Just Journal Developer Blog
Sun, 22 Jun 2003
10:45 AM

New Journal
This journal will log the progress on JustJournal.com.  I will include information on server upgrades, new features, etc. 

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Wed, 9 Jul 2003
9:48 PM

Site updates?
I haven't forgotten about jj.  I have been playing around with several java frameworks for web development including struts and tapestry.  I want to find a new way to write code besides servlets.. or at least an enhancement.  I like them except that output formatting is annoying.. println() kind of stuff.  ?
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If I don't find a framework soon, I will simply write my own libraries.  XSLT support would be very good for users as well as me.?
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Here is a breakdown of upcomming features that are partially done:?
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Friends (add/remove)?
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Comments (no nesting)?
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Preferences including Custom style sheets for journals.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:53 PM

RSS?
Would anyone be interested in RSS feeds for user journals?  Many blogging sites including LiveJournal have this feature.  My question is:  Are people using it?  ?
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Reply to Luke@FoolishGames.com

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Thu, 10 Jul 2003
5:14 PM

Comments Work!
The add and view comment code is now in place.  You can add comments to journals provided that you have an account on JJ.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

5:15 PM

Friends Code is close
Caryn wrote the remove friend code today.  She has the add friend code partially done.  I expect Friends should be working by next week sometime.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Thu, 17 Jul 2003
8:39 PM

Friends Code works, Update on RSS
The friends code has been working for quite some time now.  The output when you submit is weak, but that will be fixed later.?
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RSS update:  The first version of the code was published tonight.  I completely rewrote the users servlet to implement it.  Quite a bit of code is not executed now unless needed.  Much faster.  RSS output seems to be incomplete though.  I will debug it soon.?
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RSS .91 will be supported soon.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

9:07 PM

RSS partially working
RSS content feeds work provided that characters important in xml are not used in the journal.  For example, less than or greater than marks or ampersand signs.  I will filter those characters out in the next release to fix the problem.?
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If you want to use RSS, simply type in the following?
http://www.justjournal.com/users/jjjsite/rss?
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(note that you would replace jjsite with your username or the person you want to watch)?
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FeedReader for windows works with the RSS generated on this site.  (i'm sure others do as well)

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Mon, 25 Aug 2003
12:06 AM

Database Changes
I just altered the database tables for entries.  Now the entire table is not locked when someone is inserting a new entry.  That should make the site much faster.  I'll investigate changing table types for other tables as well.  User prefernces might be a canidate as well.?
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Slashdot uses Inno DB tables as well.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 Aug 2003
6:38 PM

Bug fix day
I've corrected serveral bugs on Just Journal today.  ?
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Typing an incorrect password now displays an error message instead of a blank screen.  ?
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Creating an account now sets up records in all user tables instead of just inserting in two.  Style, preferences, and other information will be editable for new users.?
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Most users now have their records created for all the new features.  There are still 5 to check that may or may not have them setup correctly.  ?
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The live journal friends test code was sped up.  I think I can put that feature into production soon.  Basically i just need to add a few links and the related preferences pages.  ?
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I've been standardizing commenting across all the servlets.  Most of my early code was not commented well and not sharing code.?
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All servlets use the new Connection Pool.  So far no errors in the logs in regards to connections not being let go. Jsp pages still need to use the pool, although i want to implement beans for their code anyway or switch away from them.  ?
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The calendar page will act oddly for a few days.  I'm working on that feature actively.  Initially, I will try to mimic the behavior of live journal and then extend it later.  Some of the loops are very complicated. 

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Sun, 7 Sep 2003
7:55 AM

Software upgrades
Over the last two days, I sucessfully upgraded several pieces of software including FreeBSD and Tomcat for this website.  File I/O seems much faster, and I am pleased with the progress so far.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:58 AM

Site design
I am in the process of transitioning the site look and feel to a refined version.  It will take several more days of work to finish.  I think the new look will simplify using this website.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 15 Sep 2003
6:23 AM

New Features!
Last night I got the calendar code working.  You can now view entries for this year, month, and days.  I will add a viewer for single entries later.?
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Also i setup the following url structure for this feature:?
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/users/mysusername/year/month/day?
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for example:?
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to view all the entries for 2003 for jjsite:?
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/users/jjsite/2003?
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to view all the entries for september:?
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/users/jjsite/2003/09?
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to view all the entries for today:?
/users/jjsite/2003/09/15?
?
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Its very important that you have the 0 prefixing days or months smaller than 10 (2 digit dates).  The matching code looks for 2 integers there.  ?
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Also, the code should work in the future.  If you pass in 2004 it will correctly access the entries (if they existed).  If someone forward dates an entry, it should be visible.?
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There are two flaws, the software does not print out all the years that are applicable (which isn't a problem till 2004) and specific entries are not viewable by themselves (which i already discussed).  ?
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The first problem is easily fixed, I'm working on adding a signup year field (since) that allows jj to know where to start counting from.  Existing accounts have this field setup, but new accounts do not have it set yet.  (new account code is really behind)?
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I'm working on several other new features as well including user pics.  this is a very popular feature on LJ and i think it would work great on jj as well.  Initially, i will only allow one picture to be uploaded locally to the server (no seperate hosting crap).  I have the storage system setup, but have not written the distrubition system.  Also, i must write a servlet to allow users to upload images. (the most important part)?
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Once i have the system working, i will let users email me images to post in PNG format.  Finally, i'll add the upload servlet.  ?
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Another requested feature has been the profile system.  The backend has been done for about two months now.  I just haven't had time to rewrite the preferences system.  I'm testing several frameworks that might aide in building the prefs system in the future.  ?
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I plan to get back to adding one feature a week.  The beauty is that each feature seems bigger than the last.?
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Also, i've been tweaking the website design lately.  Its getting better, but still needs work. :)?
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Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Thu, 25 Sep 2003
1:12 PM

New Moods and more LJ Friends support
I am in the process of adding a few dozen moods today.  Eventually, I want to add an "other" field too.?
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LJ Friends now displays user pictures, and the title of their journal as opposed to the username.  I also improved the formatting slightly on the lj friends page.  I am considering a similar layout for regular journals in the future.  (tweaked a bit though)?
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Friends pages now have usernames listed as hyperlinks (owner of entry).  ?
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There are a few bugs with the new data access object integration for journal updates and adds.  When the bugs are worked out, the "keep login after post" check box will function on the update page.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 11 Oct 2003
5:23 PM

Spell Check
Spell check functionality is about half done.  The backend code is done, and part of the integration.  The view is where i'm stuck.  ?
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I just got a new hard drive for my iMac so i will need to reinstall my machine before i can work on jj more.?
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Several software packages have been upgraded on the server recently as well as several operating system upgrades.  Things seem very fast.

Security: Public
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Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 12 Oct 2003
12:24 AM

Server Upgrades
The server has been upgraded to a new release of freebsd and native java 1.4 p4.  The java upgrade took longer than expected.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 26 Nov 2003
8:49 AM

Quite a few things have happened...
JustJournal was moved to another server over the last few weeks.  The new setup is a bit slower, but much cheaper.   ?
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When the speed becomes an issue, I'll look into something faster.?
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I've also been looking for bugs in the existing system.  I have a small list of things that need to be corrected (plus spell check and mood icons).

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 6 Dec 2003
1:54 PM

Server upgrades
I'm installing a new version of FreeBSD today.  The server should only be down a few minutes.  I know this site is in great need of new features and hopefully i'll get to it during the holidays.  My college semester ends next week, and I am the only developer.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 14 Dec 2003
1:04 PM

Down time
Earlier today, the database and webserver were taken down for upgrades.  The database upgrade hit a few snags.  Mysql protocol was changed in the 4.1.1 release which caused the site not to work for some time.  ?
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I have installed a new jdbc driver and fixed some compatibility issues.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Okay
Music: 

Wed, 17 Dec 2003
12:37 AM

Mood Icons
I've accomplished a great deal tonight with the mood icons.  The icons are now displaying for seven root categories and are inherited by sub categories.  There are 28 total root categories which means 21 need icons for all moods to have icons.  ?
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I have the icons working for individual journals and friends pages.  Previously, no icons appeared on friends pages.?
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In addition, I fixed the bug where "Not Specified" appeared for location and mood.  Those fields now only appear if the user selected a valid item.?
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The new mysql version is slower and the additional overhead of mood icons has slowed down the site.  I'll work on optimizations over the next week.  I started consolidating code in september, but the college semester through me off track.?
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During my break I hope to fix all the outstanding bugs and broken features that the public knows about.  I want to get spell check and friends security working.?
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I also need to work on another site I actually get paid for so i might not get everything done during break.?
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The spell check engine has worked since august but i never created the jsp pages to use it.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Tired
Music: 

1:49 AM

Friends Security
Friends security is partially working.  You can now view your friends secure entries when logged in on your friends page.?
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Only bug is that you can not view our own entries on your friends friends page yet.  (that is not a good sentence, but its 2 am)?
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The SQL query is a bit odd that i wrote.  If anyone has entries go public that shouldn't or find a bug in the system let me know.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Tired
Music: 

2:04 AM

Friends Security icon
On a friends page, if an entry has security attached then the proper icon is now displayed.  ?
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That way your friends will know the entry is private and not to talk about it publicly!  (well hopefully)?
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Remember that comments are technically public.  Unless someone can see the entry, they can't click on the comments link though.  It is still possible to view them if they guess the comment id or someone gives it to them.  (i may change that in the future)

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:05 PM

Spell Check
It is now possible to spell check a post.  There are a few minor bugs with the system yet.  The location and date are not saved during the spell check transaction, but the other fields are saved.?
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The dictionary is US English only.  I need to get dictionary files for other languages including British English, German, French, Spanish, and any other languages.  I'd be happy to take contributions.  ?
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If the spell check engine doesn't recoginize a word, it will not report a misspelling.  Feel free to submit words to add to the dictionary file.  ?
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In the last 24 hours, i've added new mood icons, spell check, and a few bug fixes.  I also increased the size of the entry input form. 

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Okay
Music: 

Thu, 18 Dec 2003
1:51 AM

Friends, Friend Of
Friends relationships are working on the profile pages.  You can now see your friends and people who added your journal. ?
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Note the profiles are still rather buggy.  I found a bug with the SQL driver tonight and had to alter the database logic for the profile to get them to work more consistantly.?
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Profiles are still cached by the web browser from time to time.  I'll need to make a servlet or something to fix that issue.  Also, several of the fields are not alterable yet because they have not been added to preferences.  (AIM, ICQ, etc)?
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Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Okay
Music: 

Fri, 19 Dec 2003
7:56 PM

Better Security
Just Journal now uses 1 way hash encryption to protect passwords.  Basically your password is not stored anymore, but rather a hash of it.  (a 40 bit hex number representation)  I can't give out passwords anymore but i can still reset them.  ?
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The reason for the change is so that if someone hacks into the mysql database, they can't get your password.  Some people use the same password at multiple sites.  This is a new trend in web site security.  Logins were down for the last two hours for some users as the passwords were hashed and the code was uploaded.?
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I still need to fix create accout to use the new hash system.?
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I also wrote code to change passwords.  I'll get that live this weekend.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

8:01 PM

Comment system
I fixed the comment system.  Entries now consistantly appear.  I'm planning on adding some management capabilities for journal owners soon.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

10:12 PM

Change Passwords
Users can now change their password.  Go to preferences while you are logged in to change your password.  Remember passwords must be larger than 5 characters.?
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A-Z?
a-z?
0-9?
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(special characters may work, but i won't guarantee i'll support it forever)

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Okay
Music: 

Mon, 22 Dec 2003
1:24 PM

JJ has a mascott
Henry is now the official spokes-cat for Just Journal.  He has been living with me for two years now.  He has quite an appetite at 17 pounds!  ?
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Henry often sits on my lap when i'm coding the site.  It was only fitting that he would promote it. :)?
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Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Accomplished
Music: 

Wed, 24 Dec 2003
4:06 AM

Bug in spell check
I just uncovered a bug in the spell check engine.  If an apostrophe is used, the entry is not added properly.  This also caused problems accesing the database for the user after that time.?
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In addtion, the spell check entry doesn't get cleared out if there is an error.  ?
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I'll try to resolve both of those problems soon.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 28 Dec 2003
7:29 PM

Profiles
I've been working on the profile pages tonight. I have serveral bugs worked out.  I removed AIM indicators which no longer work and added ICQ indicators.?
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I want to add these features for all services but that will take time.?
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I've been working on the backend of the comments system over the weekend.  Hopefully i'll get that fixed up and will have new profile and comment features ready to go this week.?
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Caryn is working on a protocol for a possible JJ client.  ?
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The spell check bug is not in my code per se, but rather in the spell check engine itself.  It returns altered strings.  I'll try upgrading it and digging in the source this week.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Satisfied
Music: 

Wed, 31 Dec 2003
11:50 PM

New Features
JJ has a new view comments page.  I also added the ability to delete comments (for the poster).  ?
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Spell checking comments is about 2/3 of the way completed as well.?
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editing comments will be added soon.  The database access code is already written.  ?
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editing and deleting journal entries is on a high priority list.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 2 Jan 2004
5:45 PM

Comments
It is now possible to edit and delete comments if you are the owner of the comment.  Spell checking comment edits is coming soon. ?
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I also added some indexes to speed up sql queries.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Optimistic
Music: 

7:38 PM

Calendar issue
For some reason, the calendar feature is broken.  Its possible with the new year something was broken.  ?
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I'm looking into the problem.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 3 Jan 2004
1:30 AM

Calendar is fixed!
I fixed the calendar problem.  One of my classes assumed that java would count months starting at 1.  Since its january, that was bad!?
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While I was in the code, I optimized it and added mood icons and security icons like the recent entries and friends pages.  ?
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I also added code to let you look at previous years entries.?
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That code is behind with friends security.  It should only display public entries to someone on your friends list.  I'll fix this soon.?
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I also did some research and found several bugs in mysql and tomcat 5.  Those issues could cause unexpected behavior in jj.  I'm trying to make the code more robust to report errors and deal with them gracefully.  I've had to add checks for conditions that should never happen which slows down the site, but at least it doesn't crash the site!?
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I also tuned the java runtime parameters to speed things up.  Java can take advantage of optimizations in the server vm and a few other memory settings.?
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Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 29 Feb 2004
11:27 PM

Disaster Struck!
The hard drive died in the compaq server for JustJournal and my personal site last tuesday.  The /usr partition was toasted including the mysql data files and all of the website data.  fsck couldn't do anything with it.  ?
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In summary, the mysql data was destroyed containing journal entries.  The most recent backup that was salvagable was from January 3rd, 2004.  Anyone that signed up after that date or any journal entries posted after that date have been lost.  ?
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The source code for justjournal is backed up on my ibook and i was able to publish it back to the new hard drive.  ?
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how did it happen? ?
The 40 gig seagate IDE drive (OEM) failed.  It appeared there were bad sectors on the disk.  Modern IDE drives have extra sectors not usable that are automatically replaced when the drive detects problems.  The limit was reached.  Justjournal is housed at work and currently runs off of a DSL line on my PC running FreeBSD.  The furnace has been out most of the winter and the roof has been leaking in the server room.  These conditions are VERY bad for hard drives.  There isn't much i can do about it because quite frankly I can't afford to get another colo setup like I had pre-november.  The server also provides mail services for work and they were gracious enough to buy me a new drive since it was probably their fault.?
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I lost my data.. what are you going to do about it??
Not much.  I can't go back in time and backup data more often.  My mysql server has a root password and therefore i can't automate backups.  I refuse to put a root password in a shell script.  Its just dump.  I may try to setup a user just for backups with read access.  In the mean time, i will start backing up mysql and the jj webspace more frequently.  I lost the web.xml mapping file as well which i had to rebuild.  It is entirely my fault for not providing regular backups.  In addition, I plan to start using the CD burner once a month to backup data in tar format and possibly using the unix dump command.  ?
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I also plan to add a way users can backup their own journal entries and retrieve all of their data so its not entirely on my head when this happens.  I can't afford a tape drive or raid arrays as I don't make anything off of my websites including justjournal and foolishgames.com.  ?
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I appoligize for my mistake and hope to improve my administration skills in the future.?
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Also, there has been some loss of functionality in the short term.  Posting and most of the preference systems should be back up tonight.  Several tables are missing that weren't yet in existance in january.  Comments are not working right now.  I will try to get those working very soon.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 6 Mar 2005
8:02 AM

State of JJ
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.?
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Working:?
update journal (add entries)?
create an account?
login?
rss?
friends & calendar (when logged out)?
Portions of preferences?
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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.?
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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. :(?
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Spell check needs the dictionary file installed.  ?
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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.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

8:08 AM

JJ going open source
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)?
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Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 18 Mar 2005
6:51 PM

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

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 19 Mar 2005
5:20 PM

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

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

5:20 PM

(no subject)
Adding friends is working again.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:54 PM

Coming soon
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.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

6:56 PM

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

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 20 Mar 2005
9:26 AM

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

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

10:04 AM

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

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 23 Mar 2005
7:50 PM

Open source progress
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. ?
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Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 30 Mar 2005
2:29 PM

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

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 5 Apr 2005
4:31 PM

Merchandise
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. :)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 6 Apr 2005
7:39 AM

New version of Just Journal released
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)?
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I upgraded the jj library but not the jsp and static content.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 12 Apr 2005
7:53 PM

Two great updates
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. :)?
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Dependancies:?
Developed on java 1.4 (might work with 1.31)?
Jazzy spell check engine?
maverick MVC framework?
opt domify for maverick?
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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.  ?
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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.?
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I have NOT released the website design under the BSD license.  Currently only the java source files are under the BSD license.  ?
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Any more questions can be directed to luke@justjournal.com or luke@foolishgames.com?
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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. :)

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

8:14 PM

Bug in rss subscriptions code
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.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 27 Apr 2005
10:52 AM

Progress Report
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.?
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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.

Security: Public
Location: Work
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

Thu, 28 Apr 2005
8:40 PM

Logins
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.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 30 Apr 2005
5:23 PM

Login problem fixed
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.?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 16 May 2005
8:56 AM

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

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

9:14 AM

Upgraded Tomcat
I upgraded the java servlet container that this site runs on to the latest version.  ?
?
I'm looking into upgrading other components as well.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 29 May 2005
7:40 AM

Source Forge
I just applied for a new source forge project for Just journal.  If they approve it, I can have a CVS repository open for the project, bug reporter, etc.?
?
If approved the project name will be Just Journal.  :)?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 1 Jun 2005
3:36 PM

Just Journal Project now on sourceforge!
The source code to Just Journal is now available on http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/justjournal?
?
Currently you can check it out of cvs.  I'm planning on adding documentation, template examples, configuration files, and other required ports of just journal to the repository soon.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 13 Jun 2005
8:13 PM

(no subject)
Subscription views are currently broken.  I'm working on some new code to fix cached rss feeds.  I'll try to get this fixed as soon as possible. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 12 Aug 2005
12:28 AM

New site and fixes
I just launched the new theme for just journal.  I'm planning on improving the site design further in fine detail.  After 2 years, it felt right to update the design.?
?
The RSS syndication feature got an overhaul.  I finally got RSS caching working.  That means when you subscribe to rss feeds or live journal friends it will load much faster.  Currently rss content gets updates every 24 hours.  I'm hoping to make some sites update more often.  News sites in particular should update every few hours.  ?
?
I've also updated some of the code in the cvs repository with the recent changes.  If this is greek to you, don't worry it is to most people.  It might appeal to programmers.  ?
?
I spent some time on the windows client tonight.  I haven't looked at the source for a few months.  Its not in very good shape at the moment.  I want to get something that works out soon.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 19 Sep 2005
8:10 AM

Site down time, data loss
The hard drive failed on this server eariler this month.  The site was restored last friday to its state in late august.  The database backup from around the 8th of this month was corrupt.  I'm trying to salvage some of the data and re-import it into the site.?
?
The server was brand new and contained a seagate SATA 80 gb hard drive.  ?
?
I've started planning a new backup process so individuals can back up their blogs.  This is the second loss of data since just journal started two years ago.  This time I had backups, but they were not correct.  I had done global backups and not per database.  Some binary data in another database caused the import to fail.  I'm looking into alternate backup procedures which may require bring the site down monthly for full backups of the data in a binary form in addition to mysqldump and/or exports via phpmyadmin.?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 24 Sep 2005
4:01 PM

Changes to site
Last night I installed a new version of the just journal software on the server.  It fixed several bugs and even added a few new features.  ?
?
I also added a new theme to the site called Modern.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 26 Sep 2005
10:49 PM

Bugs
Hmm.. quick bug list.?
?
New theme Modern has a spacing problem that hides the logged in user.?
?
login page has an extra character in the menu causing odd whitespace.?
?
Missing footer on login page.?
?
Maybe add mini calendar.?
?
Favorites still don't work.?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 4 Oct 2005
12:33 AM

Comments are not working
Just noticed some problems with comments.  I'll look at the code tonight and try to figure out the regression error.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 9 Oct 2005
2:52 PM

SSL testing
I have an SSL test certificate installed.  You can use the site at https://www.justjournal.com/ during the testing period if you would prefer to have secure logins, etc.  The site will act slower under ssl and i'd probably just setup logins to handle ssl in the future if i keep ssl.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Thu, 27 Oct 2005
9:28 AM

New version of JJ has a bug
I released a new version of JJ on the server last night.  It fixed some problems with logins, but also introduced a new bug where journals are only viewable when logged in.  I've got a patch ready and will install it later.  ?
?
I did fix everything but the friends page.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 31 Oct 2005
11:55 AM

Windows Client
I'm happy to announce the second release of the just journal windows client.  Alpha 2 adds the following features:?
?
Saves your username and password?
?
Automatic logins?
?
New login form thats smaller and easier to use on older/small monitors.  ?
?
Now minimizes to the system tray (by the clock).  You can double click on the icon to create a new journal entry or right click to see a menu with several options.  ?
?
About screen with version information?
?
Problem where the program keeps running if you hit the X to close the post window is resolved.  (tray icon)?
?
Known bugs:?
Mood list does not have anything in it.  This information must be downloaded from the site and I haven't upgraded the server code to handle it yet.  ?
?
Annoying message box pops up after posting an entry.  This is for debugging.  If it says something like JJ.UPDATE.OK it means your post should be on the site.  ?
?
Allow comments and emails check boxes don't do anything.  This is a server side problem as well.  I'm investigating the problem.  A possible patch is ready and I'll be testing it in the next few days.?
?
Entry is marked as html output and is not auto formatted.  Server side issue as well.  Working on a fix.?

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Geeky
Music: 

12:03 AM

Login issues resolved
I upgraded the server version a few days ago to fix the bug earlier reported with the friends page and others not displaying without a login.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 6 Nov 2005
11:03 AM

Auto detect music from windows player player 9 and 10  with windows client
You can auto detect the music using the sense button in the latest experimental JJ client.  It will be released later today.  ?
?
You must get the windows media blogging plugin for this to work.  You can download it at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/wm_create.mspx

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:11 AM

Archiving old Live Journal entries
If you used to have a live journal account, you may appreciate this.?
?
http://fawx.com/ljArchive/?
?
It allows you to archive your entries to your computer.  Its open source so i may find a way to set it to import entries into JJ.  I'm hoping I can do this for people migrating. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 13 Nov 2005
6:05 PM

Windows Client Released!
Just Journal for Windows 1.0 has been released.  This client allows you to post journal entries from your windows based PC without coming to this site.  You still must be on the internet to use the software.  Future versions will let you write offline and post online.  ?
?
The release version fixes quite a few bugs from alpha 3.  Bold, Italic and Underline now work with ctrl + b, ctrl + i, and ctrl + u respectively.  There is now an options screen which lets you disable auto login once its set.  Music is detected with winamp 1.0, Windows media player 9 or 10 with the blogging plugin installed (from microsoft.com), or older versions of Music Match.  Location and security settings are saved between posts so you won't need to change them constantly.  Mood lists work now from the server. 

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

Wed, 16 Nov 2005
12:12 AM

Windows Client Source Code Released
The JJ windows client source code has been release under the GNU GPL license.  This code was based on other GPL code and therefore it was also licensed under gpl.  The java source for the server continues to be licensed under the BSD license.?
?
The code is written in C# using Visual Studio 2003.  The code should compile in the new Visual Studio 2005.  Since the express edition does not include an installer project template, i have not used it for the build.  Also, more people have the .net 1.1 runtime at this time.?
?
I will eventually import this code into cvs.  ?
?
The java client is in CVS now on source forge.  I am not maintaining that code, but an alpha release is on the web.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

Thu, 24 Nov 2005
12:01 AM

Get the .NET framework
If you do not have the .NET framework 1.1, you can download it from microsoft at ?
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=262D25E3-F589-4842-8157-034D1E7CF3A3&displaylang=en

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

Mon, 28 Nov 2005
11:43 AM

(no subject)
We had a bit of unexpected downtime today.  Our webserver rebooted at 7:18am this morning (EST).  I'm still looking into the cause of the downtime, although the logs appear clean.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

11:45 AM

11/21 release of JJ for windows
The version of just jounral released on the 21st was a minor bugfix release.  It did add additional music players to music sense.  Music sense also runs automatically now when you begin a post.?
?
The next release will feature colored backgrounds and more goodies.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 3 Dec 2005
1:38 AM

Just Journal for Windows update
The Windows JJ client was updated to 1.04 tonight.  A few minor bugs were fixed and background color was added to journal entries.  There are a few bugs left with the color code, but it seems quite usable.  White is considered the transparent color.  If you want your entry to match whatever the background color is for your journal (the theme), then use white.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 9 Dec 2005
8:06 PM

JJ for windows source on sourceforge
I created a cvs module for the windows just journal client this week.  You can now download the source code and the program directly from source forge.  ?
?
New features on the horizon:?
1. mini calendar in your journal view.?
2. links in your journal?
3. More pages fixed so they work correctly or give proper feedback.?
4. Windows program should get a major update in the next month.  ?
5. New alpha version of the java just journal client this month.  ?
?
So far the just journal store has sold 4 mugs, 1 sticker and 1 t-shirt. ?
?
Also, i've got part of the avatar code done.  The database backend and display code is done.  I'm trying to figure out how to handle file uploads.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 10 Dec 2005
3:45 PM

Recent Posts calendar
A new feature was added today to justjournal.com.  When you view a journal, a mini calendar appears with a list of the current months journal entries.  Any day with an entry includes a highlighted link to the subject list for that day.?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

4:30 PM

More good news
I've upgraded the RSS feeds to 2.0 finally.  I'm working on changing the rss icon on the site to represent the version.  Someday i may add atom feeds as well.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 16 Dec 2005
7:40 PM

Install Guide?
Just Journal is still in alpha for two reasons. ?
?
1. Lack of easy installation procedure?
2. HTML is still embedded in several key servlets.?
?
I am working on a solution to the second problem currently.  The users servlet is by far the most difficult to fix and maintain in the JJ codebase right now.?
?
The first problem I hope to help with soon.  I'm going to describe basics to creating a JJ instance now.?
?
1. Install a JDK (1.4.x or higher)?
?
2. Install apache tomcat or another servlet container.  I've managed to get tomcat 5.0 and 5.5 to work with JJ and Sun's webserver 6.1 as well.  I use tomcat 5.5.x for testing and deployment currently.?
?
3. Install Mysql 5.0.  You must use mysql 5.0 as new parts of the code rely on stored procedures now.  I will update the database info in cvs soon.  The big changes have been with favorites and 1 additional query.?
?
4. Download maverick, mysql jdbc driver, jdom, commons-fileupload, sun's java mail api, commons-beanutils, commons-email, commons-logging, domify, jazzy-core, log4j 1.2.11, and opt domify for maverick.  I'm currently working on lowering the dependencies.  There are several more in my current testing directory that i believe i've eliminated.  ?
?
5. Compile and jar up the jj code into /WEB-INF/lib.  Include the other libraries as well.?
?
6. Install a maverick config file and web.xml into /WEB-INF.  ?
?
7. Configure tomcat to allow the proper JDBC auth info and database info.  ?
?
8. Start it up.  ?
?
Compared to other open source projects, this is not very good.  I'm working on creating a war deployment to ease install for others and aid in development.?
?
JJ does not currently use ant.  i have a custom build script created on my test system.  ?
?
My goals for a 1.0 beta 1 release are war deployment, full mysql table specs and stored procedures, completed templates and seperation of presentation from the servlets.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 20 Dec 2005
2:17 AM

New Windows Client
Just Journal for Windows 1.1 was released today.?
?
This version increased in size quite a bit and now is about 750kb.  It offers Microsoft Word spell check integration.  There were a few minor bug fixes as well.  ?
?
Users running a version older than 1.0.4 are strongly encouraged to upgrade.  ?
?
Source code for this release is not available online yet.  I will post it soon.  

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

2:20 AM

December progress report
This month, Just Journal has seen several improvements.  ?
?
Two windows client versions were released this month.  Background color and spell check were added.?
?
Code was added to email comments.  It is not completely functional, but only once piece is missing now.  ?
?
RSS feeds were upgraded to the RSS 2.0 specification.  ?
?
Several html rendering bugs were fixed and html code was replaced with css in several places.  ?
?
Avatars were added to the site.  You can now create a "user picture" in for your journal.  It will be displayed on your journal page and your friends avatars will appear on your friends page.  Initial code limited the size to 5kb, but I've increased the limit to 15kb.  JPEG, GIF and PNG images are supported.  You should resize your image prior to uploading to around 100 x 100 pixels or less.  You can do this in the preferences for your journal.?
?
Versions of the windows client were posted to source forge.  (not the latest, but one version back)  ?
?
A link link was added on journal entries.  It provides a direct link to the entry for use on other sites. ?
?
A mini calendar was added with the current months journal entry counts for each day.  ?
?
I'm working on a links list feature to add links to your journal on the side.  Its about half way done.?
?
Favorites can be added now and viewed.  This feature is still under development, but is functional.  The view of the favorites will change eventually to be more useful. ?
?
Several text only white screens were replaced with nice html messages.  I'm working on this to make the site more usable.  ?
?
Caryn is still hard at work on the java client.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 28 Dec 2005
1:40 PM

Windows client source code
I just commited the source code to the source forge repository for the last windows client release.  Anyone interested in how the new word spell checker integration works should take a look.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

1:45 PM

Backup
I performed a database backup today.  All journal entries and so forth are now backed up.  ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

3:40 PM

Site update
I upgraded the code on the site today.  The mysql library was updated and i renamed and improved the html output on several pages.  Subscriptions is now called RSS Reader on a journal page.  ?
?
I changed the friends add and delete code and that will require more testing.  ?
?
I found a bug while testing the new version with the users servlet.  It seems skipping more than 20 gives you over 20 entries on 1 page.  Its very odd.  I filled a bug on sourceforge and i have a possible fix in cvs that i'll test later. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 3 Jan 2006
1:43 AM

Beta Windows Client released
The new beta version includes support for Apple's iTunes software (music detection).  The catch is that it will automatically open iTunes if you have it installed on your computer whenever you open the post form.  I'm trying to work around the problem.  ?
?
I have not been able to test it on a machiine without iTunes yet either.   ?
?
There are no new changes in the software aside from the iTunes feature from the last 12/20 (1.1) release.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Wed, 4 Jan 2006
1:17 AM

Windows Client 1.2.1
I just released a new windows client.  This version is based on the recent beta.   It includes iTunes support, more integration options with winamp 3 and 5, an access link to users profile, and a slightly refined interface for posts.?
?
You can now press f7 to do a spell check.  You can turn on and off iTunes support and winamp features.  

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Mon, 9 Jan 2006
10:12 PM

Windows 1.22 client released
I posted the windows client on source forge and on this website.  ?
?
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=140095&package_id=171855&release_id=384186?
?
It includes one new feature from the last release and a few bug fixes.  Outlook 2003 (or xp) integration.  You can have the outlook journal store copies of any posts you make with this client in it. There are also options to enable or disable iTunes integration.  If the integration is off, iTunes won't start with the post form. 

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 10 Jan 2006
12:12 AM

(no subject)
The last windows client might be my last release on the .NET 1.1 framework.  I ordered visual studio 2005 today and plan on upgrading to the new .NET framework version.  It will allow me to support Windows Vista later this year.  I can also add word 2003 style toolbars. ?
?

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Nerdy
Music: 

Fri, 20 Jan 2006
8:30 PM

Important announcement
I've decided to port Just Journal to windows/.net.  The site will be down a bit during the process and features will be gradually added.  So for a few weeks it will really suck and then get good again. (Perhaps better) ?
?
All users will be required to upgrade the windows client (if they use it) after the switch.  I'll provide a new version on .NET 2 soon.  ?
?
I can move journal entries over to the new site, although there may be an issue with migrating passwords.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 11 Feb 2006
9:36 PM

What's going on?
Well, the port to .NET will have to be delayed.  The shared hosting account I had was too limiting.  I could not even do backups on the database in a reasonable way.  Screw that until i can get a Windows server.?
?
Just Journal is back running on the old code.  Only 1 journal entry was lost in the transition back (mine). ?
?
I'll work on this version for a time.  The Windows client and SSL certificates should be working fine.  I just effectively turned it back on :)?
?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Fri, 17 Feb 2006
12:23 AM

Internet explorer sucks.
I've been working on a new Just Journal theme for the site.  (new design)  Interesting enough, the site did not render in ie6 or ie7 beta 2 for a few days.  The cause was a simple bug with the javascript. If the script tag does not contain anything, IE won't active the javascript and it gives no warning.  The w3 validator will declare it a valid document however.  Further, br clear="all" tags are required to get floating items in a div tag to render in ie 6, but not ie7, firefox or safari.  ?
?
I'll keep working on the site theme and hopefully get it finished by next week some time.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sun, 12 Mar 2006
6:09 PM

Recent changes on JustJournal
I've been focusing my attention on making Just Journal a full open source project.  Many bugs have been fixed and I'm want the code to be reusable.  ?
?
The add links feature is almost complete.  I've been testing it on a few accounts and it will be released soon.  ?
?
RSS feeds are now more standards compliant.  I'm also investigating some new code that may allow me to offer RSS1 and RSS 2 feeds along with better support for the feed reader (syndication) feature.  ?
?
I now have a donation button on the first page.  All donations will go to making improvements in just journal, paying server and ssl certificate costs and hopefully buying a new server for just journal.  Accounts are still free, but if you want to donate its now an option.?
?
I've started planning a photo gallery feature.  There are some issues including the java image libraries tend to only work on linux, solaris or windows.  (see donation paragraph above)  My plan is to buy a sun server someday.  In the mean time, I can still allow image uploads but can not generate thumbnails, etc.  ?
?
I've talked with a few users and the most notible feature request was a photo gallery and the ability to embed content to specific journal entries.  Also requested were better input, search and ease of use improvements.  ?
?
Finally, i've made great progress toward making the email comment notification code to work.  It works for my email addresses now and i figure some changes on the mail server should finish that.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Relaxed
Music: 

Tue, 14 Mar 2006
1:02 PM

Tomcat upgrade
I upgraded tomcat today.  Tomcat is the server software that runs just journal.  The site was up and down for about 15-20 minutes during the upgrade.  I setup a new way to deploy new versions of just journal which should minimize downtime.  Previously, I had to stop tomcat and start it everytime i needed to install a new version.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 21 Mar 2006
7:00 PM

New Windows Client
I'm happy to annouce the new JJ Windows client, version 1.41.  The 32 bit and 64 bit versions have been uploaded to the website.  Most users will need the 32 bit version which works with Windows XP, Windows 2000 and any other version of Windows where the .NET framework 2 will work.  It runs on all pentium class processors or compatibles (including AMD Athlon, Athlon XP, Sempron, etc).  The 64 bit version is for the lucky people who have AMD 64 or Intel's EMT64 based processors and Windows XP 64 bit edition.  I can not test this version as I don't have a 64 bit processor yet.  It does have some win32 api calls, but I believe it will work fine until Windows Vista ships in November and January.  For technical people, I've just commited the source code to the CVS repository on source forge.  Known Issues:?
?
    New toolbar does not save the location you re-arrange the toolbars too.  (office 2003 style, but without the save)  ?
    The new alert box is a bit hard to read on some systems do to the color scheme.  I'll try to make a new background and change the fonts for the next release.  It does alert you when a post has been made to the server without error.  (looks like an MSN Messenger alert box)?
    The client does not handle loss of conectivity well yet.  I want to add a save feature for journal entries so that they are not loss in the event of a failure, etc.  Hopefully this will be done for the next release.?
    RTF to HTML conversion is still a bit buggy.  I'm testing other libraries to do the conversion, but had nothing ready in time for this release.?
    Win32 calls are made in several places in the program.  I'd like to remove them for the 64bit edition and replace with equivalent calls.  iTunes and Office integration may not work in the 64bit edition.  Music detection may not work.  If you have trouble, disable these features.?
?
New:?
?
    New icons give it a more appealing look and might look more familiar to Word processor users.?
    Toolbars similar to microsoft office and the new HTML based editor on the website.?
    Bug fixes with music detection.  The box is now grayed out if it is disabled.  ?
    This release is distributed in RAR or ZIP format.  ?
    Version numbers in the about box have changed.  The build number is now included.  The installer will continue to use the old number scheme (1.41, etc)  The next release will now be 1.5, 1.6, etc.  ?

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

7:31 PM

JJ Windows 1.41 posted on Source Forge
I just posted source and binary distributions on source forge.  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=140095&package_id=171855

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Sat, 25 Mar 2006
12:32 AM

Upgrade on site
I'm in the process of upgrading the just journal source. There are several bugs present in the new version that i'm trying to fix.  Please be patient during this process.

Security: Public
Location: Not Specified
Mood: Not Specified
Music: 

Tue, 28 Mar 2006
6:56 PM

The Just Journal Roadmap
Many open source projects post roadmaps to let users and developers know the goals of the project over the next few releases.  Up to this point, Just Journal has been considered at best alpha quality software.  The site was not designed from the begging with open source or even serious code reuse in mind. There are many longstanding bugs and several design decisions I made that negatively effect the site's functionality.My focus has been to compete with LiveJournal since this site's inception.  I thought that I wanted to duplicate LiveJournal but without many of the annoying problems that LJ had.  In some ways I've been successful.  Overal, this site does not have the community feel I always wanted it to have. I've decided to take a different path.  I want the software to run on any site, and provide features people want.  I want the software to be customizable which means a change in template design and other features.  I'll outline the release targets for the next few versions of the webserver software.  This roadmap does not cover client development aside from possible impact changes from the server code changing.1.0 Alpha 2: Many of the site templates (xml/xslt) content will be converted back to jsp pages.  The reason behind this move is that more people are familar with jsp than xslt and many of the outstanding bugs are the result of limitations or complexity in fixing them.  Someday I may solve these problems, but for now I want everyone to be able to use the code.  I'm also going to specifically look at the bug list and try to knock out as many as I can.  The new Settings class needs to be integrated and a later version will use it for URL mappings which will solve the massive URL dependancies on the justjournal.com domain and / path.1.0 Alpha 3: Fix any new bugs introduced by alpha 2, continue to generalize the templates and servlet output for general use.  Clean up the remaining CSS documents and formally define the file system structure for just journal.  1.0 Beta 1:  Setup an ant build instead of my custom shell scripts and try to get just journal to deploy as a war file in Tomcat.  Possibly test in Sun's application server or webserver software.  1.0 Beta 2: Finish up any features that are half done, etc.  Clean up any new bugs introduced and verify sql create scripts are up to date and well documented.  Determine and remove any un-needed dependancies (jar files, etc).1.0 Beta 3: Verify just journal works on another domain, clean up bug fixes, prepare for release.1.0 Release: Release a directory structure or war file sutable for deployment with install instructions that  are thorough enough for end users to get it running.  Also do a source release at that point.  Sync the windows client and assist with changes to the java client for this release.  Beyond 1.0 release: Add Photo Gallery feature. Add module customization to many of the journal viewer features (/users servlet) both for individuals and admins to control.Add file based storage for thumbnails, images, avatars, and other parts of the site as an optional feature. (rss feeds?)  Design a more complex templating system for journals were admins or users can control the html output? Add forum/message board feature.  (communities?)Add chatbox featureAdd private messaging feature....

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11:42 PM

Template
I'm in the process of chaning over to the new site template on all jsp pages.  I've got the bugs worked out on most pages now.  I'll need to go to bed for class in the morning. ?
I've also switched to a simple entry form for IE/Firefox users.  I had complaints about the other one since several features were never implemented, etc.  I still need to test things like spell check with it.  

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Wed, 29 Mar 2006
4:30 PM

Down Time
It appears there are some problems with the apache server running this site.  The java end was up, but for some reason i'm getting internal server errors.  I suspect I'll need to update some software soon to fix it.

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11:46 PM

Changes to JJ
Aside from the server issues/upgrades, I've installed a new version of the just journal server software.  The website now validates usernames and passwords against regular expressions.  If you have ANY login problems, please email luke@foolishgames.com and let me know whats happening along with your username.  I'm testing new add comment code as well.  The output screen reads a tempate file.  Part of the roadmap was to get all servlets to use templates instead of silly sb.append or printwriter.out type statements.  So far so good, although i need to extend the template a bit.I had hoped to get more done, but its a great start.

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Mon, 3 Apr 2006
2:47 PM

CVS
I've almost completed a new feature where URIs would be automatically converted to hyperlinks when journals are posted.  Unfortunetely, SF CVS has been down most of the weekend.  I can't commit the code and I've done so much now that I feel like I need to before I continue.Many people mistakenly use URL instead of URI for a full address like http://www.justjournal.com/  URI = URN + URL

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Fri, 14 Apr 2006
11:57 AM

JJ Windows 1.5 client
I just uploaded the new windows client.  Its a bugfix release. I changed the toolbars a bit so that the are no longer movable, fixed some problems with the Music Detect options and a few other minor things.  I also changed the popup window background. The new version is about 100KB smaller on disk and 500KB less in memory upon startup on my system.  I uploaded screenshots earlier to source forge of the 1.41 client and more recent website shots.  The source and binaries will be uploaded to sourceforge later.

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12:06 AM

Windows Client 1.5 committed to CVS
I just added the source to the repository.  It should be visible on source forge in the next few days.

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Thu, 20 Apr 2006
7:04 PM

Download .NET 2.0 
If you don't have the .NET 2.0 framework needed to run the JJ windows client, you may acquire it here:<br /><br />http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&amp;displaylang=en

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Fri, 21 Apr 2006
6:56 PM

Network Outage
My hosting company had a network outage which lasted over an hour today.  I appologize for any downtime.  The server remained up during the outage.

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Thu, 18 May 2006
2:39 PM

Bug fixes
I cleaned up a few problems with the journal css themes.  Many of them did not display the background color properly in firefox.  A new version of JJ should be loaded on the server by this weekend.  I'm reworking the preferences code and want to make sure it works ok.  The new version should be a bit faster.I noticed the new login page code displays "JJ: Add comment" or something of that nature.  That will be fixed with the update as well.  The reason that happened is that i've moved to a simple template system for all servlets and used copy and paste. :)Sourceforge recently changed their cvs policies.  I've got two weeks worth of code changes that i can't commit to the repository.  I'm considering moving the cvs to my own server.  Sourceforge can't seem to keep things up over there.On the new feature front, I'm about half way done with adding links and photo gallery code.  The database schema is done for both and links just need management pages.

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Thu, 15 Jun 2006
12:56 AM

Severe bug fixed
During the last code roleout I severely screwed up the user class.  As a result, you could login but some pages (including the initial login page) didn't display properly.  This bug has been fixed.  The actual issue stemed from using Null in the database but not checking for it with the style classes.  Several pages now import the user's style.  Since I have values in my account and most of my test accounts, I did not trigger it during testing.

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Tue, 4 Jul 2006
5:47 PM

Just Journal moves to a new server!
I've moved just journal to a new server with a new internet connection.  The new setup should save me quite a bit of money at a slight speed decrease.  There have been a few issues during the move.  I'm still working on them.  If you have any problems, email luke@foolishgames.com with a description of the problem.

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Thu, 13 Jul 2006
8:44 AM

Downtime
I performed a server upgrade last night and forgot to restart tomcat.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

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Fri, 28 Jul 2006
10:37 AM

New Feature
Yes, its been awhile.  I've just written some code to ping weblogs.com when new journal entries are created.  It will only work with public entries.  The code needs improvements and I'll start testing sometime today.  The point of this is to make your blog more visible.  I'll add an option to disable it as well.

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10:51 AM

CVS updates
I've finally managed to get intellij and sourceforge cooperating again.  The changes over the last two months have been commited.  (well most of them) 

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Mon, 31 Jul 2006
11:10 AM

Weblogs ping feature
Initial experiments show there are still bugs in the feature.&nbsp; I'll continue to work on it and post when its fixed.&nbsp;?
?
Hopefully i've got it now.  I got a ping ok message.  I still need to limit it to 30 minutes somehow.  That's the next problem. :)

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Wed, 2 Aug 2006
9:08 AM

Just Journal java source release
I've added a snapshot of the current java source code (minus jsp/templates) to source forge.  The snapshot was directly from the latest cvs version and features the avatar, weblogs.com pings and other code.  It might be useful to others working on java based blogging software, but its not ready to use on your own server just yet.

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10:32 AM

Bug fixes
I fixed a long standing bug with the RecentBlogs feature.  The month in the individual entries were wrong.  I've fixed the problem.  I'll commit the patch to cvs later today.Also, I've fixed some links on the older pages of the site to aid in navigation. 

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Tue, 8 Aug 2006
11:22 AM

Partial downtime
While doing some database maintinence, I accidently disabled the stored procedures in use on the site.  This has been corrected.  I also restarted the database and servlet container servers.  I've also made progress with some bugs in the RSS Subscription system.

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2:11 PM

Development progress
I've been working on some of the outstanding bugs in Just Journal.  There is a list of bugs on the source forge page.  I've closed a few in the last two weeks.  Today, I'm about halfway through fixing the comment notification bug.  There are cases where comment notifications do not get sent.  One reason is that the mail server I use requires authentication.  I've just changed the mail sender code to use a username/password combination from now on.  That should solve quite a few problems.  It also brought up another problem.  Settings.  Just Journal has a Settings class which is rarely used.  In fact, I never populated the database with values for it.  I'm working on integrating that feature with the settings database.  This should allow me to change the behavior of just journal while its running.  (except mail settings will require a reload of the web app)  This is a large step toward my goal of getting just journal to run on any website or server. 

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Thu, 10 Aug 2006
1:56 PM

Status
I've corrected some rendering bugs in Internet Explorer on the first page.  I've also added some statistics for the site.  I'll commit the statistics class to cvs soon.  Comment mailing is down at the moment.  My new code is not working properly and I'm in the process of debugging it. 

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Fri, 11 Aug 2006
8:29 AM

Comment mailing
I fixed the comment mailing code.  You can view it in cvs if you are a developer.  I've killed two more reported bugs in just journal this week. 

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Thu, 24 Aug 2006
1:05 AM

Server upgrade
The website server was down for a time for hardware upgrades.  More ram, a new power supply and an additional fan were added to the server.   The server will be down one more time in the next week for an OS upgrade.  It should not take more than a few minutes. 

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Mon, 9 Oct 2006
2:23 AM

Site downtime
I performed a hardware swapout tonight.  The site is now running on a dual xeon 2.0Ghz with 1GB ECC PC2300 RAM.  The previous system was an amd sempron 2300+

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Thu, 12 Oct 2006
11:29 PM

Windows client on Vista
The Just Journal windows client is working on Windows Vista RC1 32bit.  The install and run of the application worked properly including iTunes integration.  I could not test office integration however.  On a side note, Firefox 2 beta spell check is working in this box as well. 

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Wed, 15 Nov 2006
9:56 PM

Software update
The just journal site was updated tonight.  I've disabled auto generation of links for some types of entries until a bug can be fixed.?
?
Passwords can now be changed!  Go into preferences to do this.  The interface isn't quite done yet.  When you change it it will just show a screen with a white background and your old and new password.  Do not change it while someone is watching.  I'll fix this at a later time.  ?
?
I also published part of a new feature which lets you add links to your journal.  I've been using it for a few months, but the preferences are not quite done.  You can currently add links but not remove them.  I will fix this at a later time.  

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Tue, 21 Nov 2006
10:00 PM

New features
Just Journal now allows you to change the name of your journal.  The journal title option was added to preferences.  There is currently one bug in the feature that I should have patched later tonight.  ?
I've added buttons to add rss feeds for several popular services tonight to each journal.  ?
Both of these features need to be added throughout just journal but they should already work in the most important areas. 

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Wed, 22 Nov 2006
11:52 AM

Bug
I've just noticed in some cases firefox 2 is not rendering the journals properly and displays an XML parsing error.  This is related to the change last night.  It only happens when html is used in an entry and not xhtml.  I'll work on resolving this issue.  IE should work on the pages when this happens since its not standards compliant and won't jump to xml parsing.

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Tue, 28 Nov 2006
11:37 PM

Bug fix
I just patched the firefox rendering bug.  Journals should work in all browsers again.

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Wed, 29 Nov 2006
11:14 AM

Opera bug
Opera 9 seems to be caching the "update journal" page.  As a result times are ported incorrectly.  I'll attempt to fix this later.

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Sun, 3 Dec 2006
2:53 PM

Delete Links
I've added the code to delete links from your journal today.  You can add and delete links using the preferences after you login. Link can be optionally added or removed from the left hand side of your journal. 

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6:01 PM

Opera bug
I've corrected the bug with the update journal page in opera.  The time is now updated as it should be.

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Thu, 14 Dec 2006
12:22 AM

SSL, RSS Reader
The SSL certificate for Just Journal has expired.  Its still possible to login using it securely, but it needs to be replaced.  I've never made a dime off the site and they do cost money.  Since its Christmas time, it might not be renewed immediately.  If you want to donate for a new SSL key, use the link on justjournal.com's home page.The site was restarted a few times today as I was working on the RSS Reader.  The work has been completed for now.  It now collapses the contents of a feed entry and you can select to display them.  This should make viewing RSS feeds significantly easier.  Use the + and - signs to collapse or expand each entry which are found in front of the title.  You may also use the collapse all and expand all links at the top.  Also, please remember that it only supports RSS feeds that start with http.  If you see an apple style feed://, just change the feed:// to http:// as they are equivalent. 

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Wed, 20 Dec 2006
8:49 PM

SSL Certificate
I've purchased a new SSL certificate which is valid until 2008.  The Windows client should work again.  I will fix the bug where you can not disable SSL in the windows client at a later time.  ?

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Mon, 15 Jan 2007
12:39 AM

Windows Client 1.6 released
The windows client was updated to fix a bug with the SSL option.  It would not allow you to disable SSL which was a big issue when the certificate had expired.  This bug has been fixed.  Outlook integration was removed in this release.  Microsoft has removed Outlook for several editions of Office 2007.  It is clear that less people will be using this at home and so there is no need to support it any longer.  If someone wants to buy me a copy of outlook, I'll consider supporting it again.  I do not plan on upgrading to a version of office with outlook.

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Fri, 9 Feb 2007
11:10 AM

JustJournal.com downtime
Just Journal was down for about 10 minutes this morning for a hardware upgrade.  

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Tue, 20 Feb 2007
2:14 PM

Software updates
I've had to restart the site with new software a few times.  I found several problems with the friends system which needed to be fixed.  Friends entries would not display at all.  I reworked the sql queries a few times and managed to get a query that works.  In order to see friends posts, you must view them on your own friends page.  If you go to a friends page, you can not see them.?
The reason for this restriction is to make sure that everyone in your friends list also has you in theirs.  Otherwise, you shouldn't get to see the entries.  The queries are just too complex and slow to fix that at the moment.  ?
Also, I added a new feature.  There is a digg link if you view individual entries.  If you see something interesting, digg it.

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Fri, 23 Feb 2007
1:45 PM

Server Software
I just updated the server software in hopes of getting rid of the HTTP headers that seem to randomly appear from time to time.  It does not look like I was successful.  I'll research the problem.  

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3:26 PM

(no subject)
I've isolated the strange problems.  All java applications are acting strangly and any applications which use x11 dependancies are causing vm crashes.  This appears to be a JDK/X11/OS issue.

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Mon, 26 Feb 2007
5:02 PM

XSS fix
An xss flaw was fixed in Just Journal today.  There maybe others, and I'm auditing the code.  Entries by design allow HTML optionally but other items like subjects should not.  I may have to disallow all javascript in the near future.

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Sun, 11 Mar 2007
10:32 PM

New feature under development
I'm about halfway through adding the new pictures feature.  There is a new menu option called pictures.  You can view any pictures on that page associated with a specific journal.To add pictures, go into preferences and click add pictures near the bottom.A few caveats:1. I haven't finalized the maximum picture size.  Anything 1MB or smaller should work.  Consider that large resolutions will not display that well though.2. I have not finished the delete option.  You can not yet delete pictures after you add them.  Eventually I'll get this working.  I've run out of time today.3. You can not change the title on a picture after you upload it.4. Every once in awhile an error displays even though the picture uploaded ok.  I'm still working on this.  Make sure the image did not upload before you try again.  If it keeps failing, make sure the picture is not too big. 5. There appears to be a possible memory leak in the apache commons FileUpload component.  A new version claims to fix this but it will involve several code changes.  I'll be upgrading that when I get time.  6. Currently images are sorted alphabetically.  I'm planning on adding photo albums (think categories).  You will be able to sort pictures into different albums and give them titles.  For now a lot of pictures becomes increasing hard to read.  It is also a good idea to name photos from similar events the same at the beginning to keep them together.  You have up to 150 characters for the title so use them.7.  You can not associate an image with a journal entry yet.  If you want to link to an image, first upload it and then put the full link in your journal entry.  I want to  make this easier in the future. I also plan on adding tags, comments, and possibly an RSS feed of the pictures at some point.  I've been promising pictures for years and so I don't want to set any time frame on these enhancements.  

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Tue, 20 Mar 2007
9:59 PM

cvs
I just commited about a month's worth of work to cvs.  This includes the new picture code which still needs work.  There is a memory leak in the apache file upload library that is triggered on large pictures.  This is an obvious problem.  

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Sat, 31 Mar 2007
6:44 PM

Changes
You can now delete pictures using the new remove pictures preference.  I updated mysql-connector-j to 5.0.5 and Apache Commons File Upload to the latest version.  This seemed to speed up transmitting pictures a bit. ?
?
Just Journal is still using the old File Upload interface.  I should be able to switch over to the "new way" when I get more time.  ?
?
I also added a Search via Technorati feature.  Eventually you should be able to search public blog entries with that.  It lets you search blogs all over the Internet as well.  I do plan on adding my own search function eventually.  In order to get private journal entries, it will take some careful planning.?
?
Finally, I changed the WebError class to display two types of error messages.  Severe and mild are now distict errors.  A severe error is red whereas a mild error is in orange.  Currently all errors now use red, but that will change.  

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Wed, 11 Apr 2007
5:28 PM

(no subject)
Our user count has been growing.  I just did a full backup of the database.  It never hurts to have a backup. :)  The changes to the file upload code seem to be stable so far.  I've very happy with that. 

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Fri, 27 Apr 2007
12:53 AM

Security enhancements, Export Blogs as PDF and RTF
I just released some new features.  SecurityThe security enhancements have to deal with Private Journals.  If you set your journal private, it is no longer listed in the member list.  Profiles are now blank for members with private blogs.  You could in theory validate there is a user but you would not know any personal information beyond their username.  I also disabled links for the RSS feeds if you login to a private journal.  Those features only work for public journals.  Who would want to consume a public rss feed of private data?  There are a few areas where security could be improved.  I suggest anyone using the private journal feature also post each entry with private security.  In the event there is a bug with private journal somewhere, private security should block public display of the data.  private security is tested much more vigoriously.  These changes are a result of the number of recent signups using the private feature. I'm hoping to make more improvements later.  If you notice any problems with your private blog, let me know so I can create a test blog and see if i can reproduce it.PDF and RTFWhile this is a work in progress, I've added links to the PDF and RTF versions to each blog.  Currently, it only displays the last 15 public journal entries.  This will be changed to include ALL blog entries for users logged in and on their own blog, and ALL PUBLIC entries for everyone else.  I probably won't implement friends security on this one as it would be time consuming.  The reasoning behind this feature is so that users can get a snapshot of their blog at any time.  If the site were to close tomorrow, someone could still have a copy of all their journal entries.  Google also does good PDF indexing so if someone has search engine searching on, it will make it more likely to come up down the road.  I look at this as an extra backup feature.  The original just journal specification used XML for all blog entries, and I planned to use Apache FOP to translate into PDF at the time.  After the XML plans fell apart due to some issues with the XSLT libraries available at the time, I just gave up on the whole idea.  I'm using a library called iText which is under MPL and LGPL.  It works very well so far.  The work in progress relates mostly to formatting.  I'm still working out the formatting I want to use for the documents.  Expect the format to change a few times.  I also must add a new method to the database code for entries to gather all entries and not just a subset.  If there is demand, I will also try to provide a "backup" format in XML.  Remember, if you have a lot of entries, it may time out generating the PDF.  Eventually I'll add a progress feature with a refresh (hopefully).  I also noticed a few problems with IE 7 in initial testing.  I think I've got this resolved.  For people interested in the technical details, most of the new code is in the horrid users servlet.  (com.justjournal.Users)  Other ChangesOther changes to JJ include modifications to the base servlet to set a buffer and to include the content length.  That should improve HTTP standards compliance and also fix some minor bugs with IE.  I'm also testing changes to the avatar fetch and photo fetch code which may fix problems I've noticed with safari.  Images are corrupted in the cache and sometimes fail to download in safari.  I notice this more often with avatars.  

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Thu, 24 May 2007
12:16 AM

Women bloggers face harrassment
Some women bloggers have received threats online.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901555_pf.htmlI do not know of any just journal related incidents, but this might be a good reason to keep private blogs.

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Wed, 30 May 2007
10:58 PM

Software Update
Just Journal's server software was updated today.  RSS feeds were broken for a few hours, but should be restored.  The bug was related to work in progress to allow feeds to expose images.  ?
?
When logging in, users are now presented with the date and time of last login.  This feature will allow users to verify they are the only ones logging into their accounts.  ?
?
The create account successful page was changed with additonal information about preferences.  Users can change their journal style or make private journals in preferences.  

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Mon, 4 Jun 2007
1:27 AM

New features, updates
There was brief downtime to upgrade justjournal.com.  In addition to upgrading our database software, we added some new features.?
?
The pictures page now includes a special RSS link.  Using this link in Apple's iPhoto will allow you to view subscribe to blog pictures.  You can also use the feed with Google's feed service.  It does not seem to work in Firefox or Safari just yet.  Dates are not included yet.?
?
In addition to the pictures RSS, I've added ATOM support.  Just append /atom to the address for your blog... for instance http://www.justjournal.com/users/jjsite/atom to use this format.  Only ATOM feed support is implemented and the date format is incorrect.?
?
I fixed the HTML on the login page.  

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9:13 PM

i18n
Someone signed up a JJ account and asked why it doesn't support Chinese.  I have not yet implemented true internationalization support in Just Journal.  Pages are tagged as English.  I am using UTF-8 for most fields, however.  That means English and most Western European languages should work.  In the future, I plan to add a feature to allow the user to pick their native language which would also tag pages in that associated language.  I will attempt to add support for asian languages using either native character sets or UTF-16 at that time.Here is a document describing support for i18n in Java.  This would only be interesting to programmers who might wish to work on JJ.  http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/core/basic/intl/faq.jsp

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Sat, 16 Jun 2007
2:44 AM

Google and Technorati Ping testing, new login page
I've added a new feature.  Google and Technorati get pinged whenever a new blog post is added if your blog is public.  WebLogs has been pinged for some time.  This will make blogs searchable using Google's nifty blog search (http://blogsearch.google.com)  Only public posts will show up of course.  ?
?
A friend of mine is looking at the subscribe javascript code which isn't lining up correctly.  I'm working on the login page.  The new information will be useful eventually.  If you have friends posts, it will show the most recent entries.  Its also showing jjsite blog entries now.  This needs more work.  It takes up too much space and only needs to show the last 3 or so.  

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Mon, 18 Jun 2007
10:20 PM

Brief downtime
I attempted (unsuccessfully) to upgrade Apache Tomcat tonight.  I'm still researching the issue.  The site is running on the old version again and should be fully functional.  

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Fri, 22 Jun 2007
11:31 PM

Browser Compatibility
I've been looking at problems viewing this website in various browsers.  I've had good experiences with Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7.  Safari 2 and 3 on the Mac seem to have problems rendering pages.  At times weird text (HTTP headers) is shown in the request.  User pics and other elements do not display.  When this happens, clearing the browser cache on the file menu seems to fix the problem.  I'm trying to figure out what triggers this bug in Safari.  This will be an issue with the upcoming iPhone.  The site is usable in Opera 9 for FreeBSD.  It does not render well on my cell phone.  (Sanyo)  I plan on looking at the themes for the blogs first and then working back out to other pages. 

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11:37 PM

New Theme 
I have an experimental new theme on the site.  The modern right black theme places the menus on the right as many other blog packages do.  There are still several rendering problems I'm working out.  I'm hoping to create right aligned themes for all of the existing themes.  I also want to create some new styles over the next two months.  If you have suggestions for new styles, please comment on this post. 

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Tue, 26 Jun 2007
11:52 AM

200 Users
Just Journal hit 200 users today.  In a week or so, I should have much more time to update the website.  I have a large feature list made up.  I also have a bug fix list.  If there is anything bothering you about JJ, please comment here.  

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Thu, 12 Jul 2007
11:23 PM

Internet Connection Outage
There is a network outage with my ISP.  I do not know how long it will last.  Just Journal is down until the connection comes back up. 

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Mon, 23 Jul 2007
12:35 AM

Fixes for Just Journal
I'm working on several problems that have developed as a result of some new features I added to the site. ?
?
 I've removed the floating window for subscriptions to RSS feeds.  I've got another idea in mind that should minimize the space required but use less javascript.  This should make journal pages load faster.?
?
I'm currently experimenting with the login page to make it load quicker.  Logins are tremendously slow due to the JJ changes feature.  I will probably back that out.  ?
?
The site has been very slow in general lately.  Part of this was a change with the size of the buffers used on the site.  I've made the buffers much smaller which should fix the outlining problems with the servlets.  ?
?
There are still two critical issues that need to be addressed.  Primarily, the bug with Apple's safari browser where headers are randomly displayed to the client.  I have not seen this behavior with any other website. I have been unable to track down the cause.  I can even run just journal on a Mac that is older than the server and it is significantly faster and no headers are shown.  I believe it is related to apache 2.2.x and the mod_proxy_ajp connector, although it could also be another problem.  The other issue I will hold off on discussing.  ?
?
The site might be up and down a few times today as I work on it.  

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Mon, 13 Aug 2007
11:31 PM

Site update
I had to move the site to another IP address.  This will cause an interruption for some users. ?
?
On the upside, Just Journal will be on it's own IP address which should help with some issues we've had with technorati and a few other sites indexing justjournal.com.  

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Fri, 28 Sep 2007
11:29 PM

Software update
There was a few minutes of downtime while we updated the webserver software.  The new version fixes some problems with HTTP header parsing which may stop the random "garbage" at the top of pages on the site.  

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Sun, 30 Sep 2007
5:30 PM

Lame site attacks, accounts
A script kiddie named "taylor" has been creating hundreds of accounts for no particular reason today.  I've reluctantly added a Captcha to the new account page to deter the attacks a bit.  I've avoided them as they hurt blind users from using websites.  Taylor has come from two different IPs meaning he is either impersonating them or has access to two different systems via various means.  Here are his IPs (from my convenient firewall rules)  00400       51        2576 deny ip from 74.197.12.164 to any in00400        6         288 deny ip from 68.199.178.14 to any inThe first one is from a cable modem in texas (best i can tell) and the other traceroute'd to New York.  You can see he's an active asshole.  Frankly I find his attack pointless and stupid.  He's polluting the name poll, but there isn't much point to attacking this site.  It is not that popular to gain accounts on for obvious purposes.  I bet he's a little kid with a cute program.  Taylor I challenge you to attack 127.0.0.1. 

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Tue, 6 Nov 2007
2:44 PM

Dashboard + Database
We recently released a new Dashboard widget for Mac OS X (10.4 and 10.5)  I've only tested it on Leopard here.  It has attracted several new users. I've found a few bugs and limitations in the widget and I've got a development version that fixes most of them.  The new version will be able to display the username + passwords and let users pick if they prefer public, friends only or private posts.  I may change the front of the widget in appearance too.  Someone has generated new graphics for it.I performed a database backup today. 

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Sun, 11 Nov 2007
4:14 PM

Power outage
Just Journal was down due to a power outage.  Service has been restored.  Our APC kept the server up for a time, but the outage was over 4 hours.  The Internet connection went down with the power.

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Thu, 6 Dec 2007
4:55 PM

new feature on the horizon
One of the issues with Just Journal is that it is often not flexible enough for users.  I've had a very positive response to the Dashboard widget for Mac OS X.  I realized that there are many platforms that need a client.  I can't write software for everything.  So, I've begun working on support for the Blogger API (1.0).  ?
?
The feature is not complete yet and editing does not work at all. ?
?
Clients can point to ?
https://www.justjournal.com/xml-rpc or?
http://www.justjournal.com/xml-rpc?
?
I'll announce when the the API is finished.  I'm also considering adding support for other formats like ATOM.  I'd love emails about it too. 

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Thu, 13 Dec 2007
5:05 PM

Blogger API 1.0 + extensions
Just Journal now implements the Blogger 1.0 API with two exceptions.The official blogger APIimplements the following methods:?
 blogger.newPost: Makes a new post to a designated blog. Optionally, will publish the blog after making the post. ?
 blogger.editPost: Edits a given post. Optionally, will publish the blog after making the edit. ?
 blogger.getUsersBlogs: Returns information on all the blogs a given user is a member of. ?
 blogger.getUserInfo: Authenticates a user and returns basic user info (name, email, userid, etc.). ?
 blogger.getTemplate: Returns the main or archive index template of a given blog. ?
 ?
 blogger.setTemplate: Edits the main or archive index template of a given blog. ?
We support everything except the template functions.  We also have getRecentPosts and getPost which are not part of the official API, but implemented in many third party blogging apps from Six Apart to Wordpress.  There are not many standards on what to support in those but the bare minimum is content, dateCreated.  We also support some of the extensions for six apart software in our implementation.  You should be able to use http://www.justjournal.com/xml-rpc/ and https://www.justjournal.com/xml-rpc/ with clients that support Blogger 1.0.  Ecto for windows is working (although titles are not right and we don't support delete yet).  Blogger 1.0 does not even support titles so it's no shock that the protocol can't handle it.  We still recommend the Just Journal windows client for posting on Windows, but there are advantages to other clients and we want users to have choice.  This will also help Mac users who don't wish to use our dashboard widget and open source fans.  I'm currently working with a gnome based client in BSD.  We are researching other APIs for possible inclusion including Movable Type and Metaweblog.  There's a possibility we might adopt our own xml-rpc protocol too.  I'm thinking about it. 

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Fri, 14 Dec 2007
7:52 PM

(no subject)
I just renewed the domain for Just Journal for another two years.  :)

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Sat, 22 Dec 2007
11:13 PM

New feature: Search!
Just Journal now has a basic search feature.  ?
?
http://www.justjournal.com/search/?
?
You can search public blog entries and user accounts.  I'm planning on allowing full searches of blogs for owners of the blog eventually.  There are a few areas I need to resolve yet.

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Thu, 27 Dec 2007
7:46 PM

Hardware upgrade
The website was down for a few hours due to a hardware upgrade.  Two new hard drives were added to the server (RAID1).  

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Sun, 6 Jan 2008
1:34 PM

Just Journal Developments
I've been looking into improving the experience on Just Journal.  I've found a number of bugs in the site that I want to fix.?
?
1. The new blog search only works when you're logged in.  (in the blog not the site search)?
2. The journals are a bit cluttery.  ?
3. There are problems displaying the calendar on dark themed blogs.?
4. If you haven't posted a blog entry in the current year, the /calendar link causes an error.?
?
?
I've made several improvements recently.  Site search is working along with private searches in your blog when you login.  The version I'm testing also includes a link to an ATOM feed which you can use now.  Goto the RSS feed and replace rss with atom.  For instance, http://www.justjournal.com/users/jjsite/atom  We don't have a post/service interface yet, just feeds.  

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4:37 PM

Software update
Just Journal was upgraded today to a new development version I've been working on.  This release fixes some of the search bugs (I don't know how though)  and cleans up the interface used by many of the functions in the Users servlet.  It might be a little slower, but it's much cleaner looking.  ?
?
I've also had some success hosting just journal as a war file on my Mac.  

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Thu, 10 Jan 2008
12:10 AM

Time zones
One of the obvious problems with just journal is the handling of time zones or lack thereof.  During the work on ATOM feeds, I had to add GMT conversion in the code.  I'm working on a way for users to pick their default time zone which will allow them to see entries in their time. The problem is that I need to either log what time zone an entry is posted in or convert them all to the same zone.Almost all the data is in EST, but I did run JJ on a PST based server for a year.  I'm also not familiar with how MySQL deals with time zones.  Further research is needed.

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Sat, 19 Jan 2008
11:45 PM

Dashboard Widget
I've updated the Dashboard widget for Mac OS X.  The new beta version contains several changes:?
?
1. The theme has been changed.  It now matches the website, and looks a bit cleaner.?
?
2. The widget now warns you if you didn't type a username or password and hit "Post Blog".  It no longer deletes the post in this situation.  (user submitted bug)?
?
3. The widget contains a check that will be enabled in the server code to find post errors.  It doesn't work yet, but it will get posted after the timezone changes are completed.?
?
4. The tab order was corrected on the widget.  Hitting tab from the subject box gets you to the blog body box.?
?
5. A status text area next to the post button was added.  It appears when there is an error.  ?
?
6. The widget is half the size of the previous version.  (disk space)?
?
7. The subject box was changed to an HTML input "text" element instead of a textarea.  This makes a lot more sense for scrolling purposes, and it matches the implementation on the website.

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Sun, 20 Jan 2008
9:25 PM

SSL Certificate
The SSL certificate expires today.  I'm working on adding a new cert to continue with encrypted services.  It will be from another company as I cannot continue to spend $65 a year.

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Sun, 17 Feb 2008
10:47 PM

Weird bugs
I fixed two bugs today.?
?
1. Users with a username that was exactly 3 characters could not login.  This has been fixed.?
?
2. This change has not been published, but I have the RecentBlogs servlet that spits out RSS for the site validating with the w3's feed validator.  The dates are now in the RFC822 format (with 4 digit years).  It publishes them in GMT.  ?
?
Some users get an error "no group 1" when logging in.  This is not fixed as I haven't tracked the cause just yet.   (tigress is one)?
?
?

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10:51 PM

Update on Time Zone work
Some of the code is now time zone aware, but it's still defaulting to the server default (EST).  Eventually I'll allow users to select their own time zone.  Some of the RSS feeds are now published in GMT.  

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Thu, 28 Feb 2008
12:09 AM

Just Journal for UNIX
A new command line client was created for UNIX-like operating systems.  It has been tested on MidnightBSD, but should work on other BSDs and possibly linux/solaris/etc.  I'm not actively working on support for other systems at this time, but would take patches to this effect.?
?
The client requires xmlrpc-c which can be found on sourceforge.net.  ?
?
it does not use SSL or any crypto to protect logins.?
?
Usage is jjclient -u username -p password < myfile.txt or input and an EOF character.  This is documented in the README accompanying the source code.?
?
This is now on the Just Journal website and in the MidnightBSD ports collection.

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Wed, 2 Apr 2008
4:27 PM

Status of JJ
We've hit 500 users.  The site has been growing at an increasing rate for the past 6 months.  I've very happy about the new users. :)?
?
Outstanding bugs:?
?
A bug was reported to me recently involving the friends feature.  Entries are not visible on their page, but do work on your "friends" page.  I'm working on this issue.?
?
New features:?
?
I'm about halfway through getting the timezone feature working.  The holdup is time to work on it.?
?
Site downtime:?
?
Just Journal was down for a few hours earlier this week.  The file system with the database filled up.  I've made some room which should cover us for awhile.  I may need to buy some new hardware (read a new server) this year to handle the new users and another site I'm hosting.?

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Sat, 26 Apr 2008
2:13 PM

New version of Just Journal
I just published an updated version of just journal.  I've been working on it for awhile, but just got an opportunity to finish it.?
?
Changes:?
?
Half the code for tags is now implemented.  You can see the tag place holders.  I need to add the code to add tags when submitting a blog entry next.  ?
?
Just Journal now supports RSD (Really Simple Discovery).  This should allow some blogging clients to "find" the xml-rpc interfaces (like blogger api) on Just Journal.  ?
?
The stats on the front page now using fixed floating point numbers so it should be much closer to adding up to 100% for public/private/friends entries.  I made use of the String.format method in java.?
?
There are some fixes for Dashboard users.  Entries now assume you want comments, and emails on comments for entries.?
?
Some error messages were fixed and I've added more logging on the comment feature to track down some bugs that seem to randomly manifest themselves.  ?
?
?

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5:43 PM

Microsoft Windows Live Writer
<p>I've added partial support for the<strong> MetaWeblog</strong> API today.&#160; You can use that in combination with Windows Live Writer to post blog entries on Just Journal in addition to our own client.&#160; </p>  <p>The post URL is <a href="http://www.justjournal.com/xml-rpc">http://www.justjournal.com/xml-rpc</a> </p>  <p>When it asks for the homepage or whatever, use the URL to your blog.&#160; It is something like http://www.justjournal.com/users/yourusername&#160; Replace yourusername with your user name :) </p>  <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:4e43254a-9d4c-44b2-b830-e49c0dd56d28" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/microsoft" rel="tag">microsoft</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/live" rel="tag">live</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/blogging" rel="tag">blogging</a></div>

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Sun, 4 May 2008
3:13 AM

New feature
I'm part of the way through adding tags to just journal.  My implementation is a cross between what other sites call "tags" and "categories".  You'll see a list on the left side of your blog with all the ones you've used, and each entry will list one or more tags that you've used.  ?
?
To add several tags, you can list them using commas, semi-colons, colons or spaces.  They must be lowercase with no numbers.  The software should take care of the lowercase part for you.  ?
?
Eventually you'll be able to do a number of things including:?
?
tag new and existing entries?
bring up all entries under a certain tag (using a link on the left)?
search by tags        

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3:33 AM

(no subject)
The database server was upgraded tonight.  Please report any oddities.

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Mon, 5 May 2008
5:38 AM

Trackback
I've got a partial trackback implementation done.  It will be added to the site on the next rollout of the just journal software.  I haven't decided when that will be yet.  ?
?
Trackback allows you to post a comment on another blog or receive trackbacks from users on other blogs.  For instance, someone could see your blog entry and then write their own entry commenting on it on another site.  That would then show up in your trackbacks.  ?
?
I'm still working a few things out.  One common problem with trackback is spam.  Users should be able to delete any trackback that is spam from their blog.  I'm also considering some type of screening system for new ones.  You would have to approve a trackback before anyone could see it.  ?
?
I'm not going to implement completely automatic trackbacks because few blogs still use them anyway.  That means if you want to trackback on a blog entry, you need to know the trackback URL ahead of time.  ?
?
An example blog with trackbacks is:?
http://www.homebusinesswiz.com/2007/03/how_to_make_a_trackback_on_a_b.html?
?
The trackback URL looks like this:?
http://www.becomeacertifiedcoach.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/214?
?
On just journal, the trackback url for a specific entry will look like this:?
http://www.justjournal.com/trackback?entryID=somenumber?
?
?

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6:16 PM

bug
I found a bug in the tags feature.  It's listing tags multiple times on the left hand side.  (oops)  I corrected the SQL query and it will be updated when I role out the trackback software in the next few weeks.  (probably much sooner)?
?
?

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Wed, 7 May 2008
1:54 PM

Blogging as Group Therapy?
CNN has an article that suggests blogging can be helpful to deal with problems.   

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Sat, 10 May 2008
12:44 AM

Source code released
I released a zip file with the source for the just journal server as of yesterday on source forge.  It includes the intellij idea project files. ?
?

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Thu, 10 Jul 2008
12:23 AM

Upcoming software update
I've been testing some additions and changes to the tag feature.  The listing should be much better in the next version.  I want to get one more problem ironed out and then I'll be updating the site.  ?
?
I also added a GTK interface in cvs for the unix client.  It's not the best, but it's usable.          

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Sat, 12 Jul 2008
4:11 AM

Updated rich text editing
 Just Journal uses the FCKeditor for entry.  I updated the version we're using to 2.6.2.  It's been a few years since I updated this.  It now supports safari, and I've created a custom layout.  ?
I may work on the layout, but users can now see the HTML source view in all browsers that support the editor, change colors, fonts, and other styles, and make alignment changes.  Let me know if you have problems using the new interface.  I'm considering allowing users choice of their editor when logged in.  ?
This update does not include any backend code, so the tag changes aren't up yet.  Also, the form includes a trackback field, but that's not used yet.  

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Mon, 14 Jul 2008
4:34 AM

World's oldest blogger dies
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/14/oldest.blogger/index.html?eref=rss_topstories?
A 108 year old woman died.  Since 2007, she's been blogging about her entire life.  She also posted video entries on youtube.  It gives new meaning to blogging for life.  Some people live very interesting lives.

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Wed, 16 Jul 2008
10:47 PM

Progress on tagging
The development version of just journal can now display recent entries with tags filtered by the tag.  I'm working on refining the design and allowing general searches.  Once that's complete, I'll publish the new code. 

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Thu, 17 Jul 2008
12:07 AM

New just journal version
 I added the new tags code tonight.  I'm still working on it, but it's significantly more useful.  There are still some performance and usability issues I want to work on.

Security: Public
Location: Home
Mood: Okay
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Wed, 23 Jul 2008
1:13 AM

New Tag Cloud
 I've added a Tag Cloud to justjournal.com  You can see the tags that all users use on the site and their popularity.  Eventually, they'll link to blog entry choices.

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Thu, 24 Jul 2008
6:53 PM

Session hijacking
 I was recently told that in some cases it's possible to hijack a session from any webapp, and that just journal had a problem with this.  I quickly went to work on this problem.  It has caused problems for big sites like MySpace and Facebook.  ?
What does session hijacking mean to me??
Session hijacking means stealing your login.  While you're logged into the account, someone could read your private blog entries and post entries to your account.  Anything you can do, they can do to.  They don't know your password, and can only do this while you're logged in.?
What users can do to protect themselves:?
?
    Always use the secure login feature.  (SSL)  This will prevent the first type of attack on your account.  ?
    Always log out of just journal when you're done.  Don't just leave the site.?
?
Steps we're taking to minimize this attack?
?
    A review of just journal's code is pending.  ?
    We're probably going to limit special characters allowed in titles of blog entries, journal titles, music, tags, etc further.  We may limit what can be pasted into blog entries as well.  The only other attack possible is stealing a session cookie which requires a cross site scripting (XSS) attack.  That means someone put javascript code on the site and used that to steal your session.?

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Sun, 27 Jul 2008
5:45 AM

620 users
Just Journal now has over 620 users.  

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8:24 AM

Experimental features
I'm working on a hit counter for blog pages.  Each page would be considered unique, although I've considered adding a page for blog owners to see "total" hits to their blog as well as popular pages.?
I'm thinking about making this an optional feature that is turned off by default.  Counting the hits requires two sql queries which is not efficient.  In the classic ASP era, I used to store counters in memory and just dump them when the webapp was shutting down.  I'm a bit fuzzy on persistence in memory with servlets.  ?
It's important to realize this is a hit counter and not an impression counter.  I don't store cookies to track hits and make no attempt to identify the user's already been there.  I might add logic to avoid counting multiple times for users logged in though.  ?
I also took the time to rewrite part of the ping code for various blog tracking/searching services.  I'm testing a forth service out and I'm using common code for google and weblogs.  (public entries only)   

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Tue, 29 Jul 2008
9:31 AM

Software update
 Just Journal has a new feature.  There is now a hit counter present on blog pages.  I'll probably allow users to turn this on/off and reset it in the future.  The counter is in the menu at the bottom.  I am considering adding some type of counter to the RSS and ATOM feeds so users can get a rough idea how popular their blog is.  I'm still determining how I'd identify subscribers.?
I've also fixed the style sheet for the tag cloud in the menu on blogs.  The font is now smaller for all three sizes and  a typo was corrected in the stylesheet.  This seems to fix rendering in Safari significantly.  I've noticed problems with some themes.  I'm looking into that.

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Thu, 31 Jul 2008
4:03 PM

Development
We've got a new web developer helping us out with the project.  He's been added to source forge and will be working on an improved site design.  I'm trying to coax him into making some themes as well.  :)?
I added an ant build script.  I've always just built binaries in Intellij, but it's a real hassle for everyone else.  I'm not that good with ant, so any suggestions for improving the build.xml are greatly appreciated.?
The next steps should be to document all the libraries jj is using, and catch up the sql create scripts. 

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Tue, 5 Aug 2008
2:43 PM

server software update
 I've updated the server to use the latest version of Apache Tomcat.  Last time I tried to upgrade, this site experienced a lot of problems.  Please report any unusual behavior to luke@justjournal.com ?
So far, so good.  

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Fri, 15 Aug 2008
9:58 AM

Work in development
I've been working on just journal the last few days.  The next software update will improve the site in several ways.?
The update journal page will have the following changes:?
?
    Date and Time are separated and now have nice selection menus to make it easier to work with for users wanting to back date entries or post in the future (for some odd reason)  ?
    The body area was enlarged and the label was removed.  This should help with writing entries.?
    The autoformatting and by default newline text is hidden if the FSCK editor is loaded because those options are not needed if the browser supports it.  This should be less confusing.?
    Dojo, an ajax friendly library was added which is BSD 3 clause licensed.   ?

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Thu, 28 Aug 2008
10:08 PM

(no subject)
 New code published.  report any bugs

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Sun, 31 Aug 2008
1:01 AM

bug
I found a bug in the rss feed code that generates from journal entries.?
&nbsp; seems to screw up.  I filled a bug report on SF about it. and will look at it soon.

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4:44 PM

(no subject)
 The links aren't showing up on jj anymore.  I just noticed that.  I'll look into it

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Thu, 4 Sep 2008
1:55 AM

High Traffic
This website has been slow lately.  Most of the problem is high amounts of traffic to my other open source project website.  It should slow down in a few days.?
I've also got a new version of just journal almost ready to release.  It fixes bugs with RSS feeds, redundant attempts to close connections, etc.  It also add some support for Sphere.  This service is used by many sites to feature blog content related to other stories, etc.  For instance, CNN uses it.  It will only be in effect for public entries and I plan to make it opt in.  ?

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Sun, 21 Sep 2008
9:07 PM

bug
 Tonight I noticed that there have been delays with the pinging services while posting blog entries.  When I get time, I'd like to work on making that process a background operation on a separate thread. 

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Fri, 26 Sep 2008
5:21 PM

(no subject)
 I've been working on some changes for the unix client.  It now allows you to change the host (for other justjournal installs), supports subjects, and has better error handling. ?
I'm also working on some new features to the blogger api and the normal journal update code.

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Tue, 11 Nov 2008
3:53 PM

Work in progress
I'm working on the "cancel" page now.  It's a real hassle to manually delete an account for someone.  As the feature set grows, so do the tables in the database.  I'll post the new working cancel code at some point in the future.  I'm in the middle of other projects right now. 

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Fri, 16 Jan 2009
6:23 PM

SSL Certificate
 I just renewed the SSL cert for justjournal.com.  It should work for another year. 

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Wed, 21 Jan 2009
5:18 PM

Server changes
In short:  New database server, faster, report bugs?
Long version:?
About six months ago, I started migrating all of the databases on my server to a new system.  The last database to be moved was for this site.  I had some problems exporting the data due to bugs in the version of MySQL I was using.  Finally, I've migrated the database to the new server.  In the long run, this should make the site faster and more responsive.  The new system is just a database server and it has the same amount of RAM and faster processing than the previous shared server.?
 There was a design consideration for just journal that I now regret where I stored image files for the site in MySQL.  This was much easier to implement and I got to avoid file system security problems as well as storing all information together.  However, data export has been very poor and this also concerns me in terms of backups.  I plan on migrating all of the images to the file system as soon as possible. Work might complicate that plan.  I believe I've restored all images except one which happened to be in my blog. ?
Please report any problems with any part of the site.  Only the database moved, so the code is the same.  If it worked previously, and does not now, it' s important I get it fixed. 

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Mon, 9 Mar 2009
10:34 AM

just journal down time
The site was down due to a hack on another site hosted on the server.  As a precaution, I brought the system down and did a fresh os install.  The attacker was not very careful and left a great deal of log evidence.  I do not believe any information was taken.  User passwords are never stored in clear text, only hashed.  If you are concerned, change your password.  ?
For those interested, the attacker gained access as the webserver user (not root) via a cgi program.  I have deleted the program. 

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Sat, 16 May 2009
10:04 AM

Developments
I've been working on the jj source code while I wait for my pc to start working.  I've cleaned up 25 warnings, and implemented ETag support for some parts of the site.  I also have some new caching rules I'm testing for the RSS feeds to speed up loading from cache.  Not everything on this site should be blocked from caching.?
I've also been changing the expires and last-modified header logic.?
I'm hoping to publish this soon. 

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Sun, 17 May 2009
11:40 AM

New version of Just Journal live
The new version of just journal is now live!  It contains some bug fixes, caching improvements (for the client), and users can now cancel their own accounts.

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Fri, 29 May 2009
9:07 PM

Windows Client 1.7 Released!
?
1.7 Release?
This version includes a slightly new theme, Outlook integration is back, and runs on .NET framework 3.5. Tagging was also introduced into the client. It works just like the online form with spaces or commas separating tags. You can turn on the music detection feature in options. At this time, it only ships as a 32bit program, but can run on 64bit Vista. Released May 29, 2009.?
http://www.justjournal.com/software/windows.jsp 

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Thu, 18 Jun 2009
12:51 AM

Upcoming update to JJ
I'm working on some bug fixes for some errors reported to me last weekend with this site.  It's taken me longer than expected due to some work related adventures and security problems that had to be resolved with one of my other open source projects. 

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Mon, 6 Jul 2009
11:40 PM

(no subject)
I've noticed some "slowness" while posting blog entries.  I've narrowed it down to one of the "PING" services. It's very likely that this can be fixed in the next day or so depending on how busy I get at work. ?
I haven't forgotten about the promises I made regarding fixing some outstanding bugs with the site.  I started rewriting the "edit" page for blog entries.   It will look more like the update journal page when I'm done.  I've also started migrating the data access code to Cayenne.  

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Fri, 10 Jul 2009
9:33 PM

Hardware upgrade
I upgraded the RAM to 2GB in the server for Just Journal tonight.  It should make the site a little faster, although don't expect a lot.  The memory chips are even matching now :)?
Server was up 30 days previously.  I also took the opportunity to clean it out.   

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Fri, 4 Sep 2009
2:43 PM

Outage
 We're currently down as our upstream provider has an outage.  (we have no internet connection)  

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Sat, 2 Jan 2010
3:19 PM

Software update

  

    

  
    I've just released an update to allow authenticated users to
    access their PDF/RTF of their blog.  

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3:31 PM

The good, the bad and the ugly

  

    

  
    The new site update introduced a few new features and a few
    new bugs.  I'm now using jtidy to process HTML based blog
    posts.  It cleans up several invalid HTML tags.
     However, it's also formatting the entire blog post as an
    HTML page.  Until I can extract the body of the post out,
    it may cause a few rendering bugs in browsers and add extra
    white space around entries in PDFs.  Sorry about that.

    The good news is that PDFs can now include private blog
    entries when you are logged in and accessing your own blog.
     It should also work if your blog is marked
    private. 

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Thu, 4 Feb 2010
9:23 PM

Server upgrade

  

    

  
    We had some downtime over the weekend due to two things.
     First, our router died connecting us to the internet.
     Second, we got a new frontend server (this site runs from
    2 servers combined).  We replaced an 8 year old dell
    precision workstation with a new HP server.  It's much
    faster and hopefully more reliable.  

    I'm testing some new RSS code tonight.  We'll see how
    well it works.  

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Wed, 3 Mar 2010
12:15 AM

SSL Certificate
A new Just Journal SSL certificate has been installed.

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Sat, 13 Mar 2010
2:30 PM

Just Journal 2.0
I finally started on version 2.0 of this website.  The new
version is going to be a partial rewrite.  It will still be
open source and in Java though. I'm working on it via a private git
repository right now.  Until I get the structure just right,
it's easier than CVS.  
I have several goals in mind:
1. Pictures will be stored on the file system, allowing them to
be larger and post processed if needed. 
2. Video storage (although don't expect youtube quality because
i just don't know how to do that)
3. Exports.. i've promised this for years, but I want to allow
exporting via XML in addition to the RTF and PDF formats now. This
also allows users to backup their own blogs.
4. Portability.  Just Journal effectively runs on Tomcat
right now with a very specific configuration. I want to get it it
usable on other domains, platforms, and maybe even databases.
 I like MySQL, but it's future is uncertain with the Oracle
acquisition.  
5. Ajax.  I may not go crazy with this, but I've had to
learn a lot of AJAX with Dojo for work in the last year and I might
as well experiment with it here. 
6. Improved mobile accessibility.

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Sun, 16 May 2010
5:49 PM

Server Downtime
Friday morning, we had the boot drive in our server fail.
 It was an Imation 32GB SSD drive that was purchased on
December 27, 2009 and installed in February.  The whole point
of a SSD is greater reliability and we've learned that's not the
case.  
The drive is still readable (mostly) but writes to the disk are
failing.  
About half the services are back up on the server, and this site
is one of them. 

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Fri, 26 Nov 2010
2:45 AM

Downtime
There was some site downtime tonight due to a storm and a
tripped GFI outlet.  I decided to get clever and put in the
new hard drive for the server since it was down anyway.
 However, it's a new WD Green advanced format (EARS) drive
which requires a strange partition table.  (the alignment is
off)  Long story short, I had to bring the server back up with
the old drive for now. 

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Sat, 27 Nov 2010
11:44 AM

oops
I managed to do a dump and restore to upgrade the hard drive
last night.  This morning, when i went to switch over the
power supply failed.  We were down at least 12 hours total.
 Sorry about that. 

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Wed, 29 Dec 2010
8:27 PM

Server upgrade
The website is now running on an AMD Athlon II X4 (quad core)
with 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM on an AMD 760 based Asus motherboard.
 Hopefully it will be a little faster. The old system was an
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13Ghz with 4GB DDR2 667 on an Intel DP965LT.

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Sun, 16 Jan 2011
12:38 AM

JJ server
I did another hardware upgrade today.   The server is now
in an iStarUSA rackmount case with additional drive capacity (2 new
hard drives).   

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Sun, 20 Mar 2011
12:22 AM

(no subject)
I appologize for the downtime last night.  The server had a
kernel panic (crashed) due to an excessive amount of traffic from
Yandex combined with a lot of DNS traffic and some internal
processes that happen in the evenings.  I can't say it won't
happen again, but I'm looking into ways to minimize the
possibility.

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12:25 AM

Internet Explorer 9
I've noticed some bugs with IE 9 on the site.  (mostly drop
down boxes for security settings on post)
I'll look into updating Dojo soon to fix this.

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Wed, 14 Sep 2011
12:17 AM

Server downtime
I had to replace a faulty hard drive today.  The server was
down for four hours.  I'll have to bring it down again later
this week to get a second drive in for the raid and remount it.

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7:51 PM

Hardware upgrade complete
The second hard drive was installed tonight in the server.
 The site might be slow as the second drive is synced.
 It could take a few hours.  
The new drives are western digital black 1.5TB.  The old
drive that failed was a seagate 7200.11 750GB (china factory) .
I'll probably RMA the seagate drive and use it for something else.
It happens.  

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Sat, 24 Sep 2011
12:21 AM

Just Journal 2.0
Work has begun on the next generation of Just Journal.  I
spent a few hours tonight working on the rewrite of just journal.
 The new version will take advantage of newer technologies
that have come out since the site was created.  
The current plan is to use much of the existing data access code
and business logic (but refactored a bit) with a new front end.
 This will allow me to finally get the website design
standardized after all these years.  I'm going to drop
Maverick and move to a newer Apache framework as well as drop JSP
pages on the site.  
Once this phase of development is complete, I plan on migrating
to Apache Cayenne.  A few things are already using it, but
there is much to do yet.
I plan on keeping the old servlet around for some time to post
blog entries as most of the gui and command line clients use this.
 The C clients uses the xml-rpc interface, and i may start
migrating the .NET client and java clients in that direction.
  
This is a good time to put in for feature requests.  I've
already had several lately related to image handling and pictures.

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Sat, 23 Jun 2012
1:24 PM

JustJournal is partially back up
Last week, we did a major upgrade on the database server.
 A bug introduced in the latest MySQL release has broken a
database component we used throughout the site.  This was
Sun's old CachedRowSet.  
As a result, any SQL query using named parameters (something AS
somethingelse) is broken. Some queries I can remove the offending
as statement on, but others this is not possible due to ambiguity.
I've decided to take this opportunity to migrate some of the site
to an ORM called Apache Cayenne.  I've used it with several
other projects and it's quite good.  This also has a side
effect of avoiding the problem with MySQL.  
Normally I would have migrated back to the previous version, but
it was a little complicated this time.  I appologize for the
down time and will continue to fix things on the site as I get a
chance. Remember, I have a day job. 

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Sat, 9 Jul 2016
11:45 AM

JustJournal 2.2.1
Happy to announce the availability of Just Journal 2.2.1. This release fixes many issues with the site including:

1. Comments are working again. 
2. Favorites are working. 
3. Performance has improved considerably. We can now handle 170 requests per second with the current hardware. 
4. Issues creating new accounts have been fixed.
5. The application is now using spring boot

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Sat, 19 Jan 2019
11:35 AM

JustJournal enhancements
JustJournal was converted to spring sometime ago.  Recently spring boot was updated to 2.x.  Additionally the minimum version of MySQL is now 5.7.

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Mon, 30 Mar 2020
4:35 PM

JustJournal 2.9.0
A new release of justjournal is available. It is mostly a security update to spring boot 2.2 but also includes some new trackback functionality.

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Fri, 31 Jul 2020
9:04 PM

JustJournal 2.9.5
Added a new feature in preferences to allow you to delete your journal.  
Fixed several bugs and updated several libraries for security updates.

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Tue, 23 Mar 2021
1:41 PM

JustJournal now using MySQL 8.x
JustJournal has been updated to use MySQL 8.x from 5.7.x.

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Wed, 10 Nov 2021
12:29 AM

Just Journal update
Just updated spring boot and a slew of other libraries. Initial testing looks good except for the pdf output. That seems to be broken.

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Sat, 11 Dec 2021
11:06 AM

Site back up
We started getting a lot of attacks against log4j2 vulnerability and had to take the site down until a patch was put in place.

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Thu, 31 Mar 2022
12:48 AM

Bug fix release
We just updated justjournal with a few bug fixes:
1. fix login issue with windows, command line clients
2. Add spring4shell mitigation.

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Fri, 7 Jul 2023
11:09 AM

Web Finger Support
We've added web finger support to just journal as well as some rate limiting.

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Thu, 26 Oct 2023
3:55 PM

Minor update
Just Journal was updated to fix a number of CVEs in third party libraries.

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