SOA with Service Component Architecture and Enterprise Service Bus

In this article by Vincenzo Caselli, Binildas A. Christudas, and Malhar Barai, we will cover the following topics in SOA with Java:

• Service Component Architecture (SCA)
• Introduction to message-oriented middleware (MOM)
• Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)—The new architecture style
• Introduction to OpenESB

SOA with Java Business Integration (part 1)

Integration has been an area for specialists for years, since no standards exist across vendor products. This increases the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to implement and maintain any integration solution. Even though integration is a necessary evil, CIOs and IT managers postpone decisions and actions, and sometimes go for ad-hoc or temporary solutions. Any such activity will complicate the already confused stove pipes and it is the need of the hour to have standardization. Here we are going to inspect the need of another standard for business integration, and also look into the details of what this standard is all about.

In this article by Binildas C. A, we will look at:

• Service oriented architecture in the context of integration
• Relationship between web services and SOA
• Service oriented integration
• J2EE, JCA, and JBI—how they relate
• Introduction to JBI
• JBI Nomenclature—main components in JBI

SOA Books from Packt

This Holiday season, Packt is pleased to announce that it is offering any 5 Open Source eBooks of your choice for only $40/ £25 / €30.

So, what is Google Drive?

Google Drive is a place where you can safely store your files online and access them from anywhere. When you use Google Drive, your files are stored remotely on the Web instead of your computer's hard drive. This is the main idea behind "cloud computing".

Once your files are online and "in the cloud", you can access and edit them from wherever you are using any standard web browser. You can even use your smartphone or tablet computer to access your files on the go. You can also share your files with people that you choose, making it easier than ever to collaborate with others and get stuff done.

Google Drive also includes an optional free sync program that runs on your computer and keeps files synchronized between a folder on your hard drive and Google Drive on the Web. That way, whenever you create or make changes to a file, either on the Web or on your hard drive, it will automatically be kept in sync between your computer and the cloud.

In this article by Mike Procopio, author of Instant Google Drive Starter, you will learn the basics of Google Drive and how to use Google Drive on your phone or tablet computer.

So, what is EaselJS?

This article by Fabio Biondi , author of Instant EaselJS Starter helps you to learn what EaselJS actually is, what you can do with it, and why it's so great. It will also help you on how to create your first HTML5 canvas application "Hello World".

Smart Processes Using Rules

This article by Mauricio Salatino and Esteban Aliverti, authors of jBPM5 Developer Guide, covers some of the common uses of business rules and business processes together. In order to understand how these two worlds are merged inside the Drools & jBPM5 platform, we need to appreciate how a rule engine works. This article covers:

• Good old integration patterns between processes and rules

• A quick introduction to the Drools Rule Engine

• How to leverage the power of the rule engine in our business processes

• Common usage patterns

Slider for Dynamic Applications using script.aculo.us (part 2)

A slider, according to the dictionary, stands for the one that slides. Yes, a slider in the web application context stands for holding and sliding values from a fixed given range, or even from an array of values. The slider is really useful and worthy in places where the user needs to slide through a lot of values and also the application needs to respond to those values and changes. In the first part we were introduced to types of Sliders and code usage for the slider. This is the second part of a two part article on the concept of sliders using script.aculo.us.

In this article by Sridhar Rao, we shall cover:

• Code usage for the slider and options
• Tips and tricks with the slider
• Hands-on example with vertical and horizontal slider

Skinner's Toolkit for Plone 3 Theming (Part 2)

This two-part article series by Veda Williams, deals with Plone 3 Theming. In the first part we covered graphic design tools, browser toolbars and extensions, and CSS validators.

In this part of the article we will cover text editors.

Skin Customization in JBoss RichFaces 3.3

In this article by Demetrio Filocamo, we will learn how to customize the look of our finished application to follow the style we like. We will see discuss how to change the style of existing skins (using CSS and XCSS) and how to create a new personalized skin starting from the built-in skins that the RichFaces framework offers.