James Purser [INSERT WITTY CATCHPHRASE HERE]

*** Edit the information contained here is out of date. To find more up to date information please visit here: http://wavingtheshiny.collaborynth.com.au/books/fedone-book/fedone-book ***

Okay so I've worked out how to install the WRS on Linux (well Debian and Redhat based Distros anyway). So now I'm planning How Tos for the following Operating Systems:

• Windows
• OpenSolaris
• FreeBSD

The main focus of this How To is going to be on actually getting and installing the various packages that you will need to complete the installation process under Windows.

Requirements:

Building the WRS under Windows is going to take a little bit more downloading and configuring than under Linux. Whereas Linux has tools such as Synaptic and Yum to manage software installation, Windows is sadly lacking in this. So this means lots of manual downloading.

Suns Java SDK

You will need Suns Java SDK to build the WRS on Windows. To get this visit the following page:

http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

And select the most up to date version of the Java SE Development Kit. At the time of writing, this is JDK Update 14. Go through the process of downloading and installing the SDK.

Ant

While the SDK is vital it does not include a vital tool required in the building of the WRS, the Apache Ant Build Tool. There are a number of ways to get Ant for Windows, however I found the following project the easiest to use:

http://code.google.com/p/winant

OpenSSL For Windows

Okay I've got version 0.1 of a WRS installer script here.

It's a bash script and has been pretty well tested in Ubuntu. It does have an alternative for Redhat based distro's but this is basically untested. The script itself is meant to manage the downloading and installing of the various pieces of software required to setup the server. It doesn't handle the Openfire management or DNS setup you will require.

One of the issue regarding the script and RH based distro's is that Sun's JDK isn't available by default, rather they carry the OpenJDK. No testing has been done with the WRS and OpenJDK so it's entirely possible that something will break.

Anyway download and let me know how you go.

*** Edit the information contained here is out of date. To find more up to date information please visit here: http://wavingtheshiny.collaborynth.com.au/books/fedone-book/fedone-book ***

Now that you've setup your Wave Reference Server, you're probably going to want to test out one of THE big features. Federation. This post will take you through setting it up.

What Is Federation?

Federation is the thing that moves Wave out from JAGB (Just Another Google Beta) to being something more. It is the server to server communication protocol. This is what allows you to run your own Wave server and communicate with any other Wave server.

Okay, Cool, So How Do I Set It Up?

We actually did most of the work for setting up Federation in the last tutorial. To finish the job we simply need to do the following:

Ports: If you're running the server behind a firewall or NAT, then you'll need to setup port forwarding for port 5269 on your device to your Server.

DNS: For the moment there isn't an "Official" port for the Wave Federation Protocol. This means that the WRS relies on SRV records to indicate which port it should be communicating with the remote server on. Below is an example of an SRV record for your Wave Server.

_xmpp-server._tcp.blah.com. 3600 IN SRV 10 0 5269 wave.blah.com.

Also if this is a new subdomain for your domain don't forget to add an A record.

wave.blah.com  IN A [IPADDRESS]

*** Edit the information contained here is out of date. To find more up to date information please visit here: http://wavingtheshiny.collaborynth.com.au/books/fedone-book/fedone-book ***

When Google announced the new Wave technology at the IO conference earlier this year they made a promise. That not only would the Protocols be Open, but they would also be Open Sourcing  "the Lions Share" of the code they were developing for the Wave.

Up until recently, that amounted to Robot and Gadget code, however true to their word, Google has released the first version of their Wave Reference Server under the Apache License. The instructions below will take you through the process of installing that server.

Please note: These instructions have been written for Ubuntu Jaunty, however I think we a little jigging around can be used for other distros.

What is the Wave Reference Server:

The Wave Reference Server is Googles first release of the code  behind their Wave server offering. Written in Java, it offers developers a chance to get into the guts of the Wave system and better understand how it works.

As well as the Server itself, the WRS comes with a Text based Wave Client. It is very rudimentary at the moment, however as with the Server it's an opportunity to see how exactly the Server and Clients communicate with each other. This can then be used to build other more featureful clients.

Requirements:

A while ago i registered the domain planetgov20.com so I could have a place to put any Gov20 projects I was working on. It started out as a simple blogroll of Gov20 blogs from around the country and then languished there awaiting new inspiration.

Inspiration came while I was doing some work on openausbot. As I was searching through the OpenAustralia member entries I started to wonder how many Politicians actually blog. So using "Da Powah!" of Drupal I decided to put together Politico Bloggers (also known as #polliebloggers on twitter).

The idea is to create a list of those politicians who run legitimate blogs (that is blogs that aren't blatant PR feeds, have rss feeds and allow commenting). The list would be divided by nation as well as Government level. For the moment it's going to be elected reps rather than Public Service types, however I can see that coming as well.

There's a lot that needs to be done still, but one thing I've learnt already is that there a large number of Federal members who don't actually seem to have a web site, let alone a blog, and that rss feeds are in short supply on those "blogs" that are run.

So if you know of a Pollie Blogger and s/he isn't on the list already then please let us know. At the moment, we're looking at Australia and New Zealand but will soon be expanding out to other nations (possibly the UK, US and Canada and then further afield).

While getting my morning twitter fix this morning I came across this post by Jeff:

"Astronauts are in the Command Service Module now, almost all the way to the Moon, poking around in the Eagle. 47 hours until landing!"

After a brief period of wondering whether he'd either ingested some good honest Yass "herb" or had infact invented a time machine, I came across wechoosethemoon.org which has been put together to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings.

One of the very cool features of this site is a live stream of the mission audio from Apollo 11. This means that no only do we get to relive the landing itself, but we can get that almost there sensation. It's like eaves dropping across time on a moment that for me at least is one of the highest achievements of humankind.

On the other hand it's also kind of depressing. 40 years ago we got to the moon, proved that it could be done and that we now had the opportunity to create a new pioneering age. Instead we got stuck with a brick with wings and teflon. Have we as a species lost that urge to explore that drove us across oceans, deserts and icepacks? Why is it considered science fiction to talk about Moon colonies and Asteroid Mining?

Sigh, I may not see a permanent settlement on the moon in my life time, but I hope against hope that my grand kids will.

I've been watching the wailing and gnashing of teeth that has greeted Googles announcement of ChromeOS with bemusement. From people angry that Google has decided to build their own Distro to those who are claiming that it's a deliberate slight against Ubuntu and will fracture the Linux world, some say fataly!

Take a breath people.

Let's deal with the biggest claim first shall we?

"ChromeOS Will Fracture The Linux Community!!11!"

I'm sorry people but get a grip please? The Linux "Community" was never something that could be fractured. It was born fractured and its strength lies both in the differences and the similarities. Adding another distro like ChromeOS will add to the common store rather than detract from it. Especially if as promised they release it under a broad Open Source license like the GPL(2 or 3).

Face it, there are already something like 150 different distro's out there, adding one more will not break the FOSS world.

"They should have Used Ubuntu!1!1!"

As I understand it, Google already uses Ubuntu internally, at least their own version of it. This is a desktop version specifically tailored to Googles own requirements. The fact they're not using it for ChromeOS isn't anything special. Hell the ASUS EEEPC's didn't use Ubuntu either, rather getting Xandros to build a custom distro for their netbooks.

Ubuntu is a great distro sure, but it's not the be all and end all of the Linux world.

Speaking for myself, I'll be looking at what Google has to offer, but I don't think that the world is going to end.

So before I start on the Grand Adventure that is PlonieBot, I thought I would start with something smaller, with a much more limited API that I could practice against. I've also been wanting to play around with the OpenAustralia API and so openausbot was born.

The idea is to create a participant that can be used to search the Open Australia database and return the information to the wave for dicussion or further dissection by the participants. If you want to play with it, the id is openausbot@appspot.com. Just keep in mind it's pretty damn Alpha :)

I know people are starting to get annoyed with the very limited access that has been given out so far and I can understand why.

On the one hand I can see why the Google Wave people have limited access. Wave is still very much Alpha tech. It's not yet at the Beta stage that GMail has only just escaped, and as such, there could much breakage as it evolves rapidly. On the other hand the Wave could benefit from "Real World" usage. That is usage not only by people like me and other hackers, but by people who would use Wave as simply another communications tool. That's when the boundry pushing will really begin.

If you've been watching my twitter/identi.ca stream lately you'll notice that I've managed to get access to the Google Wave developers preview.

Apart from "teh coolness" of being involved with something like this, the main reason I signed up was I really wanted to see if it was possible to bring Wave functionality to the Plone CMS.

One of the big things about Wave is the fact that Google is not envisioning it as a vendor lockin system. Instead they are open sourcing and open standarding (yeah I know it's not a real word), "the lions share" of what they have. This includes their very rough "Federation Protocol". This is the bit that allows different wave servers to talk to each other much like SMTP servers do now. My plan, once I've gotten my head around how wave works in real life, is to see if it's possible to create a Product for Plone that allows it to interact with different Wave servers, much the way other products allow it to interact with existing mail servers.

The most exciting news however is a hint that there might be a code release soon. Nothing concrete but I'm certainly looking forward to seeing how they handle the Federation Protocol in "Real Life(tm)".

The level of banking spam has been going through the roof lately and I've recieved everything from St George, to the NAB, Westpac and even the CUA. However given that it's nearing tax time, the ATO is being given a run at the moment.

This morning I recieved an email with the following text:

You have get a Tax Refund on your Visa or MasterCard.
Complete the formular, and get your Tax Refund.

(Your Refund Amount Is 250.50 AUD)

Complete Formular

Classy work isn't it.

So out of curiosity I clicked on "Complete Formular" to see how professional the crackers had made the site look. It was meh. They'd obviously done a screen shot of the ATO site and then overlaid some sort of imagemap. There was a link you had to follow to "claim your refund" so I thought I'd follow that and see what sort of information they were asking for. Here it is in all it's glory.

I'm sorry, but anyone who falls for this is asking for it. The ATO is never, ever going to ask for your ATM PIN. Ever. I can see them asking for Credit Card details, but only in relation to paying of taxes, not giving of refunds.

Sigh.