The two open source tools that this article introduces — Swing Explorer and FEST-Swing — can make debugging and testing of Swing UIs simple and reliable. This article shows how to use them to understand a UI's structure, test how it functions, and troubleshoot issues.

Walk through the steps of incorporating OpenID into a sample Java application. Rather than implement the OpenID Authentication specification by hand, author J. Steven Perry uses the openid4java library and a popular OpenID provider, myOpenID, to create a safe and reliable registration process for a Java application written in Wicket.

The TDA Thread Dump Analyzer for Java is a small Swing GUI for analyzing Thread Dumps and Heap Information generated by the Sun Java VM (currently tested with 1.4.x, 1.5.0_x and 1.6.0_x releases). It parses the thread dumps and class histograms from a provided log file. TDA needs at least Java 1.4.2_x to run. It provides statistic informations about the found thread dumps, gives information about locked monitors and waiting threads. It can diff between threads to look for similarities and has a "long-running-thread" detection. It also provides overview of heap objects at a thread dump, if class histogram was logged.

Recently, the popular open source search library, Apache Lucene, and the powerful Lucene-powered search server, Apache Solr, have added spatial capabilities. Lucene and Solr committer Grant Ingersoll walks you through the basics of spatial search and shows you how to leverage its capabilities to power your next location-aware application.

OAuth is an open protocol that enables users to share their protected resources among different Web sites, without risking exposure. OAuth is an ideal candidate for mashing up today's social networking Web sites like Twitter.

The introduction of the Google App Engine saw a wave of frameworks emerge to facilitate developing applications targeted for it. The Gaelyk framework, one such framework written in Groovy, eases development of lightweight applications that leverage a datastore. And the scalability you can achieve is impressive.

*StelsXML* is a JDBC type 4 driver that allows to perform SQL queries and other JDBC operations on XML files. With StelsXML JDBC driver, you can easily access data contained in XML documents using the standard SQL syntax and XPath expressions. The driver is completely platform-independent. *Features:* supports most keywords of ANSI SQL'92, supports XPath expressions for defining tables and columns, supports inner and outer table joins, supports aggregate, numeric, string, conversion and user-defined SQL functions, platform independent.

*StelsMDB* is a MDB JDBC type 4 driver that allows to perform SQL queries and other JDBC operations on Microsoft Access database files (MS Access 2000, 2002, 2003, XP versions). The driver is completely platform-independent and does not require installing additional client or server software to provide access to MDB files. It can be effectively used to create, process and export Microsoft Access databases in your Java applications. *Features*: supports most keywords of ANSI SQL'92, supports inner and outer table joins, supports CREATE, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE statements, supports transactions, supports aggregate, numeric, string, conversion and user-defined SQL functions, platform independent.

*StelsDBF* is a DBF JDBC type 4 driver that allows to perform SQL queries and other JDBC operations on DBF files (dBase III/IV/V, Visual FoxPro). The driver is completely platform-independent and does not require installing additional client or server software to provide access to DBF files. It can be effectively used to create, process and export DBF databases in your Java applications. *Features:* supports most keywords of ANSI SQL'92, supports inner and outer table joins, supports CREATE, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE statements, supports transactions, supports aggregate, numeric, string, conversion and user-defined SQL functions, platform independent.

Database security is the single biggest concern with today's Web-based applications. Without control, you risk exposing sensitive information about your company or, worse yet, your valuable customers. In this article, learn about security measures you can take to protect your PostgreSQL database. Be sure to download the sample code listings used in this article.

This article describes the various refactorings available in Eclipse Java™ Development Tools (JDT), including what each refactoring does, when to use it, and how to use it. It also explores the refactoring script functionality in Eclipse, which allows library developers to share code refactorings with their clients.

Forms4j is a replacement to using Spring form tags. Create complex forms quickly and easily -- with comprehensive validation and sections that hide/show depending on the input.

A burst of innovation in the open source world over the last few years has led to an increase in Java developer productivity. A promising new entry on the scene is Apache CouchDB, hailed by some as the database for Web 2.0. This Java development 2.0 column introduces CouchDB and shows you how Groovy's RESTClient can help you tap into its strengths.

Here's some help to port your applications from Windows, Solaris, and OS/2 to run natively on Linux on x86-based systems. The information here also covers porting from Windows to Java and porting and migrating x86-based Linux apps to Linux on multiple other hardware platforms.

The IBM Monitoring and Diagnostic Tools for Java - the Health Center provides live information and recommendations about classes being loaded, the virtual machine environment, garbage collection, locking, and profiling. This article introduces you to the Health Center and shows an example of how it can be used to check the impact of a source code change in a Web application.

The Metro Web service stack provides a comprehensive solution for accessing and implementing Web services. It's based on the reference implementations of the JAXB 2.x and JAX-WS 2.x Java™ standards, with added components to support WS-* SOAP extension technologies and actual Web service deployment. This article looks at the basic principles of Metro client and server development.

As mobile platforms become increasingly sophisticated, the demand for mobile computing will increase. In this series, learn about the embedded Standard Widget Toolkit (eSWT). In Part 1: Use simple widgets to quickly build mobile apps. In Part 2: Use advanced controls for your mobile apps.

The IBM Developer Kit for Linux, Java 2 Technology Edition is a development kit and runtime environment that contains IBM's just-in-time compiler, enhanced with a unique Mixed Mode Interpreter and a re-engineered Java 2 virtual machine. This update includes enhancements to the JIT compiler, garbage collection technology, JVM serviceability, and an updated XML parser for Java.

Within the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) community, Spring is becoming a widely accepted framework. One new feature in the latest release of Spring is its Object/XML (O/X) mapping support. The API enables developers to convert Java objects into XML and vice versa. In this article, learn to use the Object/XML mapping in Spring and explore its advantages.

As the JPA Expert Group (JSR-317) nears completion of the JPA 2.0 specification, this article introduces you to some of the new concepts and features in this updated specification. It also explains how you can experience this new functionality with the Apache OpenJPA project, an open-source, robust, high performance, scalable implementation of the JPA specification.