark your calendar now for the 2006 uPortal conference 4-6 June in Vancouver, B.C., Canada (at the Westin Bayshore). Those of us from the States: probably a good idea to start acquiring a passport now.

uPortal-Sakai Integration BOF

The uPortal-Sakai integration Birds of a Feather at JA-SIG Austin identified opportunities for integration projectlets. Most immediately promising is making Sakai announcements available via xmessage and consuming them as announcements topics in the Columbia University announcements channel.

WSRP consumed by rich clients?

Shoji Kajita's talk Aggregation of WSRP channels on Eclipse Rich Client Platform was interesting. I hadn't thought about the need and role for rich clients in accomplishing integration with tools like PDAs, iPods, etc.

uPortal-Sakai Integration

Presented a session on uPortal-Sakai integration at JA-SIG Austin. I was disappointed to have little actual demonstrable technical progress to report / show, but the attendees seemed interested even in a presentation of the ideas about and taxonomy of integration options. Slides soon.

uPortal 3 Sneak Preview

I was very impressed by Eric Dalquist and Peter Kharchenko's presentation uPortal 3 Sneak Preview at JA-SIG Austin. Powerful pluggable rendering pipeline and Spring-configuration throughout are important architectural improvements.

uPortal project opportunities for improvement

Attended Jim Helwig (University of Wisconsin-Madison)'s presentation Jumping In: Migrating an Enterprise System from Commercial Software to Open Source at JA-SIG in Austin.

Jim highlighted some ways in which the uPortal project could be better:

• Webproxy features (addressed by Wisconsin's web proxy portlet)


• Documentation


• Robustness

Dynamic Channel Titles kiosk

I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who gathered around to see my demonstration of the Dynamic Channel Titles feature available in uPortal 2.5.1, and which will also be available in 2.4.4 and 2.6. A very modest feature, but I hope it's a good example of carefully evolving the codebase and functionality of uPortal.

Sakai 2.1.0 docs as text

Sakai 2.1.0 docs as text.

On Channel to Portlet Conversion

It's been a useful exercise, and have learned a valuable lesson: channel to portlet conversion is more expensive than redesigning the portlet in the first place.

From the JA-SIG uPortal discussion list

Yet Another Issue Tracker

But a nice one, in uPortal channel formfactor.

Dynamic channel titles

Dynamic channel titles are available in uPortal 2.5.1 and will be available in uPortal 2.4.4 and 2.6 when they become available.

uPortal 2.5.1 quick start release now available

uPortal 2.5.1 quick start release now available.

Steve Githens' Blog

Steve Githens' blog occasionally has uPortal-related content.

uPortal 2.5.1 now available

uPortal 2.5.1 now available.

Not a Portal

"Welcome to Milwaukee.gov's new portal page." Except it's not a portal. It's just a search box. A portal is characterized by aggregating and summarizing information for me. A search box is a tool for me to reach out and go get information. And a web page is just that, a page on the web.