A Black Pepper ‘rocket scientist’ has an interesting hobby. He’s been involved with designing and developing software for amateur satellites for over over 20 years, as a member of AMSAT-UK.
His most recent piece of Open Source work is the development of a Data Warehouse for the FUNcube project, sponsored by the Radio Communications Foundation charity and designed and built by AMSAT-UK / ISIS.
Recently, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), who are sponsoring the Strand-1 NanoSatellite Mission, announced a competition to write an App for a Google Nexus One Smart Phone, which will be one of the satellite payloads.
Our ‘rocket scientist’ suggested an App which was a spin-off of the work done by the FUNcube team:
The ‘STRaND Data’ App, which would collect satellite telemetry from within the satellite and display it graphically on the Nexus One Display. The display is observed by an on-board camera and the images transmitted to earth on Amateur Radio frequencies.
To the delight of the FUNcube team, the ‘STRaND Data App’ was chosen as on of the four winners and it looks like our ‘rocket scientist’ is going to spend most of his spare time filled with these developments!
Black Pepper are pleased to support our ‘rocket scientist’ is making use of the skills he’s acquired in Agile Java Enterprise and Mobile development through the ‘day-job’, to allow him to do design, development and mentoring in:
- Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) which is the remit of FUNcube
- Open Source projects such as this and GENSO, the Global Educational Network for Satellite Operations
Details of the organisations mentioned here can be found at their respective web sites:
AMSAT-UK: http://www.uk.amsat.org/
ISIS: http://www.isispace.nl/
FUNcube: http://funcube.org.uk/
RCF: http://www.commsfoundation.org/
SSTL / STRaND: http://www.sstl.co.uk/divisions/earth-observation-science/science-missions/strand-nanosatellite
GENSO: http://www.genso.org/
Feb 11
12
Nexus support for “LATEST” version
On a recent Maven (2.2.1) project some dependencies are specified using <version>LATEST</version> to lookup the latest release of an artefact in our repository. Nexus is the repository manager and it’s able to determine the latest version for Maven to download and include in the build.
During some recent changes to the repositories used in Nexus this feature stopped working, so I did a little digging to find out what LATEST really means and how it’s supported by Nexus.
The first thing I found is that each artefact has some metadata maintained by Nexus whenever a new version is uploaded. This metadata sometimes includes an element <latest>1.3</latest>. When this element is present I can resolve <version>LATEST</latest> but when it’s missing the lookup fails. So how is this element present in some repositories and missing others?
There appears to be 4 rules:
1. If your artefact is looked up via a Nexus Group repository, Nexus will (dynamically?) ensure that the <latest> element is added to the metadata for the artefact regardless of whether or not it’s present in the underlying Hosted repositories metadata.xml.
2. If your artefact is looked up directly using a Hosted repository then LATEST only works if the <latest> element is present in the stored metadata.xml.
3. If you uploaded the artefact using the “mvn deploy” command then the <latest> element is not created or updated. I added -DupdateReleaseInfo=true but that just adds a <release> element which doesn’t help.
4. If you manually use the Nexus UI to upload the artefact, then the <latest> element is created or updated, and so maven can then find LATEST correctly.
I did a couple of tests using Nexus 1.8.1 and observed the same behaviour.
So using a Group works fine, but what I’d really prefer is for “mvn deploy” to set the <latest> element in the artefact’s metadata.
Posted in Black Pepper Blog by .
Having been Highly Commended in the Emerging Technology category at the recent ICT Awards for the ground breaking Companion platform, Black Pepper software has been invited to join the prestigious ICT Excellence Club.
Adam Wright, Head of Solutions at Black Pepper Software, said: “Being highly commended for an emerging technology award demonstrates the innovative technologies coming out of the Midlands and the talent the region has. We entered the award to highlight the fact that the Midlands remains at the forefront of the knowledge economy and prove that the technologies being developed in the region have global application. It would be a great recognition for the team if we won, praising them openly for their progressive work. Companion is at the forefront of a new wave of location-aware services that take advantage of the positioning technology of increasingly popular smartphones such as the iPhone and Android devices. Immediately after the awards, we’re launching Companion to enhance visitor experience at the NEC.”
Companion combines advanced mapping and routing services with easy to use content management and social networking channels to help users navigate specific spaces. Featuring bespoke mapping, visitor routing, heat maps and RSS feeds, Companion uses its location-aware functionality with blended positioning technology, based on GPS, GSM Cell positioning and Wifi triangulation, to pin point users’ positions both indoors and outside.
Mike Musson, ICT Cluster Manager, commented: “The awards provided a great insight into the sheer diversity and talent on offer in the West Midlands technology community and beyond,” continues Mike. “The ICT Cluster, comprising technology businesses, educational establishments and support organisations working in collaboration, is enabling the West Midlands to build a dynamic regional economy as well as compete successfully in the competitive ICT marketplace, on a global level.”
The ICT Excellence Club was set up to encourage award-winning businesses to share knowledge, create business opportunities and accelerate growth in the region and beyond. The Annual ICT Excellence Awards were established in 2005. They aim to showcase successful and innovative ICT companies and public sector organisations, of all types and sizes, and provide recognition to their teams for all their hard work and effort.
To find out more about the ICT Cluster, please follow at: Twitter/wmidlandsict, the ICT Cluster Group on LinkedIn or the ICT Cluster on Facebook.
