Just Journal Developer Blog

I upgraded the java servlet container that this site runs on to the latest version.

I'm looking into upgrading other components as well.

Mysql was upgraded today. Bugfixes never hurt anybody. :)

After uploading some new code, the login forms were broken. This has been resolved. If you are using internet explorer 6.0, and login with the main login form at http://www.justjournal.com/login.jsp
the login will used an encrypted version of your password. This is not much more secure as others could still login to this site, but it does prevent people knowing your real password.

I'll be adding the code to all the login forms soon. I'm also trying to get it to work in firefox and safari.

I rolled out some new code today. The login form on http://www.justjournal.com/login.jsp in the middle of the page has support for sending hashed passwords using javascript. I've been sniffing the traffic on the client end and determined that its working for IE6 but not firefox. I suspect something is wrong with the javascript or form. Its definetely a client side issue. I also wrote a new caching library for RSS content. The new classes should be working, but I see they are not saving the data for whatever reason. I will investigate both of these issues.

On the design front, Caryn offered to create a new basic layout for JJ. I asked her to look at the site from a usability perspective. Right now the site is rather hard to use for most people. That needs to be corrected.

The semester ended and I'm ready to work on JJ again. Last night I began work on the login system to transmit encrypted versions of the password using javascript. While its not as secure as using SSL, it should make logins a little safer.

The reason JJ does not use SSL is because I don't have the money for an SSL certificate (49-500 dollars) and more importantly I don't have the money for a seperate IP address for JJ on the server. I may end up setting up a free certificate for JJ on the current IP, but I was saving it for another site.

Regardless if i can get SSL enabled JJ, the password hashing feature is useful.

I found a stupid bug in the subscriptions code. A field was incorrectly named in the sql code. A fix has been saved to my drive and i'll upload it soon.

Just journal is now open source! I talked about doing this for some time. The source tree is now publicly available under the BSD license. Feel free to submit patches or use the code. The code was zipped on my mac tonight. It does not contain the web page templates, documentation on usage, config files or other tidbits yet. I plan on adding this. I'm also considering setting up a cvs or using a service as well. Please let me know if you find the code useful. :)

Dependancies:
Developed on java 1.4 (might work with 1.31)
Jazzy spell check engine
maverick MVC framework
opt domify for maverick

The database layer uses a sun library that i don't believe was released. It allowed for disconnected recordsets. I will most likely change the database layer at some point to avoid this. Originally the jj codebase used recordsets all over the place. Gradually i've switched to Collections in many pieces of the code.

This site makes use of XSLT templates as i'm moving in that direction. I don't like jsp and didn't feel like learning velocity. I know some xsl from previous classic ASP and .NET experiences. Either way, an XML/XSL parser is required for the site to operate correctly.

I have NOT released the website design under the BSD license. Currently only the java source files are under the BSD license.

Any more questions can be directed to luke@justjournal.com or luke@foolishgames.com

The second update is the actual website content files. The preference files have finally been uploaded to enable new features in the preferences system. The faq and support pages were also updated. They are still a bit behind with tonights open source upload, but much closer to reality. :)

I just rolled out the newest version of just journal. it includes several bug fixes, performance tweaks, and the RSS subscription code should be live. I may need to upload a few jsp files to finish the rollout of the RSS code. (i'll check shortly)

I upgraded the jj library but not the jsp and static content.

Just Journal now has an online store. Purchase just journal tee-shirts and other nifty items. I will be bringing the JJ mascott back soon and he will appear on some items as well. :)

I've completed several small projects related to just journal over the last week. The code is not live yet, but I plan on publishing it in the next few days. In addition to performance improvements and bug fixes, I've started to work on several new features. The rss subscription code is ready to test. I've also been migrating several of the individual servlets into the maverick framework. The amount of code reuse and the size of individual classes is much better in this design.

The migration also allows me to fix several outstanding bugs that must be done before the code is open sourced.

Finally, Caryn has been experimenting with cocoa on the Macintosh. Its entirely possible that there will be a Mac OS X client for JJ soon.

I've decided on a license... BSD License without the credit clause. I still have to check the code for anything that shouldn't be in there. Passwords are not stored in the code thank god. I'll probably tar the first version and post it without a lot of documentation. It will be considered an alpha build. Not all the features are working yet. I'm also working on a new internal format for journal storage in XML that will facilitate windows/mac/java clients and better manipulation with various web standards.

I upgraded the version of the database in use as i found a workaround for my other sites.

Profile's are working again and i've got subqueries back. I'll look into fixing the protected entries on the friends page feature soon!

I updated the database driver from a snapshot form 2003 to the current release. That should help a great deal with reliablity!

In case i didn't mention it, Spell check is now working with a US english file.

I am in the process of adding the ability to subscribe to any RSS feed on the internet. I've added the link already to the journal page, under rss syndication called "subscriptions". The preferences stub has not been written yet though.

Now you can subscribe to LJ Communities in addition to LJ Users journals.

Adding friends is working again.

Adding and deleting comments are now avaialble on JJ. I'm working on editing comments.

I've decided to release the JJ codebase to the open source community. I plan on cleaning up the code before its initial release and I'm still deciding on the license i wish to use. It will either be GPL'd or BSD licensed. (new of course)

I brought the code back online last month. The site was down for a about a year. It was restarted with the last known database backup and my development sources. Because the configuration data was lost for the servlet container and maverick based pages, many portions of the site did not work right away.

Working:
update journal (add entries)
create an account
login
rss
friends & calendar (when logged out)
Portions of preferences

Here's a list of known broken components:
friends & calendar (logged in)
most of the comments code
cancel never worked
spell check
plus the old list of bugs on the site.

Friends and calendar are broken because I had to use an older version of mysql which does not support sub queries. I need to rewrite the logic to use multiple database connections. :(

Spell check needs the dictionary file installed.

As for reliability, this site is still in beta and I will not make promises. It is on a REAL server colocated at a hosting facility in Southern California. Last time i was running it on a DSL line on a compaq cheep desktop.