Running a java webapp in a VPS

The market is swarming with cheap Virtual Private Server (VPS) or Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) offers [1] these days, and the specs don't look bad: you can get as much as 2GB RAM, 50GB storage space and a double core 2GHz CPU for less than 10$ / 8€ and nearly unlimited traffic. That's ideal for … Continue reading Running a java webapp in a VPS →

GWT RPC calls with Http GET method

GWT's RPC [1] component comes handy when communicating with java backends - it's like RMI restricted to asynchronous calls, however it escapes any attempts to cache server responses. This post discusses a moderately simple way of making RPC responses cacheable by Http proxies and browsers. I'm not going into the details of the RPC lifecycle … Continue reading GWT RPC calls with Http GET method →

When IE does not load images

Recently the need for a custom photo gallery surfaced in one of my GWT pet projects. While such an endeavour seems endless from an artistic point of view, the mechanics behind it - at least for my humble needs - were rather simple: the gallery widget will be given a list of image IDs for … Continue reading When IE does not load images →

Stateless user sessions with encrypted session IDs

When trying to design for stateless services one finds it easy to reduce the information stored in an http session but for one piece: whether the client has authenticated against the server or not. Usually you would implement a proccess for authenticating like this: Client submits credentials (login / password) to the server Server checks … Continue reading Stateless user sessions with encrypted session IDs →